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GOG attempt to bring customers back with a revival of Good Old Games

By - | Views: 46,527

GOG aren't having the best of times recently, with details about their financial troubles painting a bleak picture, although it seems they have something of a plan. Later they announced some changes, including a tweak to what they mean by DRM free.

Now? They're attempting to go back to their roots, at least little, to woo customers back to their store with a small revival of "Good Old Games", what they were originally known as. The start of this is the addition of a Good Old Games tag, which GOG say will "showcase over 500 games that our Team has deemed iconic classics".

This is one reason I liked GOG originally, their commitment to bringing back and supporting old games, but they lost their way somewhat when trying to become just another store. Hopefully they will be doing more as time goes on to revive old games. Plenty of older games nowadays can run on Linux just fine through all sorts of open source game engines, and having an easy and legal place to get them for the data files is great.

To go along with this announcement, today they released the classic FPS, The Wheel of Time. GOG say this was done in cooperation with Nightdive Studios and that the "efforts and in-house expertise of GOG’s Tech Team the game received modern OS compatibility and hi-resolution support". Although, by modern OS, they only mean Windows specifically.

Article taken from GamingOnLinux.com.
Tags: DRM-Free, GOG, Misc, Retro
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I am the owner of GamingOnLinux. After discovering Linux back in the days of Mandrake in 2003, I constantly came back to check on the progress of Linux until Ubuntu appeared on the scene and it helped me to really love it. You can reach me easily by emailing GamingOnLinux directly. Find me on Mastodon.
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53 comments
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pb Apr 6, 2022
The link from the article doesn't work, redirects to https://www.gog.com/en/games
Proper link: https://www.gog.com/en/games?tags=good-old-game

BTW limiting the search to Linux games brings their number from 452 to 64.


Last edited by pb on 6 April 2022 at 1:43 pm UTC
Liam Dawe Apr 6, 2022
Quoting: pbThe link from the article doesn't work, redirects to https://www.gog.com/en/games
Proper link: https://www.gog.com/en/games?tags=good-old-game
It's a bug on their end, nothing I can do about it right now as our links auto change.
Edit: fixed for now using a different link, have let GOG know.


Last edited by Liam Dawe on 6 April 2022 at 1:47 pm UTC
fagnerln Apr 6, 2022
I was a DRM free enthusiast, loved GoG.

But I noticed that they simply don't care about Linux. A lot of DOSBox games with support only to Windows, Linux ports needing the installation of libraries even on supported distro (bad UX), ports that don't even work anymore on any distro, GoG galaxy exclusive to Windows (they even detects the OS and disallow the download on Linux).

While Steam do a huge investment on Linux, with improvements on Kernel and Drivers.

I sincerely don't care about them.
Siinamon Apr 6, 2022
Quoting: fagnerln(they even detects the OS and disallow the download on Linux).

This is what killed my interest in them largely, along with their really crappy onboarding for affiliates.
Raaben Apr 6, 2022
I still throw money at GoG for things like this as we need players in the market, but it disappoints me how they neglect Linux. I gave up long ago they'd listen to their top requests of Galaxy and just grab these new old games for cheap as they come. I'd spend alot more on GoG as a whole if they started caring.
TodC Apr 6, 2022
I too used to be a big GOG backer because of the lack of DRM. I have a bunch of games from them. But lack of any sort of continuing support from them finally drive me to Steam and to order a Steam Deck.

It wasn't just lack of Linux support, I had Windows games that wouldn't keep working -- I was willing to keep a Windows VM around for that. But lack of DRM when you can't get the game to run makes no difference.

I just recently found out about Lutris from this site, and that seems to make GOG stuff easier to run just in general -- even compared to directly on Windows.

I'm a software developer and my goal when playing games isn't to spend time figuring our how to get the game to work. I get paid at work for that sort of stuff. I just want to play my game and relax.
Gamewitch Apr 6, 2022
I know their shift away from older PC titles is a big part of why I personally stopped using them as at that point they basically became Steam competitor with only the DRM Free thing going for them after that happened. Now that being said I still end up buying off of them as they have digital distribution rights for a fair bit of older notable titles. But for anything newer if I really want DRM free I check Itch first for indie games now days as much more pleasant of a platform to deal with on Linux.
damarrin Apr 6, 2022
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When I click on "The Wheel of Time" link FF warns me of a potential security threat listing a adtraction domain. Not cool.
damarrin Apr 6, 2022
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I'm sure they'll go back to being Win-only very soon. They must be cutting their corners and letting go any unprofitable parts of their business and that obviously means us.
TodC Apr 6, 2022
Quoting: Guest
Quoting: fagnerlnBut I noticed that they simply don't care about Linux. A lot of DOSBox games with support only to Windows,

What's the problem with dosbox?

I think the second half of the phrase is the important one here. DOSBox isn't the issue. Based on playing with Lutris, getting DOSBox to run on Linux is doable, but the perception is that GOG can't be bothered to add Linux support to DOSBox games.

If GOG wanted to stay relevant, they needed to be supporting something like Lutris years ago.
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