GOG.com - GOG Does What Steam Diablon't

Zat · Zat Jan 16, 2008

Zat (2 days ago) posted:

Sierra games on GOG would be awesome. I'd buy the Gabriel Knight trilogy in a heartbeat (among other things).

This is freaking sweet.

To whoever was asking, Gabriel Knight 1 is very close to the top of my all time best adventures list. Indiana Jones and the Fate of Atlantis wins just barely. The puzzles are tough and sometimes (but quite rarely) you can die, but the game is really nicely balanced, the story is awesome, you get to explore some awesome New Orleans places and I just love it so much.

I'm definitely going to buy all 3 GK games should the rest of them appear on GOG too.

Adbot · # ? Jun 6, 2024 23:15

Athletic Footjob · # ? Jan 28, 2010 10:19

I've never played a Gabriel Knight game and that description has sold me on it. Plus, I'll support them for more Sierra games.

Entorwellian · # ? Jan 28, 2010 10:58

Zat posted:

This is freaking sweet.

To whoever was asking, Gabriel Knight 1 is very close to the top of my all time best adventures list. Indiana Jones and the Fate of Atlantis wins just barely. The puzzles are tough and sometimes (but quite rarely) you can die, but the game is really nicely balanced, the story is awesome, you get to explore some awesome New Orleans places and I just love it so much.

I'm definitely going to buy all 3 GK games should the rest of them appear on GOG too.

The last part of Gabriel Knight is brutal, though. It turns from a Lucasarts game into Kings Quest V in terms of difficulty.

Reb · # ? Jan 28, 2010 10:59

Less then 1 minute! Oh god the anticipation!

Athletic Footjob · # ? Jan 28, 2010 11:02

Reb posted:

Less then 1 minute! Oh god the anticipation!

It shows another hour for me?

Reb · # ? Jan 28, 2010 11:05

Blodskur posted:

It shows another hour for me?

drat, I don't know then. Mine is stuck on:

and nothing new has popped up

Das MicroKorg · # ? Jan 28, 2010 11:08

My timer's showing 50 minutes at the moment.

Lemon-Lime · # ? Jan 28, 2010 11:08

Hour left for me. I think it's going off of your PC's computer, for some daft reason. Poland is in CET, so if that's the timezone it's going off then it'll be announced in 52mn (at noon CET).

Sankis · # ? Jan 28, 2010 11:27

Sporadic posted:

Cnet already reported that both Arcanum and Gabriel Knight will be $5.99 each

$6 for Arcanum? Christ, that's amazing. It's easily worth five times that. I might have to buy it again as a backup, digital copy.

Lemon-Lime · # ? Jan 28, 2010 11:34

Sankis posted:

$6 for Arcanum? Christ, that's amazing.

I paid $20 for it a month and a half ago, drat it.

9-Volt Assault · # ? Jan 28, 2010 12:05

Aww, the website is getting hammered i guess.

Nthman · # ? Jan 28, 2010 12:06

Sales are up, go get your copies of Gabriel Knight and Arcanium.

spudsbuckley · # ? Jan 28, 2010 12:09

Well, that was under-whelming.

Dissapointed Owl · # ? Jan 28, 2010 12:10

spudsbuckley posted:

Well, that was under-whelming.

I think the point is the doors these 2 releases have probably opened.

Edit: "The Month Of Activision"? Cool.

Edit 2: So we can expect, among others:

MechWarrior 2 and Interstate '76?

Dissapointed Owl fucked around with this message at 12:16 on Jan 28, 2010

Call Me Charlie · # ? Jan 28, 2010 12:16

Dissapointed Owl posted:

Edit: "The Month Of Activision"? Cool.

Unleash those Sierra classics GOG.

Zat · Zat Jan 16, 2008

Gabriel Knight needs the comic book as an extra. In best nutcase scenario they'd even have the multi-hundred-page novel as a PDF but I guess that's not that likely. Hopefully they'll add stuff like that later on, anyway.

