GOG.com Not Really Gone 276
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."
Annoying stunt, but still glad they're here. (Score:2, Insightful)
Unintended consequences (Score:5, Insightful)
The stunt worked, they got two front page /. articles about them. Of course, the downside is that they're now on my blacklist.
Let's be honest here (Score:4, Insightful)
GOG has been gaining popularity and consumer visibility, ESPECIALLY in the past few months. Unless they were hit with a huge lawsuit or financial disaster, there would be no reason for them to close permanently.
Sincerely,
A not surprised (yet very relieved!) gamer
Unprofessional (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:The important part (Score:3, Insightful)
they still won't have a download client.
The only download client needed is a web browser. That is as it should be.
Re:Unprofessional (Score:3, Insightful)
Why should a company that sells games act professionally? The sillier the better I say.
Re:I hate this shit (Score:1, Insightful)
Your personal convenience was interrupted for a few measly hours because a place-holder was up while they drew thousands more eyeballs to their site in an intriguing PR stunt now they feel ready to make a push for more sales outside of the miniature niche they've carved for themselves during beta so far and you're now less likely to buy from them?
Get over yourself. Seriously.
Best of luck to them, I'll be browsing as soon as pay day rolls around to see if they're carrying the extremely excellent original Discworld games. If so they can gladly take my money for them.
Lovely. (Score:2, Insightful)
Essentially, they call their customers suckers after taking away access to the games they chose to pay GOG money for, then call them too sensitive for feeling pissed off by that ("We're sorry you were offended"), then say that taking money for games is no longer good enough, so everyone's just going to have to take, oh, let's say whatever we decide is good enough for you.
This certainly matches with the usual playbook of corporate non-apologies - smarmy, fake ingratiation, blame shifting their own words, all while asking for more control and resources.
Say what you want about Steam's DRM model - they don't have this level of open contempt for their customers (yet). I'd seriously reconsider any titles I had associated with these jokers if I were ever looking to publish.
Ryan Fenton
As a loyal customer (Score:5, Insightful)
... this stunt was horrible and silly and an annoyance. I recently reinstalled my computer, and when I went to Gog.com to redownload Gabriel Knight I got that stupid "zomg we're closing down" message. It feels like something straight out the 1990s, when nobody expected any degree of seriousness from Internet companies - thanks for reminding us how WE SHOUDLN'T TRUST YOU in the future, that's great marketing.
Re:Annoying stunt, but still glad they're here. (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:The important part (Score:2, Insightful)
No, a successful stunt suggests that you pulled it off. Everyone knew it was a hoax from the beginning and said so, therefore, they failed.
Secondly, they would have had plenty of game press coverage if they just announced the changes without pulling this stupid stunting gimmick. Hell, RPS and Joystiq (among others) not only cover them regularly, but write about their weekend sales on a regular (almost weekly) basis.
This didn't get them more attention than it otherwise would have. The only thing this accomplished was to accumulate a lot of ill-will from their existing customers who don't take well to poor decisions like this, where they feel patronized. For me, it's not so much that they were pulling a stunt -- it's that it was so offensively stupid and poorly done. As if they really think that little of their consumers.
It's like people who pull "practical jokes" on April Fools day. Only, they're not so much jokes when their whole shtick is "hey, why are you at work today -- it's saturday! Hah! Just kidding, it's really Friday! GUFFAW GUFFAW GUFFAW HYUCK!".
I was a big fan of these guys, but I don't want to encourage or support douche-baggery. Best of luck to them in the future, and here's to hoping they figure out how to NOT suck at public relations.
Re:Unprofessional (Score:1, Insightful)
Why should a company that sells games act professionally? The sillier the better I say.
There's this fine line between "silly" and "explicitly deceitful". One makes you laugh, the other is horribly sleazy.
Re:Unprofessional (Score:3, Insightful)
Pretend you're going out of business when you're not? That's not silly, that's frustrating or unsettling.
Re:Unprofessional (Score:2, Insightful)
Why would you not purchase from them in the future? You pick a game, you buy it, and download it, and it's yours. DRM free. For life. You're not buying stock in the company. Or are your principles so rigid that you have to take a stance against every "wrong".
Re:Unprofessional (Score:4, Insightful)
Not a hoax, and not really a stunt... (Score:3, Insightful)
So far as I can tell, nothing they said was untrue, people just read more into it.
Re:Unintended consequences (Score:1, Insightful)
Forced compliance is not honesty.
Re:Unprofessional (Score:3, Insightful)
Why would you not purchase from them in the future?
