8mo ago

GOG launch their Preservation Program to make games live forever with hundreds of classics being 're-released'

www.gamingonlinux.com

16 comments

GOG say the GOG Preservation Program is currently Windows-only
- How does that work? Almost ll old Windows games can be played on Linux with Wine or Dosbox?
  
  its not that they dont work on linux, its morelikely they just dont test for it.
  
  Of course they can be played on Linux. I believe they mean that there won't be "official" support for anything besides Windows.
How exactly is this any different to what they were doing 10 years ago?
- It's not, they just decided they have a right to brag about it. And they do, when I started Dragon Age: Origins today, an update definitely surprised me.
Good on GoG and I do genuinely love most of what they have done.
But the "buy here and you own it" bullshit is a real laugh. It is still just a license that can be revoked at any point. And the "just download it and have it forever" is untenable for larger libraries and... the French Monk Debacle already demonstrated why.
For those not aware, in the first year or so of gog's existence, they pretended they were shutting down the website and told everyone they had like 48 hours to download everything. People lost their shit, hug of death, etc. CDP immediately apologized and then put a "fun" character in The Witcher 2 that referenced that.
But... that is the reality. If the site goes down, you are only getting a fraction of your library, if that. And GoG have always been horrible about letting you know when a game is updated if you use the standalone installers. So, regardless, you are pirating shit when the site goes down. Same as Steam.
- How else would you do 'buy to own' for software, though, that is not downloading and storing it locally? Every website and service will inevitably go down eventually, hence there is literally nothing else coming to my mind.
  
  How else would you do ‘buy to own’ for software
  I wouldn't for anything where I don't 100% own the license and rights in perpetuity.
  Because GoG has already lost the right to sell many games (I want to say they lost Interplay two or three times?). And it is a matter of time until a publisher demands a game be fully revoked (which has happened on Steam a handful of times?).
  Don't promise things you can't deliver on.
  As for something where I do own the license and it will last the lifetime of my company? Bare minimum, I would provide a way to be properly notified of whenever an installer is updated. And I wouldn't have quite so many "secret" serials required for games (like UT or OFP or whatever).
- What exactly is their alternative supposed to be? You do own it more than with Steam.
- There are many tools to download all your games (I've even created one), you can download your games regularly. Sure, you need the space for it, but you need space for everything you own, be it physical or digital.

16 comments