Checking out the sub-forums of a old game when it's re-released on Steam is always good for a laugh

Indeed, queue the predictable threads and topics

"Dis gaem is hard, it sucks"
"All old games are automatically bad because they are old"
"Where da Achivements at? Not buyin without Cheevos"
"Don't buy Abandonware"
"Living in the past is for squares Daddy-o"

you are right...

However, don't forget that the GOG pack includes 8 Extras, which is amazing

In fact, the GOG pack gives you such value for money, it actually made it into my "Amazing value" GOGmix

so the GOG version is Better in the end

I smell conspiracy...

Well done Night Dive, very well done indeed.

Interesting how in a few months Night Dive managed to secure System Shock 2, I have no mouth and now Wizardry 6-8 on a different retailer, while GoG was just huffing and puffing over how these games where so stuck in legal limbo. Makes you wonder (makes me wonder, at least).

I am now starting to back a different contender to revive the good old classics.

The only thing to say about the topic itself, Gamepot made the Wizardry Online, so I guess they had to secure the rights to then name and the copyrights to do so. However, it seems that Night Dive now managed to secure the rights to the series, so I wonder if we will soon see a change in publisher here at some point. Off course a game can have two different publishers, but it then tend to be restricted locally (one for Japan a different for USA for example), and I have not seen yet a globally sold game with two different publishers. Logically (and legally) I do not see any reasons for why this may not be so, it all tends to be down to the contracts written by creators and publishers - there tend to be some exclusivity clauses there, especially if i involves payments before a product is completed.

So what's the deal then, why do Gamepot own Wiz 6-8 on GOG and yet Night Dive on Steam?

They were working too hard on getting indie games to work on modern systems!

It ain't that complicated.

Gamepot owns Wizardry. Night Dive licenses it from them for sale on steam. You don't have to 'own' something outright to publish it as with any licensed property. Night Dive publishes it on steam to avoid the arbitrary clusterlove that is greenlight. It's still published here by Gamepot because the agreement here is directly between Gamepot and GOG, not via an intermediary.

amok is most likely simply wrong. There's zero evidence at all that Night Dive had anything to do with the release here, and it's very likely that they've just piggybacked the release here (including screenshots) onto steam with zero work done.

So... you say Gamepot thought it's a good idea to split the money with Valve AND Night Dive, instead of just splitting it with Valve?

Sounds brilliant.

I never said that Night Dive had anything to do about the release here :) , I said that they managed to secure it for a different retailer (Steam in this case)
Not to mention giving Night Dive all the credits. Gamepot seems to be really nice people.

(no other publisher is listed on the Steam page, Night Dive even managed to work their own logo into the intro video, and it is the only logo there)


Edit: I must add that I like the Steam description page of Wiz 6:

"FULL-COLOR ANIMATED graphics
DIGITIZED sound (NO add-on cards required)
HARD DISK supported "

Perhaps Gamepot view the Wizardry IP something like a national treasure in Japan, it is after all a hugely influential franchise in Japan, with Wizardry games and clones being produced in Japan to this day. All the original Wizardry games got remade in Japan for various platforms, and along with Ultima, Wizardry in the early 1980's was essentially the spark that created the entire JRPG genre.

For me it still feels weird. What if customers liked one of the two different publishers more and bought the very same product only there. Probably they had their reason, but I'm so used to connect a game with only a single publisher, that spreading the rights makes me feel like they only care about IP, not about games. The name of the publisher displayed seems to be more or less meaningless, licensor would be enough.

I have feeling that after a certain amount of time we will see a silent change of publisher name her on GoG. It seems unlikely that whoever have the SirTech IP's (or the Wizardry IP's) are going to continue splitting them between two different publishers for the global market.

However, given that the reason one do go for different publishers for different markets, is to choose the right and most beneficial publisher for you product in that market (tends to be locally or platform specific), and we may now start seeing the beginning of a new trend - the right publisher for the right DD retailer. Only time will tell.

It's nice that Wiz 6 & 7 at least are Steamplay. They are Windows only still on GOG.

I'm still cracking up about those screenshots!
:-D :-D :-D

Have you played Wizardry 6!? That game is tough! Only GOGCOM can kill the cave thraxe!