Good Old Games - Offline, Closed?

As several posters have noted on our forums, GOG.com seems to have suspended operations. Here's the announcement on the site:

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

You may note there's nothing definitive and they leave the marketing door open through Facebook and Twitter. Speaking of Twitter, here's a new tweet:

The official statement from GOG's management about the situation will be announced soon. We'll have more details about this tomorrow.

Marketing gimmick? Actual closure? Ending beta?

More information.

I wish I could say this was the worst news of the weekend, but we did get worse.

Still, this is BAD. I definitely did my part supporting them - I way prefer them over Steam. There were a couple more games I wanted to purchase from them. I'm sorry I delayed it, but I figured I'd wait until I cleared some other games from my plate. Sounds like their no-DRM policy - a major distinguishing feature of their service - may have gotten in the way. Publishers are still worried about piracy of 15-year-old games, I guess.

Hopefully there'll be another opportunity to do so —- there have been some hints that they are instead transitioning or something rather than pulling the plug altogether. It would have to be a major transformation to warrant this, however.

Suckage.

Abandonware sites have been distributing a lot of GOG catalog for a long time with hardly a peep from the publishers, now that they have a format to make money, greed takes over and ruins a good thing. I really hope this is a misguided attempt at viral marketing.

There are several hints out there now that it's a marketing stunt.

If it's a marketing stunt it's a stupid one.

What happens to the ads you still display and the associated revenue ?

Originally Posted by Nathanyl
If it's a marketing stunt it's a stupid one.

Agreed.

My guess is they are re-branding so that they can keep the no-drm promise established under the GOG brand (like the advert on this very page: "PC classics. All the flavor. Half the price. No DRM.") but not make that promise moving forward. I imagine they would have a lot more games without that and publishers are reluctant to set aside the requirement.

Marketing stunt for going from beta to final apparently - http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showpost…&postcount=240

I think they're done for…

I hope that it is just a stunt. There were still some games on their I hadn't picked up yet.

After reading around I get this feeling that they have to dump the NO DRM policy if they want to get more games into their catalog. Which is nuts, but corporate entities REALLY want to protect their 10 year old games that you can get at any abandonware site for free, lol.

I say load that freakin DRM in the games and get GoG back up. The only DRM that annoys me are the limited installs and logging in to play/save. Maybe Starforce too, but I never really had a problem with that.

If this is what caused the shut down and announcement then they screwed up royally. They could have warned us or made an announcement that they will be back soon, but no we get that cryptic message saying nothing.

Michal Kicinski, who is a CEO of CD Projekt posted a message in Polish financial forums on Friday, saying that there would be some kind of announcement on gog.com and that we shouldn't panic after reading it
Here's the link to a surprisingly accurate translation.
So, probably on Wednesday there should be some more news about the future of Gog.com.

Thanks, fijau.

I still hope that many furry rodents take up residence with of whoever wrote and approved that message over at gog.com.

Originally Posted by Bargeral
Agreed.

My guess is they are re-branding so that they can keep the no-drm promise established under the GOG brand (like the advert on this very page: "PC classics. All the flavor. Half the price. No DRM.") but not make that promise moving forward. I imagine they would have a lot more games without that and publishers are reluctant to set aside the requirement.

I luv GOG. I'm playing GOG version of Outcast right now and it is my most fervernt wish that the good folks at GOG fix up Empire of the Fading Suns and Ascendency for modern computers. There is just no other site like these guys.

What a bunch of ridiculous crooks.

Good call on Ascendancy, I loved play that Game, Still have the Orig. CD Somewhere.
Too Bad Logic Factory the Developers seemed to have disbanded.

Well this is annoying. I liked them and have probably spent at least $100 which with the low prices is quite a bit I think. Not even sure I've downloaded all of the games I've purchased but probably have so if they don't implement the redownload mechanism I'm probably ok and heck I can probably live without them.

This does point out one of the major issues with online retailers like gog, steam, d2d and impulse. I've stopped making local backups assuming that I can download again if I really want to play again. I think steam is safe but with the elemental hiccup I can envision scenarios where impulse disappears within the next year.

Originally Posted by figment
I think steam is safe but with the elemental hiccup I can envision scenarios where impulse disappears within the next year.

Apparently Impulse, Stardock, and Stardock Entertainment (the games part), are all run separately so if one leg dies the others stay standing.

But yeah, it's also something that has worried / annoyed me about online platforms. Just recently I've decided that I'll just treat games as a throw away commodity and not worry about it so much - especially of all the games I own I only revisit a handful of them.

I thought this was very bad news initially…but after reading a bit more, it looks like this is likely to be a marketing stunt. A bad one, I think, but this is still far preferrable to GOG.com actually closing. I think GOG.com is far superior to any other webshop out there. No client, no DRM, only great games, great prices, and great service.

Kay

If this is a marketing stunt… it is the worst one ever…..