GOG.com Closes Down!

[Redalert9r9r]

What the hell!?

At least we'll still be able to re-download our games, but this is dumb! D: Ugh... guess I'll have to wait for Steam to get all the old games I want, or I'll have to order from Amazon. This sucks. :[

It sucks so bad. I love GOG, they had stuff nobody else had at way low prices, damn it, now we've either got to wait for Steam to update with a bunch of old games or...ugh...order from a store...so overpriced...

Please come back, GOG

 

[Irridium]

http://www.gog.com/

WTF happened, I was buying alot of games from then and all of the sudden they decide that this whole thing just randomly bores them? What a freaking scam.

If you couldn't play the games you bought from them anymore it would be a scam. But I can still play Fallout. It wasn't a scam. It was a non-intrusive downloadable game service, and it treated people like actual people instead of potential pirates by not putting any DRM in the games. It was amazing, and easily the best "shop" because of that.

And besides, we should take this as a warning. Just like that, a fairly popular service shuts down. Makes me wonder what would happen if Steam shuts down.

 

[Bludycomicsinc]

Unfortunately I never heard of GOG. I just buy most of my games from a store or use steam. If the site ever comes back online I would try it out.

 

[tomtom94]

Damnit, I never got round to using them.

I can't wait for their new form to make them more money and people to decry them as sell-outs.

 

[Caligulust]

Weren't they in beta?

Couldn't they be out of beta?

 

[Valdsator]

looks like the message changed, hopefully they have plans to bring it back up.

Huh... it changed back to the old message.

 

[More Fun To Compute]

This isn't very professional, just replacing the home page like that. Makes it look like they were hacked but I suspect that some publisher set the lawyers on them and they didn't have any choice.

Man, remember when you could just buy games in boxes and not have to use some online service to activate or download them and not have to worry about the state of every company you bought games from. Those were the days.

 

[adamtm]

FUUUUUuuuuuuuuUUUUUUU!!!

Btw theres a rumor on the net that its due to publishers pushing GOG really hard to implement DRM.

 

[More Fun To Compute]

FUUUUUuuuuuuuuUUUUUUU!!!

Btw theres a rumor on the net that its due to publishers pushing GOG really hard to implement DRM.

Another rumour is that this is a way to get big publicity for a re-launch.

 

[adamtm]

FUUUUUuuuuuuuuUUUUUUU!!!

Btw theres a rumor on the net that its due to publishers pushing GOG really hard to implement DRM.

Another rumour is that this is a way to get big publicity for a re-launch.

Want me to go over to their office tomorrow and ask?
I literally live a block away from the CDProject headquarters

 

[More Fun To Compute]

I literally live a block away from the CDProject headquarters

You can if you want. I just followed what arch PC gaming maven Adrian Werner said on the GameSpot forums.

 

[Altorin]

I am not judging their service but rather how easily all your DD games can become worthless if a service shuts down. I am saying that it could happen to Steam too and I am really not buying that they have a patch to unlock your games since that would require approval from the publisher of each game.

nope. The games would have become worthless only because of drm.

gog.com had no drm whatsoever, if you downloaded the install files for the games you bought and burned them to dvds or made other backup, this doesn't affect you.

I know that (from this thread) but Steam IS DRM and is also a DD service.

Ah..nevermind. I am not getting through.

steam is the future of all gaming. I don't think anyone has to worry about their steam account not working. Like you said, you hadn't heard of gog until now, and that's probably why they're shutting down, they're not a household name in the industry, and this industry is a "AMAZING SUCCESS" or "DISMAL FAILURE" only industry. There is NO prize for second place.

As for microsoft's music DD, it's sort of the same deal with this.. and soon their GFWL service as well will probably be going away, because they're competing with both iTunes and Steam, and not providing anything that iTunes and Steam don't do much much MUCH MUCH better. So they will fail.

It would take something pretty amazing to take the place of Steam.. I doubt it will ever happen fully

 

[Altorin]

I am not judging their service but rather how easily all your DD games can become worthless if a service shuts down. I am saying that it could happen to Steam too and I am really not buying that they have a patch to unlock your games since that would require approval from the publisher of each game.

nope. The games would have become worthless only because of drm.

gog.com had no drm whatsoever, if you downloaded the install files for the games you bought and burned them to dvds or made other backup, this doesn't affect you.

I know that (from this thread) but Steam IS DRM and is also a DD service.

Ah..nevermind. I am not getting through.

steam is the future of all gaming. I don't think anyone has to worry about their steam account not working. Like you said, you hadn't heard of gog until now, and that's probably why they're shutting down, they're not a household name in the industry, and this industry is a "AMAZING SUCCESS" or "DISMAL FAILURE" only industry. There is NO prize for second place.

As for microsoft's music DD, it's sort of the same deal with this.. and soon their GFWL service as well will probably be going away, because they're competing with both iTunes and Steam, and not providing anything that iTunes and Steam don't do much much MUCH MUCH better. So they will fail.

You may think Steam can never fail but that doesn't make it fact.

My understanding is that companies don't just fail. Good ones at least, with a good product that people want and are willing to pay for. They need to be beaten at their own game by a different company.. they need to have ignored a niche market that isn't actually niche.. Something that everyone wants but noone knew they wanted.

I don't see that happening in the foreseeable future.. and I never said that steam will NEVER fail. I just said that I don't think any company can rise up as a true rival to steam without some sort of divine intervention. They have a pretty tight lock on PCDD.

Steam isn't in any position to just collapse under its own weight atm. So it might serve your own health to not stress about it.

 

[Altorin]

I am not judging their service but rather how easily all your DD games can become worthless if a service shuts down. I am saying that it could happen to Steam too and I am really not buying that they have a patch to unlock your games since that would require approval from the publisher of each game.

nope. The games would have become worthless only because of drm.

gog.com had no drm whatsoever, if you downloaded the install files for the games you bought and burned them to dvds or made other backup, this doesn't affect you.

