DRM-Free Classic Games Store Opens To Public 122
arcticstoat writes "With all the controversy surrounding DRM in games at the moment, one games store has decided to buck the trend, proudly proclaiming that all its games are DRM-free. First announced back in July, Good Old Games is now in the public beta stage, which means that anyone can now access the site's archive of classic PC games, and you can do what you want with your game when you've bought it, too. 'You won't find any intrusive copy protection in our games; we hate draconian DRM schemes just as much as you do,' says the site. 'Once you download a game, you can install it on any PC and re-download it whenever you want, as many times as you need, and you can play it without an internet connection.'"
In related news, Stardock, the company responsible for the Gamer's Bill of Rights, is apparently working on a new copy-protection solution that will be friendlier to consumers than current schemes.
Whoa (Score:5, Informative)
I'm pretty surprised that they managed to get all these out on the start. I expected one or two good games, but whoa, Descent? Earthworm Jim? Fallout? Gothic? MDK? Operation Flashpoint? Shogo?
It's like I died and got zombified in the better part of the 90's!
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I've been reading magazines that occassionally came with a free game for so long that I already have most of the games you listed without going out to purchase them...
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Re:Whoa (Score:4, Informative)
I just downloaded the Descent and Descent 2 package, and yes they do indeed use DOSBox.
There are ports of it with open GL other dos games (Score:2)
There are ports of it with open GL
http://www.descent2.de/d2x.html [descent2.de]
http://www.dxx-rebirth.de/ [dxx-rebirth.de]
A few other dos games have windows ports as well.
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They apparently all run under XP and Vista:
http://www.gog.com/en/about_us/#4 [gog.com]
4. All games are Vista and XP compatible.
Thanks to our handsome programming team, the classics are now Windows Vista and Windows XP compatible. Now you can use your lightning-fast PC to unleash the full potential of those games you just couldnâ(TM)t play properly on that busted old 386.
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A good selection and a good price ($6 each). The one question remaining is, what platform do they require?
You mean: does it run on linux?
That's what I'd like to know too, actually.
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Just wanted to add that I bought Descent Freespace 2 from GoG and was able to use a FOSS third party interpreter to run the game asset files with a different executable. I don't remember the exact interpreter I used (I think it was on Sourceforge) but it's multiplatform including Linux and maybe Mac. Many of the games on GoG include the unmodified asset files which might be compatible with various community projects.
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http://scp.indiegames.us/ [indiegames.us]
I believe it also supports Windows, OS X and Linux
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Most of them advertise XP/Vista compatability, but that's not always entirely true. Freespace and Freespace 2, for example, say that they work with XP and Vista and do so long as your computer doesn't have more than three gigabytes of RAM. Their support was unhelpful as well: I sent in the bug report, got one message back asking me a question, I sent back an answer, and never heard from them again.
I eventually found the cause of the problem via Google, luckily. Now, in this particular case the Freespace ope
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But the most interesting thing is this: Soldiers: Heroes of World War 2. This game used to have Starforce on it. Wouldn't it be great if it sold more now than before the DRM was removed? Seriously, check the game out, the level of destruction and interaction is almost crazy.
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But the most interesting thing is this: Soldiers: Heroes of World War 2. This game used to have Starforce on it. Wouldn't it be great if it sold more now than before the DRM was removed? Seriously, check the game out, the level of destruction and interaction is almost crazy.
I bought this game recently. Its now also available to download off the codemasters website (1400Mb).
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I'm pretty surprised that they managed to get all these out on the start. I expected one or two good games, but whoa, Descent? Earthworm Jim? Fallout? Gothic? MDK? Operation Flashpoint? Shogo?
Fallout 1 and 2 are particularly nicely times with the release of FO3. Lots of people will want to play the originals again.
It's like I died and got zombified in the better part of the 90's!
They don't have Baldur's Gate and Torment yet, but I hope they soon will.
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Fallout 1 and 2 are particularly nicely times with the release of FO3. Lots of people will want to play the originals again.
I wonder who the money goes to, though... In the case of Fallout 1 and 2, certainly not the developer, since Black Isle is long gone. So.. whoever hold distribution rights now, is that sill Interplay or did they sell everything to Bethesda? My point being, if your rationale for paying for games is supporting the devs, then buying some of these classics may not do that at all.
