Widescreen Gaming Forum

False alarm. It's coming back with Facebook-like features. Everything below this line is unchanged from the original post.

If you can't access the site, Wikipedia says everything:

On September 19, 2010, at 12:00 PM EDT, GOG.com shut down replacing its home page with the following apology:

Dear GOG users,

We have recently had to give serious thought to whether we could really keep GOG.com the way it is. We've debated on it for quite some time and, unfortunately, we've decided that GOG.com simply cannot remain in its current form.
We're very grateful for all support we've received from all of you in the past two years. Working on GOG.com was a great adventure for all of us and an unforgettable journey to the past, through the long and wonderful history of PC gaming.
This doesn't mean the idea behind GOG.com is gone forever. We're closing down the service and putting this era behind us as new challenges await.
On a technical note, this week we'll put in place a solution to allow everyone to re-download their games. Stay tuned to this page and follow us on Twitter and Facebook for updates.

All the best,
GOG.com Team[4]

and on their twitter:

Sometimes it's really hard being DRM-free... hard to keep things the way they are and keep management and publishers happy :( Thanks for the support everyone. Hopefully everything works out for the best!

This is terrible.

Sometimes it's really hard being DRM-free... hard to keep things the way they are and keep management and publishers happy Thanks for the support everyone. Hopefully everything works out for the best!

Most of their games were already DRM free.

I think this has to do with problems involving multiple publishers. They have had to pull games before and contrary to what has been said they do not have the source code.

RIP, but I can't say I'll be missing GoG really. Great place to get old games, but quite a lot weren't any good :oops: and I already own most of my old favorites, even though some may not be "modern PC-ready".
(Only title I bought off GoG was Arx Fatalis for the "exclusive" patch v1.19... and I still have to find the time to give it a whirl.)

I just love their business model, by which I mean simple executables hosted on a server for you to download DRM-free. Whether this is a real closure or a precursor to a relaunch with a new format I bet either way that business model is dead.

The funny thing is that a digital distributor closing overnight is a great example of WHY I dislike account-based ownership like Steam uses, yet they will likely relaunch with that kind of sceme.

Of course you already own most of your own favorites. That's kind of expected. GOG let you get games you missed out on the first time around, and they offered plenty of all time classics that I'd immediately recommend over pretty much anything released recently. I could easily name 30 examples. In fact, here's 10 (30 would take up too much space here):
Descent: Freespace
Duke Nukem 3D
Fallout
Gabriel Knight: Sins of the Fathers
Heroes of Might and Magic III
Master of Magic
Master of Orion
Myst
Out of This World
Unreal Tournament

Also, GOG has been cryptic throughout the day, saying there will be an announcement on the 22nd. Wikipedia has fixed itself to reflect this. Given the circumstances, I somehow doubt that this announcement will be a pleasant one. Rumors are floating that this might be a PR stunt. If this is the case, someone needs a new director of marketing.

I just went to the GOG homepage 30 minutes ago. Still in shock. It does indeed seem like a marketing ploy (certainly nothing new from them), but if that is the case, I am seriously not amused.

Scratch that. I'm livid. I just installed more storage in my system 3 days ago for 2 primary reasons: 1) need it for upcoming video projects, 2) download the few recent purchases from my GOG catalog that I had not downloaded yet. I planned to do that downloading right now, but apparently my schedule doesn't work for them. :evil:

When the promised download access appears, I might be doing a final grab and then sayonara, GOG. It's a good thing the site and forums will be down completely for a couple days, because if I had access right now I would be very tempted to abandon my preference for reasoned argumentation in favor of a barrage of profanity. Geez, it's hard for me to type straight right now.

Also, GOG has been cryptic throughout the day, saying there will be an announcement on the 22nd. Wikipedia has fixed itself to reflect this. Given the circumstances, I somehow doubt that this announcement will be a pleasant one. Rumors are floating that this might be a PR stunt. If this is the case, someone needs a new director of marketing.

