GOG.com NOT shut down

[Samwise]

Telling people you're going to yank a service (and then not yanking it) is almost as bad as actually yanking it, because they have to go through whatever effort and stress they would have had to go through if it had been an actual emergency.

When Netflix announced they were going to scrap the multiple queue system, I spent a lot of time laboriously migrating stuff from my queue to my wife's queue.  When they announced that they weren't going to scrap queues after all, I was relieved on the one hand, but pissed because I'd wasted all that time.

[tazelbain]

It is hilarious that they didn't bitch slap the first person to suggest it let alone implement this PR stunt.

[Modern Angel]

You guys are nuts. They said all along it would be back. They said it in vague terms because English isn't the first language of most of the people. Then the Eastern European press turned it into GOG shutting down. Did they do a semi-noisy relaunch? Yes. They never said they were going away forever.

[Ingmar]

You guys are nuts. They said all along it would be back. They said it in vague terms because English isn't the first language of most of the people. Then the Eastern European press turned it into GOG shutting down. Did they do a semi-noisy relaunch? Yes. They never said they were going away forever.

We're closing down the service and putting this era behind us as new challenges await.

Yeah ok. 

[Modern Angel]

Check their facebook. The day of the announcement there was an interview over in Europe they did saying they weren't shutting down. Five minutes of googling post news break cleared it up for me the day of. This is a fuck up, for sure, but it's one of clarity, not maliciousness.

[Rasix]

They kept sending me Farmville updates, so I put them on ignore.  My bad.

[Modern Angel]

I wasn't even subbed to their facebook. I can't even remember why I ended up going to facebook but I did. In between the despair a bunch of people were pointing to some interview they did the day of saying they were for sure going to be back. The site it was on was crashed through traffic half the day but when I got in, sure enough. Now I'm hearing that there was some second rumor report out of Poland that exacerbated the problem by saying that they were definitely shutting down for good. There was also rampant (and reasonable) speculation that they were going to have to add DRM in order to hang on to some of the licenses. But at no point, after the initial panic and investigation, did it swing back into definitely shutting down territory.

[Ingmar]

None of that changes what they initially said, which is right up there in Trippy's quote.

[Modern Angel]

Which is at odds with my saying it's a fuck up but not a malicious fuck up how?

[Trippy]

Just kidding:

http://www.gog.com/

[sinij]

What a bunch of fags, I don't think I would ever touch their site ever again.

[Hawkbit]

This word "presents"; it does not mean what you think it means. 

[UnSub]

Obviously this was a hilarious joke in the original Czech.

[Ginaz]

So they left all their customers in the breeze thinking they had to perform a hard drive circus act to get their games backed up, and it was 'just a joke?'  Fuck you guys.  Seriously.  That's just a dick move.

Huh?  From the very beginning they said they were going to have ways for you to download your stuff within the week.  The phrasing was stupid and it was a bad PR stunt, but the end-of-the-world "Must make backups oh no!" vibe was all from the reaction.

It's not the point.  Say you had two or three hundred dollars worth of games on their site.  Not a terribly outlandish gaming budget.  Of course you don't actually have most of that shit installed, because you're a gamer and either high right now or just plain lazy.  So you hear this news, and like I'm sure many folks did, you think, "Wow sucks they went under, now I have to perform gymnastics with all the porn on my hard drive to make room for all the shit I need to re-download, there goes my Sunday."

And then today rolls around.  And they're like, "Lol, JK."  But your porn is gone forever now, man.  Gone forever.  That shit is weak.

If I lost my lesbian scissoring porn because of something like this...I would be very pissed.

[Musashi]

Which is at odds with my saying it's a fuck up but not a malicious fuck up how?

Because lying to the point of causing your customers extra hassle is malicious whether it's intended as a joke or not.  I'm pretty sure when you buy games from them there's no disclaimer that says:  We reserve the right to trick you into thinking our company is disintegrating only to reveal it's all just a big joke.

The first thing I thought of when I read this was not only does their shut-down hurt them, but it also hurts Valve/Steam.  Online companies have worked their asses off to get customers to the point where they have confidence to buy shit online.  Had this been real, it might have caused a lot of people to start thinking twice about digital distribution.  And I bet there's a lot of people who will still think twice even though it's a joke.  It caused me to immediately think of all the crap I have on Steam, and what I'd do if they went poof.  This was a monumentally stupid thing to do.

