I never got far in WitchHaven but I was always impressed by the graphics. Take my money Steam.

Guess I should point out that it’s still cheaper on GOG… the bundle is only 0.99 cents there.

I'm also very much interested in clarification for the reasoning behind the de-listing.

Did some "holding company" swoop in and acquire Capstone's IP and now they want to just bury it forever?

thanks for the heads up, got the bundle from GOG

I thought the point of GOG was to keep the games around forever...

Lucky i bought this last year

Witchaven I & II Bundle
A$ 14.50 reduced to A$ 1.49

DracoNihil wrote on 2026-05-25, 13:50:

I'm also very much interested in clarification for the reasoning behind the de-listing.

Did some "holding company" swoop in and acquire Capstone's IP and now they want to just bury it forever?

SNEG is a sort of mini-GOG subsidiary/spin-off, which acquires the rights to publish and "update" (where applicable) old games to be played on modern systems. Their rights to Witchaven seem to be expiring and will (probably) be going to Ziggurat, who has several Capstone/IntraCorp titles in their offerings.

Which haven is being delisted?

tcaud wrote on 2026-06-12, 08:09:

I thought the point of GOG was to keep the games around forever...

I assume its like Steam? That if you purchased you will still be able to re-download, its just wont be available for purchase soon.

GOG stuff is DRM-free, while Steam is not. That's why many go to GOG for purchases, as they allow downloads and you can archive them in whatever manner you see fit.

The other big benefit of GOG is you can download directly installers. So while Steam has ended support for XP and Win Vista/7/8. You can just download and install on those older systems.

Steam requires a bunch of work around if you can get it working at all.

tcaud wrote on 2026-06-12, 08:09:

I thought the point of GOG was to keep the games around forever...

GoG is still bound by licensing agreements. They can't just sell things forever.

Shponglefan wrote on 2026-06-12, 17:54:

tcaud wrote on 2026-06-12, 08:09:

I thought the point of GOG was to keep the games around forever...

GoG is still bound by licensing agreements. They can't just sell things forever.

Interesting... then it could be these next few years are the DOS gaming final hurrah (considering how quickly digital stuff from the 90s is disappearing). But I never really bought into GOG anyway... just saw it as a means of capitalizing on DOSBOX. I saw the volunteer preservation community as the real guarantors of access to old games.

These games have been on GOG forever. If you bought them over the many years they were available, you have them forever. No DRM. I'll probably never play through these awful games, but I have them in my GOG account, and also backed up to an external HD.

If you didn't buy them, and are now panicking about some games you really don't give a shit about, you're just trolling.

Or, you just weren't aware these existed. Not everyone was around back then, certainly not everyone is as plugged in as people building 90s machines to play 90s games. The point of preservation is to have this out there and accessible to anyone who finds it and wants it. This is my issue with GOG, i.e. they lean on preservation heavily, but at the end of the day they're a business. Those are ultimately misaligned priorities.

Then no business will ever satisfy you. No company can have every single game available to you for all time.

I don't get why a couple of people are all of a sudden upset about this. The games have been on Internet Archive forever. Want to pay for Witchaven for some reason? You can still buy both games today on GOG, for less than a dollar. If you really love these games and feel the need to pay for them, now's the time to do it. If you buy it, you have the game forever, you can put the installer on an external HD and you'll have it even after the world ends and there's no Internet anymore. You can copy that data to your Pentium and play Witchaven in your bunker even after the bombs have fallen and mutants are clawing at your door.

The fact that GOG makes these games available as long as they can, without DRM, is a wonderful thing.

newtmonkey wrote on 2026-06-13, 13:01:

Then no business will ever satisfy you. No company can have every single game available to you for all time.

Yes, that's my point, though the bar is clearly lower: any game can disappear at any time for any (inane) reason.

Personally, I have issues with GOG's marketing, but in view of it they have these takes coming. They painted a target on their collective foreheads with the way they chose to present themselves since the advertising makes them out to be a preservation house when they can never truly be one, so it tracks people are angry when their favourite video game preservation house does not seem to be preserving anything terribly effectively, and the occasional final discount gasp feels like a marketing ploy as much as it is a lowering of the point of entry. You can't untangle it from the business aspect, and that's the best case scenario for GOG and preservation.

I'm a GOG supporter since the very beginning, I'm saddened when games get taken down, angry with the way GOG markets themselves, but glad if people are awakened to this fact. That's about the gist of it. Plus, I would've liked for GOG to offer original images as well for obvious reasons (obvious at least here). That'd be a small step towards preservation in this mess they're making of it.

such wrote on 2026-06-13, 13:46:

Yes, that's my point, though the bar is clearly lower: any game can disappear at any time for any (inane) reason.

Personally, I have issues with GOG's marketing, but in view of it they have these takes coming. They painted a target on their collective foreheads with the way they chose to present themselves since the advertising makes them out to be a preservation house when they can never truly be one, so it tracks people are angry when their favourite video game preservation house does not seem to be preserving anything terribly effectively, and the occasional final discount gasp feels like a marketing ploy as much as it is a lowering of the point of entry. You can't untangle it from the business aspect, and that's the best case scenario for GOG and preservation.

I'm a GOG supporter since the very beginning, I'm saddened when games get taken down, angry with the way GOG markets themselves, but glad if people are awakened to this fact. That's about the gist of it. Plus, I would've liked for GOG to offer original images as well for obvious reasons (obvious at least here). That'd be a small step towards preservation in this mess they're making of it.

GOG's new "Good Old Game" preserved branding is that they will continue to fix/update the game to run on future systems forever even if they can't sell new copies of the game. That sounds very preserved to me.

If you buy a game on GOG you own it and can redownload it at any time. If they go out of business who knows? We'll hopefully have notice and a chance to do our own backups if you aren't doing that already.

Licensing and IP is something can change hands overtime. GOG would need to purchase the licenses for the games outright to be able to sell them forever. That's just not realistic. Besides, these are extremely old games on PC. There are thousands of copies of it out on the Internet. Is the way to legally purchase a copy lost? Sure, but if a license holder doesn't want to sell copies, they aren't losing money by someone pirating a copy to play.

"Preserved*"

Better this than nothing for sure.

anyone getting that gog newsletter recently shows they want to "preserve" something else entirely, to say the least...

SO glad i never signed up on gog.