Charles Martel · # ? Jan 28, 2010 12:27

So it is indeed Activision. This is another landmark victory for not only GOG but digital distribution as a whole since Activision wants to release their back catalog on a DRM-free service now! Now let's just hope we get most, if not all of that back catalog and not just 5 games like the fluke that was the Apogee catalog.

Will update the OP as well as buy Arcanum when I get home later.

The Machine · # ? Jan 28, 2010 12:55

Sierra? Woo!

Now we just need that classic shooter, Half-life!

Call Me Charlie · # ? Jan 28, 2010 12:56

Interview about Activision deal with GOG's PR & Marketing fella Lukasz Kukawski

quote:

Okay, so first, how did you pull this one off? Codemasters, Ubisoft...these were quite big, rather unexpected deals. But Activision are surely the last frontier, really -- the last publisher anyone expected to sign on. They're known for charging more on PC games, using DRM, and going the very corporate approach in general. What happened? How long have you been trying to get this deal going? What was Activision's first response? Did you have to get after them after first proposing the signing?

It wasn't easy, but no one said it [would] be. It took us more than a year to finalize the deal with Activision. We [had] first approached Vivendi; it was just before their fusion with Activision, so the timing wasn't exactly perfect for us. We presented them our offer and the whole concept of the service, which appealed to them, especially in the case of Sierra titles. Then after the merge we started talking to Activision about possible cooperation and [though] they liked the concept of selling older titles via digital distribution, there was still the DRM issue. That's the problem we come across many times while discussing with publishers. Thanks to our inborn charm and good arguments we've managed to convince Activision that selling DRM-free games is a good point, not a flaw.
Signing new deals always takes a lot of time, but if we're talking about Activision, one of the biggest publishers in the world, it's taking even more time and work. We're sure it was worth working so hard to finally offer such great classics to our customers. We're really happy about this deal and we can assure you it's just the beginning.

The deal it seems will bring a lot of more niche classics as well as quality "mainstream" titles to the mix. How are you imagining the reception from the GOG community and (as of yet) non-GOG members at this stage?

Looking at the thread about the countdown on our forum, I'm sure our community will be excited about the announcement. The games that will come with this deal in the next couple weeks are definitely all time classics that every gamer should play or at least [has already] heard about them. Of course I can only talk about the two already announced games, Arcanum and Gabriel Knight, but there will be more great games from Activision's back catalogue that will definitely put a smile on many gamers' faces.

As for more mainstream gamers, we believe that announcing such a big and famous publisher joining GOG.com should direct many people to our service. To this point we've gathered more than 180 classic PC games, so we're sure that everyone can find something that will fit their needs even if it's not from Activision's catalogue. Also the deal with Activision should open new doors for us in [the] case of new publishers joining the service.

Do you anticipate a continuing relationship with Activision and the other publishers as the years go on? What has the response been like from the various publishers? How do they feel about the sales figures and also the approach you take to digital distribution?

With every deal we sign we're counting for a long term cooperation and we believe that publishers share the same opinion. As you can see with some of our publishers, after releasing all titles announced with the deal, we're getting back to them to discuss about other titles from their back catalogue. Thanks to nice sales results of the first batch of Ubisoft titles we've managed to get the Heroes of Might & Magic series as well as the Might and Magic 6-pack. So if we manage to sign a new publisher you can be sure we'll do whatever we can to get all Good Old Games from their catalogue as it's profitable to everyone: gamers, publishers and us.

The holiday sale, I'm presuming, was in part an effort to bring in as many new members as possible before the big announcement. Has it been a success, do you think, at this point?

The holiday sale was a huge event that included all publishers on GOG and it took us a lot of effort to make this happen. Of course we did it to say "thank you" to all our existing users and to attract as many new customers with [the] crazy deals. The whole action was a big success for us; many people got to know about GOG and our userbase increased significantly. We hope that adding to the offer such a popular publisher as Activision will assure our new users that it was worth creating an account on our service and even more new gamers will discover GOG.com and take a trip down the memory lane.

