twiz11 wrote on 2024-04-18, 01:33:

gog does at least get old games working on modern systems, and steam is just a distributor which they just download the files and you get the exe without i guess installing much

Updating games for modern systems can be very annoying if you want to run them on period correct hardware. Though running old games on period correct hardware is not GOG's aim. Operating systems can be made compatible with legacy software too. A lot of old games run much better on modern Linux than on modern Windows just because the compatibility layers on Linux are better than Windows' own backwards compatibility.

Physical copies of games will degrade over time too, so they’re not a much better alternative frankly. Even if they’re sitting on your hard drive or NAS, those could go bad and then they’re gone. I’m not against physical media here, just trying to show the realistic downsides from the perspective of a collector. Plus if you want to sell physical media it’s much more expensive and difficult to do so which adds its own problems and passes on higher costs to consumers, which ultimately leads to fewer people succeeding in the industry and lower profits.

The real problem is piracy which is much larger and more serious than it was when we were growing up, it can put an indie or a company out of business, so naturally they gravitate to online platforms that promise some minimum amount of defense. You’re talking about actual jobs at stake these days, it’s real money and real jobs that are affected.

Now if we could just invent a media that can’t be pirated, was physical, and lasted forever and also was free…

twiz11 wrote on 2024-04-18, 01:33:

StriderTR wrote on 2024-04-17, 15:32:

Like others have said, technically speaking, you never did really own the rights to any games, movies, shows, or other media you […]
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Like others have said, technically speaking, you never did really own the rights to any games, movies, shows, or other media you purchased in the past. Legally speaking, the mix tapes many of us used to make were, by the letter of the law, illegal. The thing is, none of that really mattered all that much to most people until DRM became a thing.

I fully understand DRM and why it exists, but I've never liked it. This is why any games or software that's important to me is backed up offline whenever possible. Still, that only works when games/software don't have some sort of online authentication. Then you have to go down some often sketchy rabbit holes in order to get them working.

This is also why I really only use Steam and GoG for many of my games these days, and use a lot of open source software. Valve may remove games from their storefront, but they will leave it in your library so you can install EOL games, unless they have no choice but to remove it.

In fact, if I recall correctly, Valve has it in their licensing agreement for sellers that the game files still be available even if the game is discontinued, though I know there are exceptions. I have several "dead" games in my list I can still install if I want. Steam is, by far, the largest online PC DRM and digital distro platform on the planet for games, but many publishers didn't like the fact Valve wanted that much control over their IP availability and that's one reason many of the big names created their own platforms and we now see a lot of "this game requires 3rd party DRM" as a warning on some games sold on Steam from those big names.

The only time I move outside of Steam is when I have no choice, and that's rare. Of course, I use GoG for digital copies of my classic games where I no longer own the physical media. They had me at "DRM FREE".

I miss the good old days. 😜

gog does at least get old games working on modern systems, and steam is just a distributor which they just download the files and you get the exe without i guess installing much

Does GOG do much work on old games these days? I find myself using GOG less and less because they have moved away from the Good Old Games days. I might be mistaken, but it seems to me like most of the recently added old games just use DOSBOX, which wouldn't require any work on GOG's end.

Years ago they would seek out the people who had the rights to old games, add a ton of bonus content, etc. I think they put more effort in testing the games too. I don't think that's the case anymore, but I guess that they don't believe the extra work is worth their time. New games probably make a lot more money for them.

Ensign Nemo wrote on 2024-04-18, 05:22:

Does GOG do much work on old games these days? I find myself using GOG less and less because they have moved away from the Good Old Games days. I might be mistaken, but it seems to me like most of the recently added old games just use DOSBOX, which wouldn't require any work on GOG's end.

Years ago they would seek out the people who had the rights to old games, add a ton of bonus content, etc. I think they put more effort in testing the games too. I don't think that's the case anymore, but I guess that they don't believe the extra work is worth their time. New games probably make a lot more money for them.

Seems to me they got most of the older games they could years ago now, the rest being buried under license issues and other problems making it extremely difficult to acquire and release them. As for DOSBox, they have used it from the beginning and I don't really see why that would be an issue. Doesn't seem feasible to rewrite the engines of DOS games or windows versions of games that have major issues for computers of today.