Because the money you are giving to people who are willing to lie to you if it will put more cash in their own pockets could otherwise be spent on products from companies that have an ounce of respect for their customers. If you don't punish companies that cheat, the only companies that will survive are those that do.
Re:Unintended consequences (Score:4, Insightful)
Really? What boxed games say on the outside "warning includes securerom and may screw your machine"?
Re:The important part (Score:4, Insightful)
they did not lie.
they just said they couldn't keep the site the way it was.
it was the news (including /.) that said that they were closing.
Re:Unprofessional (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:The important part (Score:2, Insightful)
"We're closing down the service and putting this era behind us as new challenges await."
When was the last time you heard a company say something like that when announcing that their service was coming out of beta? Sure, if you parse it really carefully you can claim that it technically isn't a lie, but how did they expect it to be interpreted? If the news (like slashdot) misunderstood their intent, why didn't they put out an announcement contradicting it immediately?
Re:Lovely. (Score:3, Insightful)
You buy and download the game. It's yours. Forever. No matter what happens to GOG that game will still play on your PC
If Valve ever goes under, though, you're SOL. All your games will no longer work*.
*Yes, I know Valve could release DRM-removing updates on all their games if they start going under. Really think that'll be high on their list of priorities, though?
Re:Not a hoax, and not really a stunt... (Score:2, Insightful)
Mr. Seebs,
We regret to inform you that your position has been terminated. You will now be escorted from the building by security. Someday next week we will allow you to stop buy and get your things.
-HR
4 days later:
Mr Seebs,
Haha, you fell for it. You're actually being transferred to a different position with the same responsibility, and we needed to remodel your office. Sorry if you were offended, but nothing we said was untrue - your fault for reading too much into it.
-HR
Re:Lovely. (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Unprofessional (Score:3, Insightful)
Yeah... that was my last purchase from them.
^^
I don't buy appliances from the crazy neighborhood appliance store that's had a perpetual "going out of business sale" for the last three years, either.
Re:Unprofessional (Score:3, Insightful)
Or perhaps they were proving to the public that you didn't lose anything if they went away. You still had everything you purchased from them. That's huge, what with various DRM servers shutting down and removing content people thought they purchased.
Re:The important part (Score:3, Insightful)
Well, a download client that supports resume, hash checking and block based re-download of corrupted blocks _would_ be nice though. Especially because we are likely talking about multi-gig downloads.
It could still use plain http, and allow people to download the games using the web-browser. The extra download client would just add a bit of robustness.
Re:The important part (Score:4, Insightful)
First of all we would like to apologize everyone who felt deceived or harmed in any way by us closing down GOG.com without any warning and without giving access to your games. We apologize for that from the bottom of our hearts!
Sounds like they realise that they upset some people. When was the last time you got an apology like that from a company that made a mistake that didn't actually harm anyone?
Re:Unintended consequences (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Who cares? (Score:3, Insightful)
Nobody would *seriously* be inconvenienced if Netflix locks out their video streaming for 6 days. Or if Microsoft kills their Xbox Live access for 6 days. Or if their email provider/ISP locks out SMTP/POP3/IMAP/Webmail for 6 days. Or if FexEx/UPS refused to deliver anything to them for 6 days.
Would you seriously consider using any of those in the future?
Comment removed (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Unprofessional (Score:3, Insightful)
They did not lie. They withheld some facts (unless you actually bothered to ask them - they were actually quite forthcoming with the journalists who did, rather than jumping straight to the conclusion that they were going bust, rather than coming out of beta), but nothing on their announcement was an outright lie. And they made a very good point about DRM in doing so.
If they had been selling DRM'd games and had actually gone bust, all of their customers would have been screwed. As it is, the only 'problem' that people had was that they were unable to give GOG any more money for 150 hours. And yet you still whinge.
Re:Unprofessional (Score:2, Insightful)
They lied. I don't know about you, but people and businesses that lie to me get bumped all the way to the end of the 'my money & time' queue.
Re:Unprofessional (Score:4, Insightful)
Perhaps I'm missing something, but is this PR stunt really worse behavior than the competition or are you talking about not buying games from anybody?
The funniest part... (Score:5, Insightful)
...is the negative reactions now.
"Huff! Puff! Well, *I* won't be buying form them again after *this* treatment! Harumph!" Seriously, people, do you have any idea how you sound? Like a curmudgeonly old fool. Oh, you are SO offended! And you know *someone* out there is thinking of suing because their fragile little selves were damaged.
My reaction was "Oh, shoot, I was going to go and get Syberia next week." and then "Oh, cool, I can still get Syberia." Any reaction more serious that that is a complete failure of your perspective matrix.
