GOG's Preservation Program Is the DRM-Free Store Refocusing on the Classics | Hacker News Reader

GOG's Preservation Program Is the DRM-Free Store Refocusing on the Classics

arstechnica.com

161 pointsm46361 comments

I don't know. I wish for them to succeed but as someone who's had a GOG account since before it officially launched, I have seen them claim to refocus on classics at least twice before, with meager effects. It's gotten bad enough that some games ostensibly under GOG's mission are actually better off on Steam and I don't think it's entirely on the publisher.

The examples chosen to hightlight the program on gog's own page for this initiative also do not fill with confidence. If you read between the lines it turns out that for instance it took them five years (!) to fix a crashing HoMM3 intro in a language they added, and likewise they only checked if Diablo/Hellfire even works on win 10/11 yesterday, years after they started selling it.

More power to them, if they keep at it, but I don't see anything to get excited over yet.

Not crashing, just the intros don't get played. Considering the intros and how stilted they are, it was probably thought to be a feature.

- - -

Verifying in this case means they are marking it in the store as expected to run on such platforms. Different concept from "can run on those platforms"

Which classic games are better on Steam than they are on GoG?

Septerra Core for instance, last I checked (2022) gog required quite a lot of searching and effort from the user (missing files, recompiled exe), while Steam version works out of the box. FEAR: Extraction Point also ran somewhat better off Steam IME.

Hmm, this is kind of off-topic, but I'm unable to skip the intro on the HoMM3 I own on GOG. Not that I play HoMM3 often, but I'm still kind of pissed off because they won't fix that.

I'm pretty sure the first time you play HoMM3 the intro can't be skipped. So question is, do you make a fresh install every time you play (as you play rarely), or does it fail to save that intro has already been played. Also using HD Launcher might help.

IIRC (this was a while ago), it saves a key into the Windows registry. But somehow, it overwrites it the next time I launch or quit the game, so I can skip the intro after I modify the key, but then it reverts.

I haven't had the patience to debug it and see exactly when it changes the value.

Update: They finally fixed it on the latest patch (13th of November).

Thank you GOG!

Buy HOMM3 then you can use the content with VCMI and have an overall better experience in my opinion.

I have flip-flopped between GOG and Steam for many years. This has correlated with my use of Linux and Linux's support for gaming.

When I first learned of GOG and I was still primarily gaming on Windows I tended to choose GOG over Steam since I prefer their DRM-free games. However since it became much easier to game on Linux (thanks to Proton and the work of Valve), I tended to start buying more on Steam since it was so much easier to get games working through their platform. Since Heroic launcher came out I have now switched back to primarily buying from GOG again.

The big difference is being able to download games / installers locally and expect them to work without having to first sign in to an account.

you can only do that with gog, not with steam

ps: however, there have been a few games where multiplayer features required a gog galaxy instance, which I don't agree with given their whole no-DRM spiel

The problem is convenience; I've been using Steam streaming quite a bit lately, for example.

Plus you get Linux/Proton too on Steam [1]. And the Deck if you're into that.

I used to go to GoG first but convenience is winning lately :(

[1] I remember, but can't provide links, that CDProjekt/GoG got called out for their bad "port" of Witcher 2 to Linux/Mac. Guess what, instead of improving things with 3, they simply dropped any pretense of official "ports". Not good for cross platform customers...

https://www.phoronix.com/news/MTY5ODM reports on the reception of the witcher 2 port. https://www.pcworld.com/article/416185/broken-promises-games... mentions the missing, but shortly promised witcher 3. https://www.gamingonlinux.com/articles/the-witcher-3-didnt-c... would be the source for the witcher 3 being cancelled because of witcher 2, but the article is down. Might have never been true.

Edit: https://www.gamingonlinux.com/2017/07/the-witcher-3-didnt-co... is the new link, so the article wasn't retracted.

For Witcher 2 I did have a Windows gaming PC available so I just ignored the Mac "port". Mind, I was hackintoshing at that time so I actually had a decent GPU. But it was laggy and stuttery on Mac OS while it worked just fine(tm) on the same machine in Windows.