Also I kinda doubt they are rolling in new game money, 99% of the new games they release seem to be shoe lace budget indie games nobody has ever heard of and most likely sell very badly. I genuinely wonder would GOG even exist anymore without singular big sellers like The Witcher 3/Cyberpunk/Baldur's Gate 3.

Sombrero wrote on 2024-04-18, 06:34:

Ensign Nemo wrote on 2024-04-18, 05:22:

Does GOG do much work on old games these days? I find myself using GOG less and less because they have moved away from the Good Old Games days. I might be mistaken, but it seems to me like most of the recently added old games just use DOSBOX, which wouldn't require any work on GOG's end.

Years ago they would seek out the people who had the rights to old games, add a ton of bonus content, etc. I think they put more effort in testing the games too. I don't think that's the case anymore, but I guess that they don't believe the extra work is worth their time. New games probably make a lot more money for them.

Seems to me they got most of the older games they could years ago now, the rest being buried under license issues and other problems making it extremely difficult to acquire and release them. As for DOSBox, they have used it from the beginning and I don't really see why that would be an issue. Doesn't seem feasible to rewrite the engines of DOS games or windows versions of games that have major issues for computers of today.

Also I kinda doubt they are rolling in new game money, 99% of the new games they release seem to be shoe lace budget indie games nobody has ever heard of and most likely sell very badly. I genuinely wonder would GOG even exist anymore without singular big sellers like The Witcher 3/Cyberpunk/Baldur's Gate 3.

I love DOSBOX and I'm not suggesting that they rewrite anything that would otherwise work fine in DOSBOX. I just mean that those games wouldn't require much work from GOG, who I don't think spends much time on getting old games to work anymore. I think quality control is mainly up to the rights holders now. Anecdotally, it seems like many of the recently added games don't work well on modern systems. That's my impression from reading reviews at least. There are also fewer bonuses for old games, which usually just come with a copy of the manual. Maybe I'm remembering things wrong, but I don't remember there being so many QA issues when GOG was Good Old Games. I don't doubt that it's harder to get the rights to sell old games, but QA is something under their control.

midicollector wrote on 2024-04-18, 05:01:

Now if we could just invent a media that can’t be pirated, was physical

Wouldn't change a thing because people won't suddenly shell out money for games that they couldn't pirate. They'll just wait for a crack, move on and download other games. If torrenting a game is impossible then they'll just skip it and steal something else. That's also the reason why piracy didn't have a real impact on the market, these people never intended to buy anything and they wouldn't buy a game even if it was <$10.
If someone invented a way to stop piracy 100% then these people would just play the millions of older games that offer more than enough entertainment for a lifetime. Companies are moving online because MMO players can be milked over and over again for added content and they can just EOL the whole thing after a few years to force people to buy the new game.

Ensign Nemo wrote on 2024-04-18, 05:22:

I might be mistaken, but it seems to me like most of the recently added old games just use DOSBOX, which wouldn't require any work on GOG's end.

I greatly prefer it when GOG ships games with DOSBox instead of using ScummVM or similar tools. The reason being that it's very easy to transfer a game which uses DOSBox to a real retro PC.

And while I agree that the extra content no longer seems to be a high priority for GOG, people don't buy games just for that stuff. Some folks may have lost or damaged their discs from 25+ years ago, and are looking for a simple way to replay a few games from their childhood.

Ensign Nemo wrote on 2024-04-18, 06:53:

I love DOSBOX and I'm not suggesting that they rewrite anything that would otherwise work fine in DOSBOX. I just mean that those games wouldn't require much work from GOG, who I don't think spends much time on getting old games to work anymore. I think quality control is mainly up to the rights holders now. Anecdotally, it seems like many of the recently added games don't work well on modern systems. That's my impression from reading reviews at least. There are also fewer bonuses for old games, which usually just come with a copy of the manual. Maybe I'm remembering things wrong, but I don't remember there being so many QA issues when GOG was Good Old Games. I don't doubt that it's harder to get the rights to sell old games, but QA is something under their control.

I haven't been paying attention so can't comment on their QA for old games. If there have been more complaints it could be because the games just do not work super well on DOSBox or the usual non-optimally configured DOSBox for their PC. Also it seems to me reviews of products/games have become more and more often a conduit for morons who have issues because of user errors who then go write a "review" complaining about everything, so I would take them with a grain of salt unless the issues are clearly wide spread.

