As the others who replied said: you can't lose your games while zoom is in operation, and the same thing you also worry about(losing one's ability to re-dl) can happen with GOG or Steam as well.

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Also a question to you and all those "wary" of zoom: Are you more team gog or team drm-free?

Because one would assume those more on team DRM-free would welcome/embrace/make use of drm-free stores/sites like Zoom, and wouldn't be doing quite so many mental gymnastics(in some cases based on weak reasoning or false assumptions) about why they won't/don't want to do such.

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Thanks for the info.

Anyhoo, I hope gift codes get added soon enough, as it would allow myself and others to gift out games to others & hopefully get them aware of/using Zoom....which would be a win win for everyone, I think.

(also more payment options would likely bring others onboard who can't/won't use the ones Zoom currently has on offer)

AMIGA games (even emulated ones) require official Kickstart ROMS. Those are copyrighted. You must pay licence fees for those. If you have to pay for each title you publish, that can be quite expensive for the shop, making the games quite expensive.

There are reasons why abandonware-sites offer the AMIGA ROMs, but NOT the Kickstarter ROMs.

IF those ROMs can be licenced at all at the moment. Doesn't Cloanto have exclusive rights on those?

When Steam-publishing compnies do not sell those games there (very large market!) why on earth do they soll those on ZP?

Questions and more questions...

Again, i know the idea of 'evil shady merchants in the back alley' is a cool story, but everything is sold on the website legally. There is not shady business. We sign games, we make them work on moder systems, we build assets to be included and fix problems in said games. The blood we use to fuel the machines we operate to fix the games is the only questionable thing we have going!

Goat, calf, pig, or lamb? o.0

Golfiggling

It may even work in different ways, maybe if gog has some competition and starts losing customers it might actually focus them on fixing things or providing the features expected rather than just going off down their galaxy trail. Who knows. Will be interested to see the website update.

honestly, i don't see it as compeition. CDP has miles more resources, the idea of making games from decades gone playable to modern systems is something i want more of. They can all cohexist together they have SWAT 4, we have Duke etc, i don't think it's a case of 'THERE CAN BE ONLY ONE!'

Yeah, if that happens then it's even more of a win win for DRM-free gaming/gamers.

Yeah, me too.

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By "competition" I meant an extra option for DRM-free more so than actual serious competition to the likes of GOG/Steam. Still y wording was a bit off, so I changed "any proper competition" to "a 'new' DRM-free storefront" in the post above.

Tell that to Steam and Epic. ;D

That said, I agree with this statement wholeheartedly & 100%.

(btw: thanks for taking time from your likely busy[due to now working with Zoom and all] schedule to answer all my questions/posts....it is appreciated)

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In terms of a purely informative post I would like to say that I have in the past purchased games from zoom, downloaded and backed them up with absolutely no problems.

In the past I had heard people on these forums accuse zoom of being difficult to purchase from, i.e., difficulty with payment methods and I found this to be not the case. A simple matter of register, pay by debit card, download, back up and play. There are other payment options available.

I do wish people would stop bashing zoom and just go out and try it.

GOG are slipping across multiple areas, zoom are growing from infancy and deserve at the very least a punt from gamers that are serious about DRM free and what that actually means. Genuine competition to GOG is healthy!

I agree very much!

This is why imo competition in the DRM-free space is so important. The whole point of a free market is that consumers are supposed to have options and not be tied to one store/provider. If increasing competition encourages GOG to re-focus on DRM-free, rather than taking that market for granted, that would be a very good thing. Any supporter of DRM-free should be happy to see a new DRM-free store on the rise.

Well a long while back, they only had paypal as a payment option....maybe that's what some of them were talking about? Anyways, I am glad to hear things have improved in that regard.

Very well said :)

They should, but some don't.

My guess is that a number of them fall into a few categories: those who were "once bitten"(i.e. those who supported GOG until it became as it is now, who don't want to get hoodwinked/disappointed again), and also those who have become more or less the GOG equivalent of the "No steam, no buy!" crowd(i.e. more fervent GOG supporters)

Of course there are also other categories as well, like those who don't want to shop at too many stores, etc......but the crux is that many of the ones voicing similar replies in this and other Zoom threads seem to mainly be making excuses so they don't have to check into or bother with Zoom.

I don't think anyone is unhappy, but there will be people who won't care much. The "meh" crowd.

Not everyone will be bothered to try out or buy from every DRM-free store out there. FireFlower games for example has been around for a while now and it doesn't seem to be getting the praise Zoom is getting on these forums. As to why that is the case, I'm not really sure. It seems to be an OK store, though uninteresting IMHO.

A lot of people are biding their time I think, waiting to see how Zoom grows. It's still in its early years after all, and has had at least one unfortunate episode where GOG users were deemed too inquisitive for their own good by Zoom staff and dealt with rather harshly (told to mind their own business).

Linko64's candor on this thread is of course appreciated and a step in the right direction.

I do not doubt the legality of their store, just what drives their key people, besides the obvious for-profit business ethos. It is quite common in corporate space for independent small companies to be gobbled up when they grow. I don't see why this would play out differently as things stand. So let's call it an educated gut feeling at least.

I'm going to play my usual role of Cassandra, or Han Solo if you will, and say I have a bad feeling about this. FWIW I hope I'm wrong.

That does not mean I'm shouting out in the public square, telling people not to shop there, or whatnot - by all means do - since they provide DRM-free installers, you can download what you buy, back it up and keep it forever.

In case this needed to be said: don't believe what random strangers post on a forum on the internet. Always make up your own mind about things. Expect other reasonable people to do the same.