Re:Whoa (Score:4, Insightful)
I wonder who the money goes to, though... In the case of Fallout 1 and 2, certainly not the developer, since Black Isle is long gone. So.. whoever hold distribution rights now, is that sill Interplay or did they sell everything to Bethesda? My point being, if your rationale for paying for games is supporting the devs, then buying some of these classics may not do that at all.
Could be. Supporting the devs is probably best done by buying within a year of release. But by buying you might still give a signal that there's a demand for this kind of game.
Re:Whoa (Score:5, Insightful)
Since when did one need a rationale for paying for things that cost money?
It's pirates who have to go to extra lengths to justify their behaviour, not purchasers.
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Since when did one need a rationale for paying for things that cost money?
Ummm... Because I can buy all the games listed for about $5 on Ebay or pirate them all for free. If the money doesn't support the devs, why should I pay the new price for it when I can either buy it used or pirate the thing.
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Yes, because these are selling for the "new" price.
Read. The games are all 5.99.
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Because piracy is not proper an alternative to purchasing. Not buying is a good alternative. Pirating a game - especially one that's available in a convenient form at a more-than-reasonable price - just proves that really no matter what argument you use, you're just a cheap loser who doesn't want to shell out cash and has to come up with stupid arguments to justify your behavior.
Buying on eBay is another story, but really I doubt the prices on there are much better than most of the games on this site.
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You'd rather pay $5 (plus shipping) and deal with ebay, paypal, and an unknown seller than pay $6 to download them?
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Does not economics presume a "rational actor", acting in his or her self-interest? If I can choose between getting X for free and paying for X, then if I'm acting in my rational self-interest, I've got to take the free version unless there's some other consequence.
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Does not economics presume a "rational actor", acting in his or her self-interest? If I can choose between getting X for free and paying for X, then if I'm acting in my rational self-interest, I've got to take the free version unless there's some other consequence.
If your entire life was a simulation, then maybe.
Of course, a rational actor might also realize that a functioning society was a benefit. You don't HAVE to do anything.
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Are you suggesting that paying someone who was completely uninvolved with the creation of a work, and who will not pass any of that payment on to the creators, is somehow necessary or sufficient for a "functioning society"?
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Do you know for sure that none of the payment will go to the creators? I would suspect it doesn't either, but I would hope that some of the redistribution of "old games", e.g. the old games on the Nintendo download system, were made available for some relatively low price + a cut of sales. (That is, the new publisher presumably had to do some work to get it to work in the emulator since they're not always perfect.. but would have to pay less of an up front cost to get the rights to redistribute the game.)
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100 sure? No. But since the copyright holders would have been the company, not the actual creators, I can't see any way this would have benefited the creators. They almost certainly got their compensation via salary long ago
When the law is bad, blind obedience to it is detrimental to a functioning society.
Because Incentives Influence Behavior (Score:2, Insightful)
How about this rationale: By increasing the profit potential for really good games (even a decade after their original release!), we encourage game companies to make more really good games. Otherwise they'll just focus on short-term gains with yet another Sims expansion pack.
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It's like I died and got zombified in the better part of the 90's!
So that was you in that Micheal Jackson video!
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You're Missing A Point (Score:4, Insightful)
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Hmm there's a new dir on this ftp server that ... you know ... I know nothing about ...
GOG games [all of them] [full version]
Wonder what's in there.
Re:You're Missing A Point (Score:5, Interesting)
for the sake of $6-$10 I'd just pay it. If that is more money going to the original creators, or even just stores that explicitly sell their games as DRM free, then I think it's a good thing.
Anyone could get virtually any game, movie, album or TV program for free if they wanted. It's just that not everybody is a dick.
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Onward regardless, some of us would like to support a business model that gives us what we want without treating us like criminals.
You don't have a right to have these games for free, the price is fair, and there are not any limitations on the product. Why NOT pay for them? at $5.99 per game you could easily be paying that for your warez just in bandwidth!
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some of us would like to support a business model that gives us what we want without treating us like criminals.
That. Right there. Please mod parent up, totally nailed it.
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I'm "a dick" to you anyway, whether or not I steal any games. You see, I do not share your opinions and I exist, therefore you are forced to deal with me.
