Friendly reminder: A “DRM-Free” game is only as preserved as the hard drive space you dedicate to it. If GoG goes down tomorrow then you are looking for torrents, same as everyone else.
That said: GoG has been doing this basically since year one (I want to say they lost and regained Interplay’s library like five times?). On the one hand, I love that I get that “hey, buy it now or never. Here is a discount code” warning. On the other hand… this feels like I would be calling it out as manipulative FOMO bullshit were it any other company.
Although… it is a pretty safe bet that MS aren’t interested in going back to GoG until the next time their online ecosystem collapses. So probably a “reasonable” bit of FOMO for those who love the SP campaigns of these games.
On the other hand… this feels like I would be calling it out as manipulative FOMO bullshit were it any other company.
While I hesitate to type this as it might be perceived as viewing a corporation as a friend, the intent matters, and GOG has a different history than the majority of FOMO abusing game companies. Did they identify that this is probably an opportunity to push some sales? Sure, probably. But I am chill permitting them that right when they’re visibly working to remove FOMO as a commercial strategy.
Say it with me kids: Corporations are NEVER your friends. At best you have mutual interests, for a time.
Just look back to everyone who was all in on Google because “Do no evil” and “They aren’t Apple” and so forth. Unity when they were the underdog relative to Unreal. Reddit when they were the “counter culture” social media. And so forth.
I like GoG a lot and have since they first launched. I also remember the French Monk Incident and so forth.
The underdog is often the one that is most pro-consumer, since that is in their business interest. As soon as the take the lead, the doors to enshittyfication open, because business shifts from getting new customers to not letting them leave. (Of course there are exceptions, but this is the case broadly)
A “DRM-Free” game is only as preserved as the hard drive space you dedicate to it.
You mean, just like any pre digital purchasing game that you own on disks? Or similar to any physical object you ever bought (hard drive space / shelf space), for that matter?
They’re preserving it as much as they’re able to without being a government funded museum.
They’re preserving it as much as they’re able to
So we are giving participation awards? GoG use digital preservation as a marketing point. They aren’t doing that. And they are arguably making for a false sense of security (some might go even farther…) when people think that buying a game from a major dev and European publisher is digital preservation.
How would you feel if Crunchyroll started arguing they were the good guys because they were releasing Witch from Mercury for 100 USD?
Now for the fun part!
Or similar to any physical object you ever bought (hard drive space / shelf space), for that matter?
Yeah. As in it is “preserved” up until someone does a cross country move or merges their life with a partner who doesn’t see why you need to have every single Blizzard Battle Chest on a giant shelf in the living room.
You mean, just like any pre digital purchasing game that you own on disks?
Yes. Because bit rot is a thing and people need to be aware of that and actually preserve that data. Hmm, I wonder who could help with that…
They’re preserving it as much as they’re able to without being a government funded museum.
Good news. You don’t have to be a government funded museum. In fact, governments are kind of an active threat to these because they are in a REALLY grey area legally. And publishers (like CD Projekt…) tend to go after them both legally and not legally.
I very much disagree that just having a copy of a game is games preservation but it is part of it. And orgs like The Internet Archive are preserving both the media itself AND the media and culture about said media. And they and their associates put the legwork in to reach out to people who have those big boxes or scratched up discs and preserve things BEFORE it is time to make room for the new baby. And they don’t have fancy deals with publishers to help market for donations. They have to ask.
So if you actually care about digital preservation? https://archive.org/donate?origin=iawww-TopNavDonateButton
Whereas, if you just want to spend money and react to FOMO?
So we are giving participation awards?
Huh?
Are you blaming them for not preserving things more than actual physical objects that you bought are preserved in your house? The whole root of the matter was people complaining about companies obsoleting or taking away games they paid for. What GOG is doing counters just that. It is now once again in your hands and your hands only to preserve and maintain your property, and if the data gets corrupted, you only have time, physics and yourself to blame.
I couldn’t care less about anybody creating some kind of eternal video game archive for archaeologists of the post apocalyptic world to find. I care about if I will still be able to play the games I paid money for in 30 years, provided I keep the data and hardware. How would that last part be the store’s responsibility?
Yeah normally I would feel the same way about this FOMO style of marketing but normally in that case it’s the company selling it deciding to like remove it from sale to create the FOMO need. In the case it’s another company basically forcing this decision on them so I don’t think it’s bad to let people buy it for cheaper while they still can.
If GoG goes down tomorrow
Or if Blizzard sues them to get the games removed.
The game will be removed on 13. December?
However that can’t simply take away a game someone has already bought.
It will be removed from sale on 13 of December, but everyone who already bought it will continue to be able to download it from GOG indefinitely. Furthermore, GOG has stated their commitment to ensure the game remains compatible with newer computer and operating systems. That’s what the preservation project mentioned in the post is about.
If you want something preserved, you gotta be the one to preserve it for yourself.
Encrypt it, too.
For data that is “mine”? Yeah.
But the average steam library (from just asking chatgpt because i am lazy) is 30-100 games for a “normal” user and 200-300 games for an “enthusiast”. Assuming 10 GB per game on average (which is woefully small these days) and you are expecting people to spend 1-3 TB of storage on just their game installers alone. AND that is assuming none of those installers get updates and people need to figure out which ones (most of us who lived through The French Monk incident can attest to that).
So what happens is “oh, someone else will back it up” and so forth. And it means EVERYONE is grabbing torrents for Spec Ops The Line and not just the people who didn’t think to buy a copy while they could.
A DRM free store that’s run by the CD Projekt Red guys. It focuses mainly on older games (Good Old Games) but it also got modern DRM free games such as Baldurs Gate 3.
If you’re buying an older game, it’s likely a better option than whatever steam offers as GOG will also try to fix old games that are broken on modern systems.
