GOG's Catalog Losing 35 Games

[StewShearerOld]

GOG's Catalog Losing 35 Games

GOG's game library will be losing 35 titles on September 2nd, 2014.

GOG had a big day yesterday, <a href=http://www.escapistmagazine.com/news/view/137084-GOG-Selling-DRM-Free-Movies-Steam>unveiling a complete overhaul to the site's design as well as expanding its repertoire of content with new DRM-free movies grounded in the culture of video games. That being the case, not all of the news of announced by the digital games retailer was positive. Standing alongside the retailers new steps forward was the revelation of a sad step back.

More specifically, <a href=http://www.escapistmagazine.com/tag/view/gog>GOG revealed that at the beginning of September, its library will lose 35 games. The titles in question run the gamut of genres and include titles such as the Gothic series, the Amnesia games and more. Hoping to give its customers a final chance to purchase the games, the company has announced a "Last Chance Special" discounting the full list of departing products up to 80 percent.

This, of course, isn't the first time that GOG has had to let games go. Back at the end of 2013, for instance, rights issues forced the company to <a href=http://www.escapistmagazine.com/news/view/130956-Fallout-Games-Yanked-From-GoG-Due-To-Rights-Issues>remove the Fallout games from its library. What's unclear right now is why the site is losing so many games at once. Responding to our inquiries, GOG wasn't able to confirm any specific reason. Whatever the reason, we'd definitely recommend swinging back and taking a peek at the offerings in the sale. Not only are the prices great, but this could be your last chance to snag DRM-free copies of the included games. The sale itself will end on September 2nd, when the included titles make their official exit.

Source: <a href=http://www.gog.com/news/last_chance_special>GOG


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[NuclearKangaroo]

well thats complete garbage, come on devs, you should give your customers more options, not less

 

[Rosiv]

I just bought Gothic 2 on sale for 2.49$, hoping it does not suck, because i read the combat is bad. Sad i didnt have enough money to buy more games.

 

[Veldel]

I just bought Gothic 2 on sale for 2.49$, hoping it does not suck, because i read the combat is bad. Sad i didnt have enough money to buy more games.

combat sucks but its a fun game. Its also one of my fav games to use cheats in. Go to middle of biggest town and spawn enemies galore then move out of range and watch the world burn.


That sucks gog is loosing games. Dumb devs dont take away games D:

 

[NuclearKangaroo]

[...] come on devs, you should give your customers more options, not less

Dumb devs dont take away games D:

Awww, you really think the developers of these games are the ones who control the licences? That's adorable!

ok whoever controls the licenses, give more options to people and they will buy more shit

also mein grammar fuhrer, its "licenses" not "licences", i mean, if you are going to call people out about grammar you shouldnt have bad grammar as well, just saying, dont take this in a bad way

 

[The Artificially Prolonged]

A shame gog does some things against normal trends in industry, losing games is a blow for their ability to compete with the bigger players. If this does turn out be because pubs or devs being unhappy with the anti drm and anti regional pricing policies of gog then I will take note of this when considering any future games they release.

 

[Luckra]

I read somewhere in the GOG forums that this was about the "fair price" policy of GOG (1$ is not 1?) and their introduction of regional pricing. Does Nordic games prefer their fans to pay more depending on the region they live in? It may just be a rumour though.

 

[NuclearKangaroo]

also mein grammar fuhrer, its "licenses" not "licences", i mean, if you are going to call people out about grammar you shouldnt have bad grammar as well, just saying, dont take this in a bad way

I'm sorry if I'm not American enough [http://grammarist.com/spelling/licence-license/] for you... Would you also try to correct me if I talked about "honour" or "behaviour"?

BTW, you're still making many mistakes while correcting me (Also*, Fürher*, it's*, I*, shouldn't*, don't*. Not to mention missing punctuation in a few places...).

oh for christ's sake i told you not to take it in a bad way, i wasnt critizing your grammar as much as i was critizing your perceived hypocrisy

i really dont care too much about grammar, neither mine nor everyone else's, as long as the message is understood

 

[Zulnam]

Glad to see the escapist looked into the matter, but i'm afraid we will never know for sure exactly why Nordic Games pulled such a dick move.

My guess is that the person in charge with these kind of decisions is, simply put, a dick.