On the topic of sales and promos in general, I've noticed you guys seem to give away games like candy at times. When I'd first signed up myself, I didn't think you could get any cheaper than $6 or $10, but then the sales began...I take it this approach works very well in the end, and draws in a lot of new members.

The two price points we've chosen at the beginning of GOG.com were a result of compromise between gamers and publishers expectations. In our opinion these are reasonable prices for older games and I'm sure gamers will agree with that. But with the growing competition among digital distribution services we had to give gamers even more incentives to buy games on our service. This brought us to promos. I have to admit that weekend sales and other promos drive lots of traffic to GOG.com.

It's been said 2010 will be the beginning "hot period" for GOG thanks to this deal and others. Are you anticipating signing other big names will be much easier now? Anything else you can hint at? What else, games and otherwise, can we expect this year? A few sports titles, perhaps?

Our goal is to offer all time PC classics from every publisher that owns such games. I believe that in the near future we'll have games from every significant publisher in our catalogue. We're launching into 2010 with Activision which is a huge thing for us and I believe for digital distribution in general as well. That's not all, as we've already planned another big announcement for this year. Unfortunately I can't reveal anything about it just yet.

Also, aside [from] new publisher deals and more games in the catalogue, we're getting ready for something special that has been prepared for a couple months now and will improve the GOG.com experience even more. I shouldn't say more, [so as] not to spoil the surprise.

I have to ask: you've commented previously on getting titles like Planescape and System Shock on board, saying you're trying your best despite the major legal hurdles. Any updates on the situation for the most wanted titles? Is it a "when not if" or "if not when" situation?

Like I said before, we're aiming to offer games from every publisher that owns such games, so it's definitely a matter of time when the most wanted titles are going to be offered on GOG.com. As you probably know, some games are really hard to get as the rights are spread over two or more companies. If one of the companies isn't interested in making business with us, we reach an impasse and there's nothing we can do. Nevertheless such situations are very rare and we're doing everything we can to bring back all the desirable games. The deal with Activision is just [more] proof [of] that.

What's GOG's take on the state of PC gaming today, and how do you feel your service affects it?

PC is still the most popular gaming platform around the world and it won't change in the next couple years. Many people say that PC gaming is in decline, while in my opinion it's still standing strong. Almost everyone has a PC at home or at work, so basically everyone can be a potential gamer. If you think about action games, racing games, sport games, etc., I agree that consoles are a better system to play those [on], but you can't beat playing shooters and strategy games on a PC with mouse and keyboard configuration, am I right? The same goes with RPG titles as they seem to be more complex and have more options on PC than on consoles.

I think GOG.com plays a big part in moving forward with PC gaming. First of all we're taking part of the development of [the] digital distribution market on [the] PC platform, which most probably is the future of games distribution. Secondly, our focus on older titles makes our service a place which preserves games that were significant in PC gaming history -- music and movies industries do it, so why shouldn't we do it? And aside [from] all that, we're giving our users a nice and easy to use service with good games.

How do you see yourselves in the long run as a competitor to other digital distribution services? Are you aiming to be a "household name"?

It's hard to predict right now what will happen in the next couple years. At the moment we're focusing on [offering] more classic games, signing more deals with publishers like Activision and improving the service. GOG.com is a very important project for us and if it keeps on developing the way it has developed the last year and a half, I think we might become a big player on the market -- that's what we wish to ourselves and GOG users.

http://www.neoseeker.com/Articles/Games/Features/activision_joins_gog/2.html

glug · # ? Jan 28, 2010 13:03

Sankis posted:

$6 for Arcanum? Christ, that's amazing. It's easily worth five times that. I might have to buy it again as a backup, digital copy.

Bought. Even though I have it. loving GOG eating my wallet nickels at a time.

electrigger · # ? Jan 28, 2010 13:07

Hey this Arcanum game sounds really awesome. The weird combat and balance issues that everyone talks about sound not so awesome. Any crpg nerds know of good mods or fan patches for the game that help out? I want to buy it and try it, I loooved the Fallout games, but I feel a bit apprehensive about you know, troika.

null_user01013 · # ? Jan 28, 2010 13:21

Sankis posted:

$6 for Arcanum? Christ, that's amazing. It's easily worth five times that. I might have to buy it again as a backup, digital copy.

