By John Walker on September 22nd, 2010 at 5:21 pm.
So what is going on at Good Old Games? The press conference is in full flow, and the company has announced… it was a hoax. Quite possibly one of the most ill-advised hoaxes imaginable. The site will continue on, completely rewritten and no longer in beta, with a few new features and some new games. There’s all the details below. More details will be added, so refresh until I say not to. It’s finished. The site relaunches tomorrow at 1pm, UK time.
Speculation has been rife since the site disappeared last Sunday, replaced with simple text statements deliberately implying that the site was closing down. “This doesn’t mean the idea behind GOG.com is gone forever,” they said. “We’re closing down the service and putting this era behind us as new challenges await.”
It was all thinly veiled allusions toward their beta phase coming to an end, rather than the site disappearing forever. But it was one that saw users unable to access their games for five days, without knowing if they’d get them back.
GoG chose to deliver the message by dressing as monks and expressing “our humble apologies”, stating that “we have sinned”. Rather than any sense of contrition, they’ve instead chosen to continue their joke, which in light of their extremely poor decisions, while certainly quite funny out of context, doesn’t seem a brilliant plan.
The site needed to close down for the update, but their choosing not to explain this to their audience with any clarity will long be remembered as one of games publishing’s poorest choices. Boasting “a lot of hints”, they imply that it was the audience’s fault for not having gotten the joke. A joke, they say, was because they feel the industry is too “stiff”. They have not been bought by a larger distribution platform, and will continue to be an independent publisher.
98% of the website code has been rewritten. The site is “ten times faster”, and can now handle six times as many users. And the download client – which was always horrible – has gone.
In demonstrating their new simple login system, unfortunately they managed to screw up their own password, and then complain that it’s running too slowly.
There’s a new recommendation system, which will suggest games to you based on games you’ve bought, and those you’ve rated. The game catalogue will divide games by genre, letting you filter by really specific choices, including single or multiplayer gaming.
Product pages will explain “what’s cool about this game”. These are being written by fans of the games, rather than quoted from marketing speak. They also say they will have been completely tested from “A to Z”, hopefully suggesting they’ll all be guaranteed to work.
They will continue to bundle “goodies” with games. 150 of the games in their catalogue will work in Windows 7, and they intend to patch the rest in the future.
They’ve also added a download calculator on each game page that lets you work out how long it will take to reach your hard drive. And there’s all the community doodahs everyone else is adding, Facebook buttons, a community page that lets you leap straight to forum topics you’re interested in, and simplifies their forum system.
PC Gamer also reports that they will have Baldur’s Gate when the service comes back. PCG also has a statement from the team, saying:
“First of all we’d like to apologize to everyone who felt deceived or harmed in any way by the closedown of GOG.com. As a small company we don’t have a huge marketing budget and this why we could not miss a chance to generate some buzz around an event as big as launching a brand new version of our website.”
They’re also very excited about their “GOGmix”, which seemingly allows you to get recommendations for games from others more expert than you. (At this point in the presentation you can really tell they’re bored of their own monk joke, but still they persist.)
The site is two years old in October, and with that they have a big surprise. Unfortunately by telling PC Gamer that surprise earlier, well, we already knew. So their big finish is to announce Baldur’s Gate, with expansion. But sadly no word on Baldur’s Gate 2 yet. But they imply that it may be coming, along with other classic RPGs. No hint on Planescape: Torment, however. It’s great that the game will be available once more, but it has of course been released on budget repeatedly over the last decade.
The site relaunches at 1pm tomorrow, UK time, with Baldur’s Gate available then.
Almost a confession that the hoax was a mistake at the end there, but corrected to “a technical mistake”.
They finish by professing they intend to be “the number one alternative to Steam.”
Update: here’s the video.
22/09/2010 at 17:25 Vinraith says:
They need to fire their PR department, but I’m glad they’re neither gone nor moving away from the DRM-free commitment. I can forgive PR stupidity, especially in the only DD site whose continued existence is totally irrelevant to be being able to access the games bought from them (as long as I keep proper backups, anyway).
22/09/2010 at 17:43 SheffieldSteel says:
It’s interesting that the people who were most put out by this were those who didn’t have backups – i.e. those who took the site’s continued existence for granted. I think that may have been precisely the point they wanted to make about DRM.
22/09/2010 at 17:47 Vinraith says:
The effect is that they hurt their own business, I don’t think a point about DRM is worth that. To the degree that I’m pissed off at them, it’s mostly because I fear they’ve done serious harm to the goodwill that sustains them, and I’d hate for that to cause them to actually shut down. They’ve got by far the best digital distribution model on the web, risking their continued survival by pissing off their customers for no good reason is a disservice to that model.
22/09/2010 at 17:48 VelvetFistIronGlove says:
This is exactly how I feel about it too. I’m not angry about their stunt—but I’m laughing at them for it, not with them. And as soon as the site is back up I’ll forget about it and get right back to the reason I love GOG: great games, at great prices, with the only good DRM.
22/09/2010 at 18:01 Kyle says:
No, this makes me very much doubt they have PR/Communications people at all. If they do, it’s an informal position, and likely untrained. It reeks of nerd humour — the sort that one weird kid in highschool always made that took it just a toe over the line, while still managing to not actually be funny at all. No professional Coms-person worth their liberal arts degree would ever let anything like this happen.
22/09/2010 at 18:07 SheffieldSteel says:
This may have been a poor exercise in PR, but it was an excellent lesson for gamers who digitally download games.
Potentially, any server on the internet could disappear overnight. Companies fail – or are bought or restructured, or make budget cuts – all the time, and this usually happens without warning. Now, if that server was your online authentication server, you just lost your game. Thanks for playing! On the other hand, if the server lets you download and keep DRM-free installers, it shouldn’t have cost you anything, unless you assumed it would always be online. False alarm, this time. Next time, maybe you will have backups.
22/09/2010 at 18:17 Vinraith says:
@SheffieldSteel
This may have been a poor exercise in PR, but it was an excellent lesson for gamers who digitally download games.
Again, tanking your business to “teach people a lesson” is a piss poor idea. All the moreso when no one is learning said lesson. You’ll note the volume of folks in this thread swearing off DRM-free GOG and heading off to buy their stuff from Steam (which, if it went down, really WOULD be the end of all your games). I don’t think they were trying to make a point, but if they were they’re even dumber than I thought. They’ve essentially driven a percentage of their customer base racing into the arms of the most heavily DRMed platform out there, well done GOG.
22/09/2010 at 18:18 SheffieldSteel says:
Wooo, reverse reply fail. That’s new :-)
22/09/2010 at 18:25 SheffieldSteel says:
Vinraith, I hear what you say. I just hope that most of their customers won’t cut off their nose to spite their face. Moving to Steam doesn’t solve this problem. It just adds a couple of extra mechanisms by which a gamer could lose access to their game.
Is there any competition for GOG in the DRM-free sector?
22/09/2010 at 18:32 Vinraith says:
I just hope that most of their customers won’t cut off their nose to spite their face.
Me too. I guess only time will tell. I’m kind of torn between not buying anything for awhile, as punishment for this stupidity, and cleaning out my wishlist (and backing everything up diligently) so as to ensure that the next time they go down (presumably for real) I won’t find myself in this situation.
Is there any competition for GOG in the DRM-free sector?
Not really. The closest you can get is that Direct2Drive offers a few games DRM-free, and doesn’t require any interaction with their site to install or run them. Beyond that GOG are the only show in town for truly DRM-free gaming.
22/09/2010 at 18:41 TheApologist says:
Yep – agree with this.
Crap PR won’t stop me from using a great service, but I’m worried it might stop others and damage a store I value.
22/09/2010 at 18:51 Jeremy says:
I doubt this will really “tank their business” and it really didn’t hurt it either, I doubt many people are going to stop downloading DRM free games for cheap just to make a statement against a poor PR decision.
22/09/2010 at 18:58 Carra says:
Good point, you can still play your games during these three days.
Imagine steam going offline for 4 days. It would cause an outrage which makes this one seem like two babies fighting.
22/09/2010 at 19:01 Warduke says:
“The effect is that they hurt their own business, I don’t think a point about DRM is worth that. To the degree that I’m pissed off at them, it’s mostly because I fear they’ve done serious harm to the goodwill that sustains them, and I’d hate for that to cause them to actually shut down. They’ve got by far the best digital distribution model on the web, risking their continued survival by pissing off their customers for no good reason is a disservice to that model.”
That’s a bit how I feel Vin. If I heard they had fired their PR dept some of my heartburn might dissipate but for now I kinda feel like telling them to eff off and close my account. I’ve been a preacher for GoG to my entire gaming group since it’s inception and really really like what they had going. Like many people I would even re-buy games I already owned on disc just to support them. Now I just feel like I’ve been screwed over by a horrible PR stunt. I just don’t feel good about recommending them any more after this mess.
Well written piece too John. Sums up a lot of the feelings on here I’d say.
22/09/2010 at 19:01 DrGonzo says:
They could have done the exact same stunt, but kept a service up allowing you to download your games and no one would have been angry about it.
22/09/2010 at 19:03 Vinraith says:
@DrGonzo
That’s an excellent point, actually. If they’d kept the download page up, 95% of the rage in this thread wouldn’t be here.
22/09/2010 at 19:54 Po0py says:
People are being incredibly harsh. I was never in fear of loosing access to my games. I’ve always known that if they were to close down that the games would be made available afterward. They have always said that. Wasn’t this a part of their original launch PR? To respect the customer? Even after the site went down they were also pretty quick to get the word out that they would make the games available at a later date. I seriously am surprised at the tone of John Walkers post. Don’t know what all the fuss is about.
People are being way, way too harsh. They are a small company and they were trying to make a big splash. In the end, the, intention was to have maximum impact so that the company could grow. Maybe they could have done it a little better but you can’t blame a small company for giving a bit of viral style marketing a go. Kudos to them. And congrats on leaving beta.
22/09/2010 at 20:14 DrGonzo says:
Well I agree that people may be overreacting somewhat, but I think anyone who was unable to download something they paid for has the right to be angry about it. They also have the right to not use GOG anymore and I could understand that reaction. I will still be using them personally, but I can appreciate the rage people may be experiencing and it would probably be in GOGs best interest to trying and make up for it. Announcing another free game would probably go some way to restore people’s faith.
22/09/2010 at 20:42 Henrik J says:
@SheffieldSteel What is the point of digital downloads if you have to manually make a backup? When i buy a digital game i buy it under the assumption that i can redownload it as many times as i want and that even if the company goes under i will have a chance to get my game, if those things arent there why even have a digital games industry? I can just buy a physical copy that comes with a manual and where i know i dont have to make backups.
22/09/2010 at 21:22 Blather Blob says:
What this highlighted for me is how much I value the “online backup” provided by a digital download service. I already had backups of everything I’ve bought from them (and have now compiled a list of MD5 sums in case I ever need to re-accquire backups from less trusted sources). But I was happier when I believed that I would be able to redownload if and when my backup media crumbles to dust (e.g. 3-4 years). DRM-free is great, but the stability of the company behind it is also important to me, it turns out.
@SheffieldSteel: DRM-free competition includes DotEmu, a company emulating GOG heavily (I’ve never tried them, but they look good), a small, poorly-labelled selection of games on Direct2Drive (ship as .zip files / developer-provided installers, nothing as slick as GOG’s installer), and with a bit more work: anything on Gamersgate labelled as DRM free if you can “break” the XOR “encryption” on their installer files (hint: try 0x7F repeated 1000 times), and Impulse if you use the client’s built-in backup feature (it creates a 7-zip of the setup files with your username as the password).
22/09/2010 at 22:54 Wulf says:
I’m kind of amazed at some of the naivete and misinformation, here.
1.) Steam can make backups.
2.) Cracks exist.
3.) Steam works offline.
If Steam ever died, then you’d simply run Steam in offline mode, restore whatever backups you wanted to play via that, and then crack them. Yes, the cracking is an extra step over GOG, but it’s the only extra step really. And some modern console conversions on Steam have been riddled with activations and the like (stupid publisher choices), so I’ve had to crack a game, here or there.
I’m able to backup my Steam games the same way I can backup my GOG games. If Steam went down and Valve tanked, then Valve might provide an ‘endless offline’ mode solution anyway, or one might be leaked. So cracking might not even be a necessary step.
It just annoys me how stuff like this is used as a platform for misinformation, peddling ideas like ‘you can’t backup your games on systems that use an authentication server’. Uh… yes, you can.
Here’s a fun example: Minecraft uses an authentication server, but you can still backup the files and play it offline.
22/09/2010 at 23:11 Blather Blob says:
@Wulf: Your corrections aren’t quite correct. Steam backups are useless without the Steam servers. They must connect to the server to be restored. Trying to use the restore feature in offline mode just pops up an error message telling you to restart Steam and choose “Go Online”.
Further, offline mode requires you to have logged into the account once before switching to it. It’s not a long-term solution; you’d be unable to reinstall Steam ever again, or upgrade your computer or OS without losing access to your “signed in” offline mode.
You can of course .zip up the installed copies, try to find all required registry keys, and keep a copy of a cracked exe, but that’s basically attempting to recreate what you could download pre-made from a pirate. If you ever have to restore a Steam game without Steam’s help, TPB is probably the best you can do for a backup plan.
23/09/2010 at 05:07 drewski says:
I think you need to divorce the intention from the lesson. The intention was clearly a poorly conceived PR stunt to get people talking about the GOG relaunch. On one hand – nerdrage. On the other hand, we’re talking about the GOG relaunch.
The *lesson* is clearly DOWNLOAD AND BACKUP YOUR GAMES ALREADY. I don’t think that’s what CDP intended the lesson to be, but it is clearly the lesson nonetheless.
23/09/2010 at 08:42 Optimaximal says:
@Po0py
Didn’t Realtime Worlds basically say APB was pretty safe and secure with its 130,000 users, only to shut down (permenantly) two weeks later?
Nobody is safe in this climate, regardless of how much PR and good will they put behind it…
23/09/2010 at 15:10 alantwelve says:
3 points:
1 – I think the whole thing’s been rather fun and it was always quite clear from the wording on the webpage that the service was not dead, but being updated;
2 – Anyone who would refuse to use GOG in future over this really needs to grow the fuck up – the internet is not just about you. I am constantly amazed at just how personally some people take things like this (or any decision by any publisher/developer, etc.). It all ties in to so many debates we have about games-as-art, the Citizens Kane of gaming, etc. – the main thing holding games back from being an acceptable mainstream pursuit is that the majority of gamers appear to be angry, solpisistic retards;
3 – Baldur’s Gate! Almost makes me wish I didn’t already own it.
23/09/2010 at 22:41 ix says:
@alantwelve:
2. Yeah, fuck you too.
Seriously, is it that hard to get that when a publisher screws you over (lying to you, plus 5 days of no access to your games), that you might want to reconsider buying from them in the future? What’s to stop them from doing similarly stupid stuff a couple months from now? Maybe decide to retroactively patch in DRM because no-DRM is “just not working out”.
And could you really not make your point without resorting to such horrible ad hominem attacks?
Okay yes IHBT.
23/09/2010 at 23:13 jalf says:
Which misses the point that you wouldn’t legally be able to play your games. Sure, you can pirate them, but you never needed Steam for that. And I find it an odd argument in Steam’s favor that “if they go down, you can just pirate the games you bought”.
Because yes, legally, that is exactly what you would be doing.
Well, true. But how does GOG’s stunt affect this? Does it make you think GOG is more likely to be forced to shut down?
Yeah, or they might nuke your apartment one afternoon. I’m sorry, but your argument seems as much ad hominem as the one you’re replying to. You’re not discussing anything to do with the PR stunt itself, you’re just attacking the company behind it.
What’s to stop Valve from doing similarly stupid stuff a couple of months from now? **nothing at all**.
And why do you feel that making bad PR campaigns makes GOG more likely to “retroactively patch in DRM”?
That’s what I don’t get about this outrage. I don’t see how it’s changed anything about the actual service they’re providing. I don’t see why this means that GOG is suddenly going to go bust any day, or likely to patch in DRM or any of the other hyperbole thrown at them. It’s a completely absurd argument.
The only thing this shows is that they’re more likely to come up with bad ways to draw attention to themselves when they improve their service… Because that’s all they did.
Yes, they lied. Valve has lied to you as well, several times. Most publishers have. And no, lying is not cool, and I wish none of these companies did so.
But at least GOG didn’t lie to make a product seem better than it was, the way, say, Valve did with L4D. They simply lied in order to draw attention to their big announcement. Which is a pretty common practice, whether we like it or not.
No, it’s not hard to get that when a company treats you badly, you reconsider using them.
What is hard to get is why this rule applies to GOG only, while the rest of the games industry is allowed to piss on you constantly, without you even noticing.
What is hard to get is why GOG’s PR department seemingly means more to you than the actual games they’re selling. If GOG had deceitfully changed their business model (say, patching in DRM), then I’d have a real problem with it. But they didn’t. And I don’t see any indication that they’re likely to do so.
Which, by the way, is unlike Steam which *did*, with absolutely no warning, implement some pretty drastic changes to their service, which vastly reduced its value to a lot of their users (European pricing, implemented overnight with no warning)
For some reason, Steam, who has proven themselves willing to double prices overnight with no advance warning, doesn’t warrant the slightest suspicion from you, but you’re all but certain that GOG who have *never* ever given the slightest hint that they might consider doing something like this, is going to implement DRM in all their games retroactively.
What is hard to get…. is simply the double standard employed here.
24/09/2010 at 12:39 Hamburger says:
“an excellent lesson for gamers who digitally download games.
Potentially, any server on the internet could disappear overnight.”
This is also a loud reminder that piracy and cracks are not a bad thing.
Imagine this hadn’t been “the DRM-free place”, but someone else as already mentioned.
Cracks are in effect inofficial “last ditch” activation bypass patches, that, if (as I suspect eventually 80% of all titles will end up) the publisher decides to just not bother or goes down “too fast”, are the only thing that will let you continue to play the game you legally purchased.
Just about every DRM proponent and piracy hater conveniently overlooks that people exist that actually replay games or at times sideline them until they feel like playing at THEIR convenience.
If at that point your activation servers are sitting on an electro-dump somewhere, you are just sh*t out of luck if it weren’t for the capitalistic-world-destroying terroristpedophilemassmurderers game scene.
Of course cracks ironically wouldn’t be as needed if they just wouldn’t lock games down with an internet/PC tether in the first place..
So to me this was a very good reminder that I should be grateful non-DRM titles and protection crackers exist.
22/09/2010 at 17:27 Butler` says:
1. Thank fuck, ‘cus I love me some GoG
2. rofl they actually went there
22/09/2010 at 17:28 Alan says:
Well, this was an utterly stupid hoax, but I’m willing to let it slide this time, primarily because they’re (seemingly?) still DRM-free.
That said, I hope everyone learned their lesson about keeping backup copies of their installers.
23/09/2010 at 02:25 Fraser says:
Yeah, this is pretty much where I’m at. It was a bad idea, but a lot of the hatred they’re getting for it seems waaay over the top. There was no malice in it, they never intended to cheat anyone out of their games and they were overly optimistic that everyone would work out the “mystery” so nobody would get upset. It was a silly mistake, not a sign that they’re greedy and evil.
The people demanding they “fire their PR department” seem not to have considered that they probably don’t have one, or they wouldn’t do stuff this dumb. If they had professional PR reps, would their marketing videos sound like this?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1ekoXGcqG5c
22/09/2010 at 17:28 Samuel Bass says:
Wow…just wow.
22/09/2010 at 17:28 houseinrlyeh says:
I can’t see myself buying anything from GOG again. Who knows when they’ll make a “hoax” again? And what else might fall under the definition for them.
Turns out I’m not the type of customer who likes to be lied to.
22/09/2010 at 19:26 bob_d says:
The irony is that I wasn’t really aware of them before, despite buying a lot of older games from other sources, and now I most definitely am, but I don’t want to buy from them. I don’t want to do business with the boy who cried wolf.
22/09/2010 at 20:37 apa says:
Here’s a “me too”. I did consider getting Interstate ’76 from them to replace the original I have from 90′s: those CD’s are scratched and I couldn’t get it to run properly last time I tried. But then I read feedback and their forums… and they haven’t fixed it to run on WinXP and modern PCs either. There’s a bunch of customer-made hacks explained on the forums but I won’t be paying money for those.
Gog’s road to hell seems to be paved with good intentions :)
22/09/2010 at 17:28 Reliant39 says:
What a shitty thing to do. They’ve lost me as a customer.
22/09/2010 at 17:29 Snall says:
Eh, their PR department did well in the fact that it sure went all over the Net. It didn’t piss me off because it was pretty obvious it was BS…or at least almost certanily BS. *shrug*
22/09/2010 at 17:31 Vinraith says:
They’ve severely damaged their own reputation, struck at the greatest fear of the digital download customer by cutting off access to their games (for purely frivolous reasons, no less), and then pretended it was funny. They’ll lose customers over this, quite a few of them I’d guess. Speaking as someone that values their service enough to let this slide, I hope it doesn’t harm them so much that they actually DO go out of business.
22/09/2010 at 17:39 plugmonkey says:
@ Vinraith
Hear, hear!