Generally, my gaming is very delayed as per this xckd:

https://xkcd.com/606/

So at the point i wanted to play Witcher 3 it was crypto price crisis then covid chip crisis and console availability crisis and I simply did not have a modern GPU in the house. I played W3 on a PS4 :)

Dunno about cyberpunk, I tried it on PS5 but all that inventory and menus are no good with a controller. One day I'll get the Windows version.

Patient gaming is a virtue :) But do yourself a favour and get Cyberpunk ASAP, in the Christmas sale at the latest. As a deus ex fan, Cyberpunk has been the best game I have ever played, ignoring nostalgia. And it looks like there won't be a further extension or big patch, so nothing to gain by waiting now.

Ryzen 5 3600, radeon rx 6600 should be the performance baseline hardware for 1080p.

I actually have ps4 discs, which got me a free upgrade to the ps5 version. Credit to CDProjekt when it's due.

I now do have a desktop with windows and a geforce 4060, so i should be fine.

I just need to figure out which edition to get on Windows. Because as a negative credit, I had Witcher 3 and both addons and I never got access to the super duper whatever edition on GoG, in spite of actually having already paid for the content.

I'll one day figure out which is the super duper whatever Cyberpunk edition, add it to my wish list and wait for a sale.

There are DRM free games on steam, you can use steamcmd cli to download them and run without having to use steam itself. Its up to the dev/publisher if they want DRM or not.

The number of games like this (that work without Steam) is vanishingly small ime, and there is no way to tell in advance whether a game will work or not. (I have actually had a lot more success with the Epic Games Store.)

Not saying that there's a lot of games where the publisher/dev made this choice, just responding to OP saying its not possible with steam. Unfortunately the store doesn't show drm free games either.

I am aware that there are some games that you can download and happen to be able to play offline if the steam launcher executable simply happens to be a dumb link to the 'true' executable which checks for a steam connection first, and you could in theory find out where the 'true' executable lies in the game folder, because of the way it's designed. But I would hesitate to call this a "DRM-free" game in that sense; more like "the DRM is trivial and easily bypassed if you know what to run".

Furthermore, there is no guarantee that just because it works "DRM-free" now, it will continue to do so later. Or, just because it "works", it doesn't mean that somewhere half-way into the game there isn't a "check" or "achievement" that won't crash your game.

etc.

And in any case, Steam does not have a commitment towards DRM-free, not even in the sense of at least committing to flag such games as such. It's all 'accidental' at best. And while it's the last games company that you'd expect to go bankrupt 'now', all your games are in theory 'licensed' content, not 'owned' purchases. It's entirely up to them to remove content without notice (because you bought a game in one country and then moved to another, e.g.), or go bankrupt and say well sorry, some games might work if you download them but we don't guarantee anything.

Whereas in theory, GoG will let you make a full local backup of your entire collection, and in the few games that (annoyingly) "subtly" break the DRM-free promise (typically due to the way multiplayer is handled), these are clearly signposted in the store pages.

After you do what I said you can copy the directory and run it anywhere without steam or internet connection. You said its impossible, like steam forces it this way, but it clearly doesn't even if only very few Devs make this choice.

Altough incomplete, PCGamingWiki has info on whether games work without steam DRM. AFAIK they are usually tested by moving the game folder and running without opening Steam.

https://www.pcgamingwiki.com/wiki/The_big_list_of_DRM-free_g...

e.g. https://www.pcgamingwiki.com/wiki/Hades

> The big difference is being able to download games / installers locally and expect them to work without having to first sign in to an account.

This is exactly why I use GOG and not Steam.

Yep, since Heroic started supporting savegame sync and achievments, GoG became a really good option for Linux gamers (and Steam Deck) again.

Savegame sync is very good news to me, thank you for sharing, I'll definitely check this out.

Also funny that the GOG client is not working on Linux, but someone else made a client for them.

I wonder who is behind the Heroic Games Launcher project. Are these really just random people from around the world? Strangely enough, I couldn't find much information.

They've done a few interviews if you want to know more about them, this is the most recent one:

https://www.gamingonlinux.com/2024/09/an-interview-with-the-...

Fantastic stuff, this launcher. It can even download and use pre-packaged wine and proton "environments", very similarly to how Steam does it. I'm a very happy new user.

