AGDInteractive - Sierra Adventure Game Remakes Forum

http://www.gog.com/

Weird.

Actually, some claim that this is a marketing stunt and that GoG is just going out of beta at last. A bad move if it is, I think.

I understood it as that something was going to change with its business model.

HAHAHA, i was just on their site this morning Contemplating purchasing Their Kings Quest 7 and 8. And i just made a forum topic about it on here today. Thats so strange.

What the crap? Well this sucks. I'll wait and see what's happening, but I loved GoG.


Bt

Billetwound wrote:HAHAHA, i was just on their site this morning Contemplating purchasing Their Kings Quest 7 and 8. And i just made a forum topic about it on here today. Thats so strange.

Oh...NO.

If this IS true, WORST timing ever to shut the site down.

Yeah it was bad timing, cause i've never played 8. I Owned it at one point but never got around to playing. And i Found that they had made a version that worked on Vista. But I was a little out of the loop about GOG.com so i came here to ask if it was the real deal or not, made a topic about it. And when i came back to check to see if anyone replied to my post i saw this topic. And i was like oh geez. Guess i'm still not gonna play Kings Quest 8....

That really does suck i went back to the site today cause people were saying its a hoax or a scam to redo the company or site. And they have a Youtube video link up thanking people, and saying if you have purchased stuff from them, you can still download them Thursday. and bonus stuff.

I knew i should have just paid the 10 bucks and got the Kings quest 7 and 8 collection.

On the Sierrahelp pages, Collector says he's releasing his own fix soon; it's hopeful since he's working on fixing the mill / axe freeze problem as well.

I think it's just a marketing move on their part to get more interest in their site while they upgrade everything. I find it hard to believe that they weren't adequately profitable as I know quite a few people (myself included) who had purchased a number of games from them. I think I've purchased about a dozen different products there (including the KQ7/8 package, which does work remarkably well under Windows 7) and I don't see anything that would have caused them to go out of business entirely. Especially seeing as how they just recently picked up some really big deals and have stated that they've been planning some big announcement for September 22 anyway. I guess we'll see what happens tomorrow.

especially with the TSL releases. Personally I hope they start offering their services on Steam as well.

What would be the point of that? The whole point of GoG was that it's DRM free. Steam is not DRM free. Well, as in you have to be online. GoG you don't. I don't understand how GoG would make any difference to Steam than what's already there...

Did anyone catch the video conference they hosted from GOG today? . I went there but it was over by the time i got to the site. I was reading some of the chat log and something about posting new content on the website, and Baulder's Gate. And things within the next couple of days, but i couldn't make sense out of it.

Go to www.GOG.com and watch their video.

Chapter 0 confirmed (rather humourously) that they will never have DRM and they have not been bought out by any digital distribution company (ie- Steam).

This was the place where I found a lot of older games to try out with my MT-32 module. Their message from a few days ago thanking everyone for support over the last few years definitely left the impression that they were shutting down. If that was just a cynical ploy to manipulate customers and generate some attention, then shame on them. That is not the way to communicate with your loyal customers! Anyway, out of annoyance with their stunt, I didn't even bother sitting through all their little, somewhat rambling videos. I just wanted to know the basics... so, it's just a new site with more games available?

And a better website interface. More features. Also, Baldur's Gate is coming and more.

I don't understand the stunt they pulled. When I hear a site I like being shut down I usually give it a small salute before deleting the bookmark and never looking back (Hey, it's the internet, it's hard to get too sentimental). I would think that they'd be worried about their fans doing the same. They risked losing a lot of fans with this stunt.

Lady Pyro wrote:I don't understand the stunt they pulled. When I hear a site I like being shut down I usually give it a small salute before deleting the bookmark and never looking back (Hey, it's the internet, it's hard to get too sentimental). I would think that they'd be worried about their fans doing the same. They risked losing a lot of fans with this stunt.

Read the article on PC Gamer and perhaps you'll understand, LP.

MusicallyInspired wrote:What would be the point of that? The whole point of GoG was that it's DRM free. Steam is not DRM free. Well, as in you have to be online. GoG you don't. I don't understand how GoG would make any difference to Steam than what's already there...

Steam doesn't require you to be online to play they even have an offline mode. I was saying since GoG shut down I hope they import their library to steam. Since GoG ,infact, did not close then it doesn't matter.