I was sad to hear it was shutting down, then I thought it looked like a relaunch stunt and hoped it was, now I hope all the people throwing tantrums doesn’t jeopardise the service in the long term.
For me, one ill-advised publicity stunt isn’t going to cause me to abandon a company that supports every single notion I have with respect to how old games should be made available to new users.
22/09/2010 at 17:50 Rob says:
@Vinraith
That’s actually my principle fear over the whole affair. I just hope it’s more of a L4D2 boycott situation where actually people like the finished product to much to hold the (perhaps not entirely unfair) grudge.
22/09/2010 at 17:29 Ashley K. says:
This was quite possibly the worst way to handle the situation. I can’t say I’m pleased with them at all.
22/09/2010 at 17:29 Longrat says:
Predictable, and yet, in such bad taste.
22/09/2010 at 17:30 Paul B says:
Well, the fake shutdown proved that a lot of people care about GoG. I just hope that the goodwill hasn’t been eroded at all by this ill-considered (imo) stunt. Still, looks like I’ll be able to snap up Arcanum which I feared I’d never get to play.
22/09/2010 at 17:48 Wipa says:
Or if the worst happened, you could have just torrented it.
22/09/2010 at 17:30 Fumarole says:
GOG is dead. Long live GOG!
22/09/2010 at 17:30 stahlwerk says:
What a poor poor, incredibly poor move. There’s a reason why business is “stiff”, it’s because money is involved. How would the world economy react if the NYSE shut down its computers for an update and declared it was closing down indefinitely.
Yes I know I’m exaggerating.
22/09/2010 at 17:31 CMaster says:
Someone should point out to them that if the majority of your customers didn’t get/like your PR, then it’s the PR department’s fault for misreading their audience or mispitching the event, not the customers fault for not getting it. Even if the reason the customers didn’t get it is because they are too stupid, your PR still hasn’t achieved its fucking aims.
Also, am I the only one with some vague qualms about the ethics of GOG in some ways?
22/09/2010 at 17:33 stahlwerk says:
Qualms because it invalidates the abandonware movement?
No, I can see that.
22/09/2010 at 17:49 CMaster says:
Roughly speaking yeah.
When a game is pretty much “abandonware” in that all the companies originally involved have long since disbanded, liquidated or whatever, it’s hard to see how some random corporation who happens to have wound up with the rights is particularly deserving of the money. I mean, even if GoG were to sought out who they should be paying for the System Shock games, it seems unlikely that any of the money they collect will make its way back to the developers (what with Looking Glass being long gone) or the people who originally funded the game development?
22/09/2010 at 19:07 DrGonzo says:
As long as the game works properly on modern systems, is easily downloaded, and comes with some nice extras I don’t think there is any moral issue as it’s that service you are paying for.
22/09/2010 at 19:38 Ravenger says:
@Cmaster
I’ve got personal experience of that issue. Two games I worked on are on GOG, but I won’t see a penny from the sales. Now I’ve accepted that, because that’s unfortunately the nature of the games business, and unless you’re the rights holder you forefit any rights to royalties or other payments when you leave a company, even if you had to leave because the company closed.
I doubt that much money from any given GOG game will ever get to the original developers who worked on the games, but I’d much rather the games I worked on were on sale than not have them on sale at all, even if I don’t get any profit from them. That’s because I made games for people to play and. GOG makes it possible to play them on modern machines. It also allows them to find new audiences and keeps the IP alive, and I’m very happy with that.
23/09/2010 at 01:18 Robert says:
It seems like you have more problem with selling the rights than anything else. If you sell the rights, you receive the money you might receive upfront instead of in parts. The money did get to the original owners, just in a different way. Don’t blame the last owner for that, but the first one that decided to sell it. And don’t justify piracy with it.
22/09/2010 at 17:31 DerpDerp says:
After a dumb stunt like this it doesn’t matter how much faster their site loads or how simple their new login system is to use, at least not to me. I can’t support a company that’ll screw with their entire customer base instead of being honest about downtime.
22/09/2010 at 17:32 bleeters says:
Well, that’s me thinking twice before I buy anything from them again, then.
22/09/2010 at 17:41 bleeters says:
Alternatively: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ROPEICInVPY
22/09/2010 at 17:32 no says:
I figured as much, a few days ago. I’ll be going to their site to download the games I bought in the past and then I’ll be discontinuing my use of their service from this point, onward. They would have gotten plenty of attention and no ill-will, if they had just announced their new stuff. This stunt (it’s not a hoax, it’s STUNTING) is just pathetic and lame and offensively stupid. Lost a customer.
22/09/2010 at 18:51 Lilliput King says:
I’m not going to give up on them, but in most respects I agree.
I don’t see why they couldn’t have down the whole ‘GoG shutting down!’ biz while providing a link to a log in screen + download page for people’s games. It wouldn’t have ruined the already dubious appeal of the ‘joke,’ it’d have got some publicity and it wouldn’t have got peoples backs up. Win/Win, surely?
22/09/2010 at 17:33 Andy_Panthro says:
I was pissed off, but there is something about the monks apology that has won me back.
22/09/2010 at 17:45 Zinic says:
I definitely agree. It would have been worse if they bowed to the pressured. Makes me feel that they’ll keep going, even if it kills them.
22/09/2010 at 17:33 frags says:
The GOG lives on!
22/09/2010 at 17:34 The Innocent says:
Eh, I thought it might be a hoax. I was never angry, but a bit annoyed, yes. PR transgressions can be forgiven, though. I played Dragon Age.
22/09/2010 at 17:34 Than says:
Oh my GOG!
22/09/2010 at 19:02 Rich says:
In GOG we trust.
22/09/2010 at 17:34 Red Scharlach says:
Unfortunately GoG chose to deliver the message by dressing as monks and expressing “our humble apologies”, stating that “we have sinned”. Rather than any sense of contrition, they’ve instead chosen to continue their joke.
The site needed to close down for the update, but choosing not to explain this to their audience with any clarity. Boasting “a lot of hints”, they imply that it was the audience’s fault for not having gotten the joke. A joke, they say, was because they feel the industry is too “stiff”. They have not been bought by a larger distribution platform, and will continue to be an independent publisher.
Classy!
22/09/2010 at 17:35 Okami says:
While they haven’t lost me as a customer, it’s still a fucking stupid thing to do.
22/09/2010 at 17:35 jon_hill987 says:
Well I am going to download what I have already pad for and make a backup. Who knows if I will bother to visit the site again?
22/09/2010 at 17:35 terry says:
I didn’t really believe they could be that boneheaded, but no, really apparently they can. Waiting to download my installers and then I am forgetting the site ever existed. Good job lads.
23/09/2010 at 05:13 drewski says:
Classic case of nerdrage – cutting off nose to spite face.
“How dare you trick me with unfunny joke! I shall no longer play DRM-free, reasonably priced classic games which work on modern systems! That’ll show you!”
23/09/2010 at 09:05 Optimaximal says:
Actually, he said he’s going to take the stuff he’s already bought, enjoy that using the DRM-free system and just not give them future money unless they really earn it.
Which is something I am also considering…
23/09/2010 at 09:09 terry says:
Not rage exactly, just not a fan of the silly way this was handled. Taking down the storefront for your business with a “Sorry, closed!” message for some sort of zany madcap viral marketing is not something I’m all that thrilled to support.
22/09/2010 at 17:36 Andrew Morris says:
So small companys like GoG usually thriv,e and often survive off their communitys. So they decided to cut all access to the community features of the site without warning, and left customers unable to acces products they have paid for. This not sounding good to anyone else?
Then think that an emo message on Twitter of ‘Its hard to be DRM free’ and then post on the ‘closing’ of the site saying ‘We’re closing down the service’ was a big hint that the company will come back better than ever in afew days?
As Vinaraith said, the PR needs to go from GoG, because i dont think showing major problems with digital distribution sites if they just suddenly dissapear, and angering the community over the lauch of one game series, and afew new upgrades to features, was the best thing to do.
22/09/2010 at 17:36 LewieP says:
Funny PR that keeps things a mystery from customers is great.
Unfunny PR that withholds games that customers have paid for is bad.
As a measure of how unproffesional this is, could you imagine Valve doing this?
22/09/2010 at 19:05 Rich says:
In short, no. If ever there was a good example of how to do, and how not to do PR, they are Valve and GOG respectively.
22/09/2010 at 21:36 Fox says:
Valve = Thousands of MW2 players erroneously banned for cheating? 2 free copies of L4D2.
GoG = We need to update our website? Let’s erode the shaky trust our customers and potential customers have in our entire business model. It’ll be funny!
If ever there was a good example of how to do, and how not to do PR, they are Valve and GOG respectively.
Quite so, quite so.
22/09/2010 at 23:08 Mad Doc MacRae says:
Even if aliens took over Valve for day and did what GoG did, Valve would afterward apologize and give everyone TF2 hats or a free game or something.
22/09/2010 at 17:37 Crusoe says:
Dressing up like Monks: WTF.
22/09/2010 at 17:38 Rob says:
I’ll still buy from them, but I’ll make considerably more sure that I have backup copies of the games and extras around. It was an execrable PR move, but in the end I like getting the games that they offer legally too much to dump them; it’s pretty much a monopoly in the case of several of the companies they represent.
22/09/2010 at 17:38 Oliver says:
What idiots. You want press, there’s really better ways to get it. All they needed to do was have a splashpage that said.
GoG.com
Back on thursday with…
Faster downloads.
No Download clients.
Easier logins.
More games.
Newly coded website.
If they had done THAT, they wouldn’t have lost many people’s business. As it stands… well, I wouldn’t doubt their marketshare will drop.
22/09/2010 at 19:18 bob_d says:
That wouldn’t have gotten all the gaming websites to do articles about gog, though. They really did get a lot of attention with their stunt. I was only vaguely aware of them, and hadn’t ever paid them much attention until this; this got me investigating them. On the other hand, I’m now extremely unlikely to buy anything from them, as I’m not going to do business with a company if I have to worry if they’re still in business or not before I’ve received my product from them.
23/09/2010 at 05:19 drewski says:
You don’t have to worry if you download it straight away.
The only way to be absolutely 100% sure the company will be there to give you your product when you pay your money is to only buy from brick and mortar retail, and only buy items currently in stock. If you pre-order, if you mail order, if you internet order, if you digital distribution buy – all of these options run varying risk of company going bust before you get your product.
I can’t say that the idea of not being able to access games I’ve paid for sits well with me, but as always, it merely affects the price I’m prepared to pay for games. With GOG, failure risk is, in my opinion, adequately compensated for by the dirt cheap prices to begin with. Given I can greatly mitigate that risk by downloading purchased titles immediately, resulting in my total loss at any one point being what, US$10?? If I buy one game at a time? Oh noes.
22/09/2010 at 17:39 Gargulec says:
Well, most of their PR ideas comes from company owners. Unfortunately, you can’t fire them.
22/09/2010 at 17:39 Bob says:
What is it with all you crybabies? This was a joke and they’re the only place that delivers non-drm’d GOOD OLD GAMES with nice extras and good support. Cut them some slack! What’s with americans being butthurt over everything?
22/09/2010 at 17:44 stahlwerk says:
I’m not american, I’m not butthurt, and there’s always abandonia. This doesn’t keep me from saying that they commited the cardinal sin (harr harr) of digital distribution, effectively suiciding their service by doing their own DoS-attack.
22/09/2010 at 17:49 The Innocent says:
Are you American? Do you know that all the complainers are American? What’s with whatever-you-are getting butthurt about supposed Americans getting butthurt?
22/09/2010 at 21:06 Edgar the Peaceful says:
Whats all this butthurt?! It’s bumhurt surely, or perhaps arsebleed.
23/09/2010 at 03:00 Bru says:
A joke that is unfunny is no joke.
I’ve never bought anything off gog, though I’ve been tempted. This just tells me that they do not care how the public perceives them, as long as they make a point. And I have no use for people trying to make a point rather than do what is right.
Steam might be DRM that can be a pain in the ass sometimes, but Valve would never, and I mean never pull this kind of stunt. Every mistake that Valve has made, they’ve copped to immediately, and did something nice to try and make up for it. VAC makes bad MW2 bans? Gabe hands everyone 2 free copies of L4D2. That is how you build a good relationship with your customers, not by trying to shove a point down peoples throats and then claim it was all a joke.
22/09/2010 at 17:39 GenBanks says:
I don’t see the need to be pissed off at them… When they pretended to close down they made it clear that they would sort out a way for purchasers to redownload and backup their games. Not being able to redownload a game for a few days really isn’t a big deal.
22/09/2010 at 19:11 Rich says:
It is if you’ve only just bought it. Also, even if they’ve promised to let people download their games again in a few days, if it looks like they’re going under then that ability might be temporary.
Hell, I haven’t even got any GOG games. I just think this is remarkably stupid, and any misunderstanding and subsequent anger is entirely the fault of GOG’s PR. The infuriating smugness in saying “hey it was only a joke, didn’t you get it?” is something I will always take exception to.
22/09/2010 at 17:39 oceanclub says:
I wonder what great thinks the VP of PR and Marketing for CD Projekt will go on to do. Perhaps he could advise Coca Cola to do a viral marketing campaign saying that raw faeces has been detected in their product.
P.
22/09/2010 at 17:42 Flimgoblin says:
or maybe take over people’s facebook statuses.. oh wait!
22/09/2010 at 17:40 Arthur Barnhouse says:
Don’t companies usually save this kind of bullshit for April Fools Day?
22/09/2010 at 17:41 Lucas says:
Incredibly disappointing behavior. I really expected better from GOG.
22/09/2010 at 17:42 Flimgoblin says:
Glad GOG are just being daft and not out of business.
- bad to upset their customers needlessly
- bad to highlight the issues with digital distribution – though to be fair they don’t have as big an issue since you can currently download all your games and save them elsewhere for a rainy day. If Steam somehow were to self combust before they had a chance to implement the plan B that wouldn’t be the case… rather unlikely I know but meh..
- good that they’re getting rather a lot of press coverage, even if half of it is “wtf?”
22/09/2010 at 20:08 Veracity says:
@Flimgoblin:
> not out of business
Give it a few months. You can get plenty of what gog’s offering elsewhere, and I don’t think the desire to buy legit fully DRM-free versions of games is a significant motivator for as many people as the fans of that policy would like to think.
The irksome thing is a backlash big enough visibly to damage them would end up making great ammunition for publishers who’ve never been comfortable with the idea of DRM-free downloads.
22/09/2010 at 17:42 Clive dunn says:
My wife came home today and told me that she’s had enough and she’s leaving me and taking the kids. After seeing my shocked reaction she laughs and points saying, ‘haha got you’. The moral of this story is that all hoaxes and stunts are fucking stupid. Idiots!
22/09/2010 at 18:06 Nick says:
Yeah, imagine.. to have your dreams granted and then yanked away at the last second.
22/09/2010 at 18:18 UW says:
Hah, your wife sounds like a right laugh.
Plus there’s no way she can deny you sex tonight.
22/09/2010 at 18:31 SheffieldSteel says:
Assuming the “fucking stupid idiots” thing was only inside your own head.
22/09/2010 at 21:13 Fumarole says:
I feel sorry for the person who has as much invested in a video game distribution service as they have in their spouse and children.
23/09/2010 at 09:17 Optimaximal says:
Fumarole doesn’t understand Steam :)
23/09/2010 at 11:54 sana says:
@Fumarole: ZING!
23/09/2010 at 12:06 Huggster says:
Ahahahaa!
22/09/2010 at 17:44 Sam C. says:
Are people really so angry that they’ll never use the service again? I agree that it was a pretty stupid move, especially the bits where they implied they were switching to some sort of DRM. But I don’t think anyone was really hurt by not being able to redownload their games for a week. Maybe if they’d waited until April 1st, people wouldn’t be as angry?
22/09/2010 at 17:50 Ysellian says:
I do think it’s shameless, they sacrificed their loyal customer to gain a large audience, but agree that they never stated people’s games were lost at any point. Besides the fact that their games have no DRM means that you can back them up and use them whenever you see fit anyway. So the lesson learned is to simply back your games up.
I would be much more worried if Steam stopped functioning to be honest.
22/09/2010 at 18:07 Sam C. says:
Oh god, if Steam fell over all those wonderful human beings that populate the Steam forums would take to the streets and riot. Well, the streets of the internet… you know what I mean.
22/09/2010 at 18:16 Ginger Yellow says:
What Sam said. Stupid move, but “lose access to their games”? The whole point of GOG (besides selling good old games) is that you don’t lose access to your games, ever. It’s not a question of having a back-up. It’s about not having them downloaded at all. And, while I acknowledge it was a stupid stunt, how inconvenienced are you really if you can’t “access” a game you haven’t even bothered to install? You can probably wait a couple of days for them to bring the site back.
22/09/2010 at 18:20 Pardoz says:
So angry I’ll never use the service again? No. But they’ve definitely pissed away two years of accumulated goodwill with this little stunt, meaning that next time I want a game out of their catalogue buying it from them will be my last choice (after finding a torrent or buying it someplace else) rather than my first choice.
22/09/2010 at 18:43 bleeters says:
I’m not personally angry per sa, but this entire thing was unprofessional bullshit. Having their service turned off for a little under a week didn’t drive me into a fit of foam-at-the-mouth rage in of itself, but doing it without warning, under the guise of shutting down for good? Disappointed irritation, and for what? Extra publicity? Had they been honest about what was going on, I wouldn’t have minded at all.
23/09/2010 at 01:26 Robert says:
“after finding a torrent”
How you can talk about right behaviour if you are willing to torrent…
22/09/2010 at 17:45 Gunrun says:
Fuck em. Another lost customer.
23/09/2010 at 22:26 7rigger says:
Well, it gained one here.
Never even looked at them before all this.
CAPTCHA: PHUK
Awesome.
22/09/2010 at 17:46 Ravenger says:
Terrible stunt, but I’m relieved they’re just relaunching and not closing down.
I’ll still be buying from them – heck, I’ll re-buy Baldur’s Gate just to get a fully patched up-to-date version rather than having to find and apply the patches manually.
22/09/2010 at 17:46 ChampionHyena says:
Thank you, GOG, for being here for us.
Oh, and incidentally, fuck you. Oh my God.
I’m going to hurl a car in pure unassuaged consumer fury. And then I’m probably gonna buy Baldur’s Gate.
Maybe GOG’s bottom line deserves a ding in repayment for this impossibly inadvisable PR bullshit, but I’m not sure I provide it.
Like Vinraith said, they’re too useful for me to completely leave them behind. But wow. Wow. I know GOG doesn’t have a huge staff, but I’m a little aghast at the reality that nobody stopped them midway through this and said “guys, this is a fucking terrible idea.”
22/09/2010 at 17:46 august says:
This was the worst pr stunt imaginable for a downloadable game service.
That said, I’ve been so happy with the service and the actual games in the past that I will continue doing business with them. Getting Baulder’s Gate is pretty huge.
22/09/2010 at 17:48 Eclipse says:
goodbye GOG, you was such a great DD platform until you took this pathetic direction
22/09/2010 at 17:48 Bullwinkle says:
If they wanted to create buzz, then why didn’t they just set an orphan on fire? They still would have generated buzz, people still would have thought they were assholes, but on the other hand, their customers wouldn’t be sitting here wondering if they’d one day disappear in the night, taking the games they’d paid for with them.
Humour: you’re doing it wrong, morons.
22/09/2010 at 17:49 Papageno says:
While it was a silly way of doing things, I’m not going to shy away from buying games from them in future if they have a good sale. I’ll just make sure to back up the installers just in case.
22/09/2010 at 21:16 Fumarole says:
A sensible solution.
22/09/2010 at 17:49 Jake says:
Complete speculation, but the temporarily down page is written in Frontpage, while the new site is all shiny looking (not Frontpage), surely a proper PR stunt would get the designers in on the act? So maybe this was all the fault of one manager type who had a spontaneous brainwave and didn’t consult with the monks in PR and they are trying to cover. Or maybe not, but at least this way you can lay the blame at the feet of just one imaginary guy.
22/09/2010 at 17:50 no says:
These guys are idiots.
QUOTE: “they imply that it was the audience’s fault for not having gotten the joke”
First, it’s not a joke. As I said before, it is STUNTING.
Second, we’re not an “audience”. We’re your paying customers and clients.
Third, it’s not our fault when we recognize your “joke” as not being amusing or interesting in anyway. It’s even less our fault when we see behind your “joke”, immediately.
This reminds me of people who pull “pranks” on April Fool’s day. “Our website is changing to do all pokemon coverage all the time!” or “Hey, why are you at work today? It’s Saturday! — NAH, JUST KIDDING, IT’S FRIDAY — APRIL FOOLS!”. Those aren’t practical jokes. Those are “lies”. They’re stupid, terrible, unoriginal, groan-inducing, pathetic, embarrassing attempts at “humor”.
Just like this stupid stunt was.
22/09/2010 at 19:17 DrGonzo says:
That isn’t a quote from Gog you realise? In fact they have been quite apologetic.
22/09/2010 at 17:51 Ridye says:
Heh.
The BAD
In these times when “angry internet men/women” are ready to strike for pretty much naught, GOG team should indeed have known better. Specially reducing the downtime to 1-1.5 days at most which -to me- is the only valid concern/critic from customers: That they were not able to access their yet-to-download purchased titles for several days. And only on those cases.
