I had a look and they still add up to $80. Might have to be more selective.

Here's the big question. If they're removing them from sale, will they still be available to download again if you ever have to reinstall, like if your hard drive crashes and is unrecoverable?

sliderider wrote:

Here's the big question. If they're removing them from sale, will they still be available to download again if you ever have to reinstall?

If you read the webpage akule65 linked to the answer is yes.

One would think the reason for removing games for sale is to free up server space, but if they are going to continue to host the files anyway, removing them from sale seems like a strange idea. Why wouldn't you continue selling them if you're going to leave the files on your server?

The rights holders wants the games to be removed from the catalogue. That's the reason, nothing to do with storage space 😀

There are other reasons too, sometimes. Re-Volt, one of my most favorite games ever, used to be on GOG for a short while. If you've ever tried to play it on windows 7, you know that you either have to run it with a certain command on the .exe or with the unoffical 1.2 patch made by the game's fan community, which, by the way, still exists, and has no intention of going away.

An Asian company which acquired the rights to Re-Volt, decided to just upload the game with the fan-made patch without telling anyone about it. There was an outrage in the community and the joint effort of the leaders of that community lead to the game being taken down from GOG. I know that might seem selfish to a passerby but keep in mind that the company which bought the rights to the game has been continuously screwing with the piece of art that Re-Volt is.

There was a guy in the community who was working on an Android port of the game. He'd probably release it for free or for a really small price. And he would have done the job properly. Unfortunately the C.E.O. of WeGo Interactive (the company which now owns Re-Volt) wrote him an e-mail, in horrendously bad English, ordering him to stop.

He did, as he had no choice. Not much later WeGo released a crappy port for Android. Recently, they released Re-Volt 2. This is a total blasphemy and a bullet to the heart of every fan of the game. It's the same game, only the cars have different skins and you get different in-game purchases etc. It's downright insulting. (Keep in mind that a sequel to Re-Volt has been promised more than once by different companies, which had bought the rights to the game over the years, and none of them have fulfilled their promise. It's like George Lucas never made the prequels to Star Wars. Errr... maybe that's a bad example but you get the point.)

The moral of the story is that there are people who know very well that there is business to be made with old games, although the don't know how to conduct that business. They buy the rights, so GOG has a hard time dealing with them, and sometimes they just have to fold.

The Gothic series are available on Steam as well (and they go on sale as a bundle from time to time). I don't know if they're going to be removed in a few days as well, but I haven't seen any announcement. I don't know about the other JoWood games though.

That is very lame.
Still haven't personally purchased anything from gog myself tho...
Old games I still prefer to have the actual disks, but I don't begrudge anyone from getting games that way.
As it is nice if you can't get an old game you want any other way.

I tend to get both, originals, sometimes new re-releases from Sold Out and other publishers, and GOG.com versions. Usually I like to compare them, seeing if there any differences.

Many games work really well, others have been hacked / modified / patched in a way that breaks compatibility with retro PCs. DOS games I usually always get. Haven't found one that I couldn't get to run on a DOS gaming PCs.

I'm careful though since they are using bloody ScummVM in many games. Found out the hard way with 7th guest. A virtual door stopper so to speak 😢

I looked at the list the other day and I didn't see anything of any real interest, though I noticed that Painkiller: Black Edition was on there. I own a physical copy of the original game, but I don't have any of the expansions. If I were able to buy things online right now (I'm broke 😵), I'd snap it up.

Mau1wurf1977 wrote:

I'm careful though since they are using bloody ScummVM in many games. Found out the hard way with 7th guest. A virtual door stopper so to speak 😢

I take it that the main reason that you dislike ScummVM is that the executables, drivers, etc. have been stripped. I, too dislike when a game that I am buying has been ripped. Missing files problem was one of the biggest draw backs with the 2006 VU releases of the Sierra series.

I have been criticized for using DOSBox in my installers for games that ScummVM supports. I try to explain that often can get more optimal results with DOSBox. I have come to the conclusion that many who swear by ScummVM over DOSBox because of sound haven't a clue how to properly setup the sound. The SCI games often have MT-32 set as default for the sound diver, which sounds like crap without the hardware or Munt. ScummVM defaults to AdLib. I believe that they used the DOSBox AdLib code for ScummVM, so AdLib sound should be the same.