That makes no sense. I wasn't forced to deal with you, I chose to reply.
I actually am friends with plenty of people who have differing opinions on this matter - some who despise downloading, some who do it all the time with no remorse. I have even downloaded stuff illegally sometimes (I didn't say I can't be a dick sometimes too *shrug*), but these days I prefer to actually support those who make content that I enjoy. I said that people who download things for free are being dicks because they are leeching
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So? What's your point? How long will those torrents or FTP servers stay up? GOG has a longer chance of being active than either of those two options. So essentially GOG is still easier to use than the alternatives. Everything is done for you. You pay a small fee.
The time you spent trolling on here, you could've spent that time earning $6.
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For the DOS games they're selling, they're actually using a bundled version of DOSBox anyway. It's the same kind of setup as the DOS games available through Steam.
Assume for a moment that I don't already own a copy of one of these games, and I don't want to pirate it. Buying a copy from GoG is much simpler than trying to track down a copy of the original.
Once you have that (and I don't see any requirement for using Windows to download the games themselves) you can take the original files and do whatever you
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One great thing about it would be if you can download more than once per purchase. If not, well, that's ok, you should have a copy burnt or backed up.
What I really want to see are games like Civ 1/2/3, Alpha Centauri + Alien Crossfire (and a linux version too!), and other "big hits" up to 2000. I'm wondering if they could sell a Half-Life 1 complete set too; that would be really cool. I don't know if it's even available outside of possibly Steam, and I missed out on it... (speaking of which, would an old Pe
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You can download the games as many times as you like once you've purchased it.
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Both the Nintendo and Sony download services seem to be doing exactly that, I think. (Well, the current PS3s aren't backwardly compatible with the PS2, so I'm not sure if that's definitely there.. But the Nintendo one does have classic game downloads. I do see downloads on the PS3 one too -- but at least some look like remakes, e.g. the remake of the _original_ Prince of Persia with new graphics.)
Re:No DRM? (Score:5, Insightful)
No DRM? Good news for pirates!
No, good news for honest buyers.
Let's divide people into three groups: those who buy, those who make the pirated (DRM-free) version, and those who pirate.
Those who buy will now get a better product.
Those who pirate never see the DRM in the first place.
Those who make the pirated version will have an easier time; this benefits the pirates ever so slightly, but DRM is often defeated faster than you can say Yo-Ho, so the benefit is ever so slight.
The real winners, whenever DRM is removed, are the honest consumers.
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Those who pirate never see the DRM in the first place.
Sure they do, I just proved it to you.
yeah, but if you're a pirate, then mounting a DVD image of one more game isn't a huge effort, as you've already got the relevant software set up for your other pirated games.
The original point still holds true...DRM is more of a hassle to legitimate purchasers than it is to pirates.
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That really does depend on the DRM, though. I quite agree that the best option is no DRM, but that's not to say that all DRM is equally bad.
The DRM in Mass Effect was a right pain. Forget the limited-activations issue -- it nearly prevented me from activating the game once, thanks to a locale-related bug that suggests that the underlying code is incredibly poorly written. I shall never play another game that uses SecuROM, period.
On the
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Just out of curiosity, I know you can download steam games again, but can you make a backup of it and authenticate with the steam client? Do games install as like, %\Portal\ and then you can back that up or move it around, but it would require you to connect with steam and prove you own (log on and authenticate I guess?) it to actually work?
Wondering because I have a capped plan, and I'm not alone, so downloading even 10GB of games is not an option some times.
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Here's why (Score:2)
I think it was flamebait because people disagree with you. Not that this is how it should work, but this is how it works.
I'm too tired to address the point I made, but others have essentially done it for me.
Happy /dotting :)
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Nonsense. We pirates have had free access to all these things for years. I guarantee you there's not one game in their catalog that's not freely and easily available on the internet. So really, there's absolutely no point to putting DRM on it.
But I'm not sure there's much point to selling these old games either. Everyone involved with their creation got paid and moved on many years ago, so there's not really a moral imperative to reward the creators. I'd feel guilty if I pirated a new retro style game,
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Actually, bad news for pirates. Much of the motivation for those who crack games is the challenge of defeating copy protection, and the kudos they get for supplying the game to others. Defeating DRM is a game in itself. Where's the challenge now?
