Fallout Games Yanked From GoG Due To Rights Issues

[IanDavis]

Fallout Games Yanked From GoG Due To Rights Issues

The classic RPGs vanish from the service effective today.

Good Old Games has carved a fantastic niche for itself by digging old games up, dusting them off, and fixing them up for modern machines. It's not just nostalgia, but this evergreen idea that games never die or go obsolete. Even the oldest and most persnickety of games can be resurrected with a well-configured DOS emulator and proper drivers. But even the restorative arts of the most talented engineers must bow before the law. Shortly after GoG kicked off its [a href=http://www.escapistmagazine.com/news/view/130949-GOG-Launches-Lets-Party-Promo-to-Ring-in-2014]New Years bash[/a], it also announced, in somber tones, that all Fallout titles are being yanked from the service, [a href=http://www.gog.com/news/removed_from_catalog_fallout_1_2_tactics]effective today[/a].

"Due to circumstances beyond our control, we needed to pull the three classic Fallout games, that is Fallout, Fallout 2, and Fallout Tactics, from sale and remove them from our DRM-free catalog," the proclamation read. The games have already [a href=http://www.gog.com/game/fallout]vanished[/a] from GoG's catalog, leaving an aching 404 error behind. If you've previously purchased these games (or got it during the free [a href=http://www.escapistmagazine.com/news/view/130467-GOG-Winter-Sale-Discounts-600-Games-Fallout-Series-Free]giveaway[/a]), they'll still be in your account for later download, so don't panic.

Legal wranglings with the Fallout series is nothing new. The rights for older games can be more tangled than obsolete driver dependencies. During the legal fight between Interplay and Bethesda over the Fallout MMO, it was [a href=http://kotaku.com/5874561/the-great-fallout-legal-battle-ends-without-a-fallout-mmo]revealed[/a] that Interplay would retain the rights to sell the classic titles until today, December 31, 2013. That said, don't expect Fallout to stay gone for long. It's only a matter of time before the new rights holders strike a deal with GoG and get the post-apocalypse rolling again.

Source: [a href=http://www.gog.com/news/removed_from_catalog_fallout_1_2_tactics]GoG[/a] via [a href=http://kotaku.com/5874561/the-great-fallout-legal-battle-ends-without-a-fallout-mmo]Kotaku[/a]


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[Longstreet]

Luckily i got em during the free give away. I do love my free stuff.

Tried playing the first one once, got my ass kicked by a bunch of rats.

 

[JoJo]

Well that's a relief, downloaded them during the free giveaway so they should be still waiting for me whenever I decide I want to give one a go.

 

[Covarr]

Wasn't this exactly the reason they gave it away in the first place?

P.S. Thanks

 

[Vaccine]

Wasn't really new news, the license expired, games get pulled from the service, this is why the free giveaway happened.

 

[Prime_Hunter_H01]

I'm just gonna indulge my paranoia and back up the installers, just in case.

 

[Roxas1359]

Wasn't really new news, the license expired, games get pulled from the service, this is why the free giveaway happened.

People, like me, speculated that the games would be pulled, but no news came out from GoG saying that they were gonna pull it. Sorta like how everyone expected all the Rollercoaster Tycoon games to get pulled off GoG after Atari went under, but there are still some there. The license could have been renewed, but GoG was quite about all the details so many assumed it'd be worse case scenario and the games would be pulled, which they unfortunately were.

OT: This is a shame because the GoG versions of Fallout, Fallout 2, and Tactics were tailor made to work right there, but the Steam version requires you to install some things in order to play the games correctly.

 

[CriticalMiss]

Even though I got the games already, I hope Bethesda don't put them back up but at an inflated price.

 

[Trishbot]

Meanwhile, when Capcom's license expires, they see it as a means to hold a big sales event to milk their fans with more on-disc DLC content instead of just, you know, unlocking that content...

Still can't believe Jill and Shuma-Gorath are forever locked on some players discs now, unable to get the unlock key because they were tagged as "DLC" by Capcom's marketing...

 

[PoolCleaningRobot]

Wasn't really new news, the license expired, games get pulled from the service, this is why the free giveaway happened.

People, like me, speculated that the games would be pulled, but no news came out from GoG saying that they were gonna pull it. Sorta like how everyone expected all the Rollercoaster Tycoon games to get pulled off GoG after Atari went under, but there are still some there. The license could have been renewed, but GoG was quite about all the details so many assumed it'd be worse case scenario and the games would be pulled, which they unfortunately were.

Actually, I downloaded them free off GoG and the GoG news page about it did mention the rights to the titles were going to change hands soon and the games might not be available to sell on GoG *wink *wink *hint *hint

 

[major_chaos]

It's only a matter of time before the new rights holders strike a deal with GoG and get the post-apocalypse rolling again.

Or not, because if there is one thing companies love its sitting on beloved IPs and refusing to actually do anything with them.

 

[Covarr]

It's only a matter of time before the new rights holders strike a deal with GoG and get the post-apocalypse rolling again.

Or not, because if there is one thing companies love its sitting on beloved IPs and refusing to actually do anything with them.

Naw, that's more a Konami (Bomberman) and Capcom (Mega Man) thing. Bethesda actually likes selling stuff and making money.

P.S. Thanks

 

[-Dragmire-]

Legal wranglings with the Fallout series is nothing new. The rights for older games can be more tangled than obsolete driver dependencies. During the legal fight between Interplay and Bethesda over the Fallout MMO, it was [a href=http://kotaku.com/5874561/the-great-fallout-legal-battle-ends-without-a-fallout-mmo]revealed[/a] that Interplay would retain the rights to sell the classic titles until today, December 31, 2013. That said, don't expect Fallout to stay gone for long. It's only a matter of time before the new rights holders strike a deal with GoG and get the post-apocalypse rolling again.

Only GOG? Doesn't Steam sell it too?

 

[praetor_alpha]

I built an old PC two months ago. [http://theandrewbailey.com/article/120/Project-Twentieth-Century-Resurrection] I put those Fallout installers on there from the free giveaway, but they said the OS needed upgraded (Windows 98). I installed them on my desktop, then transferred the program files, and I've been going through Fallout 1. I've never played the original Fallouts, so it's really nice that I'm playing them on hardware they were meant to be played on.

 

[Ed130 The Vanguard]

Legal wranglings with the Fallout series is nothing new. The rights for older games can be more tangled than obsolete driver dependencies. During the legal fight between Interplay and Bethesda over the Fallout MMO, it was [a href=http://kotaku.com/5874561/the-great-fallout-legal-battle-ends-without-a-fallout-mmo]revealed[/a] that Interplay would retain the rights to sell the classic titles until today, December 31, 2013. That said, don't expect Fallout to stay gone for long. It's only a matter of time before the new rights holders strike a deal with GoG and get the post-apocalypse rolling again.

Only GOG? Doesn't Steam sell it too?

It's still for sale on Steam, I suspect its due to Bethesda already having a distribution agreement with Valve but nothing with GOG (at this time).

 

[FalloutJack]

It'll be back. It'll always be back. Because war never changes.