GOG - Battle of the Games

[sk2k]

GOG is running a new promo: Battle of the Games. For the next 17 days you can vote everyday for one of two games. The winning game will be discounted by 60% and the second game by 40%.

http://www.gog.com/en/page/2012_summer_promo?utm_source=frontpage&utm_medium=big_spot&utm_content=summer_promo&utm_campaign=botg_d0_p1

Day 0/17: Myst Masterpiece Edition vs. The 7th Guest
Winner: Myst Masterpiece Edition

Day 1/17: Alone in the Dark 1+2+3 vs. Fahrenheit Indigo Prophecy

[Rauten]

Curious. There aren't many games in the GoG catalog I'm willing to pay for, but I'll keep an eye on it, thanks.

[Undead_Clown]

Curious. There aren't many games in the GoG catalog I'm willing to pay for, but I'll keep an eye on it, thanks.

I assume that because you already own them? Because GoG has some of the best games ever made in their catalog.

[DaftPunk]

I voted for left lol

[Althea]

I assume that because you already own them? Because GoG has some of the best games ever made in their catalog.
Because they're either overpriced, not properly fixed to work on modern systems or because their catalogue is full of "eh" titles that are only worth playing if you have the patience of a stone and/or you've not played a game since 1996.

This is coming from she who's playing the remastered version of Broken Sword 2 from GOG, of course.

[byteCrunch]

Pretty good idea, though it's going to favor the more popular game, which more people probably already own.


Because they're either overpriced, not properly fixed to work on modern systems or because their catalogue is full of "eh" titles that are only worth playing if you have the patience of a stone and/or you've not played a game since 1996.

This is coming from she who's playing the remastered version of Broken Sword 2 from GOG, of course.

Overpriced? £3-6, with a number of exceptions for newer titles, and alot of the games work perfectly fine under XP and 7.

Also you could just download the original version from GOG, if you do not like the remastered one.

[NathanH]

Pretty good idea, though it's going to favor the more popular game, which more people probably already own.

I would naively assume that people would favour the game that they haven't already got if they're likely to buy it. But I suppose that is expecting too much.

[Rauten]

Because they're either overpriced, not properly fixed to work on modern systems or because their catalogue is full of "eh" titles that are only worth playing if you have the patience of a stone and/or you've not played a game since 1996.

Also, I'm a pirate, and I grew up praising SEGA, not PCs, so a lot of those games have no nostalgic or sentimental value for me.

[NathanH]

Don't be a pirate then.

[Undead_Clown]

Also, I'm a pirate, and I grew up praising SEGA, not PCs, so a lot of those games have no nostalgic or sentimental value for me.

Pirates............don't get me started.

I would rather pay $5 to get a game from a service devoted to keeping old games alive and working on newer OS and hardware.

Also to the person above me saying the games aren't properly fixed: Which games? Because I have purchased at least 10 games, none more than $6.99, and all of them work on both my Vista desktop and my Windows 7 laptop with no issues.

[Rauten]

Don't be a pirate then.

Eehh, too much effort.

[NathanH]

From my list, Thief doesn't work very well without fixes and Beyond Good & Evil can be dicey and need fiddling with, although I was safe. Realms of Arkania 3 crashes if I take focus away from its window. I have 20-30 games on GOG so I don't think that's a terrible return.

Rauten: Typical Mediterranean attitude :-P

[Althea]

Overpriced? £3-6, with a number of exceptions for newer titles, and alot of the games work perfectly fine under XP and 7.

Also you could just download the original version from GOG, if you do not like the remastered one.
I didn't say I had a problem with the remastered one, I'm saying that despite any flaws - real or otherwise - I'm still a GOG customer.