Furthermore, it's easy to justify pirating a game when it is sold for a high price with intrusive, annoying copy protection schemes. You can make the case that it could be damaging your computer, or that you hate being forced to play off of the CD, or that the game
Freespace FTW (Score:3, Informative)
I bought Freespace 1/2 off of GOG and played it on my Mac through FS2_Open, the open sourced FS engine... a kick ass game, in beautiful high res graphics. This is how all abandonware should work ;).
And it sure as hell beat the X-Wing / Tie-Fighter series out of the water in terms of innovative mission design.
Plus, their site is really slick, clean and easy to use.
a little high for some of these old games... (Score:2)
The price is a bit on the high side for some of the old games. Battle chess for $6?
Now that the canadian dollar has tanked again, that's closer to $20.
I might be a little more interested in buying some of the really old games for something more in the neighbourhood of $3.
You can get a sale on steam sometimes for some new indie games around $6-$8.
Re:a little high for some of these old games... (Score:4, Insightful)
And how would they make a profit from that price? I imagine the publisher / developer needs to get a slice of the pie too. And then there's the cost of the servers, etc... That $3 would be eaten up fast with likely little to not profit being made.
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its a 44 mb file.. storage is trivial, bandwidth is trivial on that. The other more recent games (games as recent as 2004 and actually worth $10). I imagine that the publisher/developer takes a percentage and not a fixed fee per game. You make it up in volume that is how business works. You don't make the same profit on every single item in your store.
Some items you sell few of but are high margin, other items are low margin but you move in high volume. At $3 battle chess is an impulse buy with some other g
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At $3 battle chess is an impulse buy with some other game, at $6 I'm going to take fall out before I take battle chess.
-shrug-
meh, 3$ 6$, whatever. Either is an impulse buy price for me. And I like the single price point model for classic games.
Sure I might buy twice as many games at 3$ than I would at $6... but so what? That doesn't make THEM any more money... and indeed will cost them more in overhead... transaction fees, bandwidth etc. $5.99 is a pretty solid price.
When I went to the site, although I was
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Yes, but with some $3 games you might be more inclined to buy a $3 game and a $6 game. than just 1 $6 game. There is nothing wrong with targeting various price points and frankly you'd have a hard time trying to convince me that fallout and battle chess have the same value as far as a video game go.
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Give it time. By starting the store at these prices, they can then have sales later, "buy one $6 game, get one from this other set for $3."
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Indeed, $6 has been more or less the agreed upon price for the last couple decades. Which is really less expensive now than it was back then.
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They'd just ship them in Dosbox anyway. Might as well download them if they're not going to sell them to you. Dosbox should even support your USB joystick.
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I'm pretty sure you can get X-com on Steam now. Don't remember the price.
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I never stated they would get a fixed fee, just that other people have to be paid besides the people at GOG for this service to even be available.
I'm not entirely sure loss leaders would work in this type of environment for an extended period of time.
And you still don't address how GOG would make money from that $3 price tag. What? Because you mention a little about volume and percentages? Why would a developer even choose to sell their IP on this service if they're not going to be making a decent amount of
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Who said anything about a loss leader? You can't make up a loss leader in volume. I said that its likely that each party is paid a percentage. I have no idea what that percentage is, but its extremely unlikely that the cost of storage for a 44 mb file and the cost to transmit it would be more than their share of $3. If it is there is no way they're making any profit on storing and transmitting a 500 MB file for twice as much at $6. Fallout is well known, its really close to being their flagship game right n
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The loss leader comment was bit of hyperbole, so relax. Even at your suggested price, it just probably ends up as an endeavor that wasn't worth it. There is the initial development and testing to consider. At $3, sure, that might be covered, but in what time frame? And from there does it look like a wasted effort? Just because it's profitable doesn't mean that it was a wise decision to make.
Your complaint about the price is ultimately irrelevant. You have failed to take into consideration some mitigating fa
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Not sure what part of Canada you live in, but where I am, $6 US is about $7.65 Canadian. (With the dollar at 78.5 cents today...)
If an extra $1.65 is a big problem, you might want to save your money for more Kraft Dinner...
