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DRM Games

GOG's Preservation Program Is the DRM-Free Store Refocusing On the Classics (arstechnica.com) 36

Posted by BeauHD from the good-old-games dept.
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: The classic PC games market is "in a sorry state," according to DRM-free and classic-minded storefront GOG. Small games that aren't currently selling get abandoned, and compatibility issues arise as technology moves forward or as one-off development ideas age like milk. Classic games are only 20 percent of GOG's catalog, and the firm hasn't actually called itself "Good Old Games" in 12 years. And yet, today, GOG announces that it is making "a significant commitment of resources" toward a new GOG Preservation Program. It starts with 100 games for which GOG's own developers are working to create current and future compatibility, keeping them DRM-free and giving them ongoing tech support, along with granting them a "Good Old Game: Preserved by GOG" stamp.

GOG is not shifting its mission of providing a DRM-free alternative to Steam, Epic, and other PC storefronts, at least not entirely. But it is demonstrably excited about a new focus that ties back to its original name, inspired in some part by its work on Alpha Protocol. "We think we can significantly impact the classics industry by focusing our resources on it and creating superior products," writes Arthur Dejardin, head of sales and marketing at GOG. "If we wanted to spread the DRM-free gospel by focusing on getting new AAA games on GOG instead, we would make little progress with the same amount of effort and money (we've been trying various versions of that for the last 5 years)."

What kind of games? Scanning the list of Good Old Games, most of them are, by all accounts, both good and old. Personally, I'm glad to see the Jagged Alliance games, System Shock 2, Warcraft I & II, Dungeon Keeper Gold and Theme Park, SimCity 3000 Unlimited, and the Wing Commander series (particularly, personally, Privateer). Most of them are, understandably, Windows-only, though Mac support extends to 34 titles so far, and Linux may pick up many more through Proton compatibility, beyond the 19 native titles to date. [...] [I]f you see the shiny foil-ish GOG badge on a game, it's an assurance that GOG has done all it can to bring forward a classic title. It's important work, too. "Preserving" games doesn't just mean locking a stable media in a vault, but keeping games accessible, and playable.
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GOG's Preservation Program Is the DRM-Free Store Refocusing On the Classics More

GOG's Preservation Program Is the DRM-Free Store Refocusing On the Classics

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  • I see they have what appears to be the DOS version of Ultima 6, but I would prefer the Amiga version of that one. There are several classic games of this era which had arguably better Amiga ports, and it would be nice to see some of the same preservation effort applied to them as well. Am I wrong, do they actually have some Amiga titles buried in this catalog too, or not?

    • I thought the Amiga port of U6 was the bad one?

    • I see they have what appears to be the DOS version of Ultima 6, but I would prefer the Amiga version of that one. There are several classic games of this era which had arguably better Amiga ports, and it would be nice to see some of the same preservation effort applied to them as well. Am I wrong, do they actually have some Amiga titles buried in this catalog too, or not?

      1.) Is not only DOS/Windows, there are some Mac and Linux (even native linux) gam,es too.

      2.) As for amiga, any games that use SCUMM VM can handle amiga games fine. If an amiga version of such a game is the superior one, there is no technicall limitation for GoG to use that version, perhaps licensing, but that is a whole other can of worms...

      • Re: Not bad, but DOS/Windows games only, apparentl (Score:4, Informative)

        by vbdasc ( 146051 ) on Thursday November 14, 2024 @02:17AM (#64944573)

        For GOG, offering Amiga games implies distributing and supporting an Amiga emulator, and this might be a non-trivial task, particularly if they never distributed Amiga titles before.

        • Re: (Score:3)

          by mccalli ( 323026 )
          They could partner with Cloanto and their "Amiga Forever" package. Would be quite an interesting tie-up actually.

          With Amiga the ROMs are still copyrighted and you'd need to license them legally (which is cheap - I can't remember how much, but I licensed them years ago for a very modest fee) so if GOG sold an "Amiga add-on" package they could include the fee.

        • Re: (Score:3)

          by AmiMoJo ( 196126 )

          From memory the Amiga ROMs are currently licensed to a few different companies, so GOG could probably obtain such a license to distribute them. I have no idea what the terms are though, they might want too much money for it to be worth it.

          For emulation, WinUAE works great and isn't difficult to bundle so you double click and it launches the game. You can even script stuff so that it runs at maximum speed while the machine boots, and then goes back to 100% speed (the same as a real Amiga). The emulation is e

    • > DOS version of Ultima 6, but I would prefer the Amiga version of that one.

      Why? VGA 320x200 @ 256 colors with an 18-bit Palette + Roland MT-32 is vastly superior to the Amiga version.