I really can't imagine they would be stupid enough to do this as a PR stunt. Even if they are launching a "GOG 2.0" or something I can't believe they would just close down the original site with no warning and put up that message. Of course if they are actually closing and gave no warning, that is even worse. Either way a bad decision.

One rumor is they are joining another digital download site, like GamersGate or Steam, and will run a "GOG section" on that service. That would pretty much be the only thing that would make sense of this, as it would make sense to shut down the original site in that instance. Still, as I said already, the site shutting down out of nowhere is an excellent example of why having no DRM is a great thing in the first place, so if they relaunch on Steam or something it will only make their adding DRM to the games a more obvious bad thing.

Still, as I said already, the site shutting down out of nowhere is an excellent example of why having no DRM is a great thing in the first place, so if they relaunch on Steam or something it will only make their adding DRM to the games a more obvious bad thing.

If they re-launch in any form that will include DRM then they might as well rename themselves to "Just Another Download Service". Lose my trust and my business. The renewed download access had certainly better be the DRM-free versions I purchased...

And all of the sudden I get a bad feeling about The Witcher 2.

When JoWood starts claiming Arcania has Sony DADC "customer friendly" DRM solution then you know the world is about to end in a fiery ball of evangelistic hell. ROAROAROAROAROARO!)*!)(&!)*.

When JoWood starts claiming Arcania has Sony DADC "customer friendly" DRM solution then you know the world is about to end in a fiery ball of evangelistic hell. ROAROAROAROAROARO!)*!)(&!)*.

It's customer friendly in that you can swap the exe out and be done with the damn thing.

I am just going to post this and quietly slink out.

http://www.neoseeker.com/news/14937-good-old-games-closure-is-site-relaunch-baldurs-gate-incoming/

Stunt = amazingly stupid.

"Hey kids, here is your worst digital distribution fears come to life! No wait... we're still open, buy digitally it's so convienent!"

Stupid? Is it really?

Why would you think that? Because you know of GoG and have even purchased things there before. Imho.

But 'you' in this statement probably means about 1% of the gaming community.
1% will be angry.
50% out of the other 99% will hear of GoG for the first time, some of them will notice Baldur's Gate in particular (granted, this is going to be a disturbingly small amount of people), and hop in on GoG's fun.

From a marketing point of view, I think it may not be that bad at all. Sometimes making some people angry can be the most profitable way, unfortunate as it may be...


P.S. numbers are completely random, just to make a point. There is no reference for these.

I too have heard of a bunch of people that have found out about GoG for the first time because of this.

I too have heard of a bunch of people that have found out about GoG for the first time because of this.

I'm sure that is the case, even without seeing real numbers to prove it.

There is a very clear 'values message' in this circus: to the GOG management, this publicity was worth stepping on the trust and goodwill of GOG's customers. I don't really care how much new traffic/exposure this generates for the business; I call this stunt bad form, period.

Hypothetically, suppose they re-brand and re-launch the service, and the new service is as good or better than the old one (and still has no DRM). That's probably the best possible outcome. Should this happen, I'm still going to think this was a dick move (I really don't see any excuse for pulling the plug without notice or explanation, regardless of the situation), but I'm doubtful I'd buy less stuff from them in the long run.

On the other hand, if they re-launch with DRM, you can bet that the moment anything I'm interested in pops up, I'm going to be watching Steam for a little while to see if it pops up there too. And then if it does, wait a little while longer to see if it goes on one of those ridiculous 50%-75% off Steam sales. I used to get stuff on GOG within days of its release, just to support them not using DRM.

http://www.incgamers.com/News/25282/good-old-games-returning

http://www.gog.com/

The Good Old Games team are in the middle of holding what can best be described as a bizarre demonstration of the new Good Old Games website which confirms that Good Old Games is coming back with a new look and new features on a spanking new site. You can tune into the demonstration via this link (Update: confernce is now over) now which is being presented by members of the GoG team dressed as monks.

The old monks PR move.

Official confirmation - it was a marketing hoax. I am relieved, and yet I feel an urge to tell the story of The Boy Who Cried Wilk.