Good Old Games Gone for Good?

Post by darkjedi @ 08:55am 20/09/10 | 24 Comments

It seems that over the weekend Good Old Games has closed up shop, citing that "GOG.com simply cannot remain in its current form" in a message on the site's homepage. You might remember them as the digital distribution site dedicated to selling older PC games fixed up to run on current versions of Windows, but without any DRM attached.

There's no actual confirmation for the closure given as yet, however over on their Twitter feed they're promising that they'll release more details about the closure shortly. Additionally, part of the statement on their homepage promises that people will be able to re-download their purchased games within the next week.

With the above comment about not remaining in it's current form, one wonders if they're bowing to pressure from Publishers/Distributors and are planning to re-launch the site with DRM measures in place instead? This is something that a comment made by them on Twitter a couple of days ago could suggest as being the case: "Sometimes it's really hard being DRM-free... hard to keep things the way they are and keep management and publishers happy :(" promoted forum item

good old games drm

Latest Comments

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Hogfather
Posted 09:28am 20/9/10

Wow that sucks.

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trog
Posted 09:30am 20/9/10

That is very sad news :( They were doing an awesome job keeping old games playable, I was really looking forward to more.

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Mantorok
Posted 09:38am 20/9/10

http://kotaku.com/5642141/what-happened-to-good-old-games

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greazy
Posted 09:57am 20/9/10

Mantorok that's a terrible article and I have no idea why you linked it. It's terrible because it gives no real insight into what really happened just a bunch of s***** speculations.

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Hogfather
Posted 10:17am 20/9/10

I'll be kind of disappointed if it is a s***** online marketing ploy though.

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d^
Posted 10:35am 20/9/10

I don't think it will be gone for good, they did state "in its current form".

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darkjedi
Posted 10:38am 20/9/10

Agree it'd be rather s***** of them if they are using this as a ploy to drive more traffic to "re-launch" the site later in the week. Guess we'll find out in the coming days, won't we?

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IVY_MiKe
Posted 04:06pm 20/9/10

agreed.... Kotaku's 'article' isn't anything more than our promoted forum item...

Having taken a 10 second look at 'CD Projekt's website, I've found some interesting info:
http://www.cdprojekt.com/news.asp?nID=55

an excerpt from the link:

CD Projekt announces that as of April 29, 2010, CD Projekt Czech S.R.O, a Prague-based company, which operates in Czech Republic and Slovakia, and CD Projekt Magyarorszag KFT, Budapest-based company, which operates in Hungary, have changed ownership as a result of sale and are no longer part of the CD Projekt group. The Hungarian company underwent a management buy-out and continues distribution of video games in cooperation with CD Projekt Polska. The Czech company became the property of an external buyer.

The decision to sell the two companies came as part of the CD Projekt Group’s current strategy, which is based on three principles: focusing on the Polish market in the distribution field, investing in the development of digital distribution via GOG.com, and further expansion of the video game development operations. Selling the Czech and Hungarian companies is the last stage of organization changes within the CD Projekt Group and its purpose is to limit operations in high-risk markets with limited revenue potential. These changes will allow the group to focus on more profitable and less risky operations in order to achieve better financial results in the coming years.

This decision was also influenced by the diminishing commercial potential of the two markets with no prospect of improvement in the immediate future, resulting in low profitability of the companies’ operations.

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sleepy
Posted 07:53pm 20/9/10

Wow ~~that~~ sucks.

fixed.

ps never actually played it but ive seen enough fanboi clips to know i'd hate it.

as far as the op goes. a big awww from me.

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Eorl
Posted 08:48pm 20/9/10

What the heck sleepy? How is that even relevant to the post :S

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Nerfosaurus
Posted 02:37am 23/9/10

Apparently it's back, and it was just some kind of PR stunt.

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darkjedi
Posted 10:50am 23/9/10

That it was. Doesn't look like they're adding DRM to things, but just launching a new website & new back-end for the whole place. Rather meh-ish, but if they roll out more cheap old games I'm sure everyone will forgive them :)

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HeardY
Posted 11:02am 23/9/10

pffft wankers

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Hogfather
Posted 11:05am 23/9/10

First of all we would like to apologize everyone who felt deceived or harmed in any way by us closing down GOG.com without any warning and without giving access to your games. We apologize for that from the bottom of our hearts!

D*******s

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`ViPER`
Posted 11:10am 23/9/10

I dunno, I reckon its probably worked as an attention getting stunt, here we are talking about it, I went to the site when I never have before.

And people wont realy care in a week or 2 when they want to buy an old game, they will just remember the site.

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Hogfather
Posted 11:17am 23/9/10

Said it was lame, not ineffective :D

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glynd
Posted 11:21am 23/9/10

it made me want to buy from the site ... completely forgot about gog.com .

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trog
Posted 11:38am 23/9/10

http://www.ausgamers.com/pressreleases/read/2961064 is the official press release, btw. The email they sent it with also said:

As you could observe in the last couple days the GOG.com service was down and we kept everything what was happening in secret. After today's online conference everything became clear - GOG.com is not closing, but it's coming back even better and stronger than ever with great new features and huge new releases.

We know some of you might felt deceived by us playing jerks and the whole action and we sincerely apologize for this, as that was not our intention. Hopefully the new GOG.com and the upcoming releases from Hasbro will make it up for you. Yes, you read that well, we have Hasbro on board and our first release is Baldur's Gate: The Original Saga with Tales of the Sword Coast expansion for only $9.99, DRM-free and with lots of free goodies.

Fair enough I think. I certainly don't harbour any resentment; the more people that know about GOG the better I reckon.

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Nerfosaurus
Posted 11:49am 23/9/10

Yes, you read that well

Man do people really talk like that in their internal business-to-business communications? Reads like pure advertising, can't help but feel patronised.

Could also be somebody who's just excited though in which case I can't fault them.

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taggs
Posted 12:05pm 23/9/10

it's an email attached to a press release that was sent to a media organisation... OMG ADVERTISING, WUT!?

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Nerfosaurus
Posted 12:12pm 23/9/10

Well, yeah?

I mean, Yes, you read that right. Read now for my low cost assessment of the advertisingness nature of the quoted statement.

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Dazhel
Posted 02:43pm 23/9/10

Yes, you read that well
Man do people really talk like that in their internal business-to-business communications? Reads like pure advertising, can't help but feel patronised.

Plus, they have to put words like that in their communications now because no-one is inclined to believe them after pulling this stunt. We're closing up... no wait fake! Lame.

I'll still buy from them though, they have good products at decent prices &no DRM so great replayability even if the company did happen go under.

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FraktuRe
Posted 07:14pm 23/9/10

http://www.pcgamer.com/2010/09/22/gog-com-apologise-for-hoax-closure/

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