GOG used to be cool. It was the go-to storefront for retro games (what's with its original full name being Good Old Games) and it had two accessible price points - 4.99 and 9.99. It wasn't the same heap of indie titles nobody wanted that Steam turned into and you didn't have to search high and low to get to something you'd actually want to buy. That was cool.

When you bought a retro game off of GOG, you could be certain that it would work as well as possible with zero additional work. You didn't need to download fan patch after fan patch for anything - GOG actually contacted the creators of fan patches and had their permission to include their patches in their releases, so all you had to do was just install the game and play it. That was cool.

With every game release, GOG packed a few extras. They were nothing major, but they were well appreciated - wallpapers, soundtracks, some additional artwork and the like. That was cool.

If you needed any support from GOG, you could file a ticket and it would be looked at in just a few hours. The support was helpful and timely. That was cool.

Wish GOG stayed like that instead of eschewing all of the above.

State of extra goodies GOG games come with are sad these days, really sad. Soundtracks cost extra, if they are included at all. Even manuals are lacking sometimes. Publishers don't always care about the extras and neither does GOG these days. Looking at you https://www.gog.com/game/silent_hill_4_the_room funnily (or sadly) the store page doesn't show "Goodies" part at all since there aren't any, having "Goodies: none what so ever" might stick out more and cost some sales.

Well, when companies get bigger, some compromises had to be made. It's a real shame, but there's nothing we can do. I mean, look at the whole Devotion debacle, it's clear the playerbase is now secondary to what the shareholders and totalitarian regimes say.

Edit: Typo

"Have"? I dunno, I didn't see the reason for them having to dispose of any of that.
We can make our dissatisfaction known and stop buying from them.

You know what I miss more?

Participation of staff in forums. They were replying to users, even making jokes, but in general were there to support in any way. They gave the impression of "presence" and we appreciated it a lot. Hell, sometimes (e.g. when a site bug appeared) they even made "fun" of themselves and helped clear the misty atmosphere.

Now they seem to only appear in "emergencies", but even so, not in the "emergencies" most users would like a word from them.

I also miss the old site form, I know it's been discussed infinitely but it was simple to the eye and just worked.

Next, I miss the old sales format too. Now it's just sales all the time (3 main sales each week). I loved the sole main weekend sale. And often they surprised us with the odd flash sale or something like that.

Also, a store that sells digital games should have at least a catalog sorting by price - this never existed here, but I'm just saying :)

To be fair if they didn't start selling new indie games I probably never would have started shopping here. Sure, I picked up some cool retro stuff over the years, but being able to get new games DRM-free was the main draw for me.

It's just a sad irony that what brought me here was apparently the start of GOG's long journey to becoming a clone of Steam - the service I came here to avoid in the first place.

I also remember One World, One Price policy (which admittedly was unfair to other countries, but attractive for myself), or the (in hindsight hypocritical) $1 =/= €1 video spot, no region blocking and censorship (which might not have been 100% legal, but it was cool), and one site and forum for all, in English language and $ prices (which admittedly sucked for people who don't (like to) speak English, but also seemed to mean more leeway in circumventing inconvenient national laws and created an international feeling, less separation).

I remember manual sorting of the library which looked like retail game covers on an actual shelf. I remember GOG Mixes, a more attractive storefront that made use of the space in PC browsers more efficiently instead of catering to mobile scroll down devices, I remember nice looking desktop icons with a classic rectangular look. I remember old staff members like The Enigmatic T and JudasIscariot being in close contact with the GOG community in a fun way, on the forums just as much as or even more than on social media, and not just as moderators locking threads or banning people, or making non-sensical PR statements (although there was the occasional nonsense and screw up back in the days, too). I also remember when the laissez faire attitude without moderation actually worked because the community was small enough to not attract the attention of too many trolls and flamers, and when the most controversial topics were GOG vs. Steam threads, not My Politics/Ideology vs Yours. I remember when the forum wasn't quite as broken yet. And of course, I remember when GOG was all about offline installers, and when GOG was asking their community about their wishes and preferences (admittedly that was the start of Galaxy and Good Old Games becoming GOG.com which eventually lead to all the Great News(tm) threads and a neglect of offline installers). I remember when GOG's schtick about wanting to do things differently than the big players in the gaming industry and being more pro-consumer was still believable and not yet evident as just a first step for getting a foot in the door, with the eventual goal of sitting at the table with the rest of them, playing the same games for more profit, bit by bit becoming a carbon copy of them, leaving most of the USPs and the original fanbase behind.

That being said, the fact that GOG.com now also sells a wealth of cool indie games and made things like DRM-free Oblivion, Darksiders, Bioshock Infinite or Prey happen (while still doing their best to get classics like Diablo and the old D&D games on board) is the least thing I'd think of criticising. Even though I guess those successes are partially related to some of the compromises they made. I still don't believe it would have been necessary to sacrifice almost everything in order to achieve that. But oh well, I'm not the one trying to run their business, and as sad as it can be, things hardly ever stay the same. All we can do is cherish the memories and move on.

So what you're saying is that these days GOG is hot. I hear some like it hot.

I'd give a *slow clap* if not for the end... Just a small correction: 5.99

I mean, they still have SWAT 4, so it'll never be not cool...it's just sad they never seem to remember or know about the games they brought back from limbo

Remember when gog was green? (and yellow)

I have to admit I'm too much of a blockhead and possibly not enough up-to-date with memes and expressions in the English language to understand how your comment was meant. The major part was ridiculous to you, but the end redeemed it? Or the other way around? Not that it matters much, just curious. :D

The thing is that if they stayed like that they would probably be long dead. Being niche is "cool" and all but only as long as you are in a "niche".

At the beginning of Gog nobody cared about old games, they weren't available on Steam and there was nowhere to purchase them legally except maybe on eBay. So get the rights, tweak the game to work on modern system, scan a couple of manual, get some OST and voila, they had their niche.

The problem is that after a couple of years right owners noticed there was a market for said old games and those games started appearing on Steam too effectively destroying Gog niche. Added to that that Gog didn't had the "convenience" of Steam as they didn't had a client handling download / install / update.

So Gog didn't really any choice but diversify it's catalogue or die. And of course all sort of issue came with selling new games, the one world one price, doesn't exists on Steam so how to force devs to accept it on Gog ? same with Extra / OST, you have them being sold separately on Steam you cannot ask devs to give them for free with the base game. So in the end when it comes to pricing, release structure, DLC, etc... they didn't really had any choice but to align with Steam.

Man, you got me all misty eyed. If ever a post deserved a +1, it's this.