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Dear Santa,

The year has turned again, and it's that time: a time when everyone runs through their mental lists to see if they've been nicer than naughty and wonders what you'll bring them on the morrow. It's time for us to reflect on what we've done in the last year, what we wanted to do, and what we hope you'll bring us to help succeed next year as well.

The year has been pretty good to us, Santa, and we'd like to think that's part of you fulfilling our wish for last year--we've added over 250 Mac games to the catalog, more than 120 Indie games are now on GOG since we launched our "Bigger, Fresher, Newer" campaign last year, and we celebrated a 500 games in our catalog in January of this year. We've since gone on to a total catalog of [url=http://www.gog.com/games]674 games at the end of 2013--that's a long way since 2012!

We added some top games to our catalog this year, classics like Leisure Suit Larry, Neverwinter Nights 2, , [url=http://www.gog.com/game/system_shock_2]System Shock 2, Wizardry 6 & 7, and Wizardry 8, I Have No Mouth And I Must Scream, and we even finished off the Wing Commander series. We've seen some fantastic indies showing up on GOG.com as well, from Divinity: Dragon Commander and Expeditions: Conquistador to Papers, Please and , we've been adding new games to the catalog that we're sure will be looked at as future gems in the years to come. We've asked questions about what our users think GOG.com should be, we've produced--and ended--a regular episodic show about what GOG.com has released each week, we've fulfilled [url=http://www.gog.com/wishlist]hundreds of thousands of wishlist votes, gone to tradeshows in [url=http://www.gog.com/news/gogcom_e3_the_photodocumentary]and the US, launched a new program to help indies get on GOG.com, had [url=http://games.on.net/2013/07/we-see-pirates-as-our-competition-we-dont-see-steam-as-our-competition-gog-com-on-hatemail-torrents-and-sharing-games-legally/]of [url=http://news.softpedia.com/news/GOG-com-Is-Not-Ready-to-Support-Linux-Just-Yet-299948.shtml]all [url=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RzPPcxp_uUQ]the , [url=http://www.gog.com/news/super_5_five_new_indies_up_to_80_off]celebrated our fifth birthday for a whole month, and generally had a grand old time.

Recently, we've experimented with some new things for GOG.com: we ran a charity fundraiser which (spoiler alert!) has raised tons of money for children, the poor, and wildlife all around the world; we teamed up with PC Gamer and Larian and gave away 3d-printed statues of dragons from Dragon Commander; we ran a pixel-art competition and were blown away by the great entries we received; we ran an Insomnia promo whereby we discovered the Internet's love for Jack Keane; we launched a guarantee where we promise that any game you buy from us will work; and we gave away all three of the original Fallout games to say goodbye to one of the greatest franchises in the history of gaming as it leaves our catalog. We also discovered that apparently the entire Internet wanted free copies of Fallout, because man did our servers ever struggle for the first few hours of that giveaway! We've welcomed back old friends and made uncountable scores of new ones over the last year here, and the craziest thing is that--for the fifth year running--this is the best year yet for GOG.com. With 63 employees from all over the world, millions and millions of customers and visitors each month, hundreds of new games, and limitless potential for the next year, Santa, we believe that trend will continue in 2014 with your help.

Which brings us to what we'd like to see in our Yule stocking. Last year we wished for LucasArts or Take Two to join GOG.com, and we really thought that we'd have enough good luck to make it happen. The business world can be slower than we'd like, but we still hope and dream of adding great games from one of those classic companies--or others!--to our classic games catalog in 2014. The rest of our wishes, we worked hard and succeeded at this year, but they're also still something that we want to continue to work on in 2014. Of course we want to release more great games--games like Wasteland 2, Pillars of Eternity, Carmageddon: Reincarnation--and others that we haven't even heard of yet. We want to see our indie program grow and expand well beyond its current scope because we've seen so many good games come our way through there but we know we're missing out on others that haven't found us yet. We want to launch audacious new features on GOG.com that will make us bigger, better, and more fun for our gamers. We want to look beyond the obvious and grow in new and unexpected ways to bring the DRM-Free Revolution to gamers who've never heard of us or who don't know about DRM. We defined our goal as a company for 2014 year simply: to help make the world's best games available DRM-Free.

So help us with that, Santa, and we're confident that we will continue to surprise, delight, amaze, astound, and impress gamers all around the globe; we'll continue to grow; and we'll continue to do everything that makes GOG.com a different (and dare we say "better"?) place for gamers. We never ask you for easy things, Santa, because we don't ask ourselves for easy things. We want to drive ourselves to make big changes, and we hope we'll be able to do so in 2014.

Happy Holidays to all of you who read this, and we hope that all of your wishes come true for 2014.
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VanishedOne: Dear* Santa,

Please may we have the rest of these back?