I have an unopened full size boxed copy of it, along with an opened one and still buying this one. Check out the thread on it, it NEEDS to be fan patched/modded to enjoy it best.

Also play a retarded dwarf or orc on it at least once.

Sankis · # ? Jan 28, 2010 13:30

electrigger posted:

Hey this Arcanum game sounds really awesome. The weird combat and balance issues that everyone talks about sound not so awesome. Any crpg nerds know of good mods or fan patches for the game that help out? I want to buy it and try it, I loooved the Fallout games, but I feel a bit apprehensive about you know, troika.

There are a few nice balance mods, and I think now an unofficial fan patch, that will be posted soon i'm sure. If not then look around terra-arcanum.com. Just be careful. Arcanum's modding was, overall, really bad. A lot of stupid changing the story for no reason mods or another big type is 'suchandsuch is broken - here's a fix. Enjoy the unneccessary changes to the story, npcs, weapons, etc as well!'. Stay veeery far away of anything by Chris Beddoes.

null_user01013 · # ? Jan 28, 2010 13:33

Yeah, it had a lot of strange mods. I recall something about the orc slave thing being retooled and changing key elements of that. But hopefully somebody redoes the Arcanum thread with all that good information, I can't find it anywhere and think I deleted my "Arcanum must have" folder.

null_user01013 · # ? Jan 28, 2010 13:37

I'm on the fence about Gabriel Knight, never touched it before, not sure I want to get into all that. Is it playable for first timers? I'm not sure I can get over the graphics and dated mechanics. Something in me always wished for a remake, that Monkey Island remake spoiled me when it comes to adventure games.

Which one is the one that killed gaming? Where you glue a cat beard to your face or something, I want to avoid that one for sure.

Threep · # ? Jan 28, 2010 13:47

AxeManiac posted:

I'm on the fence about Gabriel Knight, never touched it before, not sure I want to get into all that. Is it playable for first timers? I'm not sure I can get over the graphics and dated mechanics. Something in me always wished for a remake, that Monkey Island remake spoiled me when it comes to adventure games.

Mechanics-wise it's not all that dated, just the graphics. It's from the few years where Sierra adventure games were actually good - after they stopped the "you have to start over because you didn't do this at the beginning" but before they went overboard on FMV games. It's also got Tim Curry, Mark Hamill and Michael Dorn doing voices.

It's also not that hard overall, it just has some hard puzzles. Nothing grabbing a guide when you're stuck can't solve.

quote:

Which one is the one that killed gaming? Where you glue a cat beard to your face or something, I want to avoid that one for sure.

That's Gabriel Knight 3, which is actually a decent game, cat moustache aside. The Longest Journey and its rubber duck came after anyway.

null_user01013 · # ? Jan 28, 2010 13:59

Okay, I got that one too. Nothing like re-buying old games. This is such a deadly habit, but I love the no hassle setup of these. I love swapping games between my desktop and laptop and having it work on either.

glug · # ? Jan 28, 2010 14:10

From some other SA thread, this link popped up:
http://www.terra-arcanum.com/phpBB/viewtopic.php?t=14954 (fe: don't use this one)

From the gog forums, this one pops up:
http://rpgcodex.net/phpBB/viewtopic.php?t=39612 (version v091225 - latest)

Also, apparently the official high-res mods, and others:
http://terra-arcanum.com/downloads/

Unless that's included in the 1gb game download, which wouldn't surprise me since this was probably a released-on-cd not dvd game

Weedle · Weedle May 31, 2006

Whalley posted:

The Tony Hawks games, Heretic 2, Mechwarrior 2: Mercenaries (and I guess Mechwarrior 1 but ehhhhhhhh,) Interstate 76, Heavy Gear, Civilisation 1, Blood Omen, The Dig, the Total War games, the Quake games, Zork and the Twinsen games are all games that thanks to signing Activision all have a fair chance of appearing on GOG now.

