Good Old Games is dead

[Martok]

A Neoseeker report includes an interesting comment:

Update: GOG's PR man Tom Ohle has responded, saying, "As the message on the site says, this doesn't mean GOG is gone. We'll have more to share in the coming days. No need to jump to conclusions :)"

Rumors are floating about this is actually a cleverly worded (and cruel) PR stunt for announcing the site going out of beta, which was due anytime now.

[frogbeastegg]

Yes, pieces are emerging on sites which, when put together, suggest that this is all nothing more than a stunt. Grrr!

According to translations from a Polish site CDProjekt has been brought by another company. They own GoG. GoG was one of the few profitable sections of their business so the new owners are not keen to close it or risk that profitability. Since that takeover CDProjekt's shares have doubled in value. Financial areas have been warned to ignore anything that appears on the GoG site for the next few days; one would assume this is to protect share value before the big reveal.

Recently there have been hints on GoG's own forums etc that something big was about to arrive, something cast as good news. Most assumed they would exit beta, or had signed a big publisher. They were still behaving like a company which knows it has a future.

There's a big announcement coming at a conference too. It's hinted it is linked to GoG.

Finally, there's the comments like the one quoted above where people 'in the know' are suggesting that something will continue, just in a different form.

Strange situation. I don't know which angers me more - losing the site, or this being a stunt. If it's a stunt it is likely to backfire; a lot of people may well decide that they don't want further dealings with GoG since they toy with their customers like this. If they're introducing DRM of some sort and hoped that this would disarm the disappointment (i.e. people would be so pleased the site survived that they would accept whatever 'terms' were necessary) then they are crazy! Far better to announce "Well, our parent company has been taken over and our new owners want DRM. Sorry, guys, we tried but our hands were forced."

If any of this is true then they've taken down the store - and blocked people's access to the games they do own - to save their servers from being hammered by panicking customers. Thinking of saving their costs rather than preventing panic.

Scummy. And from a company which otherwise has a great reputation of treating customers well.

[Husar]

As long as nothing stops you guys from being annoyed anyway, everything is fine, right?
I'll just wait and see, haven't bought all that much from them but I'd grant them a PR stunt, the whole thing about introducing DRM seems like nothing more than speculation, the site is down now and how it continues we will see, I'm certainly not going to get annoyed prematurely. Going out of beta doesn't seem like a big thing if all it does is remove the word "beta" from the site logo...

[Monk]

A Neoseeker report includes an interesting comment:

You need some serious to close down your store, block access to games people bought (and rightfully own) then tell people not to jump to conclusions. I've never done business with GoG before but if this is some kind of PR stunt I never will.

[Husar]

Since some of you are probably too annoyed by the mere existance of Facebook to ever get close to it, here is what they posted there:

The official statement from GOG.com's management about the whole situation will be announced
soon. We'll have more details about this tomorrow.

I'd say innocent until proven guilty, if this annoys you, my advice is to never buy something digital via download ever, if you do there's always a risk that the site may vanish for a day or two or even forever. And if being able to download things you bought again and again then I'd say avoid the iTunes music and movie (not app) store like the plague. Then again if some brick and mortar store goes bankrupt I wouldn't expect them to give any warranty if your stuff breaks either.
And I haven't seen scores of protesters in front of stores that are renovating either, ok, GOG just offer a cryptic message, but people getting annoyed after only a few hours seems over the top to me. I'm not even a big GOG fan but I don't think they deserve that much criticism yet.

[Monk]

Since some of you are probably too annoyed by the mere existance of Facebook to ever get close to it, here is what they posted there:


I'd say innocent until proven guilty, if this annoys you, my advice is to never buy something digital via download ever, if you do there's always a risk that the site may vanish for a day or two or even forever. And if being able to download things you bought again and again then I'd say avoid the iTunes music and movie (not app) store like the plague. Then again if some brick and mortar store goes bankrupt I wouldn't expect them to give any warranty if your stuff breaks either.
And I haven't seen scores of protesters in front of stores that are renovating either, ok, GOG just offer a cryptic message, but people getting annoyed after only a few hours seems over the top to me. I'm not even a big GOG fan but I don't think they deserve that much criticism yet.

They most certainly do deserve the criticism. The store analogy doesn't hold up since a store does not provide you with a service you're using constantly. You go there and you leave, if it's closed you can go somewhere else that day. GoG in this instance is more like an ISP who is experiencing unexpected outages. GoG provides a service to their customers which they've cut off with no prior notification or warning. Whatever their intention, they hold an obligation to warn people of the upcoming outage lest they face angry and concerned criticisms. How have they responded? With cryptic words and no shown interest in clarifying the matter at this time.