* What is the correct letter form when writing to a saint, anyway?
Except Perimeter - they can keep that.
Post edited December 31, 2013 by wpegg
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VanishedOne: Dear* Santa,

Please may we have the rest of these back?

* What is the correct letter form when writing to a saint, anyway?
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wpegg: Except Perimeter - they can keep that.
Too late.
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wpegg: Except Perimeter - they can keep that.
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VanishedOne: Too late.
FFS - of all the ones to come back...
I also posted this in the GOG Media/Interviews thread, but thought it was relevant to post here as well.

GOG’s managing director: Gamer resistance to DRM is stronger than ever

We'll have some big site changes in 2014—we are working hard this very moment to make them public sooner rather than later in the coming year. Also, we have two major projects underway, both of which should be huge news for our users and the community. I can't go into much detail—I'd have to kill you—but it's going to be awesome.
Post edited December 31, 2013 by mondo84
Good article. It's actually not that big a surprise DRM is beginning to get larger backlashes and is shrinking, although with consoles DRM is always going to be big until those publishers decide to open up their hardware and OS, and I'm pretty sure that's never going to happen, they'd rather the consoles die a horrible death than let you control the hardware.

I actually wonder if DRM wouldn't exist if you could force more of it into the physical every day world. As an example let's target cars; In order for it to be a physical example lets say it's a belt or some wiring that's added that degrades based on time so it's useless thus making you check in every 24 or 72 hours to a 'certified' mechanic shop, and the motor company charges you $100 a month to replace the belts and wiring so you can use it.


Sound familiar? It should...


I'm quite sure if that took place as widespread as DRM is and compared correctly everyone would be so turned off about it there would be a huge uproar, not to mention starvation, unemployment and a number of other things... Yet the fact DRM is only a software/firmware process, half hidden, and in small print most of the time. It may be possible in the near future that games and possibly even playing and media devices that rely on such invasive or limiting DRM may just fail to sell since everyone will insist on no DRM (and once the ball starts rolling, it will keep getting bigger and faster).

Of course it's also possible that when everything gets DRM-free, then it may remain there for a generation or two, and then start all over again... Unless only the companies that push DRM are the ones that go out of business...
Post edited January 01, 2014 by rtcvb32
Sigh, again with these sex games posts! Its called Good Old Games people not Gonad Oral Goodness for goodness sakes!
Too the best online distribution company on the planet I wish you GOG.com all the best in 2014. Happy new year :)
Dear GOG,

Please add these games: Mechwarrior series, Warcraft 1-2, Age of Empires/Mythology, Diablo 1-2, Command & Conquer series, Championship Manager 1-2, Grim Fandango, Day of the Tentacle, Quake 1-2, Vampire Bloodlines, Monkey Island 1-4.

Keep up the awesome work, and thanks for bringing such wonderful service to us gamers! Here's to a GOG-antuan 2014 :)
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rtcvb32: I actually wonder if DRM wouldn't exist if you could force more of it into the physical every day world. As an example let's target cars; In order for it to be a physical example lets say it's a belt or some wiring that's added that degrades based on time so it's useless thus making you check in every 24 or 72 hours to a 'certified' mechanic shop, and the motor company charges you $100 a month to replace the belts and wiring so you can use it.

Sound familiar? It should...
https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2013/11/drm-cars-will-drive-consumers-crazy
Great... I was only half serious unaware they were actually considering this. In many cases software licensing (EULA) tends to have many restrictions when compared to the physical world is almost the same as welding the engine casing shut so people can't see how it works or change or fit it themselves.. (and bug-fixes in OS's like Windows is slow and cumbersome...).

DRM is least to say a very very bad tool that doesn't do a very good job. Seriously copyright law & DMCA needs to be completely redone. Copyright law is in order to 'stimulate creative works' where every has access to them (Like books with the printing press), but today it's turned into a lock-down letting companies monopolize on everything they can for as long as they can.

I think it's safe to say GoG is safe if they lowered the copyright duration from it's ludicrous 80+ years down to say 10 years for software and games, possibly movies and music. In many cases half the titles have been pirated for years, people are willing to pay (or donate to the original makers) if the price is acceptable and DRM is absent.
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rtcvb32: Good article. It's actually not that big a surprise DRM is beginning to get larger backlashes and is shrinking, although with consoles DRM is always going to be big until those publishers decide to open up their hardware and OS, and I'm pretty sure that's never going to happen, they'd rather the consoles die a horrible death than let you control the hardware.

I actually wonder if DRM wouldn't exist if you could force more of it into the physical every day world. As an example let's target cars; In order for it to be a physical example lets say it's a belt or some wiring that's added that degrades based on time so it's useless thus making you check in every 24 or 72 hours to a 'certified' mechanic shop, and the motor company charges you $100 a month to replace the belts and wiring so you can use it.