Heretic and the Quakes (excluding Quake 4) are already on Steam through id, who are now part of Bethesda. Sega is the current publisher for the Total War series, and I'd be surprised to see the Tony Hawk games on GOG given the myriad of licensing issues with the people and brands appearing in the games.

*rains on parade*

Grawl · # ? Jan 28, 2010 15:09

I could swear it was posted in this topic, but I can't find it anymore. Someone posted a tool for the Gothic 2 expansion to make the game a bit easier. Does anyone know what I'm talking about? Googling for it just gives me files.

Drox · # ? Jan 28, 2010 15:38

AxeManiac posted:

I have an unopened full size boxed copy of it, along with an opened one and still buying this one. Check out the thread on it, it NEEDS to be fan patched/modded to enjoy it best.

Also play a retarded dwarf or orc on it at least once.

Is this one of those games like Fallout/2 that has an idiot path?

Dissapointed Owl · # ? Jan 28, 2010 15:39

If I'm honest, I'm not that interested in either of the new games but I still got them to make a point. I suggest other people that are on the fence do the same.

ChrisAsmadi · # ? Jan 28, 2010 15:46

Entorwellian posted:

Wasn't the Homeworld series owned by Sierra?

The problem is that THQ owns Relic now and, according to wikipedia at least, owns the Homeworld licence, too.

Also, I'm wondering if Betrayal at Krondor and Return to Krondor will show up, since Sierra owned those too, admittedly it depends what rights RE Feist has to them as well, I guess.

Doctor Yiff · # ? Jan 28, 2010 16:08

Dissapointed Owl posted:

If I'm honest, I'm not that interested in either of the new games but I still got them to make a point. I suggest other people that are on the fence do the same.

I already own both of these games on CD, but if they're at all a hassle to get working on Vista, then ching-ching for CD Projekt.

Lemon-Lime · # ? Jan 28, 2010 16:14

Monochrome posted:

but if they're at all a hassle to get working on Vista

Arcanum isn't. It installs straight off the CDs and then runs fine, especially with the patches.

Vidmaster · # ? Jan 28, 2010 16:25

ChrisAsmadi posted:

The problem is that THQ owns Relic now and, according to wikipedia at least, owns the Homeworld licence, too.

Also, I'm wondering if Betrayal at Krondor and Return to Krondor will show up, since Sierra owned those too, admittedly it depends what rights RE Feist has to them as well, I guess.

Pretty sure Betrayal is freeware now, they released it a really long time ago though so maybe it's impossible to find now.

GreenNight · # ? Jan 28, 2010 16:34

I need to replay this with the high res patch. Holy poo poo widescreen come to me.

glug · # ? Jan 28, 2010 16:36

Monochrome posted:

I already own both of these games on CD, but if they're at all a hassle to get working on Vista, then ching-ching for CD Projekt.

That reminds me, they DO own this site. What a cool loving company. For those who don't know.. they translate great old classics to Polish, they do GOG.com, and they started a development arm that created The Witcher, which while the combat was a bit simple in it, it was a great loving game.

Hats off to these bastards, and I feel even better about re-buying games I have on CD right in front of me

Dibujante · # ? Jan 28, 2010 16:41

Drox posted:

Is this one of those games like Fallout/2 that has an idiot path?

Oh yes.

Adbot · # ? Jun 6, 2024 23:15

thedaian · # ? Jan 28, 2010 16:43

Vidmaster posted:

Pretty sure Betrayal is freeware now, they released it a really long time ago though so maybe it's impossible to find now.

Wikipedia says that Betrayal isn't actually freeware, though it was released on Sierra's website around 1998 or so.

Also, it's on abandonia, so it's not like it's impossible to find. But an offical release by GoG would be nice. Plus, they might be able to secure the rights to the novel that was published after Return to Krondor.