I know that (from this thread) but Steam IS DRM and is also a DD service.

Ah..nevermind. I am not getting through.

steam is the future of all gaming. I don't think anyone has to worry about their steam account not working. Like you said, you hadn't heard of gog until now, and that's probably why they're shutting down, they're not a household name in the industry, and this industry is a "AMAZING SUCCESS" or "DISMAL FAILURE" only industry. There is NO prize for second place.

As for microsoft's music DD, it's sort of the same deal with this.. and soon their GFWL service as well will probably be going away, because they're competing with both iTunes and Steam, and not providing anything that iTunes and Steam don't do much much MUCH MUCH better. So they will fail.

You may think Steam can never fail but that doesn't make it fact.

My understanding is that companies don't just fail. Good ones at least, with a good product that people want and are willing to pay for. They need to be beaten at their own game by a different company.. they need to have ignored a niche market that isn't actually niche.. Something that everyone wants but noone knew they wanted.

I don't see that happening in the foreseeable future.. and I never said that steam will NEVER fail. I just said that I don't think any company can rise up as a true rival to steam without some sort of divine intervention. They have a pretty tight lock on PCDD.

Steam isn't in any position to just collapse under its own weight atm. So it might serve your own health to not stress about it.

Well, if you admit that Steam could fail someday then what do you think will happen with all the games purchased? Do you think the publishers will allow Steam to remove the DRM?

*shrug* who knows? Probably not, I personally don't care, believe it or not. I have piles of games sitting in my library, and very very few of them I go back to. Would I care if I couldn't get back into Assassin's Creed 2 years from now? probably not even a bit.

and by the time Steam does crumble, so many of its competitors will have crumbled that it will be able to learn from their mistakes in how to deflate rather then explode. Imagine with GFWL becomes a thing of the past.. it might be soon.. games are already patching out support for it.. There are lots of AAA titles offered through GFWL, with active publishers.. What GFWL chooses to do when it shuts its doors will have repercussions. Steam will see how much stink is created and how difficult it is to get publishers to do the things you want them to do, and they'll weigh that in their own "worst case scenario", which I'm sure they've already got an outline just in case - Valve is a smart company, with smart guys at the helm.

But, I think I'm done discussing this with you, as you seem to be one of the most pessimistic and frankly unpleasant people to talk to here, so I'd rather not do it anymore then I already have.

Bottom line, GOG.com isn't steam. And to even insinuate that the two were similar in any way other then the delivery method is just silly.

 

[Frankster]

So you are saying that if you ever get cut off from your game purchases, you don't care. Well, I do and if that make me pessimistic, then so be it.

Just to clarify, those who got their games from gog still have an installer from that site. As long as we keep that install program around, our games ain't lost and thank goodness for it xD
Doesn't invalidate your fears, but it's not like site crashed and all of a sudden we can't play the games we bought or install them ever again.

Indeed the biggest fear of people seem not to be "what will happen to the games i bought?" but "damnit can i buy those games i wanted to buy before it closes down for good?".

Btw i'm kinda disappointed at the general lack of interest in this site from the escapist community, you'd think this being a gaming site it would be a big deal o0 It was the only place of its kind, and at prices a limbo master couldn't go under.

 

[Frankster]

I think what I fear even more than Steam dying is Steam becoming the future. Do people really want to replace a physical product with a digital license at the same price? That scares me. Steam has sales but the normal price is still the same as the retail price.

I share that fear, and when possible I do prefer a physical copy.
The thing with gog however, is that most of its catalogue were older games usually hard to find, and even if you did track down a working cd of masters of orion2 or jagged alliance, it likely won't work on modern comps without some tinkering.
Not a problem for comp savvy peeps, but to others it presents a clear obstacle.

And that's why the prospect of gog shutting down is a bit of a heartbreak, it's not that we loved it as a digital distribution platform, it's because it was the easiest place to get old classics without having to pirate them or go through technical hoops to get it working.
It wasn't an alternative way of getting those kinda games, it was more or less the only way short of going through ebay or amazon i guess :\

But in the bigger context of dd sites and drm, well that is a topic for another thread I think
If gog really did bite the bullet, it does give you ammo for fears though.

 

[Nevyrmoore]

*shrug* who knows? Probably not, I personally don't care, believe it or not. I have piles of games sitting in my library, and very very few of them I go back to. Would I care if I couldn't get back into Assassin's Creed 2 years from now? probably not even a bit.

This is still a very bad view to take. Reason being is that it effectively hinders (and in some cases, stops) later generations from playing the games should shit go tits up. Thus, people resort to piracy, and if the abandonware scene is anything to go by, the ESA still have to stop people getting hold of games in such a way, even if it is the only realistic way to do so, regardless of if a game is 5 years old or 20.

 

[The Madman]

Best damn game distribution site on the web, I hope this is just a poorly planned publicity stunt as I'd hate to imagine GoG going down permanently. However when the downloads come back up in whatever form I'll be re-downloading everything I've bought from them just in case. I've got some burned to CD's like Heroes of Might & Magic 3, but for some of my more recent purchases I don't have the downloaders right now.

If it does go down, and you're only hearing about it now, you missed out. GOG was, and hopefully will be once again, fantastic.

 

[octafish]

A sad piece of news. I think I will pour one out for GOG. I never bought all those Tex Murphy games, I thought I had time...

 

[Super Toast]

http://www.gog.com/

WTF happened, I was buying alot of games from then and all of the sudden they decide that this whole thing just randomly bores them? What a freaking scam.

Please tell me you got your money back, or were able to download the games anyway.