Not my case, and luckily enough I’m not the kind of person that stress that much for these antics. I take it as it is.. A good spirited prank ..as badly executed as it was.
Now, give a spank to your PR leader, and then start working extra on releasing more titles.
The GOOD
*New features on all the site, and perhaps extra performance (never an important issue on my case).
*Baldur’s Gate is finally here, and seems there are more titles of the same caliber to come.
To Improve
a) Improve support for Win 7 (specially x64)
b) More guidelines to download non-official MODs, specially those that add extra resolutions or improve gameplay/sounds/graphics.
c) Fix the wishlist for future titles, merging duplicates.
Still, welcome back GOG! (seriously, spank your PR)
22/09/2010 at 17:56 DrDoc says:
No, fuck you GOG. THANK GOD they don’t use DRM, imagine Steam closing down like this… but even without DRM you closed down without warning without letting customers download their games first! I will never buy anything from GOG again, that’s for damn sure. Idiots, I never thought I would say this about GOG but I hope you go away for good now, it would only be fair now that old customers can download their old games and new customers can run for their life.
22/09/2010 at 20:56 Humppakummitus says:
The guys are twats but I can’t help but love them. :)
22/09/2010 at 17:57 Dan says:
I hope someone notices the niche consumer market for older games, nicely cleaned up and patched, with an easy installer, backed by Dosbox, and no DRM.
GoG clearly needs some competition.
22/09/2010 at 17:57 Diabolical Machine says:
It was a dumb move on their part. They could have announced an update to their site without taking down the entire site for a few days without any notice whatsoever.
I’ll continue to stick with Steam and Impulse for my games.
23/09/2010 at 05:23 drewski says:
I’m sure they’ll be devastated to keep on not getting your custom.
22/09/2010 at 17:57 Tyshalle says:
While I’ve never purchased anything from them, and likely never will as I’m completely happy with Steam, I kinda feel like everyone who’s whining about how they’ll never purchase anything from them again over this is kind of being a baby.
I still think the “hoax” is pretty lame, but give me a break. Sometimes I think people are just so bored they’ll cry over anything.
22/09/2010 at 19:06 Reliant39 says:
@Tyshalle:
Indeed, people are such crybabies!
Inspired by this remarkably funny jest from the GOG team, I decided to tear down my company’s website and put up an ambiguous note that, to the casual observer, seemed as if the company had gone bust. In an effort not to waste a golden opportunity, I then sent an email to all my customers telling them how sorry I was, what with not being able to continue offering them my services. Hilariously, I even phoned up some of my biggest clients and, pretending to cry hysterically, I said that it was just impossible to continue the way that I had and that this was the only option left open to me in the current economic climate.
Next week, I’ll invite everyone for a special meeting where I’ll pop up dressed as Superman and reveal to them that it was all done for a laugh. I’m sure they’ll appreciate it and continue to support me in my future endeavours. I’ve even improved the performance of my new website!
23/09/2010 at 01:31 Robert says:
See.. hyperboles are amusing. Proving the point.
22/09/2010 at 17:58 oceanclub says:
Maybe Eastern European humour is more fatalistic?
Seriously, I’m trying to figure out exactly how anyone in CD Projekt thought this was a good idea.
Like many in the thread, I’ll probably still occasionally buy from them in future but no longer feel like I’m a fan.
P.
22/09/2010 at 17:59 Cat says:
Bad choice, I hope it doesn’t finish them though – it was a silly mistake.
Kinda like an advert for Lamborghini
*Lamborghini rides over horizon with sunset behind, going around 130 mph*
*Vrhooom*
*a deep yellow colour, the sun shining off it*
*Lamborghini loses control, bounces over curb, rolls- crushing driver, goes through someones front house window where you could see children watching television and kills them instantly*
*Driver walks out of the debri and destruction*
“I didn’t really die, but thats what could happen with our fast cars- you see you want to use the car to its full potential and it lures you to push it to its extremes”
“Amazing isnt it?”
“Go to Iwantalambo.com for more information”
*Cheesy wink*
22/09/2010 at 17:59 Shakermaker says:
This might be a PR fail of biblical proportions but they tickled my humor gland with those monk suits. Gained a customer.
22/09/2010 at 18:03 Papageno says:
Geez, people, cry some more. It was a stupid stunt, but they gave assurances from the beginning that we’d be able to download our already-purchased content, and now it turns out that they’re back and improved. Everyone should have such problems!
23/09/2010 at 09:49 Optimaximal says:
When the assurances are being given by a foreign company owned by a larger foreign company who are struggling financially in a very harsh economic climate, it’s hard to take their word 100%.
Of course the PR department would paint the rosiest picture possible, but then so did the APB administrators!
22/09/2010 at 18:04 internisus says:
They can just fucking die. I am furious about what they have done and their insincere apologies.
“We could not miss a chance to generate buzz,” so we decided to mislead, cut off, and jerk around every one of the customers who ever trusted our small, experimental service and to jeopardize the greater enterprise of digital distribution.
I cannot remember the last time I felt this livid.
22/09/2010 at 18:08 plugmonkey says:
Farking hell.
I genuinely envy you. You live a charmed existence if the worst thing you can remember happening to you is a retro digital download site pretending to shut down.
22/09/2010 at 18:10 Skinlo says:
I don’t see what the problem is, you get a better service and more games, and you haven’t lost anything.
Sure, it wasn’t a particularly good PR idea, but seriously people, death threats against them? (aka internisus). Fuck me, its not like the end of the world. Its a fucking games company. They even said you would still be able to download your games.
Everyone needs to stopping whining, and grow the fuck up.
22/09/2010 at 18:10 Skinlo says:
I didn’t mean that as a reply, still work as you were the one that irritated me.
22/09/2010 at 18:36 internisus says:
“Everyone needs to stopping whining, and grow the fuck up.”
Better plan: Everyone who isn’t whining, stop rolling over when companies whom you’ve paid and endorsed betray you and then laugh after wards. You’re fucking up the world. Grow the fuck up.
22/09/2010 at 19:01 bleeters says:
Of all the improvements made to the service, I cannot think of any that would require a badly-thought-through stunt the week before in order to work, rather than a simple “we’re upgrading, so the site’ll be down for a week” notifcation. I suspect there aren’t any.
23/09/2010 at 01:34 Robert says:
It’s a store. You buy it, you take it home. With an ‘added’ benefit of being able to take it home again, as a service. You pay for the game, and downloading, the rest is EXTRA service.
22/09/2010 at 18:05 Gus the lovable chimney-sweep says:
I went from relieved at knowing they were probably not going down completely, to pissed off at their response to their fan/media responses. GOG had a contest recently that asked users to list their favorite thing about GOG.com in a thread, which also gave them the chance at winning a free title. I actually listed three things, and did so from honest feelings of loyalty and goodwill, which I felt and stated they had earned through their trust in their consumer base and the care and attention to detail that went into their high quality products.
For me they lost that trust and goodwill today.
I would have forgiven them for an inept or even cynical PR campaign if they showed some remorse or some understanding of the impact their little stunt had on their userbase. Instead we got jokes. They added insult to injury. As the only outlet for certain games I am stuck with using their service, but I plan on viewing their service with at least the same level of cynicism that they viewed us.
22/09/2010 at 18:07 deadpan says:
Considering all the badly thought-out PR that goes around in the videogame industry I think this is true to form. Good Old Games is bringing back 90′s-style videogame PR disasters.
22/09/2010 at 18:23 ChampionHyena says:
Hey, that’s actually a good point! Retro games, retro PR.
“GOG’s About To Make You Their Bitch.”
Eh? Ehh?
22/09/2010 at 18:36 SheffieldSteel says:
Alternatively…
Suck It Down (TM)
22/09/2010 at 18:08 choconutjoe says:
They seem to have put a more sincere apology up on the site:
“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!”
22/09/2010 at 18:17 Bullwinkle says:
If you think that’s sincere, then I’d like to take this opportunity to apologize for shagging your wife.
22/09/2010 at 18:12 august says:
Getting Baulder’s gate means they’ve sorted out the D&D licensing mess.
This is pretty huge people.
22/09/2010 at 18:12 Skystrider says:
You know, they did put out a call for a new PR manager a while back. I can see why they need one. :P
That said, I have no hard feelings myself. I survived a few days without GOG.
Just don’t that again.
22/09/2010 at 18:12 Skinlo says:
I don’t see what the problem is, you get a better service and more games, and you haven’t lost anything.
Sure, it wasn’t a particularly good PR idea, but seriously people, death threats against them? (aka internisus). Fuck me, its not like the end of the world. Its a fucking games company. They even said you would still be able to download your games.
Everyone needs to stopping whining, and grow the fuck up.
22/09/2010 at 18:16 Mundus says:
Agreed. The businessman in me is shaking my head. If the bookkeeping company I worked at tried this we would be on food stamps.
However, I lost nothing and was only marginally inconvenienced (played MineCraft while GOG was down anyways)
Still there is a matter of trust for some people.
22/09/2010 at 18:13 Mundus says:
I would love to see what would happen if Steam tried this.
Major cities would be on fire.
22/09/2010 at 18:14 2GunCohen says:
In Gog’s name you gotta love the irony ,
That I am going to backup my games next time …
22/09/2010 at 18:15 getter77 says:
Utterly bonkers chain of events…still pissed on my end. I’ll do ahead and download everything I need to, but past that, eh—-likely to only pick up other wishlist titles when they go on sale.
Now, if they can demonstrate LEARNING from this going forward, as in this is not a good way to even explain stupid shit they should not have done in the first place, as well as come out extra proactive on improving the site and catalog further—-then I’ll likely relent.
But wow, certainly a historical moment in PC gaming…
22/09/2010 at 18:15 Jakkar says:
I love GoG. I am amused. You grumpy bastards worry too much.
22/09/2010 at 18:15 Cooper says:
Told you so.
22/09/2010 at 18:19 Wilson says:
@Cooper – I always find it faintly amusing that in situations like this there are always people on both sides who say “it will happen like this, and anyone who thinks otherwise is an idiot” and then one side is wrong. It happened this time with the people who dismissed the rumours that GoG was just relaunching. I just like it when stubborn/arrogant people are proven utterly wrong…
22/09/2010 at 18:16 Skusey says:
How inept are they that they thought this was the best way to get more attention? Sure it worked, but it was a dick move cutting off and confusing current customers in a bid to get new ones. Why couldn’t they just release some teaser photos, about how everything is going to change or something similar? And then your current customers get a bit excited and a few games websites will still post about it, yet none of them accuse GoG of being twats. They could even still do the stupid monk conference thing if they wanted to.
22/09/2010 at 18:17 Dean says:
I’m mostly gutted that I’ve only just realised what I should have done was call my bank and charge back the stuff I bought from their promo on the weekend. Wouldn’t it’d been wonderful if we’d all done that, if everyone that’d bought anything in the last week or so opened PayPal disputes and disputes with their credit card provider. It’d been fucking hilarious. CD Projekt facing investigation and the possible suspension of credit-card processing facilities, a freeze on their PayPal account that’d take weeks of negotiating to fix, they’d be rolling in the aisles at the head office!
Shush, it wouldn’t be fraud! It’d just be playing along with the joke! Come on, there’s still like 18 hours left. Those crazy cats at CD Project are bound to love it.
Oh. And y’know, when everyone responds to your ‘joke’ with contempt and open hostility within the first few hours, maybe, y’know, you should give up on it. Just admit it, say you’re not going anywhere, but something new is coming and you need maintenance.
22/09/2010 at 18:18 Atic Atac says:
Poor taste. One of the worst PR stunts in history.
I will still be a customer but I really thought the company was better than this.
I fully expect a free game and really it is the only thing they should do now…..
22/09/2010 at 18:20 Skinlo says:
You may be disappointed, this isn’t Steam.
22/09/2010 at 18:18 Nimic says:
I’m happy that they’re not shutting down, but it sort of feels like how I would imagine it would feel if my parents told me as a kid that they were getting divorced, kept up the charade for a couple of days, and then told that if I was sad it was my own fault for not “getting the joke”, as they left “lots of hints”.
In the end, I’m happy they’re back, but, bloody hell, they couldn’t have done it any other way?
23/09/2010 at 15:26 alantwelve says:
It’s a pity that, as well as DRM-free retro games, they don’t also sell a sense of proportion. Get a grip, man!
22/09/2010 at 18:20 Dean says:
And somewhere, in a bedroom, the Alien Assault guy is sitting behind his PC laughing his head off that he’s finally passed on *that* distinction to a new owner.
I think a free game for everyone is in order, to be honest.
22/09/2010 at 18:20 gumbomasta says:
They may have made a ballsy move that alienated more than a few fans, but if you look at movie and TV stars in the real world, they generate publicity by doing things that rub people the wrong way, but it ultimately succeeds in getting people to talk about them, and that was the point all along. As long as GOG maintains they’re level of quality in terms of games and DRM policy, who cares how they deliver their messages? If they were doing this sort of stunt more often, then yes, it would tarnish their brand, but this stunt appears like more of a bizarre blip than it does a fundamental shift in PR policy.
Do you think people would have been talking about GOG this much right now if they had just announced an upgrade to their system? I don’t think so…
seriously… no such thing as bad publicity indeed. You can hate all you want, but then when they hit you with some classic BG and stick with their solid DRM policy, you can’t say no.
done.
22/09/2010 at 18:29 Web Cole says:
The obvious difference between a celebrity and a digital download service: most people will never be in a position where they need to trust a movie star with some of their possessions.
22/09/2010 at 18:20 Ridye says:
@John Walker:
Worth mentioning that they seem in a good position (ie. more reliable) now.
“”We’re pretty well funded these days, so why would we sell?”
[url=http://www.bit-tech.net/news/gaming/2010/09/22/gog-relaunches-admits-closure-was-a-hoax/1] From Bit-Tech[/url].
Just saying.
22/09/2010 at 18:25 Ridye says:
Should have been:
”We’re pretty well funded these days, so why would we sell?”
From Bit-tech
Curse my HTML skills (and lack of preview).
22/09/2010 at 18:21 Antsy says:
Dreadful handling of the switch over, but they had us agog for a couple of days.
22/09/2010 at 18:22 Nick says:
Thats it, down the trapdoor for you.
22/09/2010 at 18:21 Frank says:
RPS: Hey, I liked the download client!
GOG: FU. Thanks for reminding me that you’re run by the talentless team behind the Witcher. I had actually forgotten.
22/09/2010 at 18:29 Skinlo says:
Yes, ‘talentless’.
22/09/2010 at 18:22 Web Cole says:
Whoever thought it was a good idea to deny access to customers games without warning on a site whose primary selling point is that you can get to your games at all times, no matter what, is a moron and be should fired and quite possibly put on some kind of register.
Good lord.
22/09/2010 at 18:22 Latro says:
So, let me get this straight. As they dont have the resources to mount a marketing campaign to reach unconvinced potential users, they do a stupid stunt joke that alienates their current customers and the press that has been used to provide that marketing campaign, and its just a joke and you know why do you take this so seriously?
Well, I dont take it seriously. But is your business. You should. So when people dont buy from you and the press doesnt report on anything you do without a huge “WE DONT KNOW IF IS THEM ASSHOLES BEING STUPID AGAIN”, you should have thought that, maybe, not all publicity is good.
22/09/2010 at 18:23 suibhne says:
Their “humor” was so incredibly, abusively stupid that it’s hard not to think it might have been very culturally-specific. If not, their PR folks need some firing. If so, they at least need new PR folks who are capable of operating maturely in a global market.
GOG isn’t the only game in town anymore, as Impulse and even Steam sometimes offer similar titles. In cases where other DD services offer the same games (MOO 1 and 2, the Age of Wonders games), I’ve always given my business to GOG…but they won’t be getting any more benefit of the doubt from me. They’ve lost all goodwill over this obnoxious stunt.
22/09/2010 at 18:23 Atic Atac says:
The press release was a super failed attempt at an apology….it basically boiled down to us being stupid for not “getting it” or discovering all the clues. Their string of failures is incredible.
Free game!
22/09/2010 at 18:24 Jakkar says:
Ye gods, what is wrong with you all? A playful team made a prank of their own demise, only to burst up like a Phoenix and laugh at you – you’ll still get awesome games for good prices, no-one lost anything, they got to make fun of you. Hell, I wish more teams knew how to relax and play around with the customer a bit more.
I’m not surprised they don’t, witnessing the reaction.
I thought you were gamers! YOU thought you were gamers! Why so serious? It’s all just about fun and good old games.
22/09/2010 at 18:29 Dean says:
I have a general rule, that I don’t give money to people that make fun of me.
It’s bad when stand-up comics do it too.
22/09/2010 at 18:39 phlebas says:
No-one lost anything? A lot of people lost confidence in their ability to deliver. For a service rather than retail business that’s important – they’ve reinforced the value of the no-DRM installers, but broken confidence in the ability to download things whenever you want. Which, given that plenty of people ‘own’ more software as a promise of download than they have convenient disk space, is really not nothing.
22/09/2010 at 22:32 Kadayi says:
@phlebas
Apparently a large number of people here firmly believe that it’s your customer duty to hardware backup everything you download from the internets, even if they offer a free download any time service, because you know the internets might not always be there ( such as after a full scale nuclear war or alien invasion) and therefore it’s your own fault if your games aren’t available it seems.
22/09/2010 at 18:25 benjamin says:
I would care if Minecraft hadn’t completely taken over my pc gaming.
Why shoot things when you can build floating towers with waterfalls?
22/09/2010 at 18:26 Aberinkulas says:
Well that was dumb.
GOG, you done goofed.
22/09/2010 at 18:28 Freud says:
It’s CD Project..The company that decided it would be a good idea to let us bang every named female in a RPG game (except the whore with a heart of gold obviously). Is anyone really surprised they make a business decision that leaves us flabbergasted?
I think it is easier to think of them as an autistic kid that is really good at painting. Enjoy the art, ignore the kid.
23/09/2010 at 03:18 Ozzie says:
Erm, you decided to bang them. Your fault!
22/09/2010 at 18:28 tanith says:
I think it was funny.
At least I’m slightly amused. :3
22/09/2010 at 18:35 plugmonkey says:
Me too. It also reminded me that I haven’t checked what new stuff they’ve got in recently.
It reminded me how theatrically melodramatic the computer game audience is too. It really is spectacular how wound up people get about these things.
23/09/2010 at 04:11 fester says:
The funniest thing isn’t the prank, it’s reading all the nerdrage fallout from it. People acting like GOG raped their dog? Over-the-top righteous indignation? Hilarious. Get a grip, nerds, a bad PR stunt is hardly a reason to stop using a DRM-free online distribution system for 15 year old video games.
22/09/2010 at 18:31 Dominic White says:
Someone needs to track down their head of marketing and beat him with a sock full of pennies while shouting ‘TROLLING IS NOT MARKETING., until he either passes out of learns his lesson. Or both.
They’ve taught me that at any moment, without warning, they can take down their site and leave me without any way of redownloading games I didn’t have hardcopies of, simply because they think it’s funny. That’s unprofessionalism on a whole new level.
Bunch of tossers. First thing I’m doing upon logging into the new site is redownloading everything I own, burning it to DVD, and sending them an angry email saying that they’ll have to offer something pretty damn special if they ever want my business again.
22/09/2010 at 18:34 Vinraith says:
They’ve taught me that at any moment, without warning, they can take down their site and leave me without any way of redownloading games I didn’t have hardcopies of, simply because they think it’s funny.
Of course, that’s true of every digital download site, the difference being that with all the other ones (except perhaps D2D) having hardcopies wouldn’t save you.
22/09/2010 at 18:39 Dominic White says:
Except that most other distributors do at least keep up a veneer of businesslike behaviour, and would probably be likely to at least announce that they’re going to be taking the site down before just dissapearing in a puff of white text.
22/09/2010 at 18:40 plugmonkey says:
They’ve taught me that at any moment, without warning, they can take down their site and leave me without any way of redownloading games I didn’t have hardcopies of, simply because they think it’s funny.
Except that they new they would be putting all the games back up again.
In fact, they even SAID they would be putting all the games back up again. All that has happened is that you couldn’t access your games for a couple of days.
Christ, it’s a good job you weren’t a Steam customer in the early days. You would have quite literally EXPLODED in a BALL OF RAGE.
22/09/2010 at 18:42 Vinraith says:
@Dominic
Well, we thought that about GOG as well, now didn’t we? It seems to me the lesson here (or at least the one I’m taking away) is that any digital distributor can disappear at any time and for any reason, they’ve no obligation to us. It’s worth considering how your games from any given distributor would fair under those circumstances, and acting accordingly. Personally I’ve been conducting a comprehensive backup of all my digital download purchases over the last few days, and I haven’t failed to notice who makes it easy, who makes it hard, and which games would and wouldn’t work without some measure of help from their attendant platforms. Stupid stunt or no, GOG is literally the only platform (aside from retail boxed games) that comes out of this analysis looking really good, and I’m sure I don’t have to tell you who comes out of it looking the worst.
22/09/2010 at 18:51 ChampionHyena says:
Worth reiterating that Valve have already successfully tested their Steampocalypse Contingency Plan. Any sufficiently forward-thinking and respectful vendor considers these sorts of possibilities.
