A shame, no doubt, but their prices were always just a fraction too high for me to get my wallet out. If they were that little bit cheaper I can't help but wonder if they'd have lasted.
I don't think their prices were too high at all. I think i got the Earth 2150 trilogy and Duke Nukem: Manhattan Project for 5 bucks each.
A very sad occasion - I always kept an eye out for their specials (which typically offered discounts in the 30-60% range) and purchased a couple of dozen games. However everyone who purchased from them can still install and play the games downloaded (and they have stated they'll provide a means for people to re-download) whereas with any other digital distribution site people would have lost their entire collection.
I got the girlfriend Evil Genius from there last week and was just logging into it to get myself a copy of Cannon Fodder *sniff*
Sad and very surprising. Hope it does return, disappointing if it truly was related to lack of DRM. Would have thought publishers would just be pleased to see old titles selling.
Ah that's a terrible shame. Integration with something like Steam however here would probably be optimal though.. Pleases the developers/publishers and probably most players too
"the lack of DRM was making it difficult to please developers and publishers" What a completely dumb attitude by them.....games which most people could find and download anyway for free if you do a bit of searching..... But oh no, the usual suspect greedy gits (publishers more than the original devs, i bet), would rather not earn a few quid for out of print games, than see a DRM free product available to those who were willing to pay, out of respect to those devs in the first place....
I like the idea of steam integration, good one. These slightly modified games would be better than the best of megadrive collections that omit just about all the best megadrive games
damn just went on there to browse then saw it was down, then noticed this thread, R.I.P. GoG, come back soon please D:
That's extremely disappointing, I've been with GOG since very early in the Beta and I've bought a lot of games from them because I really liked the whole concept and the way they handled the sales and downloads. The 'extras' like Soundtracks and so on that came with the games also made their offers more appealing than Steam for the same games. I think GOG's biggest problem though was that it lost its way somewhere along the path. Instead of being GOODOldGames.com, it was SomeGOODOldGamesAndLotsOfBargainBinShite.com. They took on far too many games from their partner publishers that weren't good back when they were released, nevermind in 2009/2010. The original Beta showed boxcovers for Planescape Torment and a few other games that people would've snapped up had they been patched up to work with XP/Vista/7 but some of those promised titles never materialised on the store and instead we got some gems (like the Fallout series and Outcast) and lots of the kind of absolute drivel that has infested the 'PC-CDROM' shelves in EB, Game and HMV for years already, that only uninformed family members by their cringing pc-gamer relative for christmas. I can't completely blame GOG.com for that, as they were reliant on the publishers to give them the deals they needed, but I can't help but think that the site's original vision was lost somewhere along the way and that the bargain bin crap didn't do them any favours when approaching other publishers. I couldn't see that happening. They were competing directly with Steam an even making jokes at Steam's expense with some of their offers. The whole point of GOG.com was that it was a DRM-free, gamer-centric (rather than publisher-centric) store as an alternative to the supposedly-draconian evils of Steam and Impulse. I personally find Steam okay, but GOG's DRM-free releases were fantastic and I always tried to buy from GOG rather than Steam in the case of a game that was on both.
Gah! Wash your mouth out with soap and water! GOG's main strength was that it wasn't Steam - no DRM, no prospect of your games collection being held to ransom via a regular fee, no requirement for regular Internet connections and no licence key/media check hassles to deal with. In short, nothing to sabotage or interrupt your ability to install and play wherever (and whenever) you wanted. As for the quality - yes some dubious stuff came through but there were also some gems (King's Bounty: The Legend). Their closing message seems to suggest publisher problems but they were getting new signups (1C Publishing and Triumph Games). I suspect we'll have to wait and see to find out the real reasons.
A bit more positive post found on Destructoid: http://www.destructoid.com/gog-com-is-down-don-t-panic-it-s-not-forever-184350.phtml I still have to buy Arcanum: Of Steamworks and Magick Obscura - they can't close now
I've updated this post to reflect the most recent rumours - that this is a marketing stunt intended to mark the move of GOG from beta into a full, standalone client.
I do hope that is true. GoG always seemed very successful and the current 'closure' has come out of the blue considering they were mailing me offers only a few days ago. It's a great site executed extremely well and it's loss would be a sad one.