Today, digital storefront GOG has announced the GOG Preservation Program as a continuation of its committment to preserve and restore classic video games. With this new initiative, GOG is ensuring that games remain compatible with modern systems. The company is committing its own resources to maintaining their compatibility with modern systems.

Classic games that have been improved by GOG in this way now have an official stamp on the storefront. There are currently 100 of them, including the Resident Evil series and, released today, Heroes of Might and Magic 3: Complete and Dungeon Keeper 2.

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[Latiodile]

That's not the point I was making? I said that they make them easily accessible through the storefront, and there is no need to pirate for preservation reasons. If the work better through piracy than officially, I suppose that could still be a reason to pirate, but you can't argue it's for preservation reasons.

sure, let me go buy the two "the suffering" games, Colin McRae dirt 2005 and Toca... oh wait, delisting is still a problem even on gog

 

[ciro64]

Pirates now can't claim that they pirated games for "preservation reasons" if the company is making it easy like this to access games. I can hear the pirates seething.

I love what GOG is doing, but unfortunately GOG will never have all the games. And if it did I'd still worry if the companies behind certain titles are shitty or not.

Believe or not I actually feel good for purchasing original games, I just like to make sure my money is going to the right pockets. That's why I usually have a clear conscience when buying indie games.
(I said "usually" because there are exceptions such Cave Story where the sole original developer of the game isn't getting paid when people buy copies)

 

[MayorBryce]

sure, let me go buy the two "the suffering" games, Colin McRae dirt 2005 and Toca... oh wait, delisting is still a problem even on gog

The whole point of this program is to preserve games, not "have it for a few years and then it's gone". Why would some company license them to GOG for the preservation program if they were going to delist them? Did you even watch the video?

 

[Latiodile]

The whole point of this program is to preserve games, not "have it for a few years and then it's gone". Why would some company license them to GOG for the preservation program if they were going to delist them? Did you even watch the video?

i don't need to watch the video to know this "preservation program" means jack shit and is just a marketing strat when they have actual problematic games that are left untouched

it's in the name. it's a preservation program, it should leave games available, which isn't happening

edit: i watched the video with it's terrible ai generated voice and it literally proves my point, it also mentions "including fixing game breaking bugs"... you mean like the bug fix that caused this minor graphical issue in the niche game "speed busters"? this is a game i own on gog btw

 

[Aristeia]

Pirates now can't claim that they pirated games for "preservation reasons" if the company is making it easy like this to access games. I can hear the pirates seething.

I don't think pirates particularly care about how other people perceive what they're doing, otherwise they wouldn't continue to do it.

 

[RAHelllord]

The whole point of this program is to preserve games, not "have it for a few years and then it's gone". Why would some company license them to GOG for the preservation program if they were going to delist them? Did you even watch the video?

You might want to read the actual release GOG gave, they don't "license" games for the preservation program, they're just doing it internally by themselves by installing the game and giving it a test to see if it works. And likely checking pc gaming wiki for default settings and community patches to actually get it to work, then bundle that up and claim they're performing an essential service.

Also, GOG doesn't have a license to sell every game ever created, for every platform. They're not going to be selling Nintendo games that haven't been in print or offered digitally in ages.

 

[SDA]

why do you keep running your mouth despite claiming to know very well how to pirate?, all you're doing is making yourself look like a fucking idiot who would end up behind a Nintendo lolsuit.

That's what Blade does all the time. I just can't stand him at all.

 

[SylverReZ]

I love what GOG is doing, but unfortunately GOG will never have all the games. And if it did I'd still worry if the companies behind certain titles are shitty or not.

It's likely that they're going to add more games in the near future to better preserve these future titles that will not become lost forever.

Love what GOG is doing at the moment.

 

[Latiodile]

It's likely that they're going to add more games in the near future to better preserve these future titles that will not become lost forever.