That’s what makes this such a poke in the eyeball. Anyone can sell you old games that you love. We root for people like Valve and GOG–and more than that, reacted so strongly to GOG’s potential closing–because they seem like such nice guys. Community events, bonus content, zero DRM. GOG thrives off the goodwill of its customers. People keep talking about, “whoa, it’s wacky and cynical! Funny!” when it’s completely out of character.
You sell games DRM-free when you respect your customers enough to trust them not to pirate stuff. I don’t feel like we’re getting a lot of respect if one of our favorite services is willing to fake its own death for lack of a better way to announce new content.
22/09/2010 at 18:52 Calabi says:
@ Vinraith. Of course it is, but with GOG we have the evidence and the moment. The others have the hints of being run like a proper business.
But whatever, I can be added to the list, I’m not going to buy things from a company that is willing to fuck with its customers(just for a few giggles, and whom is laughing exactly?).
I have no idea where I stand with them, its the stupidest thing I’ve ever heard. They just threw proffesionalism out the window. Its like the second rule of business, the first being the customer is always right, the second do not fuck with your customer.
22/09/2010 at 18:54 Vinraith says:
Worth reiterating that Valve have already successfully tested their Steampocalypse Contingency Plan.
I’m going to need a link for that, please. To my knowledge, Valve has never even promised they’d unlock your games if the system went down, let alone tested that contingency. A mod on the forums once said such a thing, which prompted a heavily circulated rumor, but there’s never been anything on the subject from the a Valve source as far as I know.
22/09/2010 at 19:17 SheffieldSteel says:
Re: Steampocalypse
I can only see two possibilities here.
1. Patch code has been written, and is ready for more or less immediate download, that will remove Steam’s DRM from every game they’ve ever sold online.
2. Not so.
In other words, Steam is either one digruntled employee away from losing any leverage they had with their customers and becoming the world’s #1 source of pirated software, or no, they are not in fact ready for the Steampocalypse.
22/09/2010 at 19:29 ChampionHyena says:
Steam support staff fields questions about this subject quite a bit, apparently. One guy posted his results to the forums:
http://forums.steampowered.com/forums/showpost.php?p=15771999&postcount=30
http://lh4.ggpht.com/_NRflXhEVEqs/TC5ShOl5TUI/AAAAAAAAAFs/azzZVUFtRuM/Capture2.PNG
Of course, that’s the testimony and screenshot of one dude. Could totally be possible that we’re getting a dodge each and every time we ask about it, but there you go.
Regardless, saying something deliberately misleading to your customers like that would be pretty shady, don’t you think?
…
Wait.
22/09/2010 at 18:34 Mark | Retroblique says:
Electronic Arts own the rights to the System Shock series and they’ve been very reluctant to put their products on GOG.
22/09/2010 at 18:36 Chris Whitman says:
I think it’s really just embarrassing.
For people who have developed serious trust issues regarding a gaming web site shutting down for a few days, you can be pretty confident they are never, ever going to do this again after the response they’ve received.
Seriously, would you?
But anyway, it’s telling that this sort of hoaxy “viral marketing” stuff is de rigueur for big firms now, and people just eat it up in that context. I don’t think people are angry here because they lied; people are angry because they lied poorly.
22/09/2010 at 18:39 internisus says:
“For people who have developed serious trust issues regarding a gaming web site shutting down for a few days, you can be pretty confident they are never, ever going to do this again after the response they’ve received.
Seriously, would you?”
You know, I was pretty confident a week ago that no one in their right mind would ever, ever do this even the one time. So, uh, no, that line of thinking hasn’t assuaged my raging doubt.
22/09/2010 at 18:37 Cliff says:
What…the Hell?
Here is a lesson most little kids learn when they’re about 5 years old :
There is attention for being good, and there is attention for being bad. They aren’t the same thing. You got yourself a lot of attention, GOG…but I don’t think it’s the kind most people want.
22/09/2010 at 18:37 myros says:
Oh lighten up angry internet people.
But this does send a tingle down my spine with just the thought of what might happen if steam closed. Couldnt happen right? Right? Hold me.
22/09/2010 at 18:40 Morte says:
whislt this has been the most un-funniest funny ever, (and I suspect they’re privately acutely aware of this right now), and it did alarm me, it would be ridiculous for me to say ‘I’m not using them again’, as I rightly know that as soon as the next gem pops up on there I’ll be all over it like white on rice.
Also, I suspect they have such a gem waiting in the wings…
So yeh, shit thing to do, someone is paying for it behind the scenes no doubt. PCgaming moves on to the next drama.
22/09/2010 at 18:41 Tei says:
No bussines I know would do stuff like that. Even unprofessional people that think a website is not more than a bussines card.
This is beyond anything, and shows a total lack of profesionalism.
I am still shocked, because you DONT DO THAT.
22/09/2010 at 18:42 Malleus says:
That video conference was amusing and funny. I forgive them. :)
22/09/2010 at 18:42 brulleks says:
Now, I like a good laugh as much as the next man… etc etc
The problem is – this just wasn’t done very humorously. In theory it could have been an excellent prank, but there’s no catharsis in there. No sense of ‘surprise – gotcha’. Just lots of people very relieved and either shaking their heads thinking ‘what was that all about?’ or rather peeved at them.
Although, in my opinion, taking this as a cue to seriously abandon GOG is going rather overboard. They tried, they failed – it happens.
I just feel a bit embarrassed for them, like when a kindly uncle who you get on with but don’t know that well gets a bit pissed at a family get-together and tries to get off with your mum as a joke.* They should stick to acquiring and selling excellent gaming antiquities and leave comedy well alone.
*Not based on real-life events. Honestly.
22/09/2010 at 18:42 sfox says:
As a person who signed up for gog during the closed beta and has bought over 20 games from them:
People need to lighten the hell up.
Sure you say you won’t buy from them ever again, but you’ll all come crawling back when System Shock 2 or one of the other of the most wanted games shows up in their store.
22/09/2010 at 18:42 Omni says:
Wow… A lot of rage. Why don’t you people relax. A lot of people understood that it was a joke. When I saw the page first thing that came to mind was “Yey, going out of beta!”. But I do agree that silly apology was a fail. They should have gone with just: “HA HA, you fell for it suckers!” and leave it at that. Let them cry. Anyway, all’s well that ends well. ;)
22/09/2010 at 18:43 internisus says:
PC Gamer even told them that it was a terrible idea beforehand.
“GOG approached PC Gamer last week and told us they had some big news they wanted to share with us. Before they would share that information, they asked us to agree not to release it before the 23rd of September. We agreed. That’s pretty standard stuff for the games industry – embargoes are a way of life.
They then told us about the site’s relaunch, the fake closure, and the deal involving Baldur’s Gate. They didn’t tell us when the site would go down, and I never expected it would happen so many days before the site’s return. We kind of recoiled. “You want to do what?!?”
When the site went down this Sunday, it was a painful experience. We desperately wanted to tell people, but in that situation we had to honour our agreement. On Monday we approached them for a further comment about the closure, to go up alongside their conference. That statement is what you see above.”
http://tinyurl.com/36vfkxj (comments)
22/09/2010 at 18:45 AsubstanceD says:
Stupid, But all there values still make them awesome. Need a bit more love for a company with such a decent support for the PC community. You would think that all those people who are really angry had never made an ill judged move in their life!
22/09/2010 at 18:46 Sarre says:
That’s the worst thing about this for me. This weasel word apology. I don’t “feel” deceived. I don’t “feel” harmed. I WAS deceived and harmed. They lied to me and took away the product they sold me. My feelings are not the problem here, their action are. Anything less than a full acknowledgment of that fact is unacceptable. If they want to stem the fallout for this, they really need to say “We did something very stupid, it was wrong, and we are very sorry and it will not happen again.”
I’m not going to throw a temper tantrum and say I’ll never use them again, b/c they have games no other service carries. But I’ll never buy anything from them I can find elsewhere.
22/09/2010 at 18:51 Kurina says:
I am definitely not a fan of the actions they have taken, temporarily closing down their website and leaving a cryptic message. It was not the smartest move, and has brought them some bad PR that they really do not need.
On that note though, I believe people are also overreacting to some degree. While access to the service was suspended, the website also clearly stated that games would be able to be downloaded again this Thursday. This was never in question or hinted at by cryptic statements. Games and accounts were not lost, and everyone would still be able to claim titles they purchased in the past.
This does bring to light how fragile our dependence on these services are though. All it takes is one problem, decision, or marketing stunt to impede our access to games. I hope many people are beginning to realize how they truly are putting all their eggs in one basket, by focusing on services such as Steam. The interesting part being, at least with GOG, their stunts do not prevent you from playing downloaded and archived games. If another service did this, good luck reinstalling and accessing them in the future.
While I do not appreciate the stunt, this will not prevent me from purchasing GOG titles in the future, solely for the fact that I know I can back them up and play games indefinitely regardless of what happens to the company itself.
22/09/2010 at 18:53 Jimbo says:
Maybe they could make up for it by no longer overpricing their games by about 600%.
22/09/2010 at 18:57 Carra says:
$6 is overpriced by 600%?
What do you want, games for a dollar? They’re still a business, they need to make money.
22/09/2010 at 18:56 Carra says:
Cutting of your customers from their games without a warning? Pretty damn stupid.
Then again they’re getting Baldurs Gate on there so I’ll have forgotten this in two days.
22/09/2010 at 19:22 Frankie The Patrician[PF] says:
5 days, oh my, looong 5 days! And they haven’t cut you from all your games, just the one you haven’t download yet. You can play your installed games just fine…
22/09/2010 at 18:57 jalf says:
Sooo much rage. So it was a bad way to draw attention to themselves, and so what? I don’t know about the rest of you, but the games I bought on GOG were bought because the games were good and the price was good, and the idea behind the service is good. None of these things have changed.
I never bought a single game on them because I thought they had a wonderful PR department that I wanted to support.
So why all the rage and fury and solemn vows to never ever buy anything from them?
Seems a bit out of proportion, methinks.
22/09/2010 at 19:24 Frankie The Patrician[PF] says:
People need to get tad dramatic at times… Like all the bull “I’m leaving FB” campaigns…I think Freudians would tell you more about it :)
22/09/2010 at 19:44 Antsy says:
Form an orderly queue for the Total Perspective Vortex!
22/09/2010 at 18:58 Mark | Retroblique says:
I think the “awesome publicity stunt a+++++ would lol again” crowd would feel a little differently if someone like Valve pulled this stunt with Steam.
22/09/2010 at 19:08 Kurina says:
@ Mark
I don’t really see anyone giving this stunt an A++++++. Generally speaking, it seems most would agree that this was a pretty poorly planned stunt, and something they should not repeat in the future. Even GOG has apologized.
Obviously, people would act different if Steam pulled this stunt, because there are some key differences between the services. Despite GOGs poor marketing, the games were still playable. If you did not have backups of your games, the website stated that would be available this Thursday. There was never anything actually lost here. If Steam pulled this stunt, almost everything would be lost, because the entire system is dependent on the availability of their service. You literally are joined at the hip to them, and playing those games afterward would be a nightmare. Hence, why I never understand people’s blind obsession for this service.
22/09/2010 at 19:19 Frankie The Patrician[PF] says:
Believe it or not, but I wouldn’t…STEAM is only one of the distribution channels I use…a quite prominent one, p’haps, but that is all. It’s one’s fault if they feed the corporate machine.
22/09/2010 at 19:01 GoldenNugget says:
While it’s great they’re back with new releases and features, they sacrificed a week’s worth of sales for noisy bad marketing.
Also, hopefully they’ll fix problems in some of their releases. I still can’t play Arx Fatalis properly without problems (lag, clocking issues, etc.).
22/09/2010 at 19:01 Tom says:
It was in poor taste, but it’s the only way they’d get any attention. I think they figured their long time customers would realize that yeah it’s a poor taste joke, but they *never* would have gotten anywhere near the coverage anywhere if they’d just said, “Welp, we’re leaving beta.” RPS would have covered it, but mainstream sources would have given them one buried article, at most; as it is now, they’ve gotten major coverage, so the brand is out there.
As a long time user, I don’t like being taken for a ride, but I have copies of all my install files on my external, so there wouldn’t be a big problem. And I’m hoping they do some sort of “Sorry we screwed with you long time users, here, have a free game!” apology event, because I like free things.
Additionally, of course they put out Baldur’s Gate the day after I get it to work on my finicky desktop.
22/09/2010 at 19:08 internisus says:
oh my god the sheer arrogance
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ATNd4qbNTf8
22/09/2010 at 19:55 Tetragrammaton says:
Oh the humanity!
I think someone wasn’t hugged enough as a child.
22/09/2010 at 19:12 Jeremy says:
It’s weird, it seems like everyone knew it was going to be a joke or a fake of some kind, then when it turned out it was the fake everyone thought, it created endless rage. Also, there really wasn’t a threat to people losing their games (even if they had gone out of business), unless GOG had literally lost all of their licenses in some coup d’etat of epic proportions.
Not denying it was a bad joke, as in not particularly funny, but I just can’t get on board with all the GOG rage.
22/09/2010 at 19:56 Kadayi says:
@Jeremy
Actually no, most people thought they’d folded (especially with the twitter message on top). It was only after a few things got mentioned at Neogaf (when they realised they’d made a colossal PR fuckup) and they added an amendment to the main page that thing settled down.
22/09/2010 at 20:45 Jeremy says:
Oh, fair enough. Well, then I change my statement from “everyone” to “I”, and redact the “rage”.
22/09/2010 at 19:12 Shadrach says:
Ouch, bad choice of joke indeed. I’ve been really worried about this a couple days, as they are a great site and I’ve bought several games there.
Still, maybe they were prescient, lets hope not.
22/09/2010 at 19:14 Frankie The Patrician[PF] says:
Yay! New site, features and shit! Tomorrow…Good’un!
What’s with all the hate, seriously? I enjoy an occasional prank or two, not a big deal. And hey, they promised ppl WILL be able to download their games from the first message, so what?
Kudos to Poland!
22/09/2010 at 19:17 TCM says:
The best way to deal with a PR failure is smugly implying your customers ‘don’t get it’.
Obviously.
22/09/2010 at 19:28 Dominic White says:
The whole thing feels like a 4chan troll, rather than marketing for a major digital distro site.
Their reaction to the publics dismay can even be summed up as ‘OLOL I lied u mad?’. That’s a hollow, sad cry for attention, not a marketing strategy.
22/09/2010 at 19:30 Atic Atac says:
LIKE
22/09/2010 at 21:41 Skinlo says:
They aren’t a major digital distribution site…
22/09/2010 at 19:26 internisus says:
Here’s their so-called apology:
“We are here today to address our humble apologies to the users. We have sinned; forgive us. We would like to apologize to the users for not warning them about the closure of Good Old Games and not allowing them to have access to the games they purchased. Unfortunately, Brother, this was needed from a technical perspective. We had to do it, and I do hope that we will not have to do it again. We don’t want to cause any more pain to the users. Brother, tell me more.”
“Yes, Brother. But we also believe that the industry these days becomes really serious—really stiff. We are Good Old Gamers; we remember back in the day when the industry was young and fresh. It was full of new ideas and crazy stunts. Yes, we have to admit we have sinned: We planned a little game with our dear users and dear media, but it was all to their entertainment. You can look at the text we had posted on Sunday on our page right after the closure. There was plenty of hints, Brother. I believe there was plenty of hints. ‘GOG cannot continue the way it is. New challenges await.’ Plenty of hints, Brother, plenty of hints.”
22/09/2010 at 19:28 Frankie The Patrician[PF] says:
It’s in the video, we know…SO?
22/09/2010 at 19:29 Davian says:
Despite this stunt, I can’t deny that GoG does great work at simplifying the process of running older games on newer configurations. I’ll show my appreciation by making sure that I torrent their editions exclusively from now on.
22/09/2010 at 19:37 Kurina says:
Seriously? You want to torrent games from a service that has continually struggled against publishers to provide releases without DRM? What in the world will even be accomplished by this, other than proving publishers right and making future releases more difficult?
22/09/2010 at 19:53 bwion says:
Heh. First genuine laugh I’ve gotten out of this mess.
22/09/2010 at 20:10 Davian says:
I will have accomplished my goal of not giving money to people who disrespected me as a customer. Also, I will have enlarged my games collection without danger of suffering from PROLONGED INTERNET RAGE because of someone’s idiotic concept of doing business.
22/09/2010 at 20:50 Kurina says:
This makes just about as much sense as GOG’s PR stunt does. None.
22/09/2010 at 23:12 Davian says:
Oh come on, I used the Future Perfect Tense, er, perfectly. Twice! I think. It must make some sense at least.
22/09/2010 at 19:36 Tei says:
Maybe If gift Planescape Torment for free, translated to spanish, I will consider forgetting this.
23/09/2010 at 10:16 Optimaximal says:
Wow, Tei is Spanish?
It all makes sense! This is the greatest revelation of the thread!
23/09/2010 at 10:21 Man Raised By Puffins says:
Indeed it is, I always thought he was Portugese.
23/09/2010 at 14:53 Huggster says:
Well, he could be South American or from any number of Latin American countries, by birth, I guess – does not have to be “Spanish” nationality.
23/09/2010 at 14:54 Huggster says:
But that is beside the point – I agree – delete all other posts, leave this one and lock the thread.
22/09/2010 at 19:42 orangedragon10 says:
Wow, just wow. I didn’t expect such sheer raging going on in the RPS community. Sure, it was a bad stunt and poor way to announce them going out of beta, but there are much worse things to be angry about in the gaming industry. Can’t we just forgive and move on? They’re relaunching with new features and new BIG games. I’d say this calls for a celebration :)
22/09/2010 at 19:43 Heliocentric says:
WAIT!!! I liked the download client, and its gone, who does that benefit?
22/09/2010 at 19:45 Lukasz says:
like someone else said.
this PR campaign just reeks of 90s
You remember it? The golden age of gaming. Huge boxes, manuals the size of average book and beautiful amateurism of the whole industry.
Nowadays:
Million dollar campaigns
Franchise franchise franchise
Maximizing profits
Satisfying shareholders
CEOs in suits and shaved faces
Where is the magic? Where is the beauty?
22/09/2010 at 19:47 Hmm-Hmm. says:
Wow. I’m stunned.
Oh, sure most of us probably expected this (or hoped this), but it’s still incredibly mindboggling that they’d stop their service unannounced for whatever reason besides being forced to. You just don’t do this. Bad taste, GOG. Very bad taste.
22/09/2010 at 19:47 Pangaron says:
I am surprised that many people are offended by this, some of them even condemning the site forever. Take it easy people, or just take some happy pills!
“Oh my god, they have ruined my life! I would never be the same again. The fear of everything around bankrupting… my favourite brand of soap might not be here tomorrow. Or it might, but out of beta!”
It was joke with a suprise combined. Did it kill anyone? Maybe a few heart attacks, but that is indirect anyway. Any kind of stress could do that.
If your really good friend pretended to be dead and appeared after a few days, what would you do? Kill him? Surely not. Maybe punch him “a bit”, screaming hysterically (or not) that he should never do something like that again. And what if you knew that your friend is a prankster? And what if he left some very cryptic messages?
People, be happy! Awesome service is not dead, but living instead, better and with more features, arriving tomorrow from a few days long “business trip”. I prefer them to be bad pranksters than some Mr. DRM and/or Mrs. Regionalrestrictions. It is more human too. It was not a perfect prank, but I am still happy for it. I feared loosing something I Iove and seeing it to come back. I do not like the fear part, but the other one. Experience I should remember and learn from.
22/09/2010 at 19:48 SwiftRanger says:
Pfew, what a sense of entitlement here. Most of you weren’t even affected by the temporary closure of less than one week (of a service which doesn’t require you to be online to play). In the first message on GoG they specifically hinted at the fact that the service would be back up for folks who want to download their stuff (again), a day later they made it even more clear that this would still be DRM-free.
To be honest, if they just said they needed the downtime for technical reasons (which could just as well have been the case) there wouldn’t be a mass herd of cows screaming out in rage here. Granted, not everything was well organised PR-wise but that brilliant first wording of them thinking about their own existence did got them the attention they needed, just announcing a reboot straight away wouldn’t even have made a blip on the multiplatform sites’ radar.
As for folks saying they’re now heading off to Steam and Impulse, you guys are seriously admitting Valve and Stardock do a better PR job? Now that’s the joke of the century.
22/09/2010 at 19:58 bwion says:
Well, let’s see. Stardock is the company whose CEO threw a possibly drunken tantrum recently when people accused their new game of being buggy and unfinished. And then came back with several increasingly-desperate-sounding rants about how said game was, in fact, buggy and unfinished. That’s certainly a failure of PR, though I’m not sure it’s quite on the level of completely undermining your customers’ faith in your business, and indeed your entire business model.
And Valve, um, there was that big Surprise debacle of a while back, though that was more a case of people running wild with speculations about things they had never actually hinted at.
So yeah, I think they’re both (if only incrementally in Stardock’s case) ahead of the game here.
22/09/2010 at 20:06 suibhne says:
This is simply not accurate. When this news first hit huge sites like /., there was no message on GOG’s page assuring users that they’d be able to download their games again; it seemed that GOG had simply vanished with only a perfunctory explanation, and all of our purchases were gone with it (if we hadn’t d/led them already). Sure, GOG staff appended some reassuring words to the site later that day, but the site had probably received tens of thousands of hits by that point.
