GOG doesn't offer much of what I want either most of the time. So I just buy old games from ebay now. Which is pretty cool because you can find some games with original boxes, manuals and so forth.

A rant is what you just typed. Nothing in my OP was negative, passive aggressive or otherwise.

I actually have no doubt that GOG will probably be just fine without changing a single thing further with their business model. In all honesty that would be just fine. The purpose of this thread from the start was quite simply to ask, "Hey what else might be some cool ideas or things we would love to see?" Dreadful ideas notwithstanding. They are what they are.

Regardless, since my intentions have been quite thoroughly picked to death by some of you I would like to voice my opinion of what I think happen here. It's very obvious that many, many, probably far too MANY, others before me have trashed GOG, its decisions, its direction, and its "lack" of good old games. That was their opinion, not mine.

I have never been one of those people, and although a long time GOG fan and customer, I am admittedly new to the forums, aside from the occasional lurking. So I can easily assume that I'm certainly not breaking any new ground, but I wanted to try the discussion anyway. With that history established its quite clear that some people came into this on the defensive and with their minds made up that this was a "nitpick", "doomsayer", "negative", etc. thread.

Not everyone of course. Some did make on-topic comments. And others were somewhere in between just trying to understand what I was after and they were, by and large, civil with their discourse.

Did I hope for constructive discussion? Of course. When its all said and done would anything constructive come of it? I don't know. Hopefully. Probably unlikely. Are some of the ideas stupid and completely infeasible? Admittedly.

If some of you don't care to discuss other potential options, idiotic or not in your opinion, then don't. But considering the blasting I've taken since the start, I think I have been very levelheaded in my responses and patient with trying to explain my intentions. Quite the opposite "rant" behavior compared to rants wishing exploding computers in people's faces that you disagree with and willful choose to misinterpret.

"Did GOG run out of GOOD OLD GAMES?!?" <-- That title seems to be the biggest problem. I'm certain many didn't read a single thing that came after that. In the text of the OP I clearly stated that GOG hasn't. They have plenty of titles to still bring us. We've all seen the missing IP lists. Regardless, and regardless of exact ratios, we all know new releases are in the mix now with old games. And that's fine. Not normally my thing, but fine. However, if GOG is open to exploring possibilities, as their polls several months ago indicated, then maybe some other ideas can be bounced around.

I would ask you to reread my original post with a less biased perspective.

Then again I understand if all of you are quite sick of these topics, negative or not. If that's so then I will let it go. At the moment the OP was down voted enough to be hidden, so I'm leaning towards the impression that I should just take my ball and go home.

One last thing I would like to point out though. I'm not sure what the status quo and protocol is like around here, but in general if my thread had truly been the inflammatory negative rant that you claim, I'm quite sure a moderator would've shut it down awhile ago. Additionally if I used the type of verbiage that you and some others have used, I very likely might've been banned as well. I could be totally mistaken about that though and the locky is just around the corner. However, I bet you if a long time forumite had posted this exact same thread its highly unlikely that it would have taken nearly as much heat.

I do sincerely apologize if I misspoke so poorly at the start of all of this somehow. The only thing I am frustrated about is that that it may have contributed to the whole purpose of the thread getting completely derailed.

Up to you if you think I'm full of shit or not.

Frankly at this point I would love for a moderator to step in and inform me if my entire topic and attempts to stay on that topic were way out of line. If they are. Then fine shut it down. If not. Then let's clear the air so I can continue pitching my crappy ideas.

The problem with your thread is that it comes (with that title) after a dry spell of old releases from GOG. GOG went through 3 weeks without releasing a classic game, and every release thread had quite a few "Y U NO RELEASE OLD GAMEZ???" posts, along with a weekly thread about it. Had this thread been posted during a storm of old games (for example, when EA was signed), people wouldn't have jumped to conclusions about its content.

Now, on to other parts of your post.


Few are the threads in GOG that don't get derailed. Just like in a face to face conversation, the subject discussed will ebb and flow, and discussion will be sidetracked. So it's nothing new or weird about it.


GOG in general locks very few threads. A discussion rarely gets locked, but threads were personal insults are hurled left and right are the usual candidates. Criticism (valid or not) is rarely frowned upon. TET (and Judas) are usually looking over the forums, and if the discussion seems likely to get out of hand will step in and ask us to tone it down. I can go look for locked threads if you want to see what may cause them to be locked if you'd like me to.


Finally, as to what new thing I would love to see GOG do, the answer is simple. A net code that allows multiplayer and matchmaking, available for any developer to use. This was a discussion over at the "GOG for Linux" or something like that thread, and I'm not sure if it is something GOG could currently do.

All in all, I'll welcome you to the forums, suggest you grab a drink (preferably alcoholic) of your choice, and sit back and relax. The GOG community as a whole is a self moderating one, but a lot of us regulars do get fed up easily with repeated threads. You should see the "Use the wishlist" comments a couple of years ago.

Don't be so hard on yourself. You just ran into grumpy old forumites tired of hearing about this topic and also got a bit of the GOG PK crowd. Every forum have these phalanxes.

I've run into them too, mostly when picking a fight which you didn't. :)

Your topic is fine. You just struck a nerve that this forum have.

Edit: Also I give you bonus point for being so level headed and for your patience. Don't know if I could have reacted the same as you.
Threads on GOG very very rarely get locked or deleted. This forum is so loosely moderated that sometimes I don't think it even have moderators. :P
Oh and as I said in another thread a time ago. It's almost a tradition here that threads derails. On Topic is basically not even a term mentioned here.

The thread title verbiage is a fair criticism in hindsight. I accept that. Road to hell was paved with good intentions.

