309: Everything Good Old is New Again

[Jumwa]

I think there's quite a few reasons for that.

1) When a big company is re-making a game, it'll most likely cost about $20-$30. Lowest is $15. Wheras GoG offers old games for either $6, or $10. You may wonder if $5 is that big of a motivator, but considering how so many publishers are worried about used sales(using the US as an example, Gamestop sells used games for $5 less than the new copies, and is apparently doing so well publishers/developers are comparing it to piracy). Another thing they do in relation to price, is take into account exchange rates, and different currencies. To them, $1 =/= ?1(or whatever currency you use). Considering how many Publishers go by the $1 = ?1, this is a godsend for people not in the US, who usually get charged much more for games.

2) They treat their customers like people, instead of cashbags intent on stealing from them. This, for me, is why I love them so much. They trust their customers. Not too long ago they stopped using IP addresses to determine a users location. When asked if people would abuse this, they said "We trust our customers not to. We couldn't stop them if they did, but we hope they don't abuse it."

And if people overseas have to pay more for a game(recently this happened with The Witcher, where they had to increase price to match other outlets), they offered the difference in price back to the buyer.

They actually seem to care about their customers. And that, to me, is why I love them so much.

Just my theories though. I'm sure everyone has their own reason(s) for loving GoG.

I know about all those things and adore them for it, but most of it is still that either came along after GOG became so beloved or that people likely weren't even aware of.

Besides, when people are complaining that Nintendo or whoever, they aren't complaining about a lack of those things. They are bitterly raging about the very fact that these companies are "wasting their time" or "being lazy". Those are the customary refrains I hear every time a news piece is posted about an old classic for consoles/handhelds being remade/re-released here on the Escapist or elsewhere.

 

[Shio]

A lot of these comments are portraying GOG to be some sort of video game hero. It's a company who trades in product to make money.

 

[Shio]

A lot of these comments are portraying GOG to be some sort of video game hero. It's a company who trades in product to make money.

Pretty much everything you can be a fan of is there to make money (bands, movies, books) so your observation is pretty pointless.

I don't know. I find a post stating opinion as fact and contributing nothing on topic to be pretty pointless, myself.

 

[Irridium]

I know about all those things and adore them for it, but most of it is still that either came along after GOG became so beloved or that people likely weren't even aware of.

Besides, when people are complaining that Nintendo or whoever, they aren't complaining about a lack of those things. They are bitterly raging about the very fact that these companies are "wasting their time" or "being lazy". Those are the customary refrains I hear every time a news piece is posted about an old classic for consoles/handhelds being remade/re-released here on the Escapist or elsewhere.

Hm... I guess with GoG, thats what their job is. To bring back old games. With other developers/publishers(who are rather sequel happy these days), people want newer, more interesting games.

A lot of these comments are portraying GOG to be some sort of video game hero. It's a company who trades in product to make money.

For most companies, money is the top priority.
For GoG(and CD Projekt Red), money is the second priority. Their first priority is bringing back old classics, and making great games(respectively).

Most companies use games as a means to get money.
GoG/CD Projekt use money as a means to bring back/make great games.

 

[Jumwa]

Hm... I guess with GoG, thats what their job is. To bring back old games. With other developers/publishers(who are rather sequel happy these days), people want newer, more interesting games.

But then a company like Nintendo undoubtedly has people whose job it is to do that too. Not everyone who works for Nintendo, after all, is a game programmer capable or willing to work away at making new titles. And many programmers don't have the skill or breadth of experience to do such even should they want to, and will undoubtedly be hamstringed into these sorts of third string projects.

 

[Irridium]

Hm... I guess with GoG, thats what their job is. To bring back old games. With other developers/publishers(who are rather sequel happy these days), people want newer, more interesting games.

But then a company like Nintendo undoubtedly has people whose job it is to do that too. Not everyone who works for Nintendo, after all, is a game programmer capable or willing to work away at making new titles. And many programmers don't have the skill or breadth of experience to do such even should they want to, and will undoubtedly be hamstringed into these sorts of third string projects.

Probably. I'm not saying it makes sense, I'm just saying thats how the general community sees it.