>savegame sync

Now this is interesting. I only ever use Steam for games I can't find on GoG (or can't find on a treasure hunt, shall we say) or which I invested a lot of time into and have savegames I want to preserve. Maybe this will help me push past that...

Wow! I need to look into it again on my SD. Tried it at release 2 years ago and the experience wasn't the most streamlined.

I did eventually get Control working, but that's about it.

Gog gave up on linux so quickly that I gave on them

Hm? You don't get the galaxy client but other than that the support seems fine?

For example

https://www.gog.com/de/game/baldurs_gate_2_enhanced_edition

Also works quite well with

https://heroicgameslauncher.com/

They did? GOG has a great catalog of games that run under Linux.

This is a good initiative to make it easier to run old games and simplifying the effort involved in making them fit modern monitors and operating systems.

I hope we see them more focused on preserving access to the games too, they've talked before about how until copyright is reformed we need to use the justice system to inherit accounts and the games in them, hopefully some of their efforts are focused on that reform especially now that the EU is investigating whether we should "own" our digital libraries.

In the case of transfer of ownership there's little GOG can do (legally) except lobby. But from a technical standpoint access to the games is guaranteed by the DRM-free part. You can have the binaries free of encumbrances, effectively owning the game (binary). Possession is nine-tenths of the law.

I think I've bought all the classics I want from GOG already. Their biggest selling point is that you own the games you buy from them it's not a licence like steam.

It's still a license, just more lenient and more customer friendly.

Would like to know what their income stream percentage is, for being an sink for third party platform game keys from Prime Gaming (vs Epic store, Steam being suspiciously absent).

Seems like the only time I visit GOG these days regularily.

---

... “GOG games” or “GOG videos” respectively and when we talk about them all together they are “GOG content”.

2.1 We give you and other GOG users the personal right (known legally as a 'license') to use GOG services and to download, access and/or stream (depending on the content) and use GOG content. This license is for your personal use. We can stop or suspend this license in some situations, which are explained later on.

https://support.gog.com/hc/en-us/articles/212632089-GOG-User...

On one hand it's a language thing where people are used to using words like "buy" when they exchange money for an item/service, on the other I really wonder how many think through the implications of what would happen if they bought easily reproducible software/media as they buy a physical thing.

It's not really a license, since you buy the files, and get the files, and off you go. The license is for actually using the GOG infrastructure to get the files. It's like buying music on Bandcamp.

The fact that you get the files does not mean it’s not a license. You can download Windows 10 ISO from microsoft.com and it will boot just fine too.

There’s no license _verification_ in the files you’ll download - yes. You’ll be able to always install and play what you’ve downloaded - also yes. But _legally_ you don’t _own_ them.

Sure, but similarly, while you purchase a CD of a musical album, you don't own that either, right? I mean, you own the piece of media itself, but its contents are subject to copyright and such. Same deal here, I own the files from GOG in the sense that I can do whatever with the files, but I'm not allowed to breach copyright by for example sharing the files with the public.

So if this usage is just a license, not ownership, then yes, we don't own the GOG copies, but we don't own any other media either. I don't think that's what's being discussed here. If, then, we "own" the CD with the music on it, we similarly "own" the game we download from GOG.

You can always sell CDs without breaking copyright, you can't sell anything you acquired from GOG according to the TOS. A GOG licence is always personalised. A Book or Record is not.

"3.3 Your GOG account and GOG content are personal to you and cannot be shared with, sold, gifted or transferred to anyone else. Your access to and use of them is subject to GOG’s Privacy Policy and Code of Conduct which are updated or amended when necessary."

So far the TOS of GOG and Steam forbid resale of licensed items, if that's leagal or enforcable is another story.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First-sale_doctrine

That's a good point! I don't actually think there are any file-buying services which enable re-selling the files bought - if these files are not tied to physical media, that is.

Once upon a time, I loved buying my games on GOG, most of the time at full price.

But then I’ve been burnt more than I should by developers who then forgot that this platform exists and go all in on their Steam customers : cross play ? That’s for Steam. Announcement of mods support ? … on Steam Workshop !

The more recent example in my mind is Timberborn : I love this game and I bought it on GOG because I want my games as DRM free as I can. Boom, they recently added offcicial mod support … on Steam !