 

[Tiamat666]

I just bought Gothic 2 on sale for 2.49$, hoping it does not suck, because i read the combat is bad. Sad i didnt have enough money to buy more games.

Gothic 2 is the best of the Gothic games. It's awesome. The combat doesn't suck, just don't expect to be able to beat every foe from the start. You have to pick your fights and sometimes you will just have to run, and return when you're stronger.

 

[Klaw117]

Publishers and Devs seem to think otherwise though. And yeah there is a reason and it's the obvious one... GoG is rather anti-publisher and anti-dev. See while rights issues caused the removal of the classic fallout series from both steam and GoG. GoG chose to flip the bird and had a give away with those titkles just as theyw ere about to lose the rights. The result. Fallout classic titles are now back in Steam's catalog... no sign of them in GoG's catalog.

Me think that sums up why they're losing titles. Publishers and devs don't really feel comfortable with them. These titles that GoG is losing..still on Steam.. not going anywhere. I respect GoG for putting the consumer ahead but at the same time. GoG is a store.. and if people don't want to sell in your store well you're not gonna have many consumers to please.

STill, I would like to know what they did to tick off Nordic Games

Anti-publisher/developer? Since when!? Fallout was sold for free on GOG because Interplay Entertainment, the previous (and in my opinion, true) owner of Fallout, let GOG do so as a "screw you" to Bethesda for suing it out of the rights for Fallout.

I'm not sure about Nordic either though. People are saying it's because of GOG's stance on regional pricing, but that doesn't completely add up.

 

[deshadow52]

http://www.gog.com/forum/general/last_chance_special

According to all of what is said in this thread, it does seem to be a regional price thing for whatever reason as least as far as Nordic goes. I don't know why Penumbra and Amnesia are leaving, but the only theory I have is that its the same reason. I pretty much have all the games I want from the promo, but it sad to see so many games going at once for no good reason. GOG already got hit hard from the Fallout games earlier in the year, but this is like a crippling shot(an arrow to the knee if you will.)

I also remember a while back when GOG said they were going to have to do away with on the same price everywhere policy and people went mad and they had to backpedle pretty hard. I didn't say anything at the time because I am Canadian and I have no such problems as many people in Europe do so I thought I couldn't really comment on the issue. When something like this happens though I have to ask. Is it really worth it to have the same price worldwide policy when you have a chunk of games leaving your store or not even wanting to be on your store to begin with. I know i'm going to get the whole "you can make the same argument for DRM free" and yeah I suppose you could. We can all agree though that DRM free is and always will be GOG's main principle and is way more important than any regional pricing issue.

 

[Glaice]

Why would you remove Amnesia and Penumbra? Both are brilliant games.

 

[RicoADF]

Why would you remove Amnesia and Penumbra? Both are brilliant games.

Because the publisher of the games decided they didn't want to sell their games on GoG anymore. Email the games publishers with your displeasure.

OT: Well I grabbed all the games I didn't already have in the sale, not sure about a few if they'll be any good but I'm happy to support GoG before the games go for good.

 

[shirkbot]

Is it really worth it to have the same price worldwide policy when you have a chunk of games leaving your store or not even wanting to be on your store to begin with. I know i'm going to get the whole "you can make the same argument for DRM free" and yeah I suppose you could. We can all agree though that DRM free is and always will be GOG's main principle and is way more important than any regional pricing issue.

It really depends on how you evaluate worth. If they had changed over to regional pricing a-la Steam, how many customers would they have lost? Steam can do whatever it wants because they have 70% of the market, leaving the other 30% divided between a growing number of smaller distributors. GOG in particular can't really afford to lose customers because that's almost all it has (CDProject Red's Witcher franchise notwithstanding)

Personally, I love GOG and I will crusade for them any day of the week in part because Steam's non-US pricing is asinine. For example, in Steamland, $1 == ?1, whereas in Reality it's closer to $1 == ?0.75.

This is bad news for GOG, but it's also a bad show for the companies pulling the games. Not only do they lose a distribution outlet that a lot of people use and respect, they're doing it because they don't like that GOG doesn't gouge it's customers based on geography. Assuming the current rumors are verified, I'll be writing Nordic Games a note of extreme disapproval to let them know I will not be buying future products unless they are on GOG.