Hi. You probably haven't seen me post much because... I don't post much. Hell, I don't even lurk all that often, but I wanted to share some thoughts about GOG after 10 years of service, as well as reflecting on my life as a PC gamer. Sorry if this post is long, I don't expect any replies or anything, I'm just a bit nostalgic.

I didn't start PC gaming until I got my first PC, or rather my family got its first PC, back in 1998, when I was 8 years old. I no longer have that PC, but I do still have the CRT monitor that came with it. I played a few games on it, but frankly, I was still a big Nintendo kid, so gaming on the PC was not a priority for me. That is, until the early 2000s, when I was introduced to a social concept I'm still infatuated with to this day: LAN parties. I'll never forget spending the weekend with friends, in garages, kitchens and side rooms, playing games, multi or single player, loads of emulation, listening to music, watching ripped movies, TV shows and animes, sharing pictures saved online as well as Flash games and cartoons. Every LAN party was multimedia overload. Those days are long gone, but I'll always have fond memories of them - LAN parties turned me into a PC gamer.

By mid-2005, I was introduced to Half-Life and decided to buy the sequel off a shelf in Walmart, conveniently printed on 5 CDs. By the time I had it installed, I reached an obstacle - every time I wanted to play it, I had to log into Steam, and I was still on dial-up. When I finally jumped up to broadband a year later it was much less of a problem, but I was accomodated with the inconveniences of modern technology offsetting the conveniences of modern technology, and I started to catch on to DRM.

Finally in 2008, a friend at the time showed me a teaser page for this new site called Good Old Games. I saw Fallout 2, a game I wanted to try what with all the hype around Fallout 3, but surprise surprise, it wasn't on Steam. In fact, there were lots of good old PC games that I missed out on mainly just because of my age. Good Old Games was set to be the PC's Virtual Console and I wanted to try it out. I signed up for early access that August, and on Tuesday September 9th, 2008, I was given an access key. That morning, I took advantage of a "buy one, get one free" deal for beta consumers, and my first games on GOG were Fallout 1 and 2. To this day, I still have both installers that I downloaded that day.

Immediately I loved being able to just download and archive whatever games I bought, then install them whenever I want. That convenience is what kept me here all these years and turned GOG into my main source for PC games. It drove me to build a home server primarily to store my GOG games, the folder for which is approaching 2 TBs. I'm still using that old CRT from my first PC with a Windows XP machine, and most of the games installed on it came from GOG. I owned 990 games before this current sale, so appropriately I just bought 10 games to bring that number up to 1,000. Maybe I'll be up to 2,000 when 2028 rolls around.

Now a few memories I have of GOG.

Speaking of Fallout 1 and 2, I remember when Interplay lost the license to distribute them and Tactics to Bethesda. Interplay's license was set to expire on December 31, 2013, so what do they and GOG do a few weeks beforehand? They give them away for free. Damn, if only I had waited 5 years I could have saved 6 bucks. I also remember EA's Dungeon Keeper fiasco, when they tried to make a mobile game with the IP that was riddled with paywalls. Gamers were rightly pissed, but none more passionately than GOG's userbase, so for a limited time Dungeon Keeper was free and its sequel was 75% off. Not sure if that makes up for killing Bullfrog, but it beats the terrible mobile version.

I'm one of who knows how many people who managed to buy Re-Volt before it was removed. Re-Volt finally winds up on GOG, only for a group of modders to discover their code being used without compensation by the game's new publisher WeGo Interactive. This resulted in the game being pulled from sale just three months after launch by GOG, who was initially unaware of the situation. Almost five years later and WeGo has seemingly made no effort to bring it back. Instead, they've released Re-Volt 2 and Re-Volt 3: Resurrection on Android. I'm sure they're great? Anyway, it's nice to have Re-Volt here, but it still doesn't feel right, like I'm in possession of stolen property.

I remember GOG's first holiday "sale". By 2008, Steam had already rolled out the concept of deep discounts around Christmas time. So what did we get on GOG, Christmas 2008? Gifting. We could now give gifts to other users. Don't get me wrong, 6 bucks for Fallout was still pretty awesome, but we didn't even get a 10% or 5% discount or anything. GOG didn't want to undervalue the few games they had at the time, so actual discount sales were pretty uncommon for the first few years. Usually it was just one game or series per week. Nowadays we have deals every day, every week, every weekend. We're friggin spoiled now.