Love what GOG is doing at the moment.

or they could completely give up on it in 1-2 months like they did when they made gog connect

 

[MayorBryce]

I don't think pirates particularly care about how other people perceive what they're doing, otherwise they wouldn't continue to do it.

Pirates love to justify piracy online, for some reason.

 

[NinStar]

Pirates love to justify piracy online, for some reason.

Actual pirates don't, only the people that care about the (supposed) morality related to it does, people who say things like "I'll pirate a game if it not available" or "I don't like that company therefore I'll pirate their stuff".

 

[Asia81]

happy for homm3
i really love that game

 

[SecureBoot]

Pirates now can't claim that they pirated games for "preservation reasons" if the company is making it easy like this to access games. I can hear the pirates seething.

This will always be an incomprehensive list of games. If the game is available, I'll buy it. If not, I'll find another way to play it.

 

[The Catboy]

Pirates now can't claim that they pirated games for "preservation reasons" if the company is making it easy like this to access games. I can hear the pirates seething.

Nah, I just pirate because I am a pirate

 

[MayorBryce]

Nah, I just pirate because I am a pirate

At least you're honest about it.

 

[The Catboy]

At least you're honest about it.

I see no reason to not be honest. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

 

[onfy]

Gog hasn't given the impression lately that they care about old games anymore, honestly it was starting to feel like Zoom Platform (terrible name) cares more.

I do have some grievances about Gog. Offering inferior versions of games (Simcity 2000 for DOS like someone else mentioned, also the CD versions of the Gobliiins trilogy and Loom.) I think Simcity 2000 for Windows does have a 32-bit version, but I'm not sure it even runs on Windows 7. Gobliiins and Loom could be chalked up to licensing.

One other really annoying thing is that Scummvm games usually remove the original executable files, meaning you can't play Scummvm DOS games on an actual DOS PC without pirating. Some other games with replacements for the original executables have this problem as well. There's even been cases where previously-unsupported games have Scummvm added to them, removing DOS support from games that used to have it!

It would be nice if Gog supplied ISOs of the original discs for crazies like me to be able to play on a retro PC. Then again I often try to get physical copies anyway. I guess it's too niche to bother with, and outside their mission.

Actually, I imagine Gog is missing many early Windows games simply because there's no legal way to make them compatible with modern Windows. There's no wine to make 3.x/9x games work on Windows 10 (well anyway) and Microsoft would never allow them to bundle an actual copy of Windows 95 with the games. DREAMM by Aaron Giles seems to be the closest anyone's got though. It's focused on LucasArts games but he recently posted on mastodon that it's powering emulation of some old Tetris games in a compilation from Digital Eclipse. Maybe if Gog cares they could license its Windows emulation from him? And many of these old Windows games use Director which Scummvm is working on support for, so that might help, but we'll go back to the problem of missing the original exes... Let's see what happens.

 

[4d1xlaan]

While that's a nice sentiment, it bears mentioning they have bundled community patches in their releases and then simply never even acknowledged the people writing those patches being the reason their "release" works.

Would be nice if they'd put their money where their mouth is and hire a few people to actually develop proper compatibility patches, or just donate a bunch of money to the people that have made those patches already and properly credit them when they're used.

yeah but you dont get clout from that though, gotta take all the credit

 

[ZeroFX]

Good, I see gog like a "repacker gourmet", though I would never pay for a gog repack, it's nice to have them making the games DRM free and fixing them. When I want to buy old games I like to preserve I buy the physical then dump the iso, then store, games in digital have no value to me, so I pirate.

 

[ChronosNotashi]

I don't think pirates particularly care about how other people perceive what they're doing

Obviously not. Otherwise, the more vocal ones would see that the constant claims of "game preservation" when they're pirating even games that haven't yet released are actually detrimental to more legitimate efforts at video game preservation (and likely one of the main reasons the VGHF's petition was shot down - government doesn't want to risk legalizing piracy to provide remote network access to federally-funded archives).