But I do think GOG could have done better job how they release DOSBox games from the start, they don't come with any kind of easily understandable how-to guide for configuring DOSBox for setting cpu cycles/sound card settings and such. As a result people who have no idea how to configurate it themselves might end up playing some stuttery mess with bad sound.

Pretty sure I've stumbled on some let's play of GOG Ultima Underworld where DOSBox was configured to use MT-32 by default making sound effects sound ridiculous.

midicollector wrote on 2024-04-18, 05:01:

Plus if you want to sell physical media it’s much more expensive and difficult to do so which adds its own problems and passes on higher costs to consumers

Transitioning to digital distribution didn't decrease the price of new releases. They are more expensive then ever.

midicollector wrote on 2024-04-18, 05:01:

The real problem is piracy which is much larger and more serious than it was when we were growing up,

That's also bullshit. Piracy was never as big of a problem publishers made them look like and if anything, it became even less of a problem nowdays. The thing is, they always vastly overestimated the damage piracy does assuming everyone who's pirating is a market at release price. That is absolutely not the case. Some use piracy as a demo and buy after they try, some only becomes market at a lower price and they buy when the price drops enough where they feel it matches the game's value and for others it's free or nothing.

Nowdays with refund windows and frequent discounts those who are willing to pay have even less reason to pirate. So anti-piracy measutes are mostly money thrown out the window.

As for publishers, the gaming market grew 10× in the last 20 years considering sales and their overhead dropped significantly by killing physical releases, not to mention post launch monetization becoming the norm. Yet game prices for new releases only increased.

RandomStranger wrote on 2024-04-18, 08:31:

Transitioning to digital distribution didn't decrease the price of new releases. They are more expensive then ever.

I think this depends on what is being compared. My experience is that adjusting for inflation, game prices have either held or generally decreased over time.

For example, a $70 USD game released in the past year would cost about $38 in the year 2000 and $30 in the year 1990. If I look up prices from those years, that's roughly in line if not slightly cheaper than typical releases at those times.

Conversely, if I look up some of the peak prices of games from the 80s and 90s, those prices translate into over $100 USD in today's dollars.

That's only part of the story. First, a lot of game, if you want the full package cost already more than 70. Star Wars Fallen order is already 90€ for the Deluxe Edition and Assassin's Creed Valhalla is 140€ for the Complete Edition.

At the same time digital content delivery platforms decreased their distribution costs a lot (their revenue by game rose by about 40-54% depending on whether they sell in first or third party stores) while the market itself growing vastly increased their sales numbers. It's not rare today that highly anticipated games sell 10 times as many copies in the first month than they did in 2000 and in a year or two break 15 or 20 million units sold. GTA San Andreas, which most often said to be one of the all time greatest games sold about 18 million copies to this day, while GTA V sold over 180 million. The first Call of Duty sold about 1 million copies in it's first year world wide, Modern Warfare 3 sold 6.5 million copies the first 24 hours in the US and UK alone.

Sure, development costs also went up, but a lot of it is because of poor management, inefficient company structure and some freeloader consulting companies that add no value to the end product. I wouldn't be surprised if development costs could be cut in half without any noticeable dip in quality. I meant some indie developers make games a lot more worthy to be called AAA on pocket change compared to actual AAA developers. The year Mass Effect Andromeda came out on a budget of $100 million we also got Divinity: Original Sin 2 that was developed on around 4.5 million €.

And then after all this there is still post launch monetization in a game that is more profitable to sell and sells in greater numbers than in 2000. AND for all this extra expense on your, the end user's part, you can practice far less ownership rights and the games can be taken or altered at any time against your will.

Piracy is just an excuse for DRM so they can implement anti-consumer practices to squeeze every penny they can out of their consumer. Built in obsolesence is a plan not an accident. When I was in High School I couldn't afford to buy a single game and of course I downloaded the games from BBS at the time. You know what that did, it created a loyal customer who, once I was old enough, purchased hundreds of full priced games at storefronts. I wouldn't have given them any more money than I did because I had no money to give. Being able to play games when I couldn't afford them however created a customer later on, and really it cost them nothing.