    • Re:Not bad, but DOS/Windows games only, apparently (Score:4)

      by Kisai ( 213879 ) on Thursday November 14, 2024 @12:41PM (#64945723)

      Amiga ROM's are not Public Domain. You will NEVER see the Amiga, Mac, or Atari versions of any game on GOG.

      You will only see:
      MSDOS versions of games using an out-of-date version of DOSBOX, that is actually NOT running optimally.

      It is possible for GOG to do these too, but I have not seen it:
      Apple II/C64 versions that were written in BASIC that are running on a "native" BASIC interpreter, for which only I think one exists for the C64.
      VM's versions of games using SCUMMVM. So some games that have the same game but a different interpreter on each system will run on SCUMMVM, though usually not perfect. Examples include actual SCUMM games and Sierra AGI/SGI games.
      Arcade games for which the original publisher has permitted the sale of the game ROM as a stand-alone thing for use in MAME (which is pretty much unheard of)
      SEGA published titles since it no longer makes it's own hardware. SEGA is a little bit weird though because they've both released games they own with substandard emulators you could just yoink the ROM's from and run it on anything you so please, but they've also discontinued these from Steam.
      DISNEY published titles, since they no longer make games. The "Disney Afternoon" stuff they released a while back either does not work, or barely works because their software emulators UI locks up.
      CAPCOM published titles of NES/SNES/GBC/GBA vintage (Namely Rockman/Megaman and Street Fighter series)
      KONAMI published titles (Castlevania, Bomberman, Contra), big shrug here, since they seem more interested in licensing the IP and never releasing old stuff.

      Pretty Much what GOG should be doing, or trying to do is acquire the rights to sell and publish all the 8-bit and 16-bit era games from any platform. Because of how Nintendo, and Apple for that matter work. There is ZERO chance of there ever being a legal Nintendo-developed title on a PC, and likewise anything for the Mac-only has pretty much gone extinct.

      Amiga games live on, if only because the hardware is marginally harder to emulate than a Mac Classic or a Sega Genesis. Unfortunately there has never been a way to get the Amiga ROM's or the Kickstart OS legally without buying an Amiga hardware, or whoever owns the rights to it now. So we just won't ever see it.

      As for Ultima 6. The MSDOS version is fiddly, but you can make it work, as well as Martian Dreams and Savage Empire (all three of these use the same engine.) The problem is GOG configures games to be Adlib or General Midi mode instead of MT-32, so when you play these games out of the box, they sound nothing like they are supposed to. Download DOSBOX-ECE or DOSBOX-Staging and use the recommended Fluidsynth or MT-32 settings (MT-32 will still require getting access to the Roland MT-32 ROM's, but the copyright on those has kind of fallen into a "we don't talk about it."

  • Linux (Score:3)

    by markdavis ( 642305 ) on Wednesday November 13, 2024 @08:14PM (#64944115)

    >"and Linux may pick up many more through Proton compatibility, beyond the 19 native titles to date."

    Hmm, I went there: https://www.gog.com/en/games?s... [gog.com] and chose Linux and it showed me 2,379 Linux games. Granted some are duplicates, and others are "soundtracks." If I check the "Good Old Games" tickbox, then I see the "19" mentioned. So what are all the other thousands?

    • Probably just the ones that haven't been personally verified by their staff, or have been checked and Proton bugs were found.

  • Wary of this (Score:3)

    by Kamineko ( 851857 ) on Wednesday November 13, 2024 @09:28PM (#64944231)

    I'm wary of this. The last thing I want is my newly-compatibilised GOG game to run on Windows 10 but lose support for 7. What I want is GOG to spend equal effort getting the older titles running on their original target systems, then -XP or 7- specifically, with modern Windows support following naturally from those OSes. Some of the GOG titles like Jazz 2 won't install on their original destined OS (200 mhz pentium) because the GOG installer doesn't support Windows 98. That's not good.

    And definitely they should always keep the full update history of every item available in a dropdown on the GOG -website- interface, not Galaxy. The last thing I want is GOG to make my GOG library -not- work on the computers I already own in pursuit of compatibility with computers I don't.

    • If there's a version of software on GoG you want to preserve, grab it and archive it locally.

    • A couple of years ago, I bought something from GOG. I didn't like the installer, so I went and downloaded the same game again from a p*rate site. In the end, I got the game exactly as I wanted it, plus I could play it legally, plus my conscience was happy. A win-win-win.

