The End of a (Fairly Short) Era

[+JediMaster]

http://www.hardocp.com/news/2010/09/19/good_old_games_shuts_down

 

It was the place where EECH lived on, but no longer.

[+Gr.Viper]

There's a strong rumor that the shutdown is a PR stunt with GoG officially coming out of beta stage.

[+FastCargo]

Awwww man, I'd hope GOG isn't shutting down, I thought what they were doing was great! I bought I76 and Independance War from them because they were the ones who could get both of those programs to run on Win7.

 

FC

[+JediMaster]

I've heard maybe they're dumping their DRM-free model and going with something more like Steam or D2D or Impulse. We'll see I guess.

[+streakeagle]

They were a great source for OFPGOTY as they rolled everything into one install.exe giving you OFP 1.46 and Resistance 1.96 without the multi-CD / license typing fest of the original packages. I would hate to see them go. The DRM free model was very appealing as well... burn it to CD, no problems ever even if the company shuts down. I can imagine a day when Steam ceases to be and all of the games purchased via steam become useless. The trick is, do I still have a PC that can run the games if Steam disappears (assuming it will be 5 years or more before it could cease to be)?

[+JediMaster]

Time is a limiting factor for games depending on their coding. I have some games that are 10 yrs or older that I can't get to work anymore because they used DX routines no longer supported by drivers from the big 2. When I moved to my house 9 yrs ago I did a lot of "game cleaning" and tossed most of my pre-95 games that were basically impossible to get working under 98 SE (XP wasn't out yet!). A couple of them I later regretted as I found ways to get them to work, but once I went to XP in 2003-4 it wouldn't have mattered anyway. I already have issues getting some XP-capable games to work right under 7. While I don't think Win8 will be an added issue, I'm betting when Win9 comes out no game that was made for XP pre-Vista (as opposed to tested on both) will really run anymore.

 

The alternative is of course a "legacy" PC running old hardware and OS, but the problem there is both space (where would I put the stupid thing) and parts failure. When the video or mobo dies, it's increasingly difficult to replace with a then-generation part, and a new part will likely not work with the other older parts or OS/drivers.

 

No, I think the only thing that really works is to play today's games today, and tomorrow's games tomorrow, while yesterday's games must be relegated to fond memories.

[+Gr.Viper]

Setting up a Win95 virtual PC + DOSBox + Glide wrappers + tools for single core launch solves most of the problems.

[xclusiv8]

GoG is back online again! It was all a joke =)

 

http://www.gog.com/

[+JediMaster]

CA to GOG, WTF, over...