Their practices now to someone like me are hurting their bottom line. Just in the last couple years I'm no longer as aware of new releases. For a long time now also I don't buy games at full price, there's no incentive to do so since its just another digital checkmark in a storefront. I'm an old man who's been yelling about this decline for decades but the younger generation, the disposable generation as I like to call them, doesn't care about owning anything. They've been conditioned by modern society and they also have their youth working against them when it comes to judgement. I know there are exceptions to everything but I'm speaking generally here.

On another note these anti-consumer or ultra price gouging practices are having an unintended consequence: There's no positive difference between an illegally aquirred game and a legally purchased one. All the things that use to be positives don't exist anymore: physical products included with the game, included storage medium, something to display on your shelves, ease of use. Since companies have been in a race to the bottom as far as the products they provide there's actually no difference anymore when you just download everything.

Saw this earlier this week
https://www.vg247.com/former-blizzard-preside … developers-tips

and then this which is disappointing
https://wccftech.com/microsoft-is-letting-bli … rd-says-wow-vp/

I've finished setting up the hardware for my two test systems for proxmox (still waiting for a IPMI card for one of them) and am now installing operating systems and sorting out the mess of updating windows drivers which is a trainwreck. Once done with that I'll be in a position to work on the xdelta files for the games for anyone that is interested.

Sombrero wrote on 2024-04-18, 08:04:

I haven't been paying attention so can't comment on their QA for old games. If there have been more complaints it could be becau […]
Show full quote

Ensign Nemo wrote on 2024-04-18, 06:53:

I love DOSBOX and I'm not suggesting that they rewrite anything that would otherwise work fine in DOSBOX. I just mean that those games wouldn't require much work from GOG, who I don't think spends much time on getting old games to work anymore. I think quality control is mainly up to the rights holders now. Anecdotally, it seems like many of the recently added games don't work well on modern systems. That's my impression from reading reviews at least. There are also fewer bonuses for old games, which usually just come with a copy of the manual. Maybe I'm remembering things wrong, but I don't remember there being so many QA issues when GOG was Good Old Games. I don't doubt that it's harder to get the rights to sell old games, but QA is something under their control.

I haven't been paying attention so can't comment on their QA for old games. If there have been more complaints it could be because the games just do not work super well on DOSBox or the usual non-optimally configured DOSBox for their PC. Also it seems to me reviews of products/games have become more and more often a conduit for morons who have issues because of user errors who then go write a "review" complaining about everything, so I would take them with a grain of salt unless the issues are clearly wide spread.

But I do think GOG could have done better job how they release DOSBox games from the start, they don't come with any kind of easily understandable how-to guide for configuring DOSBox for setting cpu cycles/sound card settings and such. As a result people who have no idea how to configurate it themselves might end up playing some stuttery mess with bad sound.

Pretty sure I've stumbled on some let's play of GOG Ultima Underworld where DOSBox was configured to use MT-32 by default making sound effects sound ridiculous.

I should have been more clear. DOSBOX isn't a major problem and it's easy to tweak for most games. I'm talking about older games that don't use it. Windows 9X and XP-Vista era games can be a lot harder to get working on newer systems. In some cases, the game requirements only include XP or Vista. I don't blame GOG for the issues on modern pcs for those games, but there's often fixes shared in the games's forum, which suggests that more work could have been done by GOG for getting them to work. If the game's requirements include newer operating systems, you could argue that GOG could have done more QA. I also think that refunds have led to less QA. Personally, I think it's more the responsibility of the rights holders, but I just feel like GOG doesn't invest as much resources in this area as they used to. That's all I'm saying. I'm just nostalgic for the days when older games was the focus of their platform.

As an aside, I really wish that Steam and GOG had two review systems, one for the technical side and the other for the game itself. A lot of retro games have low scores because people can't get them to run on newer systems. I'm more concerned about the game itself because I can just refund the game if I can't get it to work.

Ensign Nemo wrote on 2024-04-18, 18:52:

I should have been more clear.

Well, I'm on day 9 of covid mk2 and the brain fog is getting very real, so maybe it's less you and more me 🥴

Sombrero wrote on 2024-04-18, 19:03:

Ensign Nemo wrote on 2024-04-18, 18:52:

I should have been more clear.