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I'm not anymore, but the rate is far different from when I left 4.5 months ago when we were sitting at par. I hadn't been paying much attention to it at all until I went to make a web purchase recently and found out that the exchange was vastly different on my credit cards now. But that does bring paying for Battle chess to almost $8, which is far and above what a 20ish year old game is worth.
Fallout:Tactics works for me in Crossover Games (Score:1)
So, it's probably fine in standard Wine too once you have your configuration solid.
Oh, and this is on my Mac , CrossOver Games 7.1 from codeweavers.com :D
Thanks GoG!
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Do you know if Crossover will run on a PS3? It's got a PPC core...
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Crossover (or Wine in general) isn't an emulator, just a program loader and a bunch of libraries (the Win16, Win32, and NT DLLs) that are all x86 and designed to link with x86 applications. Short answer: No.
On the flip side, a lot of these games are DOS based, and DOSBox, an open-source 286/386 emulator, does work on PPC. True emulation costs performance, of course, but given the speed these games were designed to run at any modern CPU should have more than enough clock speed.
Does anybody know if it's possi
Wait, isn't Freepace 2 already free? (Score:1)
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Yes, according to the EULA it can be freely redistributed. But since GOG started selling it, it looks like the places that were hosting it stopped in favor of directing people to GOG. $6 is plenty reasonable anyway.
Really good! (Score:1)
I've been using GOG since they released the private beta, and it's really good!
Being an "old-but-not-pacman-old-school" gammer, I just loved the fact that I can get some old favorites for a very reasonable price, and without DRM!
I even got the chance to buy Messiah, wich I never got to play, although I can remember the hype quite clearly ;)
It's a really great project and I'm looking forward to see even more oldies-but-goldies on GOG.
The industry should really wake up and realize that we the people still enj
Slightly off-topic (Score:1)
DRM free? (Score:1)
Very interesting. So in 10 years I can get Spore or Bioshock from them and it won't have any DRM?
Needs more (Score:3, Insightful)
Looks good so far, but their library is still a little limited. I still have copies of most of the games I'd want to buy.
Now if they get access to Sierra and LucasArts' back catalogue, then we're in business.
perfect for netbooks (Score:2, Interesting)
this site is tops (Score:4, Informative)
I signed up and bought Hostile Waters on Thursday.
GoG.com is easily the best online buying experience I have ever had.
The selection is quite good but currently limited (I already own 20 of the 40+ titles). Most titles are $6, with a few more recent ones at $10.
The site design itself is excellent, with a global wishlist, ratings, reviews, and forums. Buying was totally painless.
Games are DRM-free downloads, pre-patched, XP/Vista compatible, come with installers, have extra download materials (like manuals), and get game-specific support sections and forums.
I'll definitely be shopping there again.
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I logged in and read Bobtree's review of GoG.com on Saturday.
This review is easily the best online reading experience I have ever had.
Reading was totally painless.
AAA+++++++ Would read again.
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Totally worth supporting!
Any news on Blood? (Score:1)
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Good luck on that front, people have been barking up that tree for years.
Nothing by Origin Systems? (Score:2)
Geezus, I am getting old.
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Stardock != Starforce
Re:NO mention of their use of dosbox on their site (Score:1, Informative)
Don't hurt yourself while getting off your high horse:
http://www.gog.com/en/thanks/ [gog.com]
Their thanks page specifically mentions DOSBox.
Are you going to part with some of those dollars now or do you just like to complain?
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Yup, you just like to bitch.
The fact is, 99% of the people using GOG aren't going to care about DOSBOX. The only thing they care about is that they have a hassle free way of getting their favorite classics to run on their newer PC. That little thanks that you expect on every single page will just clutter the layout
Besides, their thanks page isn't hidden. Using hyperbole to drive home your bitchiness doesn't make it your point any more valid.
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Well, I guess that answers the grandparent's question to you. The link to the Thanks page is on the bottom of every single page, including for their forums. It seems quite appropriate to me.
If the Dosbox team didn't want this sort of thing to happen then they could have specified that it was free for non-commercial use only.
That took me a whole 2 minutes. (Score:4, Informative)
Look harder. [gog.com] Linked from the front page and everything.