But yes, you said "a lot work under XP and 7" (I assume Vista is also included) - that's kinda the point. They made a big deal about them being tweaked to work on modern OS', generally by wrapping ancient games in DOSBox, but they have released numerous games that don't work on modern systems without tweaks (I believe Thief released needing a workaround to get it to work - that may not be the case now) which goes against what they said, and on top of that plenty have no real functionality on modern OS' without HUGE amounts of tinkering as the text can be unreadable - TLJ almost falls into that category, for example.

But yes, some titles are overpriced.

[NathanH]

Some titles are overpriced, but on the other hand some titles are really cheap, so swings and roundabouts.

[Althea]

Some titles are overpriced, but on the other hand some titles are really cheap, so swings and roundabouts.
Pretty much, but I still think it's a bit cheeky for Square Enix/Eidos in particular to ask $10 for most of their titles and for Funcom to ask a staggering $15 for Dreamfall.

The last is a bit of a dick move because it's one of like two or three versions of the game (and the only one that's certain) to not contain Starforce. It's easy to remove if you know how, but... most people don't.

[Rauten]

Rauten: Typical Mediterranean attitude :-P

Funny that, because I live a mere 10Km away from the Cantabrian sea.

[Hypernetic]

Eh. Most of the games on GOG I have either already played to death and own or never liked when they were new.

It's a cool site though I suppose.

[Scumbag]

I pirated most of the games I get tempted by on GoG. It was 1996 and it was on the Amiga though. DRM was a small black booklet filled with unique codes printed in shiny black text to stop you from photocopying the pages.

Those were the days... I think.

[NathanH]

I liked the ones where you had to spin discs around in an arcane manner to reveal a code.

[Roufuss]

Also to the person above me saying the games aren't properly fixed: Which games? Because I have purchased at least 10 games, none more than $6.99, and all of them work on both my Vista desktop and my Windows 7 laptop with no issues.

Interstate 76, for one. The only way to get it to work is to go to GOG's forums and download fixes that the community supplied (which don't work for everyone) or slow down your CPU (which also isn't a 100% fix.)

Gog released it in a terribly broken state and has never, ever acknowledged how broken it is and continues to ignore it... while selling it, of course.

Other games I remember off the top of my head that are broken are Battle Isle Platinum, Gorky 17 and Rainbow Six. There are a few more. Divine Divinity was released at launch broken and it took months for a fix to appear.

It took them over a year to fix Betrayal in Antara, and the only reason it got fixed is that someone wrote to someone high up on the GOG food chain because staff members on the boards kept promising a fix that never materialized and then ignored the forum. The fix came very quickly after. Pretty interesting read:

http://www.gog.com/en/forum/krondor_series/bia_error/page4

The problem with GOG is that when they release a game they didn't bother to fix, they almost never go back to actually fix it and then continue to sell it. They also provide no refunds whatsoever even when they are at fault, as I learned with Interstate 76. I bought that at launch and then bought Divine Divinity at launch, so I got burned twice. Both times, I heard the same remarks from GOG staff: "We test all games, we don't know why everyone is having these problems, we'll try to fix it." Still waiting on that I76 fix. These days, I wait at least a few weeks on all major GOG releases that don't use DOSBox to see if they actually work.

95% of GOG's releases are alright, but it's those 5% where you just flushed $6 - $10 down the drain if its not working right.

Althea -- They did fix Thief in a quick manner I believe; I want to say the community found the fix and did all the work for them, GOG just took what they did and updated the game. GOG's community is better at fixing these games then they are in most cases.

[Vague-rant]

Trying to shuffle this onto what I assume was the initial topic, rather than a gog debate... Seems like an interesting idea. I suppose I would've liked a 75% vs 25% deal just to feel like I have more of an impact, but I guess gog doesn't really do 75% often (if ever).

Only a handful of games I'd be interested enough to buy, like most others. Oddly most of the games I want tend to fit into the 6 dollar bracket so I don't count on discounts much. Furthermore, my bank charges me a conversion rate whenever I buy from gog, so its cheaper for me to buy several games I want at the same time than wait for individual sales.