I think CD Projekt might just be my new best friend. Sure, the Polish-based publisher’s announcement of the awesome sounding downloadable game service, Good Old Games, might have influenced the feelings expressed in the previous sentence, but I’ve always liked them, honest!
GOG.com is an on-demand platform that will be stocked with classic PC games. That, in and of itself, is great, but what about it is providing me with that extra oomph of excitement? Firstly, the games will be cheap: priced at either $5.99 or $9.99. Secondly, the games are all guaranteed to work perfectly with Windows XP and Vista (sorry, Mac users), can be downloaded an infinite number of times, and will come with cool extras. Thirdly, and here’s the big one, every game will be completely DRM free. YES! Thank you, CD Projekt, for realizing that people don’t like copy protection in their legitimately purchased digital downloads.
“Our main goal is to create a user-friendly site with the best classic PC games for a price that might be considered impossible to achieve,” GOG.com managing director Adam Oldakowski stated. “The people behind GOG.com are gamers and we all know how difficult it is to find a lot of classic games. So we’ve started building a great games catalogue, gotten rid of the copy protection that gamers hate so much, optimized the games to work on modern operating systems, and made them cheap enough that piracy seems like a rip-off. It’s so easy to buy, download and install a game and then get deeply involved in the community; we’re very confident that gamers will absolutely love the site.”
So far, most of Good Old Game’s content is coming from Codemasters and Interplay, with titles like Fallout, Fallout 2, Freespace 2, MDK, Operation Flashpoint, and TOCA Race Driver 3 set to make an appearance when the service launches this September. Though if you can’t wait that long, there will be a closed beta starting in August that you can sign up for on the site.
CD Projekt has also revealed that one of their chief goals is to get all of LucasArts' titles added to the service at some point. Why hello there, fans of classic adventure games. Can you see yourself buying a bunch of games you’d previously missed out on once Good Old Games launches?
Contest:
1:44 PM on 07.10.2008
| 
as amazing as all this sounds, how do they plan on getting more than one subscriber? people aren't nice. they'se gonna get raped.
I think that if something like this can be successful, it could send a strong message to those publishers that insist on stuffing their games full of pain-in-the-ass DRM.
That being said, I really hope gamers at large can come to the same realization and learn to support a good thing when it comes along.
It's deigned so Mac like. They even have agoddamn Apple monitor, with default Leopard wallpaper behind a generic Aqau window.
What. The. Fuck. Throw us a bone here.
I'm still waiting for f*cking GameTap to come to Europe.
At least let me login and play the free games goddamnit!
If this takes off it'll really be a kick in the face for all the dickheads that whine about piracy ruining them, showing that quality really is a bigger incentive than any retarded-DRM they can shove on a disc when it comes to getting people to the checkout.
I saw Sacrifice and shouted out with joy.
I saw Giants, and now I will subscribe.
And then there's MDK, which has been developed and published by no less than 10 different companies over the course of it's lifetime, and now there's another one to add to the list.
This looks really interesting. As has been mentioned it'd be nice to have this on steam so-as to use one thing to get them all, but still. Rock on!
@Galagabug:
All of these games are already available on the internet to pirate if you're so inclined. Including DRM in these releases would be closing the barn door a decade after the horses got out. It would help nothing, and hurt the consumer. It's very smart of them to leave them DRM-free.
Besides, anything that gets Giants into more people's hands is good with me. That game was awesome, and as British as afternoon tea. I'll keep my fingers crossed for the beta.
@uglyphil - I believe TOCA 3 and McRae 2005 are the best of each series. They've aged pretty well too - TOCA 3 still looks ace.
@timmy the cat: Holy crap - I hadn't thought of the non-adventure Lucasarts games. X-Wing and TIE Fighter were two of the first PC games I played, and I loved them to death. Another playthrough would be very welcome. Wonder if Alliance will be included -- I never got a chance to play that one. Ooh - and maybe the first two Dark Forces games will be there, too. They look like hell now but the level design was golden.
I am officially excited. I love cheap games.
Quoting: "1. We’ve got games your 10-year-old won’t be better at."
I mean, people with jobs that won't mind paying 10 bucks, I can't really see a halo kid getting excited for fallout or sacrifie...
1. Some of these games are legally freeware. Freespace 2 can be leagally downloaded on the internet. Sure it's conisdered "Abandonware" (as the company no longer exists), but in the EULA for Freespace 2 itself it says you can distribute the game freely (?!).
2. Doesn't Gametap already do this, for cheaper AND more? You can download several titles like Deus Ex GOTY edition for free on Gametap, and subscribe to them to get a VERY large library of classic games.