GOG.com shuts down [Sike! Reports of my death were greatly exaggerated]

[hervoheebo]

from http://www.gog.com

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

To be honest, I'm not very surprised. Old games without DRM are the easiest to pirate, and they had to compete with Steam, kind of. The dudes who ran GOG (CD Projekt) also made The Witcher and are making TW2 right now. They don't have to fear going bankrupt though, I've heard they have a huge financial backup.

Edit: There have been rumors of this being only a publicity stunt of sorts... tinfoil-behatted, see http://kotaku.com/5642141/what-happened-to-good-old-games? for details.

Edit #2: Conspiracy theorists proved to be triumphant. GOG.com just announced that they don't actually close down the site, in fact it just got out of the beta and is continuing faster, stronger and better than ever. Hopefully.

[CODOR]

Crap, there were a few things I wanted to get from there, too.

Although I guess that's what they get for offering Blood for sale within a couple of weeks of me finally finding up a CD copy...

[Jodwin]

GOG did have one trick up their sleeve, namely making games work on modern systems in case they would otherwise have problems. I'm sure there's other examples, but for instances Warlords Battlecry 3 originally has problems with systems that have 4gb or more ram, yet GOG managed to make a patch of their own which made the game work properly.

It'll be interesting to see their solution for re-downloading the games and what if any effect this will have on the digital distribution business in near future.

[Technician]

Was GOG some kind of file hosting service?

[John Smith]

I'm pretty surprised and a little bit skeptical about this. They were doing tons of business. And that little web site blurb looks about as professional as a high school students site, like, when 3drealms suddenly disappeared it at least looked believable. Besides, they were announcing new sales and whatnot just yesterday, and it overall just seems a bit out of place. Either the "current form" part of the blurb is big clue to the fact that they're having to change some things, forcibly, by game developers, or it might have been a hack, or etc. Time will tell.

[chungy]

How does that blurb look unprofessional at all?

[John Smith]

This in the HTML source: <meta name="GENERATOR" content="Microsoft FrontPage 5.0">. Low-res gog.com graphic. Etc.

I wasn't saying the blurb itself didnt sound professional, but its delivery was piss poor for any website shutting down, and I'm sure we've all experienced several here. I find it hard to believe that a website that was always so polished and clean looking would legitimately cease to exist looking like....that. Without there being some story behind it.

[david_a]

Technician said:

Was GOG some kind of file hosting service?

No. They legally sold old games digitally with no form of DRM. They also spent some effort making sure the games ran properly on modern systems.

My guess is that it's either a bad marketing stunt or that publishers didn't want to do it anymore.

[chungy]

hobbs: it's consistent with their twitter page. also good looking sites are really not hard to do (despite what almost all major corporation's sites might look like.... they really aren't), it doesn't mean anything about revenue or whatnot. So whoever posted the notice decided to just fire up frontpage and type up the closing message, oh well, that's just how it is. And frankly, it doesn't even look bad considering it was frontpage.

[Sporku]

This better be some kind of horrible, horrible joke. gog.com was probably the coolest idea I had seen in a long time, and I had actually purchased quite a few games from them. It's too good an idea for it to fail like this.

[DuckReconMajor]

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

Update: This is looking like a marketing move.

...

Update: Good Old Games spokesman Tom Ohle gave this comment to Kotaku: "As the message on the site says, this doesn't mean GOG is gone. We'll have more to share in the coming days."

Signs point to a potential relaunch of the service. Good Old Games had always carried a "beta" tag. This Polish financial news page, translated, (Good Old Games' owner is Warsaw-based CD Projekt) indicates news is coming on Wednesday.

[GreyGhost]

Let's hope this is a marketing ploy, it'd be just my luck for them to postpone their shut down until I've upgraded to a respectably fast broadband plan.

[John Smith]

Yeah I've been keeping up with this story all day and it seems like some sort of kekeke rush marketing stunt. I'd put money on the fact that GoG as a service is either going to exist under a new name, get bought, or get revamped in some form or fashion. This was too much of a rush job to be a legit "omg my site is dead" event.

[Janizdreg]

The most curious thing about all this is that someone bought a big part of the GOG parent company's shares around a week ago (Source, poorly translated via Google). Of course it might be just a coincidence, but it has left many people speculating if it's some big-ass & DRM-loving company that is now forcing GOG to shut down or to change its distribution model, or something nasty along those lines.

[Nems]

Janizdreg said:

Of course it might be just a coincidence, but it has left many people speculating if it's some big-ass & DRM-loving company that is now forcing GOG to shut down or to change its distribution model, or something nasty along those lines.

I sure as hell hope it isn't this. I've had nothing but great experiences with GOG. It would be a shame to have their DRM-free model go the way of the dodo. ):

[Sporku]

*gasp* The website's favicon changed! What does this meaaannnn?

[Belial]

Janizdreg said:

(Source, poorly translated via Google)

According to the posts on the site hobbs is right. Apparently it's a marketing stunt tied to moving from 'beta' to the final version, and it was announced in March at a shareholders meeting.

EDIT: Next meeting on the 22nd, things will probably be cleared up afterwards.

[Dragonsbrethren]

Pretty lame move, if it is just a marketing stunt. Especially since I just got an email from them about a sale, and was considering buying something today.

Edit: And why do I see the site coming back with some sort of lame download manager, which doesn't hold a candle to Steam, and is far more annoying to use?

[Belial]

Dragonsbrethren said:

Pretty lame move, if it is just a marketing stunt.

CDProjekt has come up with odd marketing campaigns before.

[Snarboo]

As long as the site comes back and I can download my games again without DRM, all will be forgiven. However, a few have suggested that the site could return with DRM embedded into the games. If that proves to be the case, GOG is as good as dead to me.

[SYS]

I'm really saddened and annoyed at this news.

[Technician]

I wish I'd have tried this service.

[Rohit_N]

It's all good. And Baldur's Gate is coming.

[Kirby]

Rohit_N said:

It's all good. And Baldur's Gate is coming.

:D :D :D :D :D :D

Life is all good once again

[Abyssalstudios1]

Rohit_N said:

It's all good. And Baldur's Gate is coming.

Oh, excellent.

[Jodwin]

I'd like to pissed off at them, but after watching that monk video I just can't. :(

[SteelPH]

Huh. I've heard of this place, but never bothered to take a look. I'ma check it out when the revival occurs.

[Kira]

They are awesome, damn them.

[Sporku]

Pretty lame marketing stunt, I imagine they might actually lose a few users because of such an arrogant move. Me? Personally I'm just glad they're still around and haven't moved away from the DRM-less distribution model they built the site around, and I'm looking forward to seeing the site move out of beta.

[Csonicgo]

Hilarious. Not. They worded their "farewell" in such a way that it fits with what they're doing now, but they knew it wasn't going to be taken that way. What dicks.