The signing of Square Enix is good news, but I really hope this deal will get us games like Startopia and other oldies that aren't part of their big-name franchises. That' was a problem with Ubisoft, for instance, they own the rights to a lot of awesome games but they seemed reluctant to release games that aren't part of their current franchises (in fairness we did eventually get a few of those too, but it took time and there's still tons of missing classics).

In that respect I have to admit I'm disappointed with the initial batch, I never thought a widely available game like Deus Ex would be worth all this teasing (though I agree it's a great game that certainly belongs on GOG). A game like Thief on the other hand, that would have been big news and worth a countdown.

But it is a big thing that we have to worry about. That's why I buy games here and not elsewhere.

One shouldn't even need to install Steam to play games in the first place, much less search for bug fixes on their part.

Also not true. Modern emulators for machines like the Playstation use their own "clean room" developed BIOS and you no longer have to dump anything. It would be completely legal to distribute, assuming they obtained permission from the developer of said emulators.

Nice, but probably no real strategy game will come from Square Enix. So nothing for me :(

Except Deus Ex

There seems to be some confusion here.

The illegal part tends to be when you want to use the original operating system in order to make the emulator do anything useful.

DOSBox is absolutely an emulator (for anyone who didn't realise, it emulates the complete hardware of an older PC), but crucially it does NOT require the proprietary MS-DOS operating system, instead providing an alternative operating system (which is compatible with MS-DOS in all the important ways).

I am not aware of any such free re-implementations of operating systems for any gaming consoles, or the Amiga (or any other 8-bit or 16-bit computers for that matter), and consequently I have never heard of an emulator for any of those systems which did not require you to use the original proprietary operating system software, which therefore means that you must possess a license for that software in order to legally use the emulator.

edit: cogadh says that there is a free Playstation-compatible operating system, and perhaps likewise for some other consoles as well? That's news to me, but certainly good news if it's true.

Which PSX emulator doesn't require the original BIOS?

That's a nice surprise! I kind of "missed" most older Squeenix games since my rig was very old when they were popular. Here's hoping that they'll enter GOG with a large selection of games! :) While I probably won't buy them right now (my wallet is still aching from the Christmas sales), many of those games would (and will) go straight on my wishlist, and eventually find their way into my collection. :)

I'm so very happy to see Square Enix/Eidos here. They have a lot of great titles that are just begging to be played by me. Can't keep those great games waiting.

http://www.mobygames.com/game/dominion-storm-over-gift-3

Glad to see hitman, but thrilled for Deus Ex.

Technically none of them, since that "clean room" BIOS was made available. You can still use the original BIOS, but you don't have to anymore. However, the PCSX family of emulators have never required a BIOS file at all (PCSX, PCSX-df, PCSX-Reloaded), and they are GPL, so if any of them were going to be used for distributing PlayStation games on PC, I would guess that would be the one they would use.

I already know that, but I'm trying to explain to that user that a PS2 emu is not the same thing as MS-DOS emu and is nearly impossible that gog sells a PS2 game embeded in a unofficial console emulator, and no, Sony is not going to do an official one for PC.

Yeah, 16 bit games in a LICENSED emulator, we are talking about PS2 games in a bad emulator that needs dual core at leats to work and not too well.

ATI users have problems, like with DK2.

I can imagine people having this complaint, but I can also honestly say that it's a dumb complaint. How many games do you honestly need to have on your laptop at any given time? Speaking as somebody who half plays a lot of games at once, I'll happily agree that it's not the norm to do so, and it's really not something you can honestly complain about. Install 1 - 3 games on your laptop at a time and I'm sure you'll have MORE than enough gaming fun till the next time you have internet access.

You strike me as the conspiracy type which makes me wary of taking anything you say seriously... You're half reading my post to boot. I said that it's not as big a deal as people make it out to be because it isn't. Most DRM is innocuous and goes completely unnoticed by all but the hardcore nerds and the people trying to illegally pirate them. HOWEVER, I am in agreement that there are plenty of DRM's that are terrible and shouldn't exist. Things like having to be online to play offline single player. Or having to sign into an online service (such as Games For Windows or EA's propriety thing) when you're ALREADY signed in on Steam. These things are bad yes. But they're the minority. People just like to wave the DRM flag because it makes them feel good about themselves.

As for the Steam thing? That's an equally dumb argument to what jamyskis was saying. Steam is a store and game management system. It's clean, efficient, and not actually very intrusive at all. "But I don't want to install Steam just to play my games!" Well tough honestly. Next you'll be telling me that you don't want to buy a console just because it has all the games you want on it, or that you don't want to have to buy a newer PC because yours is too old to play newer games. It's a big heaped helping of "Deal with it".

Oh, and as for "You shouldn't have to search for bug fixes!" Welcome to computers. Perhaps you are new? Bugs are a fact of computer use. Not everything will work 100% perfect straight out of the box. Some people have to fix a bug in steam so that they can play offline. Some people have to fix a bug in a downloaded GoG game to make it work correctly. Computers are complex beasts and it's impossible to plan for every possible combination of hardware and software. So don't go falling back on that like it's a legitimate reason to hate an otherwise exceptional piece of software.

You are, of course, completely right. This is a legal minefield.

It's certainly not the case with NES games - each developer was responsible for creating their games' respective bootstraps - but I believe SNES cartridges had a proprietary Nintendo bootstrap which always had to be included, which is why unlicensed carts were practically impossible to run on a conventional SNES. I'm not sure about this, but I believe it to be the case.

The Commodore 64 and ZX Spectrum ROMs are still copyright Amstrad and whoever took over Tulip, but neither of them give a shit. Amstrad openly gave permission for the Spectrum ROMs to be used in emulators.

PSX emulation has long been possible with the creation of an "alternative BIOs" which emulates the calls of any given game to the BIOs, so this isn't a problem. The problem is that every licensed PSX CD also has Sony bootstrap code on it which interfaces with the licensing hardware in the PSX itself (or emulated hardware in the case of the PS3). This code isn't essentially needed - any copyrighted stuff basically consists of the PlayStation image, but I'm not sure of the technical implications of removing said code.