As for Syberia, hey, I played the updated Monkey Island and now have an urge to go play some of the point and click puzzlers I missed. Weclome back, GOG. :-)
Re:Unprofessional (Score:3, Insightful)
As opposed to the companies that DRM the hell out of their products, refuse to give refunds if the aforementioned DRM prevents you from using it and fails to disclose the degree to which the DRM impacts the security of your computer?
Disgusting behavior is disgusting, even if the competition is worse.
Perhaps I'm missing something, but is this PR stunt really worse behavior than the competition or are you talking about not buying games from anybody?
They're selling games, not water; you can live without it. If you can't find any good options in the entire gaming industry, spend your entertainment dollars elsewhere. If you aren't willing to walk away when a company/industry treats you like crap, they'll just keep doing it.
Re:The important part (Score:3, Insightful)
What have they lost?
The chance to make a good impression the next time I hear about them?
Sounds like they realise that they upset some people. When was the last time you got an apology like that from a company that made a mistake that didn't actually harm anyone?
Sure, apologies are always nice, but I wouldn't call them that unusual. Hell, Verizon apologized to me just yesterday, because I got spam text messages on my phone. Verizon! And gave me a $5 credit, which is enough to counteract a lot of future spam, too.
Re:The important part (Score:5, Insightful)
Lighten up (Score:2, Insightful)
If all the haters actually understood what GOG is, as individuals, as a company, and as a service, compared to Steam, say, you'd grok what they do and just learn to accept the admittedly amateurish publicity stunt and just be glad they're not gone.
Who else is doing what GOG does? Where else are you going to get DRM-free, XP/Vista/7 compatible, inexpensive, absolutely great classic titles legitimately and with such good service?
If you want them to be professional and compete with Steam, they're doomed. Steam has "slick" covered. But if GOG tries to find its own niche, they have a fighting chance. GOG has to be different to do what they do.
Honestly, I don't like much like the stunt, either, but I am glad it was a stunt and not the more expected bankruptcy.
I'll take honest amateurism over shiny, slicked down professionalism any day of the week.
Re:Still won't use it (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:The important part (Score:3, Insightful)
Um, are you that dense? Their INTENT was to craft the announcement in such a way that people would assume they were shutting down. That's the thing that was supposed to give them the media coverage (as it indeed did). The fact that they technically didn't lie is a fact that should have only be noticeable in hindsight, which appears to have been how it worked.
Re:I never used GOG before... (Score:4, Insightful)
and I certainly won't start now. I'll stick with Steam, Valve doesn't have to stoop to such underhanded practices to gain popularity or even commercial viability. Never mind the fact that Steam will be around long after GOG is nothing but a footnote in gamer history.
This has got to be the most ignorant thing I've read in this thread. You do realize I'll be playing my games from GOG long after they're a "footnote in gamer history" whereas your Steam games will quit working soon after Valve goes tits-up, don't you? Playing offline will only work for so long before the Steam client demands a connection and there won't be any universal unlock forthcoming (I don't know why this myth even persists, it's ignorant in the extreme), they won't own their own assets when it happens and not a single person who could do it, supposing it's even possible, will be willing to go to prison to come through for you. GOG already came through for me, the games can be downloaded, backed up, and installed at will and only the downloading part even requires an internet connection.
Of course Valve/Steam doesn't even have to go down and out, you can lose your account and all your games on their whim. They've been nice so far but that doesn't mean it'll last forever. They're have certainly been wrongfully banned accounts in the past and the only "oops, our bad" I've heard from them involved 1000s of accounts. What happens when 5 accounts get wrongfully banned? They won't investigate and no one will care.
Enjoy Steam if you want, it may be a gilded cage but it's still a cage.
Re:As a loyal customer (Score:3, Insightful)
Part of why I love GOG is that I don't need to trust them. There is no DRM. I'm free to make my own backups and never visit their site again after purchasing a game. It doesn't matter if they go crazy and pull stupid stunts like this. It doesn't matter if they get bought out. It doesn't matter if the game's copyright holder gets into a snit and pulls the title. I still have my backup. This is as it should be.
Yes, it was a stupid stunt. But a rational consumer has to assume that eventually every business is going to try and screw you. Take defensive measures. Prefer businesses that don't need your trust beyond a single transaction. I remain satisified with my purchases from GOG, and I hope they pick up more classic games I'd love to play.
Re:The important part (Score:3, Insightful)
Now, in the future, when a store like GoG offers 'retro' games like Borderlands, Dragon Age, etc., and Comcast/AT&T/Time Warner/etc. have their way and never upgrade from current speeds... yeah, those error correcting features will be VERY handy.