It's understandable for people to be upset or disappointed if a game they like gets removed from the GOG catalogue, and I would be too. But people really should think about whether it is fair to direct their frustration at GOG.com over things like this. If you look at GOG's history, they do their best to always make decisions in the best interest of themselves and their customers and if they actually have a legal standing and way of announcing something ahead of time without violating intellectual property laws and claims that are presented to them, it stands to reason that in the interest of serving their customers - and of obtaining some last minute sales - they would automatically do this for everyone. That is to say - if they can announce something and it is beneficial to customers and would make some sales - they would - because it would benefit both the customer and GOG.
Seriously, think about it. Why *wouldn't* they? The fact is that they *would* do this. If a game is silently removed from the catalogue and there is no announcement about it, then there is a good reason for that. The reason is probably not something they can legally get into details about, or for other reasons which they aren't able to disclose for some other business related reason. It could be a non-disclosure agreement (and thus legally binding) or some other reason that they're not able to share or possibly not able to even discuss or acknowledge and which is beyond their control completely and in the hands of the legal system or some company's lawyers or something.
Let's give GOG.com the benefit of doubt here. They go way out of their way to obtain all kinds of extra goodies for gamers, and try to make their products special. They're not going to blindly and abruptly throw games out of the catalogue suddenly and without warning unless they have a gun to their head in the form of legal documentation requiring them to do it.
It's also unreasonable to demand or expect that they will even have the option to announce it ahead of time or to allow people to have one last chance to buy it, and if they went ahead and did it anyway, they very well might be violating some order they've been given and end up getting sued for having done so. GOG getting sued because they tried to make people happy at the expense of ignoring a legal request temporarily to be kind to customers and ending up getting sued and losing a pile of money and possibly having a publisher or developer remove all of their other games from the catalogue for not complying with a legal request isn't going to make any GOG customers happier about that.
In the world of intellectual property - shit happens. Companies end up with disagreements over what they think their legal rights are, and lawyers and judges decide it in a court room and hand out judgments. Papers get passed around that say "do this and do it right now" and you just do it and do it right now without the luxury to prepare your customers for the loss of something and pad it out with special circumstances to make everyone happy.
If it's even possible for them to let people know about something in advance and/or make it available on sale or something for a limited time before an item gets removed, why would they not do this? Of course they would do it, so give them a break already. They knew Fallout was probably going to have to be removed way ahead of time and presumably they were able to predict it and offer up the free promo they did because the circumstances of that particular game and situation permitted them that option, but that doesn't mean every situation that comes up gives them that luxury, and they wont be able to predict every possible thing that happens in advance either.
GOG brings games here in our best interest and they don't remove them randomly or wrecklessly and I'm sure they're just as sad or more sad to see a game leave the catalogue than any of us.
As for who to direct the anger at, the parties involved in a given dispute very well may have good legal and other reasons to be in their dispute. Here's a hypothetical example for everyone:
Let's say developer XYZ wrote a game and it is for sale on GOG, but XYZ sold the rights to the game for $500,000 to company PQR starting in Jan 2015. The way the legal agreement was written up company XYZ thought they still could sell the game, and that they were just giving the license to another company to also sell it at that date, but the actual wording as written is that they are transferring all rights to company PQR. XYZ perhaps made an honest mistake in not writing the agreement up to match what they were thinking and expecting, or perhaps they simply misunderstood the agreement in the first place. Legal mumbo jumbo can be confusing as hell. Or, maybe XYZ was pressed for money and sold their rights even though they didn't want to, and later on tried to reneg on the agreement by trying to find a loophole in the contract or something. Either way, the two companies end up disagreeing about what the legal contract they have with each other actually says and what rights are granted to each concerning the property. None of us know a damn thing about the details of the agreement most likely and so none of us are remotely able to make a judgment as to which company is legally owns the game. We may have butterflies in our stomachs for the company XYZ that developed the game for their skills and our enjoyment of it, but if they sold the game to PQR for whatever reason under a contract and they either honour that contract and it passes on to PQR, or if there is a disagreement and the two companies fight it out in court and a judge decides that PQR is correct and owns the rights, then legally, morally, ethically, PQR owns the rights to the game even if we all perceive company PQR to be pricks. ;o) A company isn't going to ignore a contract they've entered into with another company just because a small contingency of people who use the product have butterflies in their stomach over the original creator of the product.
If PQR owns the product now legally, whatever the product is then they have the legal right to decide who has a license to sell it. Why wouldn't PQR also sell it on GOG? That's a good question, and the answer might be that they would sell it on GOG but until the slow moving legal system makes up its mind who owns the game, and the other negotiations and whatnot that has to happen behind the scenes, there can be a timeframe where a game can't legally be sold because the legal agreement say between company XYZ and GOG doesn't pass along to become an agreement between PQR and GOG, and PQR and GOG need to discuss things and come up with a deal separately. That might happen right away, or it might take months. Rebranding has to happen, possibly splash screen changes, etc. and it might be low priority stuff for PQR to even do it considering their other games and products. They might not get around to it being important for 6 months or maybe never. We don't know these things.
It's perfectly fine to be upset about a game being taken away, but to be angry with GOG is very assumptive and unreasonable because none of us know the fine details of the legal agreements in place, whether or not any are being negotiated, what NDAs might be in place etc. This business is full of NDAs and often for good reasons, and so companies can't even share information with the public even if they wanted to. Even if they don't have NDAs, things like Sarbanes-Oxley can come into play and make lawyers get fidgety. Add to that the fact that when you do decide to share information and it is about something many people aren't going to like - you just fuel their anger and give them ammunition to throw up in your face, blog angrily about with references, etc. and it's often better to just shut up and not tell anyone anything and play it safe, or to make neutral positive comments publicly about the situation like "we're evaluating things and hope to be able to have an announcement about this in the future" which doesn't commit to anything or really say anything concrete, legally worrisome, etc.
In short, intellectual property law sucks, shit happens, and you don't even get a T-shirt.
Besides, who cares when Zork is still there anyway, just load up Zork and try to avoid being eaten by a grue. Just try it! I bet you can't do it!
;oP