The initial message also presented a little whine about how hard it is to stay afloat using a DRM-free business model. If GOG staff consider that a strong hint that GOG was still in business and only migrating to a new site…well, I just don’t know what planet they’re from.
22/09/2010 at 20:30 SwiftRanger says:
It took GoG one day to reassure their customers then, how long did it took Valve to let people play HL² or to get that cross-functionality up between L4D1 and 2 (woops, that never came, right)? How long did it take before anyone could play a decent online game of Demigod and who didn’t cringe at the following video reports of Brad promising they’re always working on a solution? Technical rather than PR problems you say? Nah, the two have always been intertwined, they affected the consumer’s ability to (properly) play said games and most importantly they were based on wild promises. PR jokes yes.
Seriously, overreacting is an art and you guys keep on proving it. Kudos for that but don’t expect me to take these concerns seriously when the competition and gaming PR in general is often just as bad.
22/09/2010 at 22:04 suibhne says:
It looks like you think there might be significant problems with how GOG handled this, but they’re not any worse than what’s been seen elsewhere in the gaming market. Is that right? (You brought up examples related to both digital delivery and gaming more generally, so I’m guessing you’re thinking of problems with the game market in general, not just DD.)
I think that’s a reasonable point. On the other hand, it’s probably not the most effective communication technique to admonish people that they’re just whiny when they express frustration at real problems – even if it’s true that competing services exhibit similar levels of problems.
It’s also amusing (to me, at least) that the people most engaged in the truly silly, one-size-fits-all rhetoric in this thread appear to be those fighting back against frustrated GOG customers. Not that I’m lumping you in with that crowd, of course. :P
22/09/2010 at 19:53 Tetragrammaton says:
Reading these comments, it would seem this was a rather ill advised stunt. I suppose they didnt take into account how fickle the gaming pc community actually is.
Some of the whinging here is hilarious.
22/09/2010 at 20:02 Kadayi says:
@Tetragrammaton
A service is much like a bank account. When you’ve put money in (bought games), you expect to be able to take them out (download them) pretty much all the time, so naturally when the sign goes up that the banks suddenly closed/out of business you’ve the right to be a little pissed about it.
22/09/2010 at 20:13 Tetragrammaton says:
The analogy doesn’t wash, im afraid. Digital distribution is still in it infancy, and any one who doesn’t back up games from smaller services such as GOG are being more than a little cavalier. Equally they had posted on the placeholder site that they were going to allow all purchased games to be re-downloaded. What riles me is the community once again showing a depressing lack of humour and inflamed sense of entitlement. I expect more from RPS, is all.
22/09/2010 at 20:21 suibhne says:
That’s absurd. As RPS reported a few days ago, NPD says that digital delivery has now beaten brick-and-mortar retail for PC gaming sales in the North American market, so it’s just mind-boggling to read your claim that “digital delivery is still in its infancy”.
22/09/2010 at 20:23 suibhne says:
And, again, GOG’s site did not originally include any assurance that games could be downloaded again in the future. That notice was added only after the initial wave of reactions – after the news had already made ripples at sites like /.
22/09/2010 at 20:39 Kadayi says:
@Tetragrammaton
“The analogy doesn’t wash, im afraid. Digital distribution is still in it infancy, and any one who doesn’t back up games from smaller services such as GOG are being more than a little cavalier”
Generally in business if you’re closing a service down (even temporarily) you give your paid customers a warning. They didn’t, they failed. Also you seem to misunderstand what digital distribution is all about. The idea is to get away from having physical backups not make more of them. The whole DD service thing is about accessibility, anywhere, any time.
22/09/2010 at 20:42 Tetragrammaton says:
Volume of sales is irrelevant. When i talk of infancy, I am referring to the technology and legal aspects. GOG, we mustn’t forget, was in its beta stage.
I was not aware that the notice was tacked on posthumously – any links?
Regardless, the PR has done its job, this thread alone has 250+posts. It is without doubt that there are a good deal more people aware of the site than before. Rage if you must, And grumble that they don’t respect the consumer. They attempted to increase their exposure through a PR stunt. It was not a personal attack.
22/09/2010 at 20:51 Tetragrammaton says:
@Kadayi
‘Generally in business if you’re closing a service down (even temporarily) you give your paid customers a warning.’
True, but this is not a legal constant. As I said before, they miscalculated. (As is evidenced in your reactions) But as I stated before, It has done the job it was created for. As for ethics, I suspect that is subective.Also as for the DD stuff, yes, that is indeed the ideal. However, the world does not conform to ideals as regularly as we would like. Its a question of pragmatism. GOG and sites like it are not immune to calamity (of various sources and levels of intensity) Its just common sense, no?
“The analogy doesn’t wash, im afraid. Digital distribution is still in it infancy, and any one who doesn’t back up games from smaller services such as GOG are being more than a little cavalier”
Generally in business if you’re closing a service down (even temporarily) you give your paid customers a warning. They didn’t, they failed. Also you seem to misunderstand what digital distribution is all about. The idea is to get away from having physical backups not make more of them. The whole DD service thing is about accessibility, anywhere, any time.
22/09/2010 at 20:52 Tetragrammaton says:
@Kadayi
‘Generally in business if you’re closing a service down (even temporarily) you give your paid customers a warning.’
True, but this is not a legal constant. As I said before, they miscalculated. (As is evidenced in your reactions) But as I stated before, It has done the job it was created for. As for ethics, I suspect that is subjective.Also as for the DD stuff, yes, that is indeed the ideal. However, the world does not conform to ideals as regularly as we would like. Its a question of pragmatism. GOG and sites like it are not immune to calamity (of various sources and levels of intensity) Its just common sense, no?
22/09/2010 at 21:19 Kadayi says:
@Tetragrammaton
“Also as for the DD stuff, yes, that is indeed the ideal. However, the world does not conform to ideals as regularly as we would like. Its a question of pragmatism. GOG and sites like it are not immune to calamity (of various sources and levels of intensity) Its just common sense, no?”
It’s not an ideal, it’s actually one of DDs main selling points. Download and redownload the titles you’ve bought, whenever you want.
22/09/2010 at 21:47 Ridye says:
I expect more from RPS, is all.
Indeed.
I assumed there would some hiss and throwing fists here and there… but this?
Is like they have destroyed accounts, messed with your Hard Disk, leveraged your Credit Card info, or have broken the TOS somehow.
Yet, the only valid critic is for those that did purchase a title, and *specifically* needed to download it during the downtime. Only that. How many were in that circumstance?
If any, this shows that GOG is going strong, and will -not- die in the near future.
Still worried? Keep backups at hand.
Still not happy? Keep putting all your eggs in the Steam basket. Give them all the power to rile the whole market in any way they seem fit.
Because that’s what we need. Another Google, Facebook, Apple.
Go forth.
22/09/2010 at 22:41 Kadayi says:
@Ridye
When it first went up there was no mention of people being able to download any titles they’d bought at all. They added that later on (once they realised they’ve fucked up). It came across as a case of them suddenly shutting down operations in it’s entirety no refunds given.
23/09/2010 at 00:00 Ridye says:
@Kadayi
Yes, not allowing the customers to download their games for several days -without warning- is something that GOG team is indeed guilty. That’s definitive. And I can understand those that are angry for that reason.
Clearly, most do agree that it wasn’t a wise move.
But seems to me that the complains expressed here go way beyond that.
Simply put, the angered response (lot of people saying that will never have any business with them again because they are no longer reliable) does not seems to be warranted for what was primarily, a silly PR move.
No doubt they will learn from this mishap. Even despite the whole monk video.
Hell, I would not be surprised if RPG have a Q&A article with them, in the next days..
23/09/2010 at 10:41 plugmonkey says:
@Kadayi
‘Generally in business if you’re closing a service down (even temporarily) you give your paid customers a warning.’
Generally, yes. But I have said this before, and I will say it again: It is a very good job you didn’t use Steam in the early days. You would have been dead from some sort of aneurism within days.
22/09/2010 at 19:54 Po0py says:
People are being incredibly harsh. I was never in fear of loosing access to my games. I’ve always known that if they were to close down that the games would be made available afterward. They have always said that. Wasn’t this a part of their original launch PR? To respect the customer? Even after the site went down they were also pretty quick to get the word out that they would make the games available at a later date. I seriously am surprised at the tone of John Walkers post. Don’t know what all the fuss is about.
People are being way, way too harsh. They are a small company and they were trying to make a big splash. In the end, the, intention was to have maximum impact so that the company could grow. Maybe they could have done it a little better but you can’t blame a small company for giving a bit of viral style marketing a go. Kudos to them. And congrats on leaving beta.
22/09/2010 at 20:01 bwion says:
Admittedly, I’m not really much more than mildly annoyed here (and rather more upset about the bullshit ‘apology’ than I am about the actual stunt). But in what possible sense could any of this be said to, as you say, respect the customer?
22/09/2010 at 20:17 Davian says:
Loosing? LOOSING? ENGLISH MOTHERSATISFIER, DO YOU SPEAK IT.
22/09/2010 at 20:27 Kadayi says:
@bwion
Respect the customer does seem to be a lesson they haven’t figured out.
22/09/2010 at 20:49 Po0py says:
DRM free. They respect their customers more than anyone else I can think of off the top of my head. Their whole business model is based around respecting the customer. I do agree that the whole affair could have been done a bit better. But I still give them credit for trying. As has already been said, most of the people whining about not having access to their game probably never had any intention to access them in the short period of time that the site is down. And again, even if they were closing down, I think it’s perfectly rational to assume that they were not ever going to screw us over by denying us access to the games that we have purchased. That really would have been a shit-storm.
22/09/2010 at 21:25 bwion says:
Oh, I do give them credit for running a solid business without many (up til now) missteps. I’m not really bothered by DRM (provided that it doesn’t assume I’ll never have an internet outage or wreck my computer or something), but I respect the hell out of anyone who’s willing to provide DRM-free games. That’s part of why this entire thing is so mystifying.
This blunder (and I don’t see how it can be considered anything but that) doesn’t negate their past successes, but neither do their past successes negate this blunder.
Don’t get me wrong, I’m not going to REFUSE TO PURCHASE GAMES FROM THEM FOREVERMORE OH AND I AM ADDING THEM TO MY WILL JUST SO I CAN CUT THEM OUT OF IT or anything like that. (It’s fairly likely that, where they offer something that Steam or Impulse or whoever offers at well, and at a comparable price, I’ll think strongly about getting it through one of those services instead, though.) It just disappoints me, and, well, surprises me that a company that’s previously been so smart could do something that’s so dumb.
22/09/2010 at 19:56 Hippo says:
It was really stupid, yeah. But GOG is still my favourite digital distribution outlet. So tomorrow, I’ll be there, and I’ll buy Baldur’s Gate. When they release Planescape, I’ll buy that too. And I’ll keep going back, because I know from the past two years that every couple of weeks, they will release something really, really good.
Am I angry? Well, kind of. But fuck that. I know what’s good for me, and that involves good, old (DRM-free) games, not sitting around being grumpy about a failed PR-stunt.
22/09/2010 at 20:02 Bowlby says:
Honestly, I don’t think I can be bothered to give them the time of day to look at their new website features, that stunt pissed me off so much. Hey, here’s a great idea: freak your customers out by raising the possibility that they might not be able to access their purchases ever again, thereby reminding them of the risks of buying digitally. Or, to put it more simply:
Step 1: tap right into your customers fears and emotionally manipulate them, ‘cos they love a bit of tha’.
Step 2: inform your customers that it was all a hoax and that you were too dumb to get it.
Step 3: ????
Step 4: Prof– I mean, alienate your loyal customers.
Also, “We apologize for that from the bottom of our hearts!” Really? Because from the looks of your YouTube vid and that errant question mark it may conceivably look like you’re taking the piss.
22/09/2010 at 20:26 SheffieldSteel says:
Alternatively…
1. Give your customers the means to play good old games even if your server should go offline without warning.
2. Take your server offline without warning.
3. ???
4. Seriously, WTF ???
22/09/2010 at 20:33 Reliant39 says:
@SheffieldSteel:
It isn’t about NOT being able to play the games when the server goes offline; they are DRM free, after all. It’s about not telling your customers that you are going to take the site down for a few days to upgrade your systems (so that you might not be able to play a game you recently bought and haven’t downloaded yet), then pretending that you’re gone for good, then staging an elaborate show, laugh about it being a prank, and then insulting your customers by saying they are obviously a bit thick for not having caught on.
That’s a piss-poor way to handle your existing customer base.
22/09/2010 at 20:13 Carra says:
Now this is why Google never lets his products go out of beta.
22/09/2010 at 20:19 Kadayi says:
From the dressed as monks Mea Culpa shit, I get the impression that they really don’t actually think they did anything wrong, which is an even bigger PR fuck up that the fake closure. Deceiving the customer is bad enough, telling the customer that they didn’t read the signs correctly is even worse….
I’m certainly not going to disregard the occasional email I get from them regarding games, but I have to say, if there existed an alternative to GoG, I’d probably decamp to that in a heartbeat.
22/09/2010 at 20:52 Oliver says:
^ THIS.
I don’t give a shit about them closing suddenly because afaic, they’re just one of the many. Plus, I have my games backed up, so whatever.
What I do care about is that the people I give money to don’t act like morons and laugh at their own customers.
It’s kinda like if I walked into BestBuy and bought a laptop the salesperson had recommended. I get outside with it and he’s on his smokebreak. Then he laughs at me for buying it, calls me a tosser and then throws it on the ground and jumps up and down on it.
If you’d prefer a 7-11 analogy, what if every time you bought a candy bar, they immediately grabbed it back and punched you in the face?
Let’s just say I’m not buying any more candybars or laptops from these asshats anymore. Not because I don’t get their “joke” but because I want companies that I respect enough to give money to to respect me back more than these clowns do.
22/09/2010 at 20:25 Simon Jones says:
I suspect that this may have brought in some new customers that had never heard of them before, but will have simultaneously lost a lot of previously loyal and enthusiastic ‘evangelists’.
Most notably, while this got them onto the front pages of the mainstream gaming press, they’ll soon be dropped once those sites realise that they still only sell ‘old’ games. So they’d better hope that some of the grassroots base forgives them or returns in time.
Some more of my thoughts here….. http://potentialgamer.com/2010/09/22/gog-coms-4-day-madness/
22/09/2010 at 20:34 Torqual says:
Apology accepted good old monks.
Have a nice prayer
22/09/2010 at 20:36 Renzatic says:
I AM SO MAD RIGHT NOW! I WILL WRITE COPIOUS AMOUNTS OF LETTERS TO THE EDITOR OVER THIS HORRENDOUS INCONVENIENCE! 5 DAYS! 5 DAMN DAYS! THAT’S HOW LONG I COULDN’T DOWNLOAD MUH GAMEZ! FOR THIS TRAVESTY, I DEMAND FREE HOOKERS AND CARWASHES!
Okay, serious opinion time. Was it a dumb move? Oh yes. It was the very definition of. But is it worth all the internet rage? Not really. Thing is, this is the internet, and as we’re all aware, internet people love nothing more than a drama induced rage. I mean if you can’t act like company X fingerfucked your sister in the back of the Monte Carlo, then dumped her for your mom on the night of the big dance, then why even bother at all?
So will I use GOG again? Yup. But I’ll make damn sure I burn all my downloads from here on out, in case it actually happens again and is like totally serious this time.
22/09/2010 at 20:56 Nearyus says:
I second that! Finally someone with the magnificent power of common sense…
22/09/2010 at 21:07 bleeters says:
Sigh.
Look, five days isn’t much of an inconvenience, all things considered. Chances are they needed that time to revamp the site anyway. What seems to be mostly drawing ire isn’t the downtime, it’s the fact that rather than be straight up about that downtime, they pretended the site was shutting down to drum up some attention. Then, after a predictably irritated response from their consumerbase, responded with what can largely be summed up as “you should’ve known better”.
I don’t think being annoyed about this whole affair is particularly unreasonable.
22/09/2010 at 22:58 Renzatic says:
@Bleeters
Oh, being annoyed is perfectly understandable. I’m arguing against the extremes here.
I think of it like this. The nice company that offered me great, DRM free games for cheap did something incredibly thickheaded. Since their intent wasn’t flat out malicious, I just think deserve some castigation, not the complete and total loss of my business.
And to the people who are saying “olol they pissed me off so now I’ll torrent all their games”, yeah…that’s bright. Lets take the one of the few companies that offers up stuff no strings attached, and make the publishers look like they’ve been right all along. Now I’m not one of these anti-DRM people who get in a frothing rage over cd-keys or anything. I use Steam all the time. But I would like to send a message to all the publishers that DRM is good for nothing more than slight peace of mind on their end. Supporting sites like GOG helps push that point across.
22/09/2010 at 20:47 SquareWheel says:
Well I’m never shopping from them again.
22/09/2010 at 20:53 Pantsman says:
Bad PR move, stupid stunt, yadda yadda yadda – we’re all talking about it, lots more people will have heard of the site now, and they’ll only lose the most thin-skinned of their customers. All things considered, this seems to have been a brilliant idea.
22/09/2010 at 21:00 cheal says:
God people are getting awfully worked up over this. The internet lives up to its name once again!
22/09/2010 at 21:00 Danny says:
One of the reasons I visit RPS is the nice and witty community. Today though I’m shocked by the amount of people that are reacting totally out of proportion, like kids who are going crazy because they didn’t get that happy meal.
Seriously, some of you sound like you’d be able to travel to Poland and kill their families. Not enough to settle the score of course, but a nice beginninng.
22/09/2010 at 21:07 Pantsman says:
They ought to put a message up on the webpage: “No gamers were harmed in the making of this PR stunt.”
22/09/2010 at 21:13 Tetragrammaton says:
Its not the first nor the last time such a thing has happened here. The intraweb brings out the worst in even the most mild-mannered of gentlemen
22/09/2010 at 21:11 Granny says:
Sure smells whine in here.
If you wipe your eyes and read the statement, it doesn’t say anything about GOG closing down. All of you “they lost me as customer, they lied to me”-people, your games were never “in danger”, it was clearly stated that you would be able to download them again.
To the guys who say they’ll do it again, brighten up and have a cookie. They’ve been working so hard, for so long to make GOG what it is today. They just came out of beta after 2 years, let them celebrate.
22/09/2010 at 21:12 cjlr says:
- I’m appalled.
- You’re appalled. I’m appalled.
- I just can’t belive it. I’m appalled. What do you make of it, Bernard?
- I’m appalled.
- So am I. Appalled.
- It’s appalling.
- Appalling. I… Just don’t know how to describe it.
- Appalling?
- Appalling.
22/09/2010 at 21:12 Myfyr says:
The interesting thing is, they could have achieved almost all of the same PR attention with almost none of the same PR failure, if they had been just a little more cunning. All it would have taken would be for the initial message to be a bit more vague. Something that seems like a “we’re in legal trouble and closing” message, but could, if you squint right, be a relaunch hint.
Stuff still hits the fan: rumors of their demise bouncing around, rage at lack of notice and lack of games availability etc. So, same exposure. Then, after letting it simmer for just a bit, announce that it was all a big misunderstanding, our bad, we’re only a small company and don’t have the money for a proper PR department to proof our release, or something. Don’t panic, there’ll be a press conference shortly.
Problem solved. I imagine the vast majority of annoyed folks would have been very understanding.
Of course, that approach is quite a bit more devious/underhanded, but hey, who I doubt anyone would even think twice, let alone investigate closely enough to find out. And now I can’t decide whether that line would indicate more, or less, respect for their customers. In any case, it would certainly have been more professional. Very Valve. ;P
22/09/2010 at 21:15 Urael says:
My god. Never have I seen a thread full of whining, bitching, inflated senses of entitlement and throwing of toys out of prams!
From the very first message GOG posted it was mostly clear that they weren’t going away. Most of us had heard the fairly persistent rumours about it being some kind of hoax as well, although it looks like many here chose to ignore that based on their love of a good tantrum. Yes there was doubt, yes there was uncertainty, yes it was badly handled and somewhat ill-advised but the adult thing to do was simply to wait until the Press Conference and see what transpired. Oh, they came back, bigger and better and touting great new games – fab!
To all those never buying GOG games again out of injured…whatever – Grow up.So you couldn’t download your games for a few days – how many people here ACTUALLY needed to download one, and how many people are huffing and puffing purely out of principle? Be honest. Which game was so vital that you needed it on Monday or yesterday?
It wasn’t the best joke in the world, nor were the monks particularly funny, but there’s absolutely no need for the rage and vitriol happening on this thread, you absolute fucking drama queens. After TWO YEARS of solid reliable service, you get pissed at one ill-judged PR exercise and start banging on about ‘lost trust’ and ‘forgiveness’? Christ, shoot me now – the world is clearly populated by prima-donna idiots.
22/09/2010 at 21:27 patricij says:
OPEN FIRE!!!! Tatatatatatatatatata….sorry, I missed and mowed down all the prima-donnas :)
-Frankie The Patrician[PF]
22/09/2010 at 21:27 Reliant39 says:
@Urael:
Get off your high horse. It isn’t about not being able to download your game (though I can imagine new customers were ticked off when they made a purchase and couldn’t download it). It’s a matter of principle: how do you, as a customer, want to be treated? Would you like a company to be honest and take your business seriously, or would you like them to treat you like a dribbling idiot?