  • After a recent purchase, it would appear to me that they've already shifted their focus away from DRM-free. After going through the (significant)effort to download a purchase and finding out it will crash immediately without internet, I read the reviews which revealed I am not alone. Not only does the title not start if offline, the title is continually uploading "telemetry" as you play and the game will stop working if your connection drops. Now, on another title, I've found that they've dramatically chan

    • That's a publisher decision. Plus it's nearly impossible to get a Unity title without telemetry now. Though most of those titles should run without an Internet connection.

      You can still store and copy offline backups, meaning no actual DRM is present.

      • I can copy and store DRM-ridden steam titles. You might not know what DRM means in a practical sense. It's absolutely GOG's decision to list these games on a page on which it is stated that activation is not required and that DRM is not present.

        • No, you can't copy and store Denuvo or Steam guard titles. You at least need the Steam client software to run the stuff. Example: Pathfinder Wrath of the Righteous has Unity telemetry (which I firewall) and you can run it without Galaxy or an Internet connection.

          • You absolutely can copy and store steamguard titles. Running them, that's where you need permission from steam. The ethical problem with GOG is they're selling some single player games which, even after you've acquired all the necessary windows components(which from a game preservation standpoint you shouldn't need), it's still going to need to ask permission from wherever the fark ever, either that first launch, or perpetually as you play.

            • Then what's the point? If you don't even phone home you can't run the local copy. Plus I don't think you can store installers + patches like you can with GoG. You need a fully installed copy that's much harder to back up.

              Yeah I get it, you don't like the telemetry. If GoG didn't allow it, they wouldn't get anything new except a few rare titles and a lot of shovel ware. Everyone reports on the titles with telemetry. Avoid them if you so choose.

              • What's the point of having extremely large files already present? I didn't mention telemetry in my last post. I mentioned it once. I'm talking about games that GOG sells on pages that say "no activation - drm free" which in fact require activation or perpetual server permission.
                • Start naming some titles bub. No-one can help you if you are going to keep the names to yourself.
                  • Oh I didn't know I was asking for "help" because there are more popular titles there's no way they don't know are this way(need activation, perpetual server pings to even work at all). These are conscious decisions by GOG.

      • Plus it's nearly impossible to get a Unity title without telemetry now.

        You could just pihole those. Or (if using linux) use unshare -r -n when launching the game through wine. I personally use the latter and have it built in to a script for launching each game. Have yet to find a GOG title that won't run in that condition.

    • What games were these?

  • Synchronistically Warcraft 1 [battle.net] and Warcraft 2 [battle.net] got remastered and are available today. You can gift them but you can't gift the Warcraft Remastered Battle Chest [slashdot.org] which includes 5 games.

  • To be precise (Score:3)

    by NotEmmanuelGoldstein ( 6423622 ) on Thursday November 14, 2024 @01:27AM (#64944541)

    ... getting new AAA games on GOG ...

    To be precise, GOG don't just list software that publishers have stopped selling. GOG get the rights to abandon-ware, update the installer file, then bully all the abandon-ware sites into deleting their copy. I suppose, it's great that someone is making old software DRM-free, available and compatible.

    • Re: (Score:3)

      by mccalli ( 323026 )
      > "then bully all the abandon-ware sites into deleting their copy"

      Could you elaborate on that at all? I've never heard that before - not saying not happening, just curious.
      • Years ago, I visited DOS abandon-ware sites regularly. One day, a game would disappear, from all of them: Several times, an internet search revealed that game was now only available on GOG: $8 was a common price-point, IIRC.

        I don't think it's coincidence that game disappeared from independent repositories (IIRC, that included the Internet Archive, at least one time.) simultaneously. If GOG has rights to software, they can use the DMCA against other people who happen to hold the software.

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by tlhIngan ( 30335 )

          Years ago, I visited DOS abandon-ware sites regularly. One day, a game would disappear, from all of them: Several times, an internet search revealed that game was now only available on GOG: $8 was a common price-point, IIRC.

          I don't think it's coincidence that game disappeared from independent repositories (IIRC, that included the Internet Archive, at least one time.) simultaneously. If GOG has rights to software, they can use the DMCA against other people who happen to hold the software.

          Did they actually bu

  • Good amount of Mac games, but my system is too new to be able to play...bummer.
    • Mac OS emulation isn't particularly good. For pretty much anything before OSX, you need some version of the ROM, (Oldworld for anything older than Mac OS 7, Newworld 8 and 9.) as they don't HLE it. (The ROM is required because it contains some of the assets used by the Finder.) That means GOG would need to license the ROM from Apple. (Which we all know is highly unlikely to happen.)

      For early versions of OSX you need a Power PC emulator. PearPC is one, but it stopped development years ago, and never really

  • Almost like there was a clue in their name as to their original mission/purpose.

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