Sound familiar? It should...

I'm quite sure if that took place as widespread as DRM is and compared correctly everyone would be so turned off about it there would be a huge uproar, not to mention starvation, unemployment and a number of other things... Yet the fact DRM is only a software/firmware process, half hidden, and in small print most of the time. It may be possible in the near future that games and possibly even playing and media devices that rely on such invasive or limiting DRM may just fail to sell since everyone will insist on no DRM (and once the ball starts rolling, it will keep getting bigger and faster).

Of course it's also possible that when everything gets DRM-free, then it may remain there for a generation or two, and then start all over again... Unless only the companies that push DRM are the ones that go out of business...
Actually, you described planned obsolescence in a nutshell. With planned obsolescence the point is to design a product so that it will predictably malfunction in such a manner to where the client will have to buy a new one within a relatively short period of time. The point is to design it so that will last just long enough to where the client won't be angry/blame the brand (like HP). Dell and Apple do this and offer warranties within the expected life span.

Most modern products are built this way, which is the reason for the saying, "They don't build them like they used to" (because they used to be built to last). However, that doesn't mean there aren't products being built without planned obsolescence. The Xi3 modular system, for instance, is a move away from that model of thinking. However, most items built with sustainability and durability in mind, are rebranded in public opinion as being hipster/hippie/sub-culture and thus not worthwhile (not my take on things, but meh).

In fact, some corporations move to a rental only model to try and be more sustainable, but that moves us towards a state of quasi-serfdom, where you own nothing and giant corporations own everything (and creates other horrible issues).

But the real issues are: Copyright and patent laws. If you properly deal with them a lot of these issues go flying out the window. IMO current non-creative commons and non-public domain copyright should be based upon a profit vs expenditure model. IE, you spent this amount of money and time on the development of the product and thus this amount of profit shall be earned before it goes into either full creative commons or public domain. Thus the copyright would encourage development with quick release into public domain, which is the intent of the law according to the constitution. This solves issues both in planned obsolescence and the DRM sectors (and horribly invasive ads, lol).

EDIT: Just noticed the post about actual DRM cars. My points still stands, but . . . Yea, that's even a bigger pile of steaming crap.
Post edited January 02, 2014 by darkmattermobius
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darkmattermobius: Actually, you described planned obsolescence in a nutshell. With planned obsolescence the point is to design a product so that it will predictably malfunction in such a manner to where the client will have to buy a new one within a relatively short period of time. The point is to design it so that will last just long enough to where the client won't be angry/blame the brand (like HP). Dell and Apple do this and offer warranties within the expected life span.

Most modern products are built this way, which is the reason for the saying, "They don't build them like they used to" (because they used to be built to last). However, that doesn't mean there aren't products being built without planned obsolescence.
Well I know cell phones tend to break down fairly quickly (2-4 years) which is kinda unfortunate; It's sad to hear this is the case of things.

Copyright laws definitely need to change. Hmmm maybe a little information on the topic. Copyright: Forever less one day (because obviously disney and George Lucas can't make a profit on their products within 28 years... right?)
Post edited January 02, 2014 by rtcvb32
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rtcvb32: (because obviously disney and George Lucas can't make a profit on their products within 28 years... right?)
Actually, according to wikipedia, "The original length of copyright in the United States was 14 years." I've heard that elsewhere as well, but I couldn't remember where. They also mention an earlier establishment of copyright, though I think if we were really dedicated we could find even earlier variations of copyright law that probably date back to other places.

As well, I think due to the decentralizing effect of the internet on data and creative works any time period would be too much or too little, which is why a by profit model (for those who are in it for profit) is optimal. O' course, complaining about it doesn't do much. I tried opening up a petition at one point in time to the White House to get copyright changed, I think I broke 100 signatures * . . . People just don't view it as an important issue sadly :\.

*YAY, I got 1/1000 of the number of signature I actually needed.
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darkmattermobius: I tried opening up a petition at one point in time to the White House to get copyright changed, I think I broke 100 signatures * . . . People just don't view it as an important issue sadly :\.

*YAY, I got 1/1000 of the number of signature I actually needed.
That's because today's youths are brought up to remain stupid passive sheep under the whims of the corporation and government.
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darkmattermobius: Actually, according to wikipedia, "The original length of copyright in the United States was 14 years." I've heard that elsewhere as well, but I couldn't remember where. They also mention an earlier establishment of copyright, though I think if we were really dedicated we could find even earlier variations of copyright law that probably date back to other places.
Thought it was 7 years with a possibility to extend by an equal amount of time once, then since that kept being done it was just set to 14 right away, then the mess started.