Wasn't my intention to dictate so to speak to GOG what they should or should not do (or CDP whoever that is). Just to provide wishlist ideas and suggestions and then debate the merits. Throw stuff at a dart board and see what sticks.

GOG wouldn't necessarily have to make the games themselves. Just simply assist with the financing to publish them.

I think emulation, if doable, is a great idea. Although as others have pointed out there are A LOT of possible pitfalls. Maybe way more than I originally imagined.

Glad to hear that they might pursue more foreign titles. Would it be possible maybe to get ones without originally released English translations. How hard would it be to position themselves (or a third party) to do their own translation packs?

LOL. Not sure that T-shirts and coffee mugs was the angle I was aiming for. BUT that might depend on the nature of the goods. I know it would be an inconceivable long shot, but if they could work out a deal to produce those type of goods with copyrighted content then I would be very interested. (Ultima swag would be cool)

Yeah I definitely gathered that it was something like that

I'm really glad you brought that up. I was going to ask about the probabilities of something along those lines. I would absolutely love to see that capability especially for so many older games. What was the program that a lot of older games used to use (IE Baldur's Gate) it was called Gameplay or something like that. Anyway, that would be a service I would be very interested in.

Thanks man. It's the start of a long weekend and I'm about to head for that beer.

Compared to the sheer volume of shit that my ex-wife is capable of flinging this was a pleasant experience so far. LOL. To be fair I don't begrudge any of the comments I've seen. This isn't my first rodeo. I've been a regular on plenty of forums myself and I get where their frustration is coming from.

First of all this is not only up to GOG. I'm not theirs lawyer and don't need to defend them but everyone knows they are working hard to get back classics here.

Releases can be possible IP holders still exist and want make it happen. Think about LucasArts. Everything ready except theirs wish. So, what could be GOG team at this point?

And I don't believe old games will run out. Technically all games going old day by day and enters GOG's range.

True. Even in forum aggression mode GOG forumites tend to behave. Which I have noted before. Publicly. :P Let's not go there again.

Edit: To get on topic, which I'm bad at, I'd like two things here on GOG.
I'm a firm believer in GOG emulating older platforms like the early consoles, C64 and Amiga. The benefit of being first with that I think would be worth it in the long run for GOG. They'd make an even bigger name for themselves and that is pretty powerful on the net.
Get those old SSI and SSG games darn it! A lot of people want them and there are hordes of nerds that would throw themselves at the opportunity to play old D&D games again. Not to mention many old wargamers.

Only one really apply in this thread though.

Understood and agreed.

I don't see why this is low-rated. Just another fine example of "I don't like what you're saying so nyah nyah on you!"

You were clear, coherent, and you certainly weren't looking for arguments. So yeah, once again, stupid "rate this post" thing.

Anyway, I do tend to think that there are a lot of games out there that will just fall through the cracks, and it's not surprising that the more popular, enduring titles are going to get more play (pun intended). I've played so many games since I've started gaming and I've probably forgotten 80% of them.

Personally I'm not into pre-orders or DLC or what have you, but to me it's fine if they want to do it. I don't expect them to get every single old game ever put out; there's already a lot of stuff here I wouldn't play anyway. :-)

Along the emulation argument I do think that the older platforms (80s) are what I would prefer to see. Not that I'd ever complain about 8-bit, 16-bit, 32-bit, or 64-bit consoles either though. I just think the Commodore, Amiga, and Atari are more "PC" like and kind of thematically fit the bill. More Macintosh ported games would be nice as well.

As for SSI and SSG. Yes. Most definitely. I still have a copy of the Forgotten Realms Silver Archive floating around on CD-ROM just so I can play those games from time to time. But I would absolutely purchase them for my GOG collection as well. I know its not GOG's fault but I'm surprised that a deal can't be worked out on those games. I assume it's a Wizards of the Coast issue? Eh, doesn't matter I'm sure that info is available in the other threads.

I don't know man, but at -2 rep I'm probably on my way to some new record. LOL

More popular/enduring is good way to define what I meant by the AAA games. GOG has done a great job tapping the vast majority of those. Obviously there is the Blizzard and LucasArts type holdouts, etc. That's more or less where I was going with the "Tier 2" description of say Warlords 3. Absolutely a fantastic game and I certainly love it. There are plenty of games like that still to come our way. More than enough for GOG to keep feeding us for a very long time. Not to mention newer AAA games as they become "old."

I don't usually pre-order games. I always tend to wait for the reviews even on the games that I most anticipate getting my hands on. If you're a gamer long enough you learn pretty quick not to buy too far into the pre-release hype. You'll save yourself a lot of dollars and craptacular gameplay.

I do however generally buy DLCs for the majority of my games. (Even the Horse Armor...) Anything that enhances an already great gaming experience is fine by me. Not that I necessarily support GOG doing DLC. "Wait what?" I can hear the cries already. LOL. I know I pitched DLCs earlier but that was a fantasy dream idea about fan-made content. I think that any game released on GOG should be complete with official DLCs, new game or old game. That's just part of the beauty of GOG and getting everything all in one nice neat little package.

Those are the Kickstart ROMs, essentially the Amiga BIOS. They are owned and licensed by Cloanto I believe, the folks behind Amiga Forever. Some of us discussed in another thread the idea of "baking" the ROMs directly into a kind of virtual machine that would run the games, sort of a ramped-up DosBox. That would make it easier to distribute the games, as the ROMs wouldn't be separate files, and the ROMs are basically how Cloanto makes much of their money (the emulators themselves, like UAE, are all free). I suspect GOG or anyone else pursuing this course would still have to negotiate some kind of license with Cloanto regardless of the technological approach. Depending on how that license is structured would have a big impact on how financially attractive selling Amiga games would be.