ScummVM has its place.
- Works with any copies of the games, not just the DOS versions
- Works well on non-Intel machines, where DOSBox still struggles somewhat.
- Doesn't have the "faffing around with DOS" component that may be difficult for some.
- Has both the DOSBox and MAME OPL code to choose from, for those that like to compare or whatever.

Cool of them to put on a sale instead of just removing them without telling anyone. Think I'll pick up the Desperado games.

Yeah, I heard about all this too and jumped in with: both Red Faction games, both Desperados, Gothic 2, 3 and 3 expansion, all new to me.

For good measure, I tossed in Interstate-76 Arsenal for another whopping $2.39. I've got all the I-76 boxed but I like the ease of installation of GOG games, and not having to monkey around with CD swapping, NoCd fixes etc. I like to snag GOG versions of games I already own when they come up for sale.

SquallStrife wrote:

ScummVM has its place. - Works with any copies of the games, not just the DOS versions - Works well on non-Intel machines, whe […]
Show full quote

ScummVM has its place.
- Works with any copies of the games, not just the DOS versions
- Works well on non-Intel machines, where DOSBox still struggles somewhat.
- Doesn't have the "faffing around with DOS" component that may be difficult for some.
- Has both the DOSBox and MAME OPL code to choose from, for those that like to compare or whatever.

Oh, I don't dismiss the use of ScummVM. There are a few cases that it is the best solution. For those I do use ScummVM, but not always for all games that ScummVM does support.

Just for the record, not all ports of certain games are always supported. For several, only the PC version is. And others may only be partially supported. Sometime certain aspects may be missing on non PC ports, like missing sound on the Mac version. I haven't checked in a while, so it may have finally been fixed, but for the longest time sound was missing in the Mac version of Loom, which sort of defeats the point of the game.

ScummVM is probably the best solution on iOS for the supported games, especially since you have to jailbreak the device to install DOSBox. Droid and iOS are probably the main non-Intel platforms that have enough market share to worry about in this sense.

But, as to my installers I am only targeting PC users, since I am not familiar with scripting on Mac or Linux. Within the scope of my earlier post, it was about the choice of DOSBox over ScummVM for most of my DOS game installers. It's about the right tool for the given job at hand.

Bought Aquanox 1 and 2. Anyway, is Spellforce worth buying?

collector wrote:

Mau1wurf1977 wrote:

I'm careful though since they are using bloody ScummVM in many games. Found out the hard way with 7th guest. A virtual door stopper so to speak 😢

I take it that the main reason that you dislike ScummVM is that the executables, drivers, etc. have been stripped. I, too dislike when a game that I am buying has been ripped. Missing files problem was one of the biggest draw backs with the 2006 VU releases of the Sierra series.

I have been criticized for using DOSBox in my installers for games that ScummVM supports. I try to explain that often can get more optimal results with DOSBox. I have come to the conclusion that many who swear by ScummVM over DOSBox because of sound haven't a clue how to properly setup the sound. The SCI games often have MT-32 set as default for the sound diver, which sounds like crap without the hardware or Munt. ScummVM defaults to AdLib. I believe that they used the DOSBox AdLib code for ScummVM, so AdLib sound should be the same.

Gog selling incomplete games irks me too. There're some feature requests on the site asking to remedy it:
- http://www.gog.com/wishlist/site/include_setu … xe_in_dos_games
- http://www.gog.com/wishlist/site/images_of_or … tallation_media

Speaking of ScummVM and OPL, they mentioned in their news feed that they apparently have a new AdLib emulator or something. Does anybody know any details?

Laukku wrote:

Speaking of ScummVM and OPL, they mentioned in their news feed that they apparently have a new AdLib emulator or something. Does anybody know any details?

Nothing's leaping out at me. Maybe those games needed testing for some other reason?
https://github.com/scummvm/scummvm/tree/master/audio

If you missed the opportunity the first time, GOG.com is giving you a second chance until 1059 UTC on Tuesday, December 23 2014:

http://www.gog.com/news/weekend_promo_nordic_innout