I ain't mad, i'm just happy they didn't shut down like many other fine sites do around these days...

You really think this was a calculated part of the marketing plan? 'Let's show our customers that DRM-free is the way to go by shutting down the access we've continually promised them as part of our regular marketing, even though some of them may have downloads pending for products they already paid for.'

If that proves to be true, then...

Maybe you should open YOUR eyes. You can buy most of GoG's games for literally nothing. Some of them are even free and / or abandonware anyways.

You don't just buy a game and have to instantly download it. If they really intended it to be that way it's be a single-use ticket. Meaning you buy the game, download it, the game tells GoG it has been downloaded and installed and get's removed from your account again.

So, cardian, YOU should open YOUR eyes. Get real man, no one pays 10 bucks for a 10-20 years old game and get's a single download. On top of everything most games are TINY. It's not that GoG has any game (at least I don't know of it) as big as Aliens vs. Predator with about 14 gigs or so.

Though I'm glad your site is still going, I must say that was the stupidest PR stunt ever. The monk video was lame at best as well. Making light of your own misjudgment at poor customer relations is kind of in poor taste. Besides, those two guys in the video were about as charismatic as a dead crack-whore. Lame.

finally! xoxoxoxoxo! ahh guys so cute!

Just a remark, it will be good to have in gog system with a friends conection, to see their wish/shelf list games.

love.
kiss kiss and $ucce$ :D

No it wasn't done with the best of intentions. You did it for marketing, making money, be noticed on the web. Well, thanks but no thanks.

Of course it is possible to download all purchased games and store them at home, but I never felt I had the need to do that until recently... and that's the point I am not sure right now if I should download all my games just to feel a bit safer.... If that's the case you shouldn't advertise that you'll always be able to download your games anytime you want with no limitations!

Again, please, tell me how I am able to do that when my download is cut off half way.
I was one of the maybe few maybe many that just purchased a game and the download was cut off in the middle. How am I supposed to back up a game at that moment?
And don't tell me that now I am able to backup my games. I know and did that before.

Nice job guys! I really love the new sorting games by title feature. That was something that I always had to do when I got a new game and I'm glad I'll never have to do that again.

It is reachable so whats the problem? They said that immediately after they took the site down. Problem...I see none???

Welcome back GOG, I love the new site :3

Not my fault you do not have the means or the time. Sound like a rookie digiital consumer. You need to stick to brick and mortar then. You are complaining about something that is your issue and not mine. As for your analogy it sounds like you would buy a new car but never put gas in it. What good is that? You just wasted your money. You should not use ANY download service if you have those issues!!!

PS - Let us see Steam go down. If their or other download services bit the dust your software is useless. You wouldnt even be able to do anything even if you had a backup (aka NOT DRM-free). That is why all this whining is just ridiculous. GOG was down for 4 days deal with it.

That's one of the funniest posts I've ever read here. Gotta love that schizophrenic ambiguity!

Way to go on one of your first GOG posts; you're off to a good start!

Well said. I don't know whether this was really one of the intentions behind the stunt or not, but that's not the issue. I completely understand that people can get upset about it if they wanted to download a game they paid, but didn't yet download/back up, during the downtime. The prospect of just having spent money on something you won't get is scary. But really there are only two possible outcomes: one, the closing was for real, which in this case it wasn't. In such a case, even if GOG.com was not legally allowed to let you download your purchase for whatever reasons, you would certainly get a refund for the product you purchased but won't receive. Poland is not a third-world country, and there are laws to protect customers in this kind of eventuality.

The other possibility is that it was not for real, or definite. Which means that access to your games will be restored, and that's what happened. GOG.com goes through significant efforts to be able to offer you these games in an unencumbered format that lets you download them to actually own them. You can only lose them if you delete the download and mess up your backups—just the same as you can lose or damage a physical media, upon which you will have no possibility whatsoever to get back your copy without buying a new one. GOG.com makes publishers lose their fear of DRM-free publishing, and makes them trust you enough to give you an actual, unrestricted copy of their software. The unlimited re-downloads and support they provide on top of that are not to be taken for granted either (most other DRM-free media download stores give you something like 3 downloads over the course of 5 days, then you have to repurchase).

Now we had a short downtime that might have been handled a bit better and more competently by the community managers, they possibly just were wrong in their assumptions on how people would react. Apart from possibly a little scare, all is back to normal. I think the people who are sniveling about never purchasing from GOG.com again, not recommending it to their friends any more, deleting their accounts, and so on, are either dishonest and simply want to repay GOG.com in kind—you startle me, I startle you—or they are pitifully quick to forget about the amount of dedication and trust that only GOG.com is ready to give them, to the point that if the site actually had been closed, the actual damage to the customers would be minimal to nil—in contrast to just about any other store.

So I guess this is the point where you tell everyone who is a casual user of GOG or a user that doesn't live and breathe on GOG's forums that they need to lurk more? Bull. I shouldn't have to spend time on a company's forums so I can potentially decrypt any hidden meaning in whatever messages they may send out. GOG had more than enough time to let everyone know in clear and certain terms what was going to be going down and they didn't . That's not a minor "oops"; that's a big lapse in judgement.

Nice strawman there. Pardon me while I deconstruct it. With the power company you know that the utility will be restored in time. The difference between that and what we have here is that we're talking about a business that closed up shop. There's no guarantee that said business is ever going to come back.

Since you like metaphors so much, let's try this one on for size. Let's say you have a prized item. It may not be worth a lot to someone else, but to you it's valuable. Like any rational person you take steps to safeguard that valuable item. Let's say you store it in a safe deposit box at a bank. You know that it's safe and sound, and if you ever need to get it you can go to the bank and retrieve it. Now let's say that one day you hear from a friend that your bank has closed its doors forever. Your item is still inside the vault. You have no way of getting it back. You rush to the bank and find it doors chained and locked, with no way of you getting in to get your stuff. Wouldn't you be the least bit ticked about it? Now let's say that a week later you happen to go back by your bank and lo and behold it's back open for business with a sign out front that says they're sorry for the scare but they were just remodeling their lobby and had to close down for a few days.

Would you trust that bank with your business, or would you be going elsewhere?

Did I say anything about financial compensation? No. So I'd appreciate you keeping me out of that group. As for me being bloodthirsty: You bet your ass I am. It's not a scapegoat if someone is actually held responsible for their actions. Someone out there came up with this as a marketing plan. Someone pitched it. Someone said, "THAT'S BRILLIANT! RUN WITH IT!" while apparently taking the "any publicity is good publicity" mindset. The news of the shutdown goes live. People wait for more information to trickle out. Then enough info comes out to let everyone in on the fact that it's a PR stunt. The powers that be at GOG "apologize" with shit-eating grins on their faces and apologists like you lap it up. Meanwhile the regular users and casual users who are ticked about the whole thing have to sit back and feel burned, while seeing the apologists tell them to get over it. If I did something at my company that caused as much distrust as this stunt then regardless of whatever new customers my actions brought in I'd expect to find myself up against a managerial review and fully expect to see myself demoted or even out on the street. That's not a scapegoat, that's real life and business.

Reply if you want, or don't. Either way I've said my piece and it's obvious you're not going to change your mind. Like I said before, I may buy more games from GOG in the future, but it'll be a good long while before I ever recommend GOG as a service to anyone.