The same thing happens around here when the internet goes down unexpectedly, even if it's for a day or two, it causes concern on the customer's part due to how sudden the service was interrupted. I can completely understand anyone who is angry at the way GoG is handling the situation.

[Beskar]

Also, in the case of Steam, they already said they would have all games unlocked and free to download with plenty of time in advance.

But since Steam pretty much is so in profit it is as if money grew on trees anyway. They won't be 'closing' for a long time.


Gamersgate and Impulse might though.

[Alexander the Pretty Good]

I think they'll come back online soon. Then I'm going to download everything I "own" on their severs and never do business with them again.

[Crazed Rabbit]

I don't think I'll ever use GOG now. What a foolish stunt.

CR

[Kekvit Irae]

"Whether we could keep gog.com the way it is"
"Cannot remain in its current form"

AKA, they just trolled us.


And according to their twitter...

As stated on www.gog.com everyone who bought their games will be able to redownload them.This option will be available in the upcoming week. 16 minutes ago via web

[Husar]

They most certainly do deserve the criticism. The store analogy doesn't hold up since a store does not provide you with a service you're using constantly. You go there and you leave, if it's closed you can go somewhere else that day. GoG in this instance is more like an ISP who is experiencing unexpected outages. GoG provides a service to their customers which they've cut off with no prior notification or warning. Whatever their intention, they hold an obligation to warn people of the upcoming outage lest they face angry and concerned criticisms. How have they responded? With cryptic words and no shown interest in clarifying the matter at this time.

The same thing happens around here when the internet goes down unexpectedly, even if it's for a day or two, it causes concern on the customer's part due to how sudden the service was interrupted. I can completely understand anyone who is angry at the way GoG is handling the situation.

How is the GOG service any more constant than that of any other download service or forum? Once you have downloaded your games you don't need the site for them to work, contrary to the newest UbiSoft games for example. You can just go to Gamersgate or amazon and buy your games from there, it's even easier than walking to another store. If your ISP goes down, you have no access to the internet but if GOG goes down you can still play your games. If you didn't save them, how about a little patience since they said from the start that they're working on a solution to let you get them again? Patience is a virtue.
If it was a publicity stunt, then I don't see why you would stop dealing with them in the future? Since a stunt is not a closure, how can you think they would do another stunt when they really close down? Is there some hidden law that says companies pull publicity stunts when they go bankrupt?
I'm not saying it's a good stunt, it was a bad choice, but we aren't even sure that it's a stunt at all and what the reasons for this sudden closure are, I'd give them a day or two to clarify things before I get enraged about some hearsay and cryptic comments.

[Monk]

How is the GOG service any more constant than that of any other download service or forum? Once you have downloaded your games you don't need the site for them to work, contrary to the newest UbiSoft games for example. You can just go to Gamersgate or amazon and buy your games from there, it's even easier than walking to another store. If your ISP goes down, you have no access to the internet but if GOG goes down you can still play your games. If you didn't save them, how about a little patience since they said from the start that they're working on a solution to let you get them again? Patience is a virtue.

If I pay to have the right to download something from them then i expect to be able to access it when I have the desire to play it, especially since I don't keep a lot of games installed at any one time. As i've said, they have an obligation then to inform their customers when this service will not be online. It's just good business practice. They didn't provide this, they pulled the plug without a warning - and the reaction hasn't been surprising. Is it too much to ask that after you pay for something, you expect to be told when you can't access it ahead of time?

If it was a publicity stunt, then I don't see why you would stop dealing with them in the future? Since a stunt is not a closure, how can you think they would do another stunt when they really close down? Is there some hidden law that says companies pull publicity stunts when they go bankrupt?
I'm not saying it's a good stunt, it was a bad choice, but we aren't even sure that it's a stunt at all and what the reasons for this sudden closure are, I'd give them a day or two to clarify things before I get enraged about some hearsay and cryptic comments.

I stated that if it was indeed a stunt then there's no way I could see myself ever using that service. Why would I ever openly give money to people who go out of their way to do this kinda PR? If it wasn't, then it still manages to reflect badly on them by the way they've dealt with inquiries. Being incredibly vague and telling people "don't jump to conclusions" while blocking download access to the games they bought is not how you keep the trust of your customers.

I understand what you're saying, i just really don't like this at all. It feels like a huge thing to do.

[caravel]

I can't even get on the site to download the games I own but don't currently have installed; will have to wait for that solution, whatever it turns out to be.

What's worse, I bought a few games there that I never downloaded.

If I pay to have the right to download something from them then i expect to be able to access it when I have the desire to play it, especially since I don't keep a lot of games installed at any one time.

This is why I prefer the feel of good solid optical media in my hands.

Let's hope it's all a stunt though eh?