Home of the Underdogs is Back!

[incal11]

but I'd like to see the page that officially state what part of that money goes to the makers of every games, etc...

What vendor ever tells you the breakdown of pricing/costs per item? Do you demand the same from Steam or high street retailers?

I've been using GOG for many months now, and I think they've done a great job. I really hope they can continue as they have started, as they already have over 100 games available, including some big ones.

Their tech support is good, they are friendly folks who post regularly on their own forum, I can't praise them highly enough.

They pulled me in with Fallout, and I've bought 26 games from them already. These include Duke Nukem 3d, Beyond Good and Evil, Jagged Alliance 2 and Descent.

Everyone should want to know to whom, what and why they pay what they pay; at least it'd make the scammers' job difficult, but that's going off topic.
My fault for living in a country where I have the right to know if I ask.

Duke nukem 3D, for example is available for free as an abandonware on plenty of other sites.
Did the version you purchased require the dosbox ? how much did you pay for it ?

I'm just saying, some people pay for games on GoG just for the feeling of being out of the legal "gray" area, but that feeling can easily be just an illusion.

I'm sure the community there is good, I have nothing against you.
(I'm also anti-steam, but that should come as no surprise)

 

[Ralackk]

Everyone should want to know to whom, what and why they pay what they pay; at least it'd make the scammers' job difficult, but that's going off topic.
My fault for living in a country where I have the right to know if I ask.

I would say very few companys if any give out information about deals they broker with involved partys. What may work for one rights holder may not work for another. If they turn up on the site then I would assume that everyone involved is happy with the deal.

Duke nukem 3D, for example is available for free as an abandonware on plenty of other sites.
Did the version you purchased require the dosbox ? how much did you pay for it ?

Any site that gives anything but the shareware version of Duke 3d out is doing so illegally. 3D realms have been selling the game in their own store for many years before it even game to gog.com. It does use Dosbox but its preconfigured in a gogwrap to usually work on vista or xp first time without having to manually fiddle with dosbox settings.

I'm just saying, some people pay for games on GoG just for the feeling of being out of the legal "gray" area, but that feeling can easily be just an illusion.

I'm sure the community there is good, I have nothing against you.
(I'm also anti-steam, but that should come as no surprise)

Gog.com is no different then steam or direct2drive for legallity when providing games. Its not a shady website, anything you buy on the site you do so with the rightsholders permission and you own the game you bought.

 

[incal11]

Gog.com is no different then steam or direct2drive for legallity when providing games. Its not a shady website, anything you buy on the site you do so with the rightsholders permission and you own the game you bought.

I OWN the copy of duke nukem (not shareware), among others, that I once bought, lost, and found again on an abandonware website which is seemingly as legal as GoG
http://www.abandonware-france.org/ltf_abandon/ltf_jeu.php?id=253&fic=liens
(notice the partnership with EAstores and read "what is an abandonware?", top right corner, if you can)

I own the games that are impossible to find even on GoG.
Maybe our views of the world are definitely incompatible, but you'll never convince me that I do not OWN what I have .

5$ seems a bit much for a few tweaks I did myself in under a minute.

 

[Andy_Panthro]

Gog.com is no different then steam or direct2drive for legallity when providing games. Its not a shady website, anything you buy on the site you do so with the rightsholders permission and you own the game you bought.

I OWN the copy of duke nukem (not shareware), among others, that I once bought, lost, and found again on an abandonware website which is seemingly as legal as GoG
http://www.abandonware-france.org/ltf_abandon/ltf_jeu.php?id=253&fic=liens
(notice the partnership with EAstores and read "what is an abandonware?", top right corner, if you can)

I own the games that are impossible to find even on GoG.
Maybe our views of the world are definitely incompatible, but you'll never convince me that I do not OWN what I have .

5$ seems a bit much for a few tweaks I did myself in under a minute.

You may notice that website has the Shareware (legally available for free distribution) version of Duke Nukem 3d, and tells you to go to GOG to buy the full game. It even has "warning - ce jeu n'est pas abandonware" which I think translates to "warning - this game isn't abandonware" written above the download links. I also doubt they are an official partner of GOG.

I'm not sure on the legality of this website, but I do know that abandonware is technically illegal (copyright infringment), but I do use Abandonia [http://www.abandonia.com/] myself for those games which you cannot buy anywhere. (Abandonia has a policy that if a game is sold it is not available for download, and it will also remove download links if asked by a rights holder, etc.)