Well, I'm on day 9 of covid mk2 and the brain fog is getting very real, so maybe it's less you and more me 🥴

Get well soon! Maybe play the original Deus Ex, so you show a virus who's the boss (-:

Ensign Nemo wrote on 2024-04-18, 19:08:

Get well soon! Maybe play the original Deus Ex, so you show a virus who's the boss (-:

Thanks! Can't really play something like Deus Ex though, I've been saving it for the right time to revisit again and my current half comatose state isn't quite it.

I've settled with drinking lots of coffee and running around the wilderness of Diablo II beating critters with a stick.

midicollector wrote on 2024-04-18, 05:01:

Physical copies of games will degrade over time too, so they’re not a much better alternative frankly. Even if they’re sitting on your hard drive or NAS, those could go bad and then they’re gone. I’m not against physical media here, just trying to show the realistic downsides from the perspective of a collector. Plus if you want to sell physical media it’s much more expensive and difficult to do so which adds its own problems and passes on higher costs to consumers, which ultimately leads to fewer people succeeding in the industry and lower profits.

The real problem is piracy which is much larger and more serious than it was when we were growing up, it can put an indie or a company out of business, so naturally they gravitate to online platforms that promise some minimum amount of defense. You’re talking about actual jobs at stake these days, it’s real money and real jobs that are affected.

Now if we could just invent a media that can’t be pirated, was physical, and lasted forever and also was free…

the see saw method, well what about using our own dna as a media that has games on it, you cant pirate it because its already on you, is totally physical, lasts forever as a stable chemical and is also free

twiz11 wrote on 2024-04-19, 00:16:

midicollector wrote on 2024-04-18, 05:01:

Physical copies of games will degrade over time too, so they’re not a much better alternative frankly. Even if they’re sitting on your hard drive or NAS, those could go bad and then they’re gone. I’m not against physical media here, just trying to show the realistic downsides from the perspective of a collector. Plus if you want to sell physical media it’s much more expensive and difficult to do so which adds its own problems and passes on higher costs to consumers, which ultimately leads to fewer people succeeding in the industry and lower profits.

The real problem is piracy which is much larger and more serious than it was when we were growing up, it can put an indie or a company out of business, so naturally they gravitate to online platforms that promise some minimum amount of defense. You’re talking about actual jobs at stake these days, it’s real money and real jobs that are affected.

Now if we could just invent a media that can’t be pirated, was physical, and lasted forever and also was free…

the see saw method, well what about using our own dna as a media that has games on it, you cant pirate it because its already on you, is totally physical, lasts forever as a stable chemical and is also free

Interesting factoid - you can patent DNA sequences, but it can't be something that is found already in nature (-:

https://medlineplus.gov/genetics/understandin … ed%20the%20gene.

How would you control for mutations? (-:

Ensign Nemo wrote on 2024-04-19, 00:34:

Interesting factoid - you can patent DNA sequences, but it can't be something that is found already in nature (-: […]
Show full quote

twiz11 wrote on 2024-04-19, 00:16:

midicollector wrote on 2024-04-18, 05:01:

Physical copies of games will degrade over time too, so they’re not a much better alternative frankly. Even if they’re sitting on your hard drive or NAS, those could go bad and then they’re gone. I’m not against physical media here, just trying to show the realistic downsides from the perspective of a collector. Plus if you want to sell physical media it’s much more expensive and difficult to do so which adds its own problems and passes on higher costs to consumers, which ultimately leads to fewer people succeeding in the industry and lower profits.

The real problem is piracy which is much larger and more serious than it was when we were growing up, it can put an indie or a company out of business, so naturally they gravitate to online platforms that promise some minimum amount of defense. You’re talking about actual jobs at stake these days, it’s real money and real jobs that are affected.

Now if we could just invent a media that can’t be pirated, was physical, and lasted forever and also was free…

the see saw method, well what about using our own dna as a media that has games on it, you cant pirate it because its already on you, is totally physical, lasts forever as a stable chemical and is also free

Interesting factoid - you can patent DNA sequences, but it can't be something that is found already in nature (-:

https://medlineplus.gov/genetics/understandin … ed%20the%20gene.

How would you control for mutations? (-:

idk nanobots or robotics at the molecular level breaking apart your dna atom by atom