GOG.com Not Really Gone

gspr writes "On Sunday, Slashdot and many others reported that DRM-free games site GOG.com was shutting down. Now the site is back, revealing that it was all a hoax. According to the site: 'Now it's time we put an end to all the speculations once and for all. It's true that we decided that we couldn't keep GOG.com the way it was so we won't. As you probably know by now, GOG.com is entering its new era with an end of the two-years beta stage and we're launching a brand new GOG.com with new, huge releases.' So it was all an advertising stunt."

The important part

[Abstrackt]

They still won't have DRM and they still won't have a download client.

Love it or hate it, this is one of the more successful marketing stunts of late.

Re:Lovely.

[KillaGouge]

As long as you kept the files you downloaded, you can ways play the games. I think you might need to take a little time and think next time. Unlike Steam's DRM model GOG has no DRM and doesn't have to every phone home to a server.

Why are you so angry?

Re:Lovely.

[hedwards]

The big issue there was that some people had just purchased and as a result hadn't had the chance to download and secondly, they'd promised the customers that they'd always be able to download the games. I'm not sure anybody really believed always, but I do think that most of us assumed that when or if they shut down that there'd be arrangements in place or some sort of warning to download your stuff.

I mean even 3d Realms when they went out of business made arrangements to handle recent orders.

The web page did say something was happening today

[tlhIngan]

All the people who said they had failed was either reading a bad summary or didn't check it out for themselves.

Their temporary page had two things.

First, was, they "could not continue operating like this". Now, that can mean they're going out of business, or it can mean something else. The literal translation is, "change is happening". That change could be "this site is dead", or it could be "please wait for the new and improved GoG 2.0".

Secondly, they said "you will be able to download all your games on Wednesday". So something was happening today. If they were shutting down, it's a last-gasp download mania.

Fact is, they didn't say "GoG.com is now closed for business, we thank all our customers for the past 2 years". It's also sort of unprofessional, because it screws everyone who bought a game just before they shut down, but haven't downloaded it yet (which is a dick move).

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Re:The important part

[Killjoy_NL]

Yes!