GOG’s apology is something I cannot take seriously. They might as well say, “Ah, you’ll be back anyway, like the bitch you are!” And the sad thing is, a lot of people will keep buying games from them after this debacle. They haven’t exactly got a lot of competition.
And Vinraith: you’re my hero.
22/09/2010 at 21:32 Kadayi says:
@patricij
You have a luminous imagination there. Maybe less self medicating in future…
23/09/2010 at 10:59 Urael says:
@Reliant39
“Get off your high horse.”
It’s not a high horse. It’s a reasonable, balanced, taking-things-in-perspective horse. The same height as your horses but less likely to whinny madly or kick something to death simply because it feels like it.
“It’s a matter of principle.”
Principles are wonderful things: I hold to many myself but the thing about principles is that real life often precludes them. It’s all well and good for a business to adhere to ethical standards and work for the greater good but at the end of the day, and this is the point I keep making to the Steam evangelists, is that it’s STILL ONLY A BUSINESS. Am I upset because a few people thought that removing the service for a prank (while they updated the entire website) was a good idea? No, because while I like the service and what it stands for I accept that it’s just another places to buy games, and certainly not my only place to buy games. They made it reasonably clear to anyone capable of a spot of clear-headed analysis that you would still be able to download your games after a brief spell offline so I was perfectly happy to wait and see what transpired without launching myself into nerd-rage over it.
I hardly think that this one ill-judged PR stunt counts as being treated like a “dribbling idiot”. As I said I’ve enjoyed two years worth of solid, reliable, friendly, DRM-Free service – I even got a free game out of them for signing up prior to their launch – so am not going to villify them or withdraw my financial support in a fit of bruised feelings because of one dumb mis-step.
“GOG’s apology is something I cannot take seriously. They might as well say, “Ah, you’ll be back anyway, like the bitch you are!” And the sad thing is, a lot of people will keep buying games from them after this debacle. They haven’t exactly got a lot of competition.”
You see that much contempt for customers in what they’ve done? Since their launch they’ve worked bloody hard to provide a unique and much-loved service, getting license deals worked out for all our beloved legacy games, not to mention updating them to run on modern PCs, then played a prank which they genuinely believed was going to be funny. Their apology was also based on that belief. How is any of that contemptuous behaviour? How does any of that mean they’re treating you like their bitch? You get more contemptuous behaviour from Valve when they promise things they don’t deliver or shut-down accounts with no means to appeal. All GOG are guilty of is bad PR decisions and not realising what a bunch of prissy whiners their customers are.
Lastly, for those commenting on the polarisation effect, my comments are intended as the middle path. I’m not an “Apologist” in any sense – I don’t think the prank or apology were particularly good ideas but neither am I going to rant and scream and air my psychological bruises like most of the posts so far. Oh, and my “self-entitlement” comment was directed at all those professing that they should be granted a free game for ‘what has been done to them’ or ‘it’s the decent thing to do’ or – and this one really sticks in the craw – ‘it’s what Valve would have done’.
22/09/2010 at 21:21 Vinraith says:
It’s fascinating to me how, when a game company screws up and some people get pissed about it, there’s always a population of crazed loyalists who will pop up and scream at, insult, and villify people for having the unmitigated gall to… be upset over something. The phrase “sense of entitlement” always comes into it as well, even if it has absolutely no place in the discussion. In the past I’d thought it was purely a Valve apologist phenomenon, now I know better.
22/09/2010 at 21:24 Harlander says:
I agree ten million percent with this.
Frankly, I’m not particularly put out by GOG’s frankly slightly dickish but ultimately forgivable behaviour. I made the mistake of reading all of this comment thread, and now the next person who says “entitlement” within earshot is getting a screwdriver through the eye.
“So what about my company pension?”
“Your entitlement-” *splutch!*
Yeah. I guess I’ve only myself to blame. No-one made me read the comments..
22/09/2010 at 21:28 Kadayi says:
@Vinwraith
Yeah, I’m kind of surprised at the number of apologists crawling out of the woodwork here. Personally I’m glad that the service is coming back, however pretty much everyone acknowledges that it was a dumb PR move, so it’s to be expected that people are a little pissed. Why are they pissed? Not because they couldn’t access their games, but because they care, and and don’t appreciate being deceived.
22/09/2010 at 21:39 Vinraith says:
@Kadayi
Exactly. Plus, I’ve got to figure that the GOG apologists here are doing more harm than good by polarizing an already polarized situation. People have a right to be angry, but I hope they’ll be angry for awhile and then come back to GOG, because idiotic missteps aside it’s a great service that offers great products in a way no other DD site does. By attacking people for (rightly) feeling betrayed and upset about this, the apologists are more likely to set that hostility in stone and drive off potential “forgive and forget” customers. As stated earlier, my biggest worry and irritation about all this is that GOG has threatened their own existence by behaving stupidly, we don’t need that situation exacerbated.
22/09/2010 at 21:48 SheffieldSteel says:
I think that to be fair you would have to agree that some posters have gone a bit too far in their responses – on both sides. Opinions always tend to be on a bell curve; it’s just that on the internet people tend to be a little less inhibited about showing how weird they are. Hence, “rabid apologists” versus “prima donnas” or whathaveyou.
22/09/2010 at 21:51 Skinlo says:
Or perhaps people are more emotionally logical and stable, and don’t feel the need to get angry about not much?
Nobody is apologising for what they did, it was clearly a bad move, but to scream and shout and tell the internet how angry you are and how you want to kill them is just pathetic.
22/09/2010 at 21:52 Vinraith says:
@SheffieldSteel
Yes, some people are going too far the other way, but it’s not a balanced situation with “neutrality” in the middle. People have every right to be upset, so it’s not surprising that some of them get TOO upset. The question is, why is a subset of the people who aren’t upset actively upset at those who are? Like I said, this happens every time a dev/publisher/distributor with a following makes a major misstep, and it’s every bit as incomprehensible and counterproductive each and every time.
22/09/2010 at 22:26 Mil says:
@Vinraith:
And now you’re upset at the people who are upset at those who got upset with GOG. The obvious conclusion is that being upset at things makes people upset at you. Luckily I’m here to break the cycle of upsetness by not giving a damn about the whole thing.
22/09/2010 at 22:28 Vinraith says:
@Mil
Nah, I’m not upset, I’m just sort of intrigued by the whole bizarre panoply of human psychology at play here.
22/09/2010 at 23:00 Freud says:
It’s because many gamers aren’t very smart consumers (young and not very experienced in how the world works). They seem to think it is ok to be jerked around by companies and if you don’t take it, clearly you are overreacting.
Meanwhile, in the real world, if you run a shoddy business people will react. If a store tries to sell you rotten fruit, they won’t be very successful. Even if they dress up like monks and tell you it was all a joke.
22/09/2010 at 21:22 Akira says:
It’s just an online shop! I’m one of their customers and it doesn’t bother me what they did. I had the games I paid for on my hard drive, so I’d be unaffected even if they did shut down. What’s wrong with them having some fun? They’re humans – humans like to play. They’re quite nice humans that are doing gaming a service by providing DRM-free titles.
-Akira
22/09/2010 at 21:25 Akira says:
Harsh but true :P
22/09/2010 at 21:31 Fumarole says:
Anyone else think their garb is a nod to the monks in Candlekeep from Baldur’s Gate?
That could pretty much describe what happen on the internet the last few days following this event.
22/09/2010 at 21:32 Iain says:
This whole furore has reminded me of two basic truths of life:
1) Humour doesn’t translate well, and
2) Most gamers on the internet are people with serious self-entitlement issues.
If you don’t take regular backups and have your install executables safely tucked away in at least two places other than your hard drive, then you shouldn’t be allowed to use a computer in the first place. Expecting to have even a paid service around for perpetuity to allow you to download stuff on demand is wishful thinking at best. Companies go under all the time – at least GoG releases their stuff DRM free so that you don’t need to have your computer phone home all the time so you can play your games.
All you need to do is download stuff as soon as you buy them and get them backed up onto DVD so this kind of thing doesn’t make the blindest bit of difference to you or not. The amount of whinging around this story is amazing – if people spent half the time they used moaning on actually learning how to keep their data secure, the internet would be a much more pleasant place to spend time. Seriously, lighten the hell up and respect the limitations of the technology you’re using.
22/09/2010 at 21:37 Kadayi says:
“If you don’t take regular backups and have your install executables safely tucked away in at least two places other than your hard drive, then you shouldn’t be allowed to use a computer in the first place”
The writings of a man who seriously fails to understand the concept of Digital distribution services, and why people use them.
22/09/2010 at 21:48 Skinlo says:
I use them so I don’t need CD’s. Why do you use them?
22/09/2010 at 21:53 SheffieldSteel says:
For all you know, the assumption was that you’re supposed to store those backups on the internet somewhere, perhaps on one of those free online storage accounts, rather than burning it to a disk.
That way, neither of you has to call the other one stupid.
Well, it was a nice idea :-)
22/09/2010 at 22:11 Calabi says:
I must have missed that memo because I believed, GOG was similar to Steam in that you buy the games and they stay with your account, you dont have to back them up at all anywhere.
Thank you for clarifying, so that I have no use for the service anymore.
And how is it self entitlement for games you bought and paid(and they described and defined what service your money paid for). Is it just that gamers are used to being dealt shit, (eulas and whatever) that they accept nonsense like this.
22/09/2010 at 21:39 GreatUncleBaal says:
I don’t actually think it’s wrong to complain that you feel a bit cheated by a disingenuous announcement – and the original gist of Gog’s announcement was, I believe, that they could not continue as they were (and the style and format of the page at the time didn’t inspire hope either – a bog-standard dead website style rather than a “CHANGES ARE A COMIN’” banner).
Hindsight is a wonderful thing, and it’s easy now to say “ooh, a few days inconvenience”, but people didn’t know that at the time. It was also not about needing a game immediately, but knowing whether or not you’d have access to a thing you had legally purchased ever again – that’s a different issue to wanting something “NOW”. Which will raise the question of digital download ownership and its inherent problems again, which is a hard problem to resolve.
The vast majority of comments on this thread have not been death threats or fire and brimstone, but more in the vein of expressing a loss of trust following a poorly executed PR stunt, which is absolutely fair. I wouldn’t put up with this from a bricks and mortar business without feeling aggrieved, and I don’t see why appealing to a spirit of old-school romanticism (the so-called golden age of early gaming) should mean we do so in this case.
22/09/2010 at 21:52 Joof says:
Hilarious. I think I’ll purchase something from them for the first time just for getting everyone’s panties in a twist. I love it.
23/09/2010 at 00:33 jaheira says:
Yep. I was scared they’d gone now I’m happy they’re back. This PR stunt appeals to my childish sense of humour – the human race needs more pointless dicking about.
22/09/2010 at 21:55 Iain says:
@Kadayi: Actually, I understand them just fine, as I was an IT professional for over 9 years and I’ve been using Digital Download services pretty much since they started to appear.
Your statement, however, is one of a man who doesn’t seem to understand that things might not be around forever and that it’s a good idea to plan accordingly. The convenience of digital downloads is fantastic and all – but since I’ve been using PCs for over 20 years now (and the internet for over 16 years), I’m experienced enough to know not to trust that they can be relied upon to *definitely* be there tomorrow.
22/09/2010 at 22:13 Kadayi says:
You care to point to some genuine examples where said fear in relation to gaming services has paid out? Or are you hoping that your ‘I’m an IT professional’ badge is enough to impress me into awed silence (building my own PCs since 93). The internet isn’t going anywhere any time fast, and where there’s a market there’s always opportunity. Even if GoG had gone to the wall, some other DD portal would of picked up their titles because on the internet there’s no downside to strengthening your back catalogue at the end of the day.
22/09/2010 at 23:19 Iain says:
@Kadayi: Congrats on actually missing my point. The link in Megagun’s post to the Shamus Young site says pretty much all that needs to be said on the subject in terms of the rights of the consumer to digital download services.
No company is too big to fail – lots of formerly successful games companies and publishers have gone to the wall – Microprose, Interplay… I don’t think I need to list them. You’re right about one thing – there are opportunities in a free-market, but that also means that not many companies stick around for that long, and if they do disappear, you can’t expect that the people who do pick up the company will honour your past purchases in the future. Business is, after all, business. You’re paying to use a service for as long as the company that owns it wants to run it – that’s all. You don’t get to dictate the terms of use – that’s the downside of being a consumer.
As a hypothetical example, Valve might be a successful, independent company right now, but that doesn’t guarantee that it’s going to stay like that for the next five, ten or twenty years – that is just wishful thinking. It’s not inconceivable that Valve might get bought out by a company that might impose even more draconian DRM restrictions or make you pay for the service with a subscription charge. You could always vote with your wallet at that point, I suppose, but if you don’t pay for the service, you don’t get to keep playing with the games tied to the account.
My point about making backups of your GoG games was that it’s simply good practice to back up your data in more than one place, because then it doesn’t matter a damn if the service goes down or not (since there’s no DRM on the installers). I would have thought someone who’s been building their own PCs for over 15 years ought to know that. (’cause you never know – the company that runs the online data warehouse you’re using to store your backups might have gone bust by the time you need to retrieve your data)
The problem with computers and the internet now (compared to 15 years ago) is that things have advanced so much that people become lazy and complacent about their data redundancy – they don’t respect the technology anymore because it’s so much easier and quicker to do things. The internet might not be disappearing anytime soon, but doesn’t mean the same thing for the services you use on it. If people thought about that and planned for it, maybe there’d be a little less nerd rage in the universe whenever a website goes down for a couple of days. We’re talking about products and services for god’s sake, not violations of your inalienable human rights.
22/09/2010 at 23:28 Iain says:
Oh, and if you want an actual example of customers getting screwed over with regards to online services in games – how about the Hellgate: London “lifetime” subscriptions? Turns out that was for the lifetime of the game, not the player… and I don’t recall many people (if any) getting refunds on that one.
23/09/2010 at 00:08 Kadayi says:
@Iain
‘Congrats on actually missing my point’
You don’t have one. If the best you can muster as a counter argument against how the real world works is to grope for parallels in failed MMOs you are mistaken. All you have as an argument is nebulous fear of the future, and that I’m afraid is not enough. Within a couple of hours of GoG realising they’d made a monumental fuckup they amended their site message to try and calm the internet down. If you really think that anyone taking over say Valve would jeopardise their good relationship with their customer base you are sorely mistaken.
22/09/2010 at 22:02 Megagun says:
You know what the fun thing about this is? That it actually highlights the problem with DRM: the servers go down and you are *screwed*.
As for the “But they’ll give us a grace period to download everything!”: Shamus Young has answers to that: http://www.shamusyoung.com/twentysidedtale/?p=1680
22/09/2010 at 22:08 Lamoot says:
Reading some of the comments, it feels like I took a wrong turn somewhere and ended at Rock, Paper, Knitting class. So much drama even Shakespeare would envy. Or Victoria Holt.
I’ll start by saying I like the short apology they made. Usually when a developer or a publisher gets bad publicity, they immediately unleash the damage-control PR machine on the public, put tons and tons of ashes on themselves, soothe the gentle egos of gamers and promise to never do such a thing again. But come on, do you really trust someone who puts so much effort into you liking them? So, they made a mistake, they see that well enough. They apologized. Now what? Do they apologize again, throw themselves at our feet and bribe us until our butt-hurt egos are silenced and we think good things about them again? Or do we like them because we follow the same ideals – good games, affordable games, DRM free.
It takes testicular fortitude to not go into full PR damage-control and I prefer someone with such qualities to be the bearers of DRM-free ideal. Even if they are in their hearts geeks that make mistakes. Of course, we don’t make mistakes, we’re perfect angels wielding a staff of full moral entitelment to drama when things go wrong. Things did go wrong. We were kind of supposed to always have access to that online service we’re using. But it’s in the very very nature of online services that they are less reliable than a granite rock. I’m among those who didn’t back up their installation files and couldn’t access them for the last few days. If anything I’m glad I learned a lesson here and will download and make a backup once I can. And once I have that backup, all the DRM free games I bought will be here regardless of what’s to happen to the provider. How many other online services give you this option? Anyway, even when all of this is seen as a failed PR stunt it holds a valuable lesson.
Regards.
P.s.: Those forum and website passwords you save on your gmail account? Do you back those up?
22/09/2010 at 23:16 Davian says:
“Testicular fortitude” would make a great name for a band.
22/09/2010 at 22:09 Zeddo says:
Meh – it was a dick move to yank the site for a few days but certainly not adverse enough to warrant me taking my business elsewhere. Quite surprised by some of the over-reactions in the comments here… I though RPS was above this?
My only grief is they killed the site before I got to their weekend sale. Soldiers: Heroes of WWII & 1nsane are two sale worthy purchases!
22/09/2010 at 22:11 MrThingy says:
Very funny.
Here’s a funny story. User finds GOG.com. User decides to buy lots of games from GOG.com.
GOG gets lippy, GOG gets the sack!
I mean it! You’re sacked! You are the subject of a sacking!
* prize for guessing the show. :P
22/09/2010 at 22:16 Langman says:
“Ahaaaaaaaa!!!”
23/09/2010 at 16:44 MrThingy says:
Well done! :D
(your prize is to be able to access GOG.com … which I currently can’t without getting blank pages…)
22/09/2010 at 22:12 Bureaucromancer says:
You know, I have to agree with all the remarks that it was a stupid stunt, even as such stunts go, but I suspect that at the end of the day it worked. I have a hard time honestly thinking that this didn’t let more people know about GOG for the first time than it pissed off, and I really doubt any significant number of these people will use it as a reason not to buy from them given the whole DRM free thing. As far as the existing customers, frankly this is the internet we’re talking about, no one who complains about this six months from now will still be taken seriously.
22/09/2010 at 22:27 Antsy says:
Hope they don’t make a habit of this sort of thing. Oh.
22/09/2010 at 23:09 GreatUncleBaal says:
We’ll have nun of that here, brother. Oh dear.
22/09/2010 at 23:37 subedii says:
What the heck are you two talking abbot?
22/09/2010 at 23:49 Velvet Fist, Iron Glove says:
Right, that’s enough! I’m cowling the pun police!
23/09/2010 at 02:17 RodeoClown says:
I think I’ll step in an establish some order here.
But seriously, someone needs to find the PR rep who did this and friar.
23/09/2010 at 03:24 TCM says:
That one crossed the line. Say your prayers.
23/09/2010 at 12:39 Tei says:
La Insiquisicion Española esta aqui, no podemos salvar el cuerpo, pero con torturas y penitencia podemos salvar el alma.
23/09/2010 at 14:41 SheffieldSteel says:
Well, I wasn’t expecting THAT.
23/09/2010 at 14:45 AndrewC says:
Nadie espera que la Inquisición española!
22/09/2010 at 22:44 Jason Moyer says:
I was pissed the first day, wishing they had given more notice that they were gone. Then as it became obvious they were just going out of beta, I was slightly amused – good one guys, pulled the wool over my eyes for a moment there. The prank itself isn’t as funny as the response their prank is getting from people though, jesus. Someone above compared this to your parents faking a divorce when you’re a child, and I have to say it’s fairly sad if GOG playing a practical joke is anywhere near that traumatic.
22/09/2010 at 22:55 Fredrik Wester, CEO of Paradox says:
I approve of this mighty stunt!
22/09/2010 at 22:55 Kefren says:
They asked for forgiveness, I give it.
GOG has always been good to me, and they have apologised for my day of mild disappointment. Life goes on.
I keep backups of the games I want forever, and leave others on their site if I have played them a bit and am nto sure if I want to again. Thanks to being DRM free, if GOG ever disappeared, I would have copies of the games I love and still be able to play them (HOMM2 and 3 etc).
As the EA Games and Capcoms and Ubisofts of this world continue to alienate PC gamers, I find myself enjoying older games mroe than new releases in many cases. Therefore I am going to continue supporting GOG. I suggest you do the same.
22/09/2010 at 22:55 Popish Frenzy says:
This was an amateurish PR blunder not Bobby Kotick strangling cats atop his throne of bones. You could still play your installed games, they quickly informed you’d all get the chance to re-download your purchases and hinted pretty heavily that this was not in fact The End. If this one silly illjudged PR stunt is enough for you to say they’ve lost ALL the goodwill they’ve built up over the years then you are either internet blowhards or just horribly fickle, overreacting individuals.
22/09/2010 at 23:04 TCM says:
If they gave a legitimate apology, I’d be fine with it.
They chose to be smug, condescending, pricks towards an understandably confused and upset consumer base.
I have no reason to feel goodwill for any company that doesn’t put some thought into how their actions will affect their customers.
(What this means is I have no reason to feel goodwill for any company)
22/09/2010 at 23:59 Popish Frenzy says:
Oh I dont have a problem with that. If you dont think they’re apology was sincere then i can see why you’d still be angry and I can respect those who are still angry even whilst they do think the apology was sincere.
