Wait, are you saying that, in the past you've checked with GOG to see if they'd be interested in certain titles and they've given you a straight yes or no answer?

I can't think of times this has happened. What I was trying to convey is that, by PMing somebody like Turnipslayerr about a specific game and asking if GOG might be interested, you might avoid making unnecessary contacts or spending unnecessary time writing an email to Kent. BUT the GOG staff may be too busy to respond right now, so getting an answer is not guaranteed. I'm just posing an idea.

I've been told on a few occasions that certain games (and one full catalog of too-old titles) were rejected after I made contact with the companies, I think as Turnipslayerr's way of suggesting I focus more on games higher up on the wishlist or more objectively good titles. (This was when I was going through Abandonia and probably not using as much discretion as I should have.)

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By the way, this was kind of a cool tweet I got from Activision Support. (Nothing specific, but it shows the Twitter account was actually listening)

https://twitter.com/ATVIAssist/status/406423618651176961

"I know you won't respond, but can we see Freddy Pharkas and more Activision classics on @GOGcom ? ;) Please bring 'em!"

"We can pass your feedback along Tyler, you never know what the future holds... ;) ^NM"

OK cool - interesting to know!
Speaking of stuff high up the wishlist, the Jazz Jackrabbit games are the ones that puzzle me most for not being here - they were developed and published by Epic (formerly Epic Megagames) who have other games published here so what gives?
Unless they're afraid whoever owns the rights to Bucky O'Hare is finally going to sue them for ripping them off after all these years!

That was weirding me out too, but I wonder if it has something to do with the fact that Jazz Jackrabbit 2 was published by GOD games, owned and shut down by Take 2. It's possible the involvement of Take 2 is complicating things, or we would have seen Jazz show up a long time ago.

At the same time, though, I suspect that Epic isn't super-excited about releasing games here, though. I mean, where are all the 1991-1999 games? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Epic_Games#Epic_MegaGames_.281991.E2.80.931999.29
I think the only Epic games we have are the ones Steam has too.

Publishers seem to be funny things, unfortunately. There are still so many great classics locked in the vaults of pubs we have here already. I'm hoping January will bring delightful surprises, but after a mixed-bag summer and fall (some fantastic classics, but also few from big-name publishers and no new publisher) I'm not going to get my hopes up too high.

Whoa, I just realized /both/ Epic Games and ZeniMax/Bethesda appear to be in Rockville Maryland, which I think is only an hour or so from where I live. If GOG were paying for gas I'd be willing to try and stop by. ;)

I used to live in that area as well (in Vienna and Oakton VA). I was living there when they released Fallout 3 and it was fun figuring out what the new townships mapped to in place of the actual ones, as well as the Metro stations.

Meanwhile, I heard back from Bernd Beyreuther this morning about Project Nomads. Here is the relevant info he provided:

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the game was produced for CDV
CDV went backrupt 2010

there is an insolvency lawyer taking care of the rights
his name is Dr. Robert Schiebe
http://www.insolvenz-ratgeber.de/cdv-software-entertainment-ist-insolvent/2010/04/12/

i have doubts if they have all of the contracts in place to find out where exactly are the right

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If someone more fluent with law and/or German wants to follow this up, let me know. Otherwise I'll try to do some outreach myself.

Hmm, does that mean someone needs to buy the rights first before GOG can release it?
Edit: Quite a lot of CDV stuff isn't available for sale from digital distributors. Maybe Nordic should pick up the catalog and help re-distribute those games.

http://www.gog.com/forum/general/the_search_for_game_rights_a_diaryesque_thread/post348

Piranjade must know German, and I'm sure several other members here do. You can try PMing them about it. Maybe even one of the GOG staff knows German.

Not really the lawyer talking type here, but if thats with an insolvency lawyer hes probably looking out to sell the whole package of CDV because selling parts reduces the value of the rest and makes it harder to sell it off.

But then again... its from 4 years ago. Might as well be happy for every cent he could get for it by now.

Thanks for the replies folks, I'll try to follow up with some GOGnards as well about this. Would be curious as to the asking price for this catalogue now, too.

I like what you guys are doing in this thread. I'd like to help, but there's so much stuff in this thread and I don't even know where to start or what has been accomplished already. I think it would be great if there was a shared document available for everybody to see the current progress of everything.

By the way, I speak French, I live in Montreal and I have a few contacts with people in the video game industry in that area. Not sure whether that's helpful or not, but let me know if you require my help.

Thanks for offering your help! Feel free to make a list of the games that you'd personally like to see on GOG, and we'll see if there's been any overlap there, or if we already know who holds the rights to those games.

here is the site of the lawyer: http://www.schiebe.de/index.php/en/contact-persons/dr-robert-schiebe
you can contact him in english as well

Fantastic, thanks very much! I will work up a suitably professional letter to him. Cheers!

Erm, well, actually, I only ever had a few text documents sharing the stuff I had been working on and the games from publishers we already had here. Sorry, I don't remember what you're referring to. :P