They still have to be tested and supported. Plus, new games aren't necessarily that much less prone to bugs and hardware glitches compared with old ones. And despite being new I'm sure there's games that only work on newer versions of Windows due to DirectX issues.

There's plenty of games that don't play well with an nVidia card or an ATI one.

I doubt that it's going to be significant, but it's definitely non-zero.

No, but that will mostly be the responsibility of the game devs for newer games, just like on every other service. Steam isn't patching Dragon Age II, Bioware is doing that. Steam just makes sure shit doesn't go haywire when you download and install, patching is the developer's responsibility (just ask Runic how much they like supporting multiple builds, btw, they loathe it).

Is it non-zero effort to do basic smoke testing? Of course, but it can't be anywhere near the effort it is to make a 1998 game work on Windows 7. That's my point.

So, you concede the point that resources will be drained from the current focus to add newer games.

Yes, I concede the fact that GOG has to grow, i.e. hire new employees. They've been doing this, I assume, for years. I see no reason to believe that classic gaming will get the shaft as default assumption.

Again, it's another aspect to worry about on the site, as it will take time to legally acquire the new games, organize information about them, etc. I'm not so much against it as I was originally, but it will still take /some/ time away from working on getting the old games here. Sure, it won't go away, but it will get less devotion because of the new aspect.

I'm suggesting the possibility. Have they said anything about staffing up? Because that would be a big, big plus in my book.

TL;DR on this thread.
In my opinion however I don't care much about the release date of the game. I care much more about the quality of the game in question, that said most of the newer games are complete crap. I just hope this doesn't mean GOG will start releasing putrid anal console ports, otherwise I'm fine with newer games. They should pass the same quality criterium as any other gog releases.

They haven't announced anything yet, to my knowledge, but you could always ask work@gog.com :)

At any rate, it's not like they haven't hired people this very year, we even have news posts of them putting the word out and one forum member posted want ads for GOG team members from his local newspaper that are even more recent.

I wouldn't sweat it man, really, there's an entire industry of folks to draw on who know exactly how to do this stuff.

I can't promise it'll all turn out okay, and I'm not saying I don't expect any scraped knees, but I don't see any serious, long term detriment even being worth worrying about. The GOG guys are more invested in this than even we are. They're working on it and in their spare time posting news posts and forum posts to make us all feel better.

Now don't you feel bad? ;)

I'm have rather mixed feelings about the change myself. On the one hand, the idea of a good, DRM-free digital download service GREATLY appeals to me. But I agree with others, I do think of GOG as a place for old games, and I think they will lose a lot of their identity by changing.

Yeah, I suppose I could, but I get the feeling the answer would be vague at this point. :) I didn't mean to sound too worried, more like concerned. I'm still somewhat concerned, but I'm learning to see the other side, too. Heh heh, all right. :) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FbQrv5L7qEs&t=0m13s

Jk.

I mean, I don't feel too bad about raising these issues (more like repeating myself - that probably gets old), but I feel like issues like current site identity and release times are important things to consider and while the negative possibilities may not occur at all, I feel it's good to at least consider them, and not pretend like the possibilities exist. I do appreciate your decency towards me in the matter, though, even though we still somewhat disagree. :)

I don't see what is the big deal: new games are just classics that haven't yet become old.

The things I might gripe about, should they come to fruition:

- this causes GOG to grow faster than they can keep up, with a subsequent decline in service and reliability.

- the new titles don't eventually come down to "old game" pricing. Not too worried about this as it seems, looking at the other sales sites, that prices drop like a rock in relatively short time.

I think you forget about the almighty DOLLAR here. That was why I used EA and Activision as an example as companies that started out great but soon became shit because they became greedy and was run by suits. If GoG takes in new games at a higher price range then what would you focus on, Orc? The old games that will only net you 6 usd or the new game that will net you 20-30 dollars? It's not hard to guess what GoG would focus on here is it? As any company GoG wants to make money and that's fine, that is what a company do but if a small company expands too fast then they may more easily loose focus of what it was that made them a good company in the first place.
If this will happen with GoG only time will tell but to quote a line from one of my favourite movies "Wall Street": "The main thing about money is that they make you do things you DON'T want to do".

You're assuming a lot of things that may not actually be true about the price points, profit margins, and sales figures of new games vs. old games.

Money doesn't turn everyone into a douche, some, sure, but not everyone. GOG is already making money and has been for some time, have some faith, man.

Dear GOG

Please port over Steam and GamersGate entire database and sell it all, DRM free, for six bucks a piece.