I just dont get those saying they’ll never buy from gog again or that they’ve pissed away all their accumulated goodwill. I mean I’m guessing that most of those posters had been using gog for a while and had grown to appreciate the service and respect the people behind it. And i just find it hard to believe that this stunt, almost refreshing in its amateur-hour bungling, could vex them so much as to wipe away all that in one go . They’re really never going to buy from gog again? Over this? I sppose it must just be the usual internet posturing and i shouldn’t worry about it:)
23/09/2010 at 00:22 Kadayi says:
@Popish Frenzy
I’m not sure many people have said that, but truth of the matter is has this stunt really worked? Will the benefits of having made a splash in the gaming news outweigh the damage they’ve done to their existing customer base in terms of goodwill? I haven’t forsworn buying any more titles from GoG in the future, but I suspect I’m probably going to be rather cool about my spending with them for quite a while.
23/09/2010 at 01:33 Popish Frenzy says:
@Kadayi
Actually, i did a rough count of the people saying gog had lost all their goodwill or they wouldn’t buy from them again, just to check I wasn’t getting all self-righteous at a couple of dudes writing multiple posts:) About 12 different posters said this. Not a huge amount and mostly on the first page but enough to get on my tits.
23/09/2010 at 10:35 Kadayi says:
@Popish Frenzy
You need to understand the concept of goodwill and what the lost of that means. If say you’re at a party and a good friend makes a drunken pass at your girlfriend when your away getting a drink, you might well be inclined to forgive them (she’s an attractive girl after all), but it’s fair to say you’d probably be a little distant with them afterwards no?
23/09/2010 at 20:07 Popish Frenzy says:
@Kadayi
Whatever passes for a small breach in trust in your analogy is what i think gog have done. If a friend committed this kind of small infraction in trust then yes they’d lose *some* credit with me but i’d forgive them. If instead i proclaimed that what they did was unforgivable, that they’d lost *all* the goodwill they’d ever earned over the years and that i would never speak to them again then i think i could be justly accused of hysterically overreacting. This is how i believe some posters are coming across.
23/09/2010 at 23:55 malkav11 says:
I may well buy from them again. They’re the only service out there that does what they do, and while some older games are showing up on Steam or Impulse or Gamersgate, the terms and prices are often not as good. But I used to extend them active preferment because they seemed like cool, consumer friendly people who deserved to succeed. This little stunt has substantially revised my opinion of them. Even if it wasn’t actively malicious (and I don’t think it was), it was an incredibly boneheaded, unprofessional move and I can’t say as I have much respect for anyone who would think it was a good idea, especially when they seem to feel it was a minor faux pas deserving of little further comment or recompense. I also no longer trust them to provide consistent service or appropriate communication if service interruption is unavoidable due to matters outside their control.
22/09/2010 at 23:49 Nick says:
Jesus there’s a lot of piss and whinge going on in here.
Personally, quite happy to continue using GoG,
23/09/2010 at 01:37 John Peat says:
What he said – there is an astonishing waterslide of whinge and shit going on here…
23/09/2010 at 02:48 bleeters says:
Ironically, it’s not all directed at GOG.
22/09/2010 at 23:53 malkav11 says:
I have two words for GoG: fuck. you.
Way to blow the considerable goodwill you’d managed to accumulate on my part.
23/09/2010 at 12:37 John Peat says:
*hands malkav11 his dummy * – stop that…
23/09/2010 at 00:33 icupnimpn2 says:
Because it’s always a good idea to fake your own death to get some attention.
23/09/2010 at 01:19 Jason Moyer says:
Hopefully your friends and family care as much about you as you do about GOG, apparently.
23/09/2010 at 00:57 Neil says:
Showcasing the fact that your past purchases might just up and disappear one day is probably not the best way to convince new customers to sign up. What a terrible move that was.
23/09/2010 at 01:04 Sigma Draconis says:
Indeed, there’s no such thing as bad publicity. GOG got press with this stunt and built up a large amount of attention for their relaunch. This doesn’t make it any less of a dick move. It’s not so much “Oh, YOU!” and more like “…Really?”
Now that it’s over and done with, I’m now laughing at anybody at GOG thinking they understood how many people would go for this. It’s always amusing to see any company underestimate how sophisticated the gaming community of the internet can be sometimes and look stupid when they find out how little they stand for stuff like this. On the day of the “Shutdown”, there was a post on NeoGAF pointing out to the forum that this was a PR stunt. So not only was their spot blown up with the quickness, they look that much worse for attempting it.
This won’t stop me or many others from buying what they offer, but this will be remembered in a primarily negative light. Maybe they’ve learned their lesson from this and their PR department will use some better judgment next time they do something major.
23/09/2010 at 07:59 Gnarf says:
You are murdering me, stop, please, stop! :D
Yes, this “A service is much like a bank account”, this “They can just fucking die”, this “No-one lost anything? A lot of people lost confidence”, this “I WAS deceived and harmed”, this “I fully expect a free game and really it is the only thing they should do now”, this entire thread stands as a testament to the sophistication of the gaming community.
Seriously, it’s hilarious. You can just go to random page of comments and find like a whole bunch of genuinely funny raging. I am particularly fond of the analogies myself.
23/09/2010 at 15:50 Sigma Draconis says:
@ Gnarf
Slow down, nitpicker. Like I said, the stunt was already spoiled on NeoGAF, confirming suspicions many people already started to have right after they saw the “shutdown” on the GOG site. When even this many were able to see through the joke so quickly, that says something about that portion of the audience they attempted to fool.
Anyone raging here or on other forums, that’s their own business. I doubt anyone claiming to “boycott” GOG will actually follow through, but those reactions really highlight how dopey this overall idea was.
23/09/2010 at 01:32 SlowRichard says:
This has really pissed me off, and it’s not the first time that I’ve been put out by GOG either. I bought TOCA 3 from them, and then a couple of weeks later was told that they were removing it and soon I wouldn’t be able to redownload. They must have known in advance there was a time limit on their licence for this game, but didn’t say anything on the site, presumably because they thought it would hurt sales.
Another thing I’m surprised so few complain about, the site claims that games are updated to work on XP/Vista, but in fact they do very little to make them work, and a large proportion of the games I bought still required a lot of work from me to get them running acceptably. Some games (like interstate ’76) just don’t work, but are still on sale…
23/09/2010 at 02:39 Javier-de-Ass says:
they probably didn’t know there was a time-limit on toca3. codemasters also pulled operation flashpoint from the site. I have no idea when, but it happened at some point. but any other dd site have stuff like this happen aswell. in the week leading up to the release of mafia 2 steam had mafia1 as a free preorder incentive for mafia2 and during that time it was no longer possible to buy mafia1 from gamersgate. although, of course, the ability to download mafia1 if you’d already bought it never went away. but it’s the same kind of thing isn’t it. a lot of european publishers have had ips change hands recently, iceberg interactive dying and all that, and those licenses moved around and games were gone from download sites while the games were in limbo. there’s no way for gog to prevent or do anything about this kind of stuff.
23/09/2010 at 01:48 Maritime says:
I have not bought anything from them, I have been very close and am probably right in their target demographic.
After this I dont think I would ever buy a game from them, idiots.
23/09/2010 at 02:35 Javier-de-Ass says:
the whole point of their site is that you actually don’t have to constantly rely on them and interact with their servers. you buy your make, download it and from there the site could actually blow up and servers die and it would never affect you. how is this not appealing?
23/09/2010 at 02:35 Javier-de-Ass says:
*make = game. weird typo
23/09/2010 at 02:33 Javier-de-Ass says:
“It was all thinly veiled allusions toward their beta phase coming to an end, rather than the site disappearing forever. But it was one that saw users unable to access their games for five days, without knowing if they’d get them back.”
this is a lie. the message on their site always said downloads would be available again this week.
23/09/2010 at 04:07 malkav11 says:
You’ll forgive me if one terse and uninformative message suggestive of something horribly wrong behind the scenes saying “oh yes, we will definitely have a redownloading solution in place” does not constitute a certainty of followthrough. Especially after they just up and shut down without warning. Like Valve’s statement that they’ll make their games playable without Steam if their servers are ever permanently shut down, I have no reason to believe them until they actually do it.
23/09/2010 at 04:11 icupnimpn2 says:
mmm, my already hazing memory has it that the site said something to the effect of or similar to: “we are working on a technical solution to allow you to download your purchased games in the near future. Stay tuned to our twinkle and chapbook accounts”
Didn’t sound like a guarantee, anyway.
23/09/2010 at 02:39 destroy.all.monsters says:
Ok, sue me if this has been mentioned already but I’m not going to read 4 pages of whining. As they said they don’t have the largest publicity budget. They also mentioned 40 publishers, of which I expect many new ones will be unveiled tomorrow. Last and certainly not least, I think we take them for granted and their catalog is fairly easily overlooked since it isn’t as sexy as the brand new games coming out.
They really had to do something to remove that complacency. While it peeved me because I wanted to jump on that Codemasters sale and was unable to – for the long term good of the company I expect something had to be done. Did it *have* to be a shutdown? I don’t know. I don’t have their marketing budget at hand.
While it was troubling it did, at least, let one know the transitory nature of digital downloading. An awareness that the average “zomg Steam is teh awesome” internet dweller has likely thought about for less than a minute.
23/09/2010 at 03:20 MaxwellKraft says:
Hey, did you guys know that every day 5,500 people die from AIDS and AIDS related complications? With only a minor amount of effort we could -
What? Oh, sorry. Didn’t realize you were all busy being angry about video games.
23/09/2010 at 04:15 icupnimpn2 says:
Hey, did you know that one out of every six Afghani mothers dies during childbir… wait, sorry, we’re busy trolling computer game blog comments trying to make people who like computer games stop liking their computer games so much and go, I dunno, go freaking sail to Africa to embark upon highly personal campaigns to eradicate AIDS?
23/09/2010 at 04:27 MaxwellKraft says:
Not trolling. Just trying to put things in perspective for some of the more serious ragers.
23/09/2010 at 04:31 icupnimpn2 says:
The problem with the “people suffering somewhere so your current plight is irrelevant” attack is that it cuts both ways. Also, it applies to just about everything in our lives that doesn’t directly help the people in need. You took a second shower today? You could be saving the money from your water bills to support an orphan in Guam. You watched back to back episodes of Seinfeld? You could have spent an hour at a soup kitchen.
23/09/2010 at 03:41 Carolina says:
The irony in all this is that probably a big chunk of their customer base are people concerned with DRM and this is exactly the worst case scenario situation that attracted them to GOG in the first place.
It’s like making a prank with spiders on the Arachnophobic Annual Meeting.
23/09/2010 at 04:02 Matt Giuca says:
@Carolina “The irony in all this is that probably a big chunk of their customer base are people concerned with DRM and this is exactly the worst case scenario situation that attracted them to GOG in the first place.”
Are you saying that they pissed off anti-DRM crowd by doing exactly what they were afraid of?
Quite the opposite, IMO. They vindicated the anti-DRM crowd, because even though GOG was offline, the games still work!
The “worst case scenario that attracted them to GOG in the first place” would be Steam going offline and nobody can play their games. This is the whole point of no DRM: if the service goes away, the games remain. I think it proves GOG’s point very nicely.
“You can trust us. Not because we’re promising anything — people tend not to keep their promises, and even we lie to you. No, you can trust us more deeply than any promise — no matter how much we lie and screw up our servers, we are physically incapable of screwing you over.” That *is* a powerful trust model.
23/09/2010 at 04:31 Carolina says:
@ Matt
I understand what you’re saying, and I understand the idea behind the stunt. Yet, I disagree with you about the outcome.
Vinraith —and if there’s anyone who represents DRM-loathing here it’s him— addressed the subject better than I could.
That doesn’t read as vindication to me. You don’t prove a point like that, it’s like selling home security systems by invading your client’s home and raping his wife.
23/09/2010 at 10:38 jalf says:
…which would be an excellent way to prove the point.
It’s just not a very good sales tactic, but I think it’d make the point very well. And the same goes for the GOG thing. It probably wasn’t a smart business decision, but the only point it made regarding DRM is that “your games still work even though we take our service offline”
23/09/2010 at 11:38 Carolina says:
Hahahahaha. No.
Not if your point is “buy my home security system”. Nobody would buy you anything after that. And if I’m not mistaken, GOG’s business is to sell games, so I doubt their point was “FEAR THE DIGITAL DISTRIBUTION APOCALYPSE YOU FOOLS”.
If that would be the case, I’d agree; they’ve proven their point by making the corporative version of I-am-a-teenager-and-I-am-cutting-myself-to-get-any-attention stunt.
23/09/2010 at 03:55 Matt Giuca says:
“I can’t see myself buying anything from GOG again. Who knows when they’ll make a “hoax” again? And what else might fall under the definition for them.”
Well that’s the great thing about no DRM, isn’t it? If you ignore the re-downloading (i.e., when you buy a game from GOG you download it right away and back it up), then it’s yours forever, and nothing they can do in the future can take it away from you.
Thus GOG “closing down” is no worse than any other physical store closing down. You’ve got nothing to be angry about. You already have your games.
23/09/2010 at 04:08 malkav11 says:
Part of what GoG (and most other download services) are offering is the ability to redownload your games as and when you please. I have more than a few games on Steam and GoG where I already owned the boxed version and (for a trivial cost) repurchased online so that I would have an online backup convenient. So if they shut down, especially without warning, they have most certainly deprived me of something.
23/09/2010 at 04:32 icupnimpn2 says:
Dunno how well the publicity is working since only 300 people have watched the unveiling videos from GOG’s front page.
23/09/2010 at 07:52 Reliant39 says:
@icupnimpn2:
I imagine that the market for PC users that are interested in playing older games is probably not very big, and that most of these people had already heard about GOG.com and, quite possibly, had also signed up for the service or were planning to do so in the near(ish) future. This stunt may have raised awareness somewhat, but you have to wonder what the long-term effects will be, and whether the benefits outweigh the possible negative effects of this action.
We’ll know for sure what this stunt has achieved if GOG is still in business, say, a year from now.
23/09/2010 at 23:11 icupnimpn2 says:
Yeah I have pretty much the same questions about this as you do. But while demand may not be as high as for Grand Theft Auto Mostrecent, prices for GOG games are often higher than prices for AAA games from 1 year earlier. With their pricing structure, I’d think they make a very good margin on each sale. After all, they’ve had to track down the license-holders for many of these properties, which were lying dead or dormant. It’s like found money for the IP-holders. I’d think GOG has the ball in their court in negotiations. DRM free might piss off some publishers, but pirated games are DRM free and completely free, so they can get paid or not. Their choice. Something else to consider about demand is that the netbook market is driving interest in older games.
23/09/2010 at 05:29 Guhndahb says:
I’m most certainly angry about this. I’ve been a huge fan of CD Projekt Red for a while now, and been a vocal proponent of their games and the GOG service. Their company always just seemed to like and “get” their customers, and just seemed like a cool bunch. Plus the made products and services that I really liked.
I won’t argue that, if intended, the point was driven home that digital download services that have DRM have a power over us gamers, particularly those of us who happily play 10+ year old games, that we really abhor. It would have been more effective on me if I didn’t have 30 or so games I bought from GOG that I hadn’t downloaded, however. (Fine, I’m a fool, but I trusted their company line.) So my initial reaction to this was fear, which wasn’t abated until the next day when they said not to worry, we’d be able to download – and then the next day when they said we’d be able to download including bonus materials and still no DRM. But by then the damage was done.
At the same time I was terribly unhappy to see them go (As it was going on, I didn’t believe for a second that it was a hoax or marketing gimmick). I loved GOG and felt that if they fell, no one would ever try a DRM-free digital distribution service ever again. So there was another gut check. It felt like the fall of the only bastion of an important ideal.
Am I happy they are still afloat and I’ve technically lost nothing (aside from a little sleep)? Yes. Will I buy from them again? Yes. But am I angry and hurt and has my opinion of them taken a hit? Most assuredly. In a few days, though, I’ll likely have forgiven them.
Let’s face it, they’ve been a great company (to me at least) for a long time now. I can’t forever condemn them for one lapse in judgment. I really do hope they make more new customers than they lose, and hope those that are angry about it take it in stride.
23/09/2010 at 05:51 Silvarius says:
The company is Polish. I suppose that does explain the humour.
23/09/2010 at 07:25 sexyresults says:
Everyone saying they will never buy from GoG again are such fucking prissy little lamers.
23/09/2010 at 07:56 Reliant39 says:
@sexyresults:
That’s okay. I love you, too.
23/09/2010 at 08:03 sexyresults says:
There are so many worse companies/business’s that these babies probably buy from day to day.
23/09/2010 at 10:11 Kadayi says:
@sexyresults
So your argument is that paying customers should put up with being mistreated because other companies do it?
23/09/2010 at 10:35 jalf says:
How exactly were you “mistreated”? Did they steal something from you? Physically torture you? Are you unable to play the games you downloaded from them? Will you not be able to download your games again in a matter of hours? Did they install malware on your PC?
They made a bad call, but if you can’t think of worse atrocities than taking down your download links for a couple of days, then you live in a blessedly happy and innocent world.
Compared to Valve not delivering features they promised for L4D, or games removing features like dedicated servers, or Steam arbitrarily doubling prices for Europeans overnight (or deleting critical forum threads outright), I really don’t see that this is the end of the world.
Hell, in the time I’ve used Steam, I’ve probably spent more time waiting on their overloaded servers than this GOG stunt has taken. Overall, Steam has kept me from downloading my games much more than GOG has. The difference is that ia bad idea. Am I the only one who thinks the former is much more worrying? A DD service that is *unable* to deliver downloads to me seems much more worrying. And yet I don’t see the same cries of rage and “mistreatment” against Steam.
23/09/2010 at 11:15 Kadayi says:
@jalf
So you defence of GoG is that bad behaviour towards their customers is acceptable because other companies do bad things also?
23/09/2010 at 11:23 Urael says:
Jalf, I think I love you.
Kadayi, what Jalf said. Nobody gets to cry ‘mistreatment’ about GOG when Steam has committed worse atrocities but is still the darling of the downloadable games world, not leats of which is that gamers now ‘accept’ DRM in Steam form. So plaintive cries of why people are willing to ‘accept’ so-called ‘mistreatment’ from GOG fall a little false.
Secondly, thanks to a spotty internet connection this very Tuesday I was left unable to play my Steam games because a) Steam couldn’t connect, and b) the much-touted Offline Mode needed to connect to the servers to download account information onto my computer, which it couldn’t do either. (Why is Offline Mode not set up during Steam installation? Why is it an option you have to personally select and set up in advance of connection issues, that needs to connect to do so? Is this Steam caring for and respecting their beloved customers? I think not.) When downloaded, GOG games are on your system and do not require a client to grant them permission to play, the way games used to be, the way games might still be if Steam hadn’t indoctrinated a generation of gamers into believing client-server hand-holding/permission-granting was the future of gaming.
23/09/2010 at 11:24 jalf says:
@Kadayi: I’m not “defending” anyone. I’m just pointing out that if you’re going to boycott GOG over this, then you should also boycott Steam and most other companies you’ve ever bought a game from.
GOG screwed up, I’m not denying that. All I’m saying is that it seems oddly inconsistent to rage so much at them, and then not even notice when other companies pull off stunts that are much more cause for concern.
23/09/2010 at 12:16 Kadayi says:
@jalf @Urael
I’m sorry, but I really don’t see what Valve may or may not have done (evidence of ‘abuses’ yet to be provided BTW) has to to do with an assessment or whether or nor what GoG did was acceptable at the end of the day, from a customer perspective Even less with respect to what it has to do with the issue of DRM and your apparent inability to use the internet property Urael (Offline mode works perfectly fine for me). We are talking about a specific situation here of a sequence of events, in relation to a specific company and the actions of those people alone. If your best defence for say someone beating their wife, drunk driving, or theft etc, is simply ‘we’ll other people do these things, so suck it up’ you’re kind of failing at understanding the issue. Now don’t get me wrong I’m not likening what GoG did to those things in terms of severity (far from it), but I’m using them to demonstrate the absurdity of your argument. Abuse of trust (whatever the level) is never acceptable, and that to does happen elsewhere is not reason to condone it.
23/09/2010 at 18:58 Urael says:
“and your apparent inability to use the internet property Urael (Offline mode works perfectly fine for me)”
Well Fuck You too, buddy. Steam’s refusal to connect either to load my games or even establish offline mode CLEARLY merits personal abuse.
You’ve been fairly active in the threads. GOG has obviously crossed a line with you, one that Must Not Be Crossed. But rather than presenting “absurd” arguments, people like Jalf and myself have been trying to introduce a wider perspective into the discussion.
At no point have we stated that what GOG did is a good thing. What we’re saying is that the hard-line outrage coming from a lot of people here is faintly pathetic, considering the very small crime GOG have committed. You can bang on about customer rights and expectations all you like but the fact is very few people were genuinely physically affected – the vast majority just seem to have been shocked that an entity they held to a golden ideal has wilfully and deliberately chosen to close for a few days and pretend it was for reasons other than really existed, despite making it fairly obvious to anyone reading between lines that outright closure was never going to happen.
Lying to people for humourous purposes is what powers the whole of April Fool’s day, and the entire internet seems to lap that shit up but senses of humour seem to evaporate when anyone tries something similar on any other day. I’m not saying this was in any way a well-handled or successful jape, but there has been no malicious intent involved, simply a mis-handling, a poorly judged idea being given time in the spotlight when wiser heads might have killed it at the idea stage.
Feel free to continue to masturbate over your own self of injured self-importance though. There’s no reason to let little things like reason and perspective get in the way of a good rage-fap.
