Well thank you very much. I actually like threads like these. At least they are about the hobby we all love and are not “political”. It’s all subjective of course, just like music or any of the other arts.

But everything is political ;D

Silliness aside, +1 for the nice write up as well. Re: The Witcher: I disliked the combat at first, until I learned how to time the swings/clicks. Decent little game once one gets beyond that...and also dice poker is an awesome mini game :)
(p.s. If you haven't gotten into them yet, King's Bounty seems like it'd be up your alley)

Actually, since you mentioned King’s Bounty (which I also haven’t played yet) I probably ought to have mentioned Heroes of Might & Magic 2, which is the only iteration of that series I’ve played so far. That might belong in the category “Turn-Based Strategy”, but I’m not sure because it’s so different from X-Com. However, I haven’t actually finished HoMM2 yet (the campaigns), but I played enough of it to realise that there is something special about both the gameplay and the atmosphere. What is it about these older games which is so magical ? How did they do it ? There’s something really special about these early games.

Some times I wish that associative parenthesis would be a thing in human languages.

If you mean the most iconic game that happens to be on GOG, then you will have different answers because, across time, different games were considered iconic. Some had a bigger impact technical impact, others reached more people, others were more culturally relevant... how do you quantify it?

However, if you would ask which game is the most iconic in association to GOG, then I would say Heroes of Might and Magic 3, as it is a Good Old Game that keeps its presence in the most sold lists pretty consistently.

If you brought up "GOG" to me at a party, the first game (or series) that would pop into my mind would be...

Heroes of Might and Magic.

It's almost always on discount and always on GOG's front page as (I believe) a top-seller.

Yep, was writing the same and then read your post! 100%

I agree with a lot of your points (the Thief and System Shock games are definitely iconic, also agreed about the Infinity Engine games being genuine classics), but can't agree about the nu-Deus Ex games. I somewhat enjoyed a substantial part of Mankind divided (HR much less so), but in the end I think neither HR nor MD really manage to capture the experience the original Deus Ex provided. Can't quite put my finger on it, but imo something is just lacking about the gameplay, I eventually got sick of it, too many repetitive elements (really hated that hacking minigame, terrible idea), you're forced too much into stealth etc. I also didn't enjoy the atmosphere, Jensen is such a totally humourless character, understandable given what happened to him (and since it's a prequel, there's a feeling of doom, there's no way Jensen could "win" after all), but it's a contrast to Deus Ex, which had many dark elements, but also some pretty funny parts (like a lot of the content related to Gunther, or when you enter the women's restroom etc.).
The games were an honest attempt, but I don't think they managed to supplant the original, which despite its flaws (bad enemy AI etc.) was one of those rare flashes of genius which give you an inkling of what games could potentially be.

I genuinely respect your opinion and I love the original Deus Ex as well. I played it last time with the GMDX mod installed and it is definitely one of those (you could argue) genre-defining games from that magical era at the end of the 90s / beginning of the 00s. The modern Deus Ex games definitely don’t “supplant” (i.e. supersede) the original - no way ! However, I think they are very fine games in their own right. This was a difficult choice for me and I admit I may change my perspective at some point, as I occasionally do with pieces of music or bands - but never by much. Going to have to replay all of these at some point, they are just legendary. Except for Invisible War, which is definitely the “dumb blonde” entry of the series.

In regard to the misunderstandings concerning the word “iconic” : I took the OP to mean “best in their class, available on GOG” rather than “most important for GOG’s profit margins” or “most associated with GOG” or some such other meaning.

Well I wasn't here then, so certainly more personal for you than me.

Duke 3D used to be at GOG too, another iconic game.

Games have come and gone from GOG in some cases, some of them iconic.

Anyway, I don't think the OP is looking at one time period of GOG, if they are really looking at anything at all properly.

GOG have or have had many iconic games here. And as I said earlier, iconic needs to be defined, where a general consensus can be reached about what is most iconic. Personally I think that is in the too hard basket.

I suppose that in my eyes it was Duke Nukem 3D and I think it's actually the game that got me here. If I recall correctly I was going to get the game off some abandonware website and instead of a download button I encountered a link to GOG.

And I suppose that the game represented GOG perfectly. It was one of the most iconic titles from the golden age of PC gaming and as a DOS game it also wasn't something you could play out of the box on a modern system - but thanks to GOG you could.

And it just hit so many sweet spots! It was extremely popular for a mid-90s PC game and almost everyone who was a PC gamer during the mid-90s was familiar with it but, unlike Doom, it rather didn't ring a bell among gamers who had not experienced that era themselves. And unlike many other "good old games" it has aged remarkably well, it's still absolutely fun and worth playing. So in my mind it was like the perfect title to attract the maximum number of customers specifically within GOG's target audience.

And it was also so inherently "early PC gaming"! It was casual enough for anyone to see its immediate appeal and have some fun just shooting aliens but it also had all that PC-exclusive complexity with mouse aiming, inventory items, open-ended convoluted maps with key cards and puzzles. Then it also had network multiplayer and a lively modding community. And the developers were clearly independent free-spirits and not held back by a big publisher or a corporation like Nintendo. It was violent, sexually suggestive and riddled with references that would make any legal department sweat. It was the kind of attitude you would only really see on personal computers at the time.

So all of that is why I would consider Duke Nukem 3D the most iconic game on GOG if it were actually still available here.

Not sure what I would choose in its absence. There are quite a few other iconic good old games on here but I'm not sure if either one of them stands out individually as an icon of good old (PC) games the way Duke 3D did.

Not at all.
The word iconic was used.
Be a very different story if 'best' was used instead of 'most iconic' or even 'greatest'.

From my perspective, the OP did not put enough thought into their thread title ... something they are often guilty of.
Either that or they were deliberately being confrontational etc.

So you reap what you sow.

In any case, I am someone who enjoys a play on words, and sometimes playing Devil's Advocate, or I just like pushing folk to think or even sowing seeds of my own.

A thread like this can be entertaining in various ways, if you want to push at corners. ;)

It still is for those of us who bought a copy ;)

And those terms can be subjective as well. My guess is the OP wanted to know which games are 'iconic' to each respondant.

Regardless of thread titling, the thread seems to have accomplished their (likely/probable) goal to generate conversation and it's been a decent read so far. To me that's a bit more important in the end.

-

As long as we're not talking about that supposed remaster ;)

Well, thats such a vague and subjective question that there is no right or wrong answer to it, so I'll just give my own.

To me it would be simply Baldurs Gate 3 - even better than Baldurs Gate 2, which was the previous king, and in many ways I still like BG2 over BG3, but BG3 wins.

Yes it is a current game but its also a timeless game and I cant think of any old game which surpasses it.

No, the original, that's what brought me to GOG:)

I think I have the original manual/comic book somewhere...such fun memories :)