 

[Ralackk]

I OWN the copy of duke nukem (not shareware), among others, that I once bought, lost, and found again on an abandonware website which is seemingly as legal as GoG
http://www.abandonware-france.org/ltf_abandon/ltf_jeu.php?id=253&fic=liens
(notice the partnership with EAstores and read "what is an abandonware?", top right corner, if you can)

I own the games that are impossible to find even on GoG.
Maybe our views of the world are definitely incompatible, but you'll never convince me that I do not OWN what I have .

5$ seems a bit much for a few tweaks I did myself in under a minute.

I'm not really disputing the fact you may of owned a game before and then got it again on a abandonware site. I have done the same thing with games I bought in the past and have on floppies I can no longer access.

If you don't own a game though having never bought it in the past, then $5 for one of these games is a great deal.

 

[incal11]

You may notice that website has the Shareware (legally available for free distribution) version of Duke Nukem 3d, and tells you to go to GOG to buy the full game. It even has "warning - ce jeu n'est pas abandonware" which I think translates to "warning - this game isn't abandonware" written above the download links. I also doubt they are an official partner of GOG.

I'm not sure on the legality of this website, but I do know that abandonware is technically illegal (copyright infringment), but I do use Abandonia [http://www.abandonia.com/] myself for those games which you cannot buy anywhere. (Abandonia has a policy that if a game is sold it is not available for download, and it will also remove download links if asked by a rights holder, etc.)

LTF has the same policy than abandonia and should be just as legitimate.
This warning is recent, it wasn't there when I downloaded the full version of the duke3d game a few months ago, I know for sure because I played all 3 chapters.

I know abandonwares are technically illegal, I don't see how I can ever feel bad about it, maybe I'm morally flawed, or maybe some laws need to be rewritten.

If you don't own a game though having never bought it in the past, then $5 for one of these games is a great deal.

What I fear is that one day (and maybe it's already happening) companies like gog may start to sell some old games in legal limbo, on which they really have no rights, and ask abandonware sites to stop making them available.
In which case you can't deny your feelings of nostalgia and righteousness are being exploited by some nosy person.

 

[Andy_Panthro]

LTF has the same policy than abandonia and should be just as legitimate.
This warning is recent, it wasn't there when I downloaded the full version of the duke3d game a few months ago, I know for sure because I played all 3 chapters.

I think that's probably because GOG has only been selling Duke3D since February this year. They probably removed the download and put the GOG link in after that.

What I fear is that one day (and maybe it's already happening) companies like gog may start to sell some old games in legal limbo, on which they really have no rights, and ask abandonware sites to stop making them available.
In which case you can't deny your feelings of nostalgia and righteousness are being exploited by some nosy person.

Well, I know GOG isn't doing that. They are constantly in talks with various rights holders, publishers, developers etc.. One of the reasons they haven't got even more games available is because of difficulties with getting the rights.

I would imagine that GOG would avoid selling games that are in "legal limbo", if only because they could be sued for a hell of a lot of money if they breach copyright and get caught.

 

[GOGcom]

Hello all old games fans!
First of all big thanks to The Escapist for showing some love to the great initiative which is the revival of The Home of the Underdogs. When we first heard that Dan is making a big effort to bring the site back to life we've fully supported him and decided to cooperate. We hope it will be as successful as the original HotU or even better.

As for some ambiguities that appeared in the comments above we'd like to officially confirm that we have signed legal deals with all rights holders of the games that are sold on GOG.com. This also concerns any new games that will appear in our games catalogue in the future - if that wouldn't be the case why would we wait with releasing the games from the top of our wishlist?

GOG.com has been created from the love for classic games and the desire to revive the games that entertained us a while back. The idea behind the service was to create a place where fans of old games could visit and revive their favourite titles from yesteryear. We're working really hard to find the rights holders of the old games (and it sometimes can be a pain in the @ss) and secure the deals for some of the best games of all-time. Of course this is a business venture, so the games we offer are sold for a reasonable, in our opinion, price. We can assure you that we won't charge anyone for the games that have been already released as freeware by their legal owners - we already offer three freeware games in our catalogue totally for free and XP/Vista compatible.

We hope this will help you understand what GOG.com is and how we work. If you have any questions just PM us or post them here and we'll try to answer them all.
Thanks!