23/09/2010 at 19:34 jalf says:
Oh, I thought you read meticulously over my posts in order to prove how inferior my argument is to yours? ;)
I’m pretty sure I posted such a list already, but here goes again:
- deleting critical forum threads outright
- providing zero support for the (non-Valve) games offered through Steam (no, they’re not obligated to do this, but GOG does it, going above and beyond what you can expect from your customers)
- providing support for Steam itself (ever tired contacting Steam support? Did you get an answer in less than 14 days? Was that answer *helpful*? If so, you’re in the minority)
- the now infamous L4D bait-and-switch: provide a lengthy list of everything they’ll do post-release if you just buy the game, and then going “oh actually, I don’t think we’ll do those things after all,we’ll just put all that content in the sequel instead” (if it’s the deceit of GOG’s stunt that bothers you, then how is this any better? This too is outright lying)
- refusing to fix known security holes
- refusing for weeks to help a person who lose access to his account through this security hole, claiming for the longest time that it was his own fault, and none of their business.
- introducing “european pricing” overnight, effectively doubling the price of every game on Steam at a stroke (yes, the price has become more flexible and varying since then, but the way they just flipped a switch with no warning and started selling games in Europe at a 1€=1$ ratio stung a bit)
- their offline mode is wonky. Yes, it is, even if it worked for you. I won’t say it doesn’t work, just that it’s really badly made. If you’re on a LAN, it spends minutes trying to connect before it gives up, giving the user the impression that offline mode just doesn’t work. (to anyone having trouble with offline mode, try just yanking the network cable. If you’re not connected to *any* network, Steam detects it instantly, and asks to open in Offline mode instead)
- and they’re technically unable to provide a reliable service. Sometimes you get the “servers are busy, try again later” message when you try to download or play a game. Sometimes bits and pieces of their service goes offline for half an hour.
Are we? I know that you are because you’ve made the conscious decision to ignore everything else in the world. But some of us are explicitly drawing comparisons to other idiotic things done by other companies, because it adds a sense of perspective.
And if you think this is about “defending GOG”, then you’re kind of failing to understand the issue.
We’re not saying it’s ok because other people do it too. We’re saying that it’s equally bad when *other people* do it. We’re saying that Tiger Woods cheating on his wife is no better or worse than anyone else cheating on their wife. We’re saying that if you don’t care that your coworker cheats on his wife, then you really shouldn’t get too worked up when you read in the paper that Woods did the same thing.
We are not saying “GOG is wonderful, and it doesn’t matter that they screwed up”. Our point is that if you want to punish them for screwing up, then why do you let their competitors off the hook for *their* screw-ups? Shouldn’t they *all* be punished then? Otherwise, your outrage sounds pretty hollow, because apparently you’re willing to overlook some pretty epic screwups from other companies.
The thing I find most important about this debacle (but your mileage may vary, and we’re deeply into subjective territory here) is that GOG had no malicious intent, and were not even considering closing the service or changing the terms under which their games are sold. Had the downtime been a sign of either of those things, I’d be worried, but when they try to pull a prank that doesn’t come across as funny, it doesn’t tell me that the service sucks — just that they employ people with a bad sense of humor.
If GOG actually *intended* to cheat their customers in any way, then I’d be pissed off. But from where I’m standing, it doesn’t look like they did.
If some GOG executive had decided “we should take the site down with no warning for 5 days to save on bandwidth costs”, I’d have been pissed off. It’d show that they’re not interested in running a good service. The fact that it was just a joke gone bad means that at least their intentions aren’t in doubt. There’s no question of “can we trust GOG not to go bankrupt and close the service”, or “can we trust GOG to not suddenly water down their service with DRM or limited downloads” (although both of these can obviously happen, this week”s stunt doesn’t make them more or less likely).
I’ve certainly lost trust in GOG: I’ve lost a lot of confidence in their ability to make good PR events.
But it hasn’t given me reason to question their commitment to the service they’re running. And to me, that’s what matters.
23/09/2010 at 19:53 sexyresults says:
@Kadayi Way to miss the point and inject some whining. Eat some cement.
23/09/2010 at 20:00 Kadayi says:
@Urael
Maybe whilst you are taking personal umbrage, go buy yourself a clue and figure out that the games you are trying to run probably requires them to be online regardless of whether they are on Steam or not, and that’s probably why they don’t work for you. To paraphrase Will Shakespeare: – ‘Perhaps the fault, dear Brutus, lies not in the stars, but within ourselves’? The fact that right now over 2.5 million gamers aren’t suffering your ‘problems’ might in fact be indicative that all is not as you portray at the end of the day I’m afraid.
@Jaif
Clearly you’ve got some personal gripes with Steam, but again totally irrelevant to the subject in hand which is whether GoG did bad at the end of the day. Your fundamental inability to comprehend such a simple truth of separation is kind of troubling. Let’s hope you’re not called up for any jury service any time soon. lol ;)
23/09/2010 at 20:03 sexyresults says:
He is clearly pointing out double standards, a very simple point your can’t comprehend and would rather paraphrase Shakespeare (lmao)
23/09/2010 at 10:24 Man Raised By Puffins says:
Bit of a dick move this. Not that it changes my relationship with GOG at all, haven’t bought anything off them for bally ages. Still, it serves as a timely reminder to make doubly sure my download purchases are backed up.
23/09/2010 at 10:28 jalf says:
Are you serious?
RPS (or RPS commenters, I guess) pretty much wrote the book on AIMs.
Although this is the first time I’ve felt it really reached absurd proportions.
I guess I can understand those saying they won’t buy from companies that “disrespect you as a customer”. (although I can’t think of many companies that give the impression of respecting you. Steam certainly never gave me that impression)
But those saying they lost confidence in the service just baffle me. If the service had actually gone down for technical or financial reasons, then yes, we’d have a good reason to lose confidence in their ability to stay online and deliver the games we bought.
But that wasn’t the case here: they were always able to give us our games. They just made a badly judged PR stunt. And given the reception it got, I don’t think they’re going to do that again. But is that really what we’re so worried about? That if you buy another game from them, they’ll take their site offline for good, as part of a perpetual PR hoax? Call me naive, but I don’t think that’s going to happen.
This has certainly shaken my trust in their PR department, but it hasn’t affected my trust in the aspects of the service that I care about: their ability to offer games I want, on terms I want.
23/09/2010 at 10:40 Reliant39 says:
@jalf:
You write: “although I can’t think of many companies that give the impression of respecting you.”
There’s a difference between companies being indifferent (or even blatantly soulless corporate entities), and companies suddenly treating their customers (who also served, in this case, rather atypically as a fanbase and their main source of advertisement by generating good word of mouth) as poorly as they have done in this little PR debacle.
23/09/2010 at 10:43 jalf says:
u-huh, and like I said, most companies treat their customers much worse. Steam certainly does, they just have better PR people to cover it up, and more fanboys to overwhelm any criticism.
But is that really what matters most to you as a gamer? Not what terms the service actually has, but how good their PR is? Really? Am I alone in ignoring the PR, and focusing on the actual service?
23/09/2010 at 11:22 Kadayi says:
@alf
Care to point to some examples of Valve abusing their customers? I mean with the MW2 thing I think they were more than generous when it came to acknowledging they fucked up and recompensing everyone effected.
23/09/2010 at 13:55 qrter says:
I’m not sure which internet you use, Jalf, but I come across a lot of Steam criticism, especially in RPS comment sections. It doesn’t matter anyway, they’re obviously made by that same dastardly group called the “angry internet men”.
And why should GOG be cut any slack because people supposedly don’t criticise Steam, anyway? That makes little sense.
23/09/2010 at 19:44 jalf says:
Yes, people do criticize Steam. But I don’t see the level of outrage and vows to never ever use their service again, even when Steam makes some pretty huge blunders.
You’re right.
They shouldn’t. I’m not saying anyone should cut GOG some slack.
I’m simply trying to say that we should apply the same standard to GOG as we do to their competitors. If you cut GOG’s competitors some slack when they screw up, then you should do the same for GOG.
If you decide, on GOG’s first blunder, to boycott the service now and forever, then you should do the same to their competitors when they make their first screwup of this size. (which most of them have already done before now)
I’m not saying “what GOG did is perfectly fine”, but simply that “everyone commenting here have let much worse things slide from so many other companies. What is it that makes this one so different?”
Perhaps a few people need to either start boycotting *a lot* of other companies, or just take a step back and accept that this particular screwup has been blown a bit out of proportion.
23/09/2010 at 10:47 Shadowcat says:
Guhndahb: Well said.
I wasn’t upset about the games I’d already bought — they will continue to work fine. I wasn’t even too upset about the ones I haven’t downloaded yet (even in the worst case scenario, I imagine there would be torrents of the installers arranged).
What did upset me was the possibility that the only major DRM-free online distributor might be gone. From the very first announcements about GOG, I felt this might be the only opportunity we would get at making such a thing work, so I had the same reaction as you to the closure — if they were gone, the chances were that no one else would ever attempt such a thing, and DRM-free gaming would be gone for good, save for those few indie developers still holding fast to the ideal. That thought was painful.
GOG point out that there were hints — and I certainly noticed that the wording was intentionally vague — but the problem was that those hints could very easily have indicated that the site would return with a DRM scheme for some or all future games (and once DRM had a foot in the door, the rot would surely spread). GOG staff knew this wasn’t the case. We simply couldn’t know that with the same certainly.
I’ll continue to buy from them (because no one else does what they do), and I expect that all will be well in future, but the whole thing was incredibly ill-judged, and is bound to have negative effects. Even on a subconscious level, if a person feels at all betrayed by a company, they might then be less likely to make impulse buys than they were when everything was roses.
Lastly, I could swear that GOG were advertising for a PR person a few months back. If they hired someone and this was their doing, I would suggest maybe vacating that position once again.
23/09/2010 at 10:50 plugmonkey says:
Did anyone here use Steam in the early days? Not being able to play any of your games for two or three days was pretty much the norm. But it was a fledgling service. Exceptions were made.
Now another fledgling service makes a hash of a PR stunt. If that completely erodes all the “good will” they’ve built up with you, then frankly your “good will” wasn’t really worth a heck of a lot to begin with.
23/09/2010 at 11:31 Urael says:
Well said. No-one seems to complain about about fragile gamer loyalty to a service/company – it’s always gamers bitching about business loyalty to gamers. GOG make one dumb move and we have people here up in arms and ‘taking their business elsewhere’. Does nothing they’ve done prior to this mean anything? None of the hard work done to meet the demands of everyone who’ve ever expressed a desire for a certain game on their forums? I hate Steam but even I will acknowledge when they do something I like (portal for free, etc).
Who’s willing to acknowledge the good that GOG have done for us, and who’s pissing away their hurt feelings in childish AIM behaviour? IF you have no loyalty or respect for them then you have no cause to complain about them having no loyalty or respect for you.
23/09/2010 at 11:48 Frankie The Patrician[PF] says:
THIS, both of you
/thread…./forum
23/09/2010 at 12:31 Kadayi says:
@plugmonkey
You have a luminous imagination when it comes to what constitutes a fledgling service on the internet.
23/09/2010 at 14:53 plugmonkey says:
I’d say one that only exited beta 30 minutes after your post probably qualifies…
23/09/2010 at 20:09 Kadayi says:
@Plugmonkey
and by that reckoning Gmail is a fledgling email service also yes? Please..get a grip.
23/09/2010 at 20:14 sexyresults says:
Compared to all the big uns (GamersGate, Steam, Direct2Drive) GoG is relatively young.
24/09/2010 at 09:54 plugmonkey says:
Indeed. They’ve not been around long, and they are pretty small and inexperienced and they had a PR cock-up. It’s happened to bigger, longer established companies.
Steam was plagued with technical cock ups for waaaaaaaaaaaaay more than the first two years.
Waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay more. And every single one of them left me, not just unable to re-download my games for a few days, but completely unable to play them. At all.
It happened earlier this year, in fact. My client failed to update correctly and couldn’t find the server. Then it got locked in an infinite loop of “Cannot connect to server, would you like to start in offline mode?” Yes. “Connecting to server. Cannot connect to server, would you like to start in online mode?”. I couldn’t play any of the games I’d paid for for a week. Oh no! What a mild inconvenience! I must express my RAGE!
You get a grip.
23/09/2010 at 10:59 Garreett says:
What a dick mov– WAIT A SECOND, DID HE SAY BALDUR’S GATE? SOLD.
23/09/2010 at 11:21 The Sombrero Kid says:
The biggest problem with the whole thing is that their hoax reminded everyone of the massive elephant in the room for small digital distribution platforms, that fear that everything you’ve bought could disappear in an instant and without warning!
23/09/2010 at 12:05 Dreamhacker says:
Yes, these guys not only undermined their own service, they managed to pull off something that would normally take a Sony-sized stupidity-department 3 years of forced labor in less that a week: They undermined the whole digital distribution platform for not only their own customers but anyone reading the news.
I hope you guys the PR dept are proud!
23/09/2010 at 12:50 bonjovi says:
Guys,
i think this PR stunt was risky and dodgy but might just work.
small companies like this need a visibility to grow. It doesn’t matter if media say bad things about you. Look at many ‘celebrities’ you might not like them, not use any of their products/watch their movies/listen to their music. but you know who they are and what do they do.
wonder how many new people got interested in GOG in last 2 days. I’m sure much more than from ads.
one more thing: the metaphor with wife and kids is totally off. How can I ever compare an on-line shop to the people I plan my life around? It’s a bloody shop for pit’s sake ! :-)
23/09/2010 at 13:29 malkav11 says:
GoG has had plenty of coverage from sites like RPS anytime they’ve done anything, including have a sale. There would have been coverage of them announcing they were leaving beta and yadda yadda yadda even if they had done so like mature, sensible people.
23/09/2010 at 13:29 GameVlo says:
First: for everyone who says/thinks gog.com is the only drm-free game download provider: http://www.dotemu.com and there are probably more.
Second: 5 days is too f*cking long; evidence of this is the fact they are down again witihin minutes after their reopening! And this time it’s no pr-stunt!
23/09/2010 at 13:33 dogsolitude_uk says:
Um. Not entirely sure what the problem is here.
I’ve downloaded few games off of them, and stuck the files on a disk. There’s no DRM.
They ‘pretend’ they’re closing down. OK, no worries. I can still play the games I bought off of them.
But wait, they’re not closing, stopping, dying or anything. I can still buy cheap, DRM free old games off of them, including Baldurs Gate.
And people are threatening not to go back to them? After a PR misfire?
Hell, if they *do* sink thanks to a mass exodus, I hope you’ll all be happy…
23/09/2010 at 13:40 Komus says:
340 comments on RPS… job done :)
I was aware of, but never actually visited GoG in the past – there’s an old adage… I forget how it goes… “any nerdrage is good publicity?”. So you couldn’t download any games you had purchased for 5 days… You could play them, if you installed them when you paid for said purchase. You could install them, if you kept the 1GB installer on your 1TB harddrive…
Misguided as it may have been; this company is championing a legal, convenient way of obtaining the classic games you know and love! Without DRM and optimised for your computer… I’m sorry but LEAVE GOG ALONE ;(
23/09/2010 at 15:02 dhex says:
No, this makes me very much doubt they have PR/Communications people at all.
indeed. and if they do, they should fire them.
there’s lots of ways to do something like this on the cheap that’s not “ok you’re fucked – just kidding!”
23/09/2010 at 15:47 alantwelve says:
It’s got them an enormous amount of publicity for such a niche service. It was a fantastic PR move. More power to them, I say.
23/09/2010 at 16:16 alantwelve says:
Remember the recent debate here about what is the Citizen Kane of games?
Read the comments here. Bear in mind that RPS is considerably less shrill and more grown up than 99.99999% of gaming websites. Imagine switching on CBeebies in the afternoon and it’s showing Citizen Kane.
23/09/2010 at 16:29 Humble says:
Right-clicked on the first picture in the article and I now have a new favourite word, gogmonk! Thank you RPS :)
23/09/2010 at 17:02 oceanclub says:
Hmm, anyone else find that they can’t load the GOG.com site properly, and if you _do_ access your account, none of your existing games are there?
P.
23/09/2010 at 17:10 dhex says:
ehh, publicity is not simply a good thing in and of itself.
23/09/2010 at 17:20 alantwelve says:
That’s debatable. However, if you’ve something to sell, no publicity is always a bad thing.
23/09/2010 at 17:16 UK_John says:
For all the ‘idiotic’ and ‘dumb’ type words used here, GOG upgraded their servers to deal with 4 times the visitors when coming out of beta, and currently they are having to add more servers as they are getting TWENTY TIMES the visitors of their most busiest day in the last two years!
That strikes me as a successful marketing campaign that would not have happened if they had laid everything on the line and not leaving any questions to allow rumours to flourish – thereby getting free attention from from the web!
Maybe GOG aren’t so ‘dumb’ or ‘stupid’ after all! I mean, weren’t YOU surprised when they said they had had two million download purchases in the last 2 years? I was!
24/09/2010 at 00:07 malkav11 says:
As someone pointed out on GoG itself, I’d expect a lot of that traffic to be people rushing to backup games now that they know GoG thinks nothing of cutting them off from their purchases at a moment’s notice. But let’s say a meaningful amount of that traffic is actually due to the new version of the site or new people discovering it. What makes you think sites like RPS wouldn’t have covered that launch anyway? Or that they’ve gotten more customers than they would have if they’d treated their customers with respect and given fair notice and communicated? Or, if they were determined to be mysterious, why not a polite advance notice of server maintenance, followed by the site being replaced by an unlabelled countdown until the relaunch? I for one would have spent that time in a state of pleasant anticipation rather than a mixture of worry and annoyance.
23/09/2010 at 17:50 Tartan says:
Having downloaded hundreds of tracks from itunes and amazon mp3 services, I know that I only have the right to download them once. This means I back everything up on my phone, and an external hard drive.
When I first tried GoG, I honestly thought it worked the same way, and was pretty taken aback at the ability to re-download things without paying for them again. Thus, expectations were exceeded, but backup steps carefully taken anyway. I’m betting lots of people here also download legal music from the above services, but for some reason don’t accept that this model can ever be applied to games. There’s a comment where someone even alleges that being able to re-download is the “point of GoG”. This is nonsense. The point of gog is to make old games legally available, and workable on newer systems.
The exposure we must all have to steam TERRIFIES me. I’ve spent hundreds of pounds over the years, and cannot possibly download all of my games at once. The DRM means that if anything ever does happen to valve, my entire catalogue, which represents the vast majority of my game time, could be permanently gone.
This was a stupid, stupid stunt, but no one should ever expect an absolute guarantee that they will be able to access the games they have bought for all eternity from an internet service.
Businesses fail. You don’t even get an absolute guarantee when you put money in a bank, never mind buy digital content from a small company run by a few nerds.
23/09/2010 at 20:06 Kadayi says:
@Tartan
The ability to redownload whenever and wherever (and thus not need to make backups) was one of their original sales points tbh. It’s the digital music industry that’s lagging behind gaming DD I’m afraid in that respect.
24/09/2010 at 00:08 malkav11 says:
The fact that I cannot redownload iTunes music purchases is a significant reason I no longer buy music from them. (And it’s worth noting that the iTunes Store -will- let you redownload app purchases for your iPhone/iPod Touch/iPad. I made -damn- sure of that before I bought any.)
23/09/2010 at 20:00 sexyresults says:
Fuck gog.com, I’m going to buy some ubisoft and activision products cause they treat gamers right!
coolface.jpg
24/09/2010 at 03:03 Bungle says:
If I’m buying games through their service, I need to trust them the way I trust Steam. This is the first time I’ve heard of them and they seem like a bunch of amateurs that are just screwing around. Not gonna get my money.
25/09/2010 at 12:12 Saiko Kila says:
If I was trusting GOG the same way I am trusting Steam, I wouldn’t buy a single piece of cake from GOG. Incidentally, I trust Steam less, based on experience.
24/09/2010 at 03:14 Minicow says:
What the fuck?
I mean… What the fuck? Seriously.
I cannot begin to understand how this whole affair has somehow destroyed all the goodwill GOG has ever amassed. Maybe it’s just me, but it was rather obvious it was a stunt from the beginning. If some people somehow failed to pick up on this, why did the promise that downloads would resume not reassure everyone?
I just don’t get it. If somehow you thought they were really closing down, and somehow you didn’t have any sort of back up, why didn’t the fact that everyone was then promised the ability to redownload and thus MAKE NEW BACKUPS calm fears over losing access to games that were already purchased?
And in the end, when all it turns out to be is (SURPRISE) a few days interruption in service, suddenly GOG are evil, incompetent, and no longer worthy of your business?
WHAT THE FUCK
24/09/2010 at 07:03 Alexander says:
Yeah, it seems a bit sad that man must limit the more crazy jokes to presupposed and preset dates such as april fools in order for people not to feel completely abandoned and disgraced. No matter how much I try to understand the more harsh responses, as I use GOG myself, I only felt sorry about the fact that I lost a website that was awesome, I thought it was awesome to see how many people felt the same way. GOG is really a very lovely piece of nostalgia, if they were just a formal reseller without guts or any of the other qualities they have I couldn’t care less.
I guess people just have way too much time on their hands to bother about their things falling apart..