Then there was the time GOG "closed" the site. In September 2010, they updated the home page with this serious-looking message. At first it seemed like they were shutting down, but when you read it more carefully it became more evident they were probably just leaving beta. A lot of people believed GOG really was shutting down, and when GOG came back they started selling Baldur's Gate and promised never to pull a stunt like that again.

Finally, I think my favorite GOG memory: The 2013 Insomnia sale. I woke up at about 8am that day, and come 9 o'clock I refresh the home page and there was a new sale going on. Games were going cheaper than ever, but in limited quantities. When a game ran out, a new one took its place. I was hooked just seeing what was coming next, it was super addicting. If you didn't want a game, just wait for the next one. Well, late that night (the insomnia sale kept me up like the name suggested), a game came around called Jack Keane 2. With all due respect to the publishers and developers of this game... no one wanted to pay 12 dollars for it, and we had to wait for 100 sales to move on. Most games took 5 to 15 minutes to sell out, depending on the popularity; Jack Keane 2 ended up taking hours.

You'd think a stoppage like this would kill the sale completely, instead it ended up fostering a sense of community and camaraderie I've never seen before or since on GOG. There were live streams of people playing the game (someone managed to complete it before all 100 copies were sold), 5-star reviews written to convince people to buy it, the game turned into a meme machine. On 4chan, if you rolled dubs you had to buy it. It was an unintended event on top of an already awesome event - it was phenominal. I'm not sure whether I'm ashamed or proud to admit, but I happen to be one of the 100 people who bought Jack Keane 2 that night. I feel like a war vet, and Jack Keane 2 is my battle scar.

So thank you, GOG, I wasn't always sure 10 years ago I'd still be buying games from you in 2018, but I'm glad you guys are still around and putting your foot down when it comes to DRM. Oh, and I'm still waiting for the results of that 5 year anniversary rap contest.

EDIT: Man this message board is just hating my links.

thanks for posting this, was an interesting read!

:D

I missed the early stuff but was there for the shutdown stunt. Man, that generated some hostility, but it also seems that a lot of people figured out what was going on and were pretty chill about it. I was definitely in WTF? mode since I had purchased a couple games but didn't yet have a chance to download them before the shutdown. After, it was feeling of "Glad you're back so I can get my games, but don't ever pull that shit again."

Lots of changes over the years. Overall, I'm glad the store is here to give us a valid alternative to pirating in order to get around DRM. DRM-free and the resurrection of classics are the things I appreciate most about this place, so thank you, gOg.

I'd tell you to have a nice day, but that would be sucking up to a stranger. So, have some sort of day.

Have some sort of day.

Have some sort of day.

Edit: with deleted posts, it looks like I'm talking to myself. haha

But dang, that got weird in a hurry.

There once was a troll,
who posted while the moderators were away.
Most vocal, but had nothing to say.

For uncalled harassment awaited a ban.
Come Monday and it will be done.

Congrats Dr_Worm:).

Thanks for posting that, it brings back lots of happy memories.

Behold --- A troll!
In his own shit he roll
Let us watch while we can
It'll be gone with a ban

Thanks for sharing - that was interesting! :)
Have a nice next 10 years here! I believe this place is still quite special (at least for person who came here a few years ago and haven't seen such online community anywhere before).

ah The Keaning. I installed the game, still haven't beaten it. It's still installed. This is turning out to be the longest playthrough ever. Damn you, Keane.

I had to do a double take, I thought HypersomniacLive and the greasers were at it again.

go home HereForTheBeer, you're drunk.

ah I get it now. what is this shadow war going on the gog forums?

deleted

Not here from the beginning of the site, but I remember Good Old Games page. Those screenshots bring back memories. I miss the old design. First game I bought here was Might and Magic 6 pack, now have many games here, bought or gifted by wonderful users here.

Once, I wanted to try out the old Dungeon Keeper, so I googled it. That's what brought me here.

If I could point out a single most memorable moment from GOG it would be this sale. Got quite a few of excellent games from it, some I've never heard of before and a couple of free critical hits. I remember adaliabooks buying a game for me that I missed, though I managed to snatch it just in time before seeing he got me a copy (EDIT: I just checked - the adaliabooks gift was actually during the 2015 Insomnia. My memory isn't the best). I wish GOG would bring back the insomnia format some time again.

2013 was when the GOG community was at its golden age.