But ! I must say once again : Big up to Satisfactory devs who announced that they won’t support Steam Workshop to not harm their Epic customers. We have a good old semi official community managed mod loader (ficsit.app) and the modding community is thriving as much as it would on Steam workshop.

I just want to add : I have nothing against Steam, it’s one of the companies I still consider to be great (as a customer at least) and I have a huge Steam library. My issue is more with the developers selling their games on all the platforms then making anything non Steam second class citizens. And it’s especially infuriating with games who launches only on Epic Games because they have negotiated a temporary exclusivity (which was the case of Satisfactory, but for once they managed it well) and then release a Steam version with more features.

Patches are also often delayed on GOG compared to Steam (usually by a couple days, but in extreme cases even weeks). Achievements and changelogs are sometimes neglected as well.

There's a spreadsheet[0] named "Games that treat GOG customers as 2nd Class" that is being semi-regularly updated where you can find out about this. I've also made a Firefox Add-On[1] that uses this spreadsheet to add the data while browsing GOG.com.

[0]: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1zjwUN1mtJdCkgtTDRB2I...

[1]: https://addons.mozilla.org/en-GB/firefox/addon/gog-2nd-class...

kudos to you for writing to the developers to complain then!

Something I've noticed 'accumulating' for myself over the years is the centralization on steam, which rubs me up the wrong way for PC which is a largely open platform. I'd say it's under the "this is a small/tiny problem" category in the present, but "this could be a problem" is possible in the future when it doesn't need to be. It's a huge sprawling issue though, involving all the different customers of steam/valve on the gamer/consumer side and developer/publisher, and what each of them gets out of it.

It's interesting to look at in the context of long term preservation though, as most games are going to do the majority of their business early in their lives then developers and gamers move on to something else. Whatever state the game (and the organization that made it) is 10+ years later is likely a low priority compared to shipping it and staying afloat.

Some modders only release their content on Steam Workshop and you cannot access it without a license for the base game.

Arma 3 server admins have to download mods on their gaming computer and then manually move those files over to the server computer.

I also remember a Total War: Warhammer mod creator calling Epic customers thieves when they asked Steam users for the mod files.

To cite a particularly silly example: while the Halo Master Chief Collection can be purchased from both Steam and the first-party Microsoft store, the modding tools are only available through Steam, and the Halo 2 and 3 tools require a license purchased through Steam[1].

[1] https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/halo-master-chief-collecti...

I used to like GOG until they tried to force you to launch games through their own launcher instead of them being their own standalone applications.

To my knowledge you can still download all offline installers without needing to ever use their launcher.

That being said, their launcher, GOG Galaxy[0] is amazing, and allows you to get a full overview of your games library across several services like GOG, Steam, Epic, etc. all in one place.

[0]: https://www.gog.com/galaxy

That's not true at all - the games are still downloadable from the website and every single one of them is a standalone app.

Which game are you talking about?

Not forcing but aggressively pushing it. At one point in time the offline installers were quite well hidden; nowadays they can be easily found under the "install with GOG Galaxy" button.

There was a period when GOG was using what can only be described as dark patterns to trick people into installing Galaxy.

I made a post about it on Neogaf at the time. Mostly to my surprise, it looks like the post is still there complete with my screenshots: https://www.neogaf.com/threads/gog-is-now-using-adware-esque...

However, this was in 2017. Today, it is very easy to download your GOG purchases without ever touching Galaxy, and I am very appreciative.

That's basically true. One recent 'exception' that happened to me is that, shortly after Baldur's Gate 3 was released, the offline installer would give you a different, older version than what you would get if you installed the game through GOG Galaxy, which led to some difficulty and confusion when trying to play with friends.

you can download all games without galaxy.

I use lgogdownloader on linux: https://github.com/Sude-/lgogdownloader

Still hoping for Black & White

I bought a MacBook Air for my wife, I hope she will find something there)

"Refocusing" when it has been up since 2008.

> Classic games are only 20 percent of GOG's catalog, and the firm hasn't actually called itself "Good Old Games" in 12 years. And yet, today, GOG announces that it is making "a significant commitment of resources" toward a new GOG Preservation Program.

I really should RFA before I comment. Apologies.

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