 

[Sartan0]

I love GoG! As many of my favorite games are from the '90s.

Since they got access to EA's back catalog recently I am excited about what they might get. I was all over Privater. I went out to a second hand store and scored a great joystick and then downloaded one of my top favorite games ever! Good times! Gives me something to play if DNF sucks. (That and playing through the Witcher 2 again with a new set of skills and backing a different faction.)

 

[Jamous]

That cover image of Divine Divinity just made me unbearably happy. I honestly loved the way that game was done; the world was rich with culture and other general epicness, the characters were done brilliantly and everything was just so wonderfully satisfying. The world had so much promise and hinted at so much more in it. Loved it.
XXBZPTRL! Hopefully someone out there remembers that.

 

[PopcornAvenger]

They just started offering Dungeon Keeper. Joy \o/

 

[The Random One]

At last, a Escapist article in which I don't need to namedrop GoG in the comments...

 

[Frankster]

At last, a Escapist article in which I don't need to namedrop GoG in the comments...

All too often in forums including this one I'd bring up gog whenever there was a thread about retro or classic games, always worried it would be seen as advertising to my enthusiastic reccomendation.

Since this is the only thread in which I can safely express my gog.com love, here's my reasons for their site being one of my favored places on the internet:

-Awesome classics for 5$? Steal!!!!!!! Living in London, my daily tube journey costs more then this. My gog collection has blossomed quite a bit over time

-Works straight outta the box. I don't know what magic the gog.team do, but only ever had 1 problem with one of their games, and their customer service was prompt in helping me fix it, no need to wade into a forum and hope to the gods someone will help you.
You buy a game, it works. Isn't that just lovely?

-Lack of drm means game is yours. Do what you want with it.
Again, a luxury that a modern pc gamer is finding increasingly rare.

-Good community, maybe because it's still relatively small but I found the forums to be awash in positive energy, maybe because everyone is there for a mutual love of old games.

Gog.com doesn't really provide unique services, it's all about convenience and making buying+playing the game as painless as possible ^^

 

[ElectroJosh]

Thanks to this article I straight away got my own loggin and ordered the Betrayal at Krondor pack. I love BAK and I may even play through Antara (which is included in the price).

 

[Johnnyallstar]

Thx to GoG no more dead floppies =)

Or, if you're playing the right game, no more missing floppies! I swear, I am missing one of the 4 or 5 X-wing floppy disks, and what a pain in the ass.

I love GOG, and everything that they do. I should mention that they also fix on thing that a lot of old games couldn't avoid.... DISC SWAPPING! I love the old Tex Murphy games that had 4-6 CD ROMs that you'd have to swap in and out, but now, it's straight download so no need to swap disks at all.... which makes them much more enjoyable now.

 

[Levethian]

Good news

I've been worried about the extinction of Win 95/98/XP-based games for some time. Glad to know I won't have to sustain a specialist rig for each old operating system...

I notice someone is holding out on letting GOG distribute System Shock 1 & 2...
The old TSI Stronghold would be nice too.

Tyrian 2000 is free, yay

 

[GroundWalker]

How can I NOT have heard of this site before? o_o
Might be a way to get dad interested in games again.
*crossed fingers*

 

[That PC Guy]

Who da man? GOGs da man!

But really, i've been registered there since day 1 and now have a library of 50 wonderful games, that i either didn't own before, owned but couldn't get to run anymore, owned but wanted to get rid of physically(not much of a stuff collector anymore).
I'm just bummed about the license problems with some of the games, notably EA. None of them come with their respective addons(talkie-addons, content-addons etc), as far as i remember.

 

[Danceofmasks]

Wait, what ... they've got Dungeon Keeper now?
Getting it for the weekend.

 

[ffs-dontcare]

I've got a nice list of games I've bought from them. So many old games that I used to play in my childhood (Redneck Rampage, to name but one), available for the price of a rather expensive sandwich that probably tastes bad anyway!

I even bought a few games from them that I already bought off another site. So yes, I've paid for the Unreal games twice.

Hell, half my gaming time is spent on games I bought from GOG.