Somebody get Gabe Newell on the Subway diet, and let's start grooming clones of his fat ass to rule the gaming world for perpetuity.

[Tebonas]

Yes, it was beyond retarded and extremely childish. For those robes alone they deserve a beating.

Doesn't change the fact that I have their games on my HDD and that HDD has a backup on an external partition. If I see it as games I bought in digital format I'm ok with the download working only when I buy it. If I wanted anything beyond that for the price I pay for those games, I couldn't use their service in good conscience anymore.

[tgr]

Dude. Really pro gamers have a whole external HD for their porn.

(Back in serious mode land:)
Jesus christ, that was stupid. "We have played a little game. Played a little game with our users.". I can see how they could think this would be funny, but I think that the people they're targeting (grumpy old gamers who want the good old games of their youths) aren't exactly going to stunts like this all that funny. Not after we've seen stupid ideas like "stay online or don't play your games" actually be taken seriously and implemented. I hope that whoever thought of this takes a (mental) beating and stops thinking of stunts like this.

Having said that, I doubt it's going to kill them. I agree with Tebonas about the price of those games being so ridiculously low that I personally assumed that I have to keep them safe after downloading, and the news of a DRM-free baldur's gate has me salivating. I think we're looking at what's possibly their critical point.

As long as they stop thinking up asshat ideas like this stunt. And the munk theme?

[Modern Angel]

Out of curiosity, does the BG series work on Vista? I mean without DOXBox and whatnots. I've read conflicting reports.

[tgr]

Check their facebook.

They have a facebook? Well, that clears up any confusion then, since everyone checks facebook.

[NiX]

Their site still doesn't work me. It's a sign.

[Stormwaltz]

It's working now, though slowly.

[fuser]

Seems like access to TOCA:3 is broken for me (note: the game was on sale before being pulled from GOG inventory. Downloads use to work after it was taken out of inventory but now its totally broken). Alas the site is kinda working and when you can download via browser it maxes out my connection. Looks like they are just dealing with a big connection load.

[Yegolev]

Just kidding:

http://www.gog.com/

Assholes.

[Ingmar]

Out of curiosity, does the BG series work on Vista? I mean without DOXBox and whatnots. I've read conflicting reports.

It ran fine on my Vista laptop.

[Sheepherder]

Out of curiosity, does the BG series work on Vista? I mean without DOXBox and whatnots. I've read conflicting reports.

As in Baldur's Gate?

Infinity Engine can behave unpredictably, but most of the Black Isle games will run on Windows 7.  BG1 / TotSC really should be played in the BG2 engine for better looking shit, done via the shit on the Baldur's Gate Collection DVD or by using Tutu.

[Modern Angel]

Well I have all my original discs from oh god was it really that long ago? I was considering firing them back up before GOG broke that they had the license for the first. I just never got around to it.

[Setanta]

Check their facebook.

They have a facebook? Well, that clears up any confusion then, since everyone HAS facebook.

Fixed

Don't have facebook, or twitter or any of that shit so why should I have to have it to check if a company's official website is all "lol cool joke bro"

[schild]

So, uh.



Gog.com, now better than Steam.

[tgr]

SQUEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE

(It was still a stupid move. But SQUEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE)

[Tebonas]

For things like that they can pull one or two more stupid pranks before I get mad at them.

[tgr]

Just to reiterate: SQUEEEEEE. I've got to get me one of those.

[Sky]

GOG points out how weak we all are.



Dammit.

[Bzalthek]

Well it's nice to see the oldest profession is alive and well.

[Lantyssa]

How did you all lose your Torment disks?  Those should be in a safe deposit box.

[Sky]

Who said I lost them? Does the old version work on W7? I also like having just the one installer, burn that onto a single dvd.

I still have my diskettes from the early 90s and a 486 to play them on. Convenience is nice, though. Still have the Torment box, even. Though my dedicated gaming room didn't come together, as my house is too small for discreet room functions like that...so the box collection might have to go. I think I've got the box for every game I've ever bought, excepting digitally of course.