Also what's the big deal with DRM, why am I the only one that doesn't care. Did everyone get this upset with things like the timepod in SQ4? or the entirety of Police Quest being unplayable without the manual. Every Sierra game had copy protection and DRM isn't much different.

yeah, i'd rather have some other form of copy protection then the use of a manual. That was always a pain from sierra. Cause when i needed the manuals i could never find them. And when i found them, i wouldn't be worried about playing the game, or let alone have that game installed. ( Oh and the loss of the stupid Magnifing glass for the colonels bequest and haveing to use the little viewer from the SQ5 hint book kinda sucked HAHAHA.) . I'll tell you what i like now, whatever it is that lets you play the new Prince of Persia game without the cd is awesome. I'm Notorious for completely destroying cd's. I used to have both the Quest For Glory Anthology, and the Quest For Glory Collection.... the Collection was destroyed beyond belief. And since these games are 10 bucks , i wouldn't see DRM being a huge issue.

The game medievil for the PSX had a DRM-like copy protection. Years later, when they tried to sell the game on XBox Live, they had to take it off and refund the money, because the copy protection only allowed for ten minutes of gameplay and it was impossible for the developers to disable it. Gamers that bought it and no longer have a PSX cannot play it in an Emulator as the game detects that it's not a real system.

Other DRM games only allow you to install the game 3 times.

The idea with DRM is that they aren't selling you a game, they are selling you "the right to play their game". Having to download 1GB to play a game is only slightly annoying. The problem arises when you no longer can download it because their site went bankrupt or offline, or just chose stop supporting the download. As they aren't actually selling you a "product", but a "service", they get away with more than what law would normally allow, such as the minimum warranty for X years, or your ability to resell, trade or lend what you have purchased.

Due to the nature of some DRM, there are security issues like the Sony's rootkit that could be used by hackers to take control of your computer, and other DRM system refuse to let you install your game if their heuristic fails (for example, if you change your system by buying a new graphic card, as happens with Windows Vista), or if someone has cracked the DRM password system and has registered the number on your CD before you.

One of Blizzard's tactics is to "break" their previous games with updates to force people on Battlenet to move to their new titles. With a game you have purchased you keep the original untouched and can install it anytime and only apply the patches you want. A DRM'd game will always be the most up-to-date, even if the last update "breaks" it.

So basically, DRM is like your Quest for Glory III game not running in Windows 7, except that the developer made sure you will not be able to play it in Dosbox either, nor sell it on eBay, and you cannot protest if the game doesn't work because they didn't sell it to you, only gave you limited rights to play it.

Steam doesn't allow you to run in offline mode indefinitely. After a certain amount of time it locks you out until you go back online again to re-authenticate.

And as for DRM, yeah it's fine as long as it's not insanely invasive like Ubisoft's. But given the choice between DRM and no DRM, I'll pick no DRM.

Brainiac wrote: Read the article on PC Gamer and perhaps you'll understand, LP.

It seems almost everyone in the comments section (of that article) agrees that it was a low blow, but nobody has really said they wouldn't use the service (some mentioned a new distrust but not disloyalty) and everyone IS talking about it.
I think that's what really bothers me, it was underhanded, but it worked. Ugh.

Yeah, I agree with Lady Pyro. I haven't been reading any comments about the stunt anywhere but here, but I wouldn't be surprised if a lot of people felt at least a tiny bit annoyed by the whole thing. When I saw that the site was "apparently" shutting down, I felt sad. It was the same feeling I would get when I'd learn about particular promising fan adventure projects being abandoned or shut down (e.g., TSL). You know, outrageous publicity stunts are one thing, but trying to get attention using dishonest manipulation is something else altogether. I'm left feeling irritated after realizing that I have been led, through calculated deception, to feel sympathy and disappointment. It kind of reminds me of the Balloon Boy saga... in a somewhat distantly related way. Obviously this GOG gimmick isn't the biggest deal in the world, but it seems like it was done in poor taste and without a lot of respect for the customers.

I wonder how many people actually saw the site go down. I mean I might have heard of the site before and it just didn't ring a bell when i found out in the same day that they had Kings Quest 7 and 8 for vista, and a few hours later they shut down. I mean i had to come here and ask if the site was legit or not (Check a few topics down LOL) . While there are people that did go there alot, unless they were there during that short period of time, i think most people missed it. I mean they only did have a certain amount of games. And if you already purchased them, its not like you were on their site daily. And you know that if you are trying something new, new content and stuff you need to come up with a good idea to grab peoples attention. And If they just posted "Oh, new web design, and games coming soon" wouldn't draw as much attention as " The site is going down". Yeah, it might have been in bad taste. And it might not get as big of a response that they wanted, but it got alot of our attention. Overall i don't think it really hurt their fan base. Apparently everyone is in love with Baulder's Gate (Never Played it) and they are happy its out now.

I was surprised to see "Master Of Magic" on there, i used to play that game alot as a kid.