GOG going back to their roots a little here with the announcement of the GOG Preservation Program, with an aim to ensure various games get to live on forever. A fitting announcement for their 16th anniversary don't you think?
What's it all about then? GOG will be directly maintaining various classic games, ensuring they work on modern systems, and giving each of them a big special stamp on the GOG store page to show you. Like this one for one of my faves, Theme Hospital:
They've already been doing it for a while, and this includes the re-releases of recent classics like Alpha Protocol and the Resident Evil Bundle — but now they're putting an official stamp on it. GOG said in a press release that "100 classic games from our catalog are being re-released today with updated or quality-tested builds" including Heroes of Might and Magic 3: Complete and Dungeon Keeper 2.
However, it's not just classic retro games, they will be up for maintaining any game, even if it was only released "just a few months ago" but not brand new games as they expect the developer to do that directly. As long as GOG can commit to it, they'll seemingly look at any game to keep it going.
They won't be using community fixes and patches though, as they "want to avoid passing the responsibility of maintaining the game’s quality on to the community" and to preserve the original experience.
GOG say the GOG Preservation Program is currently Windows-only as their "priority is to preserve as many games as possible under the Program, before expanding to other operating systems". That's pretty much expected really from GOG.
See more on the GOG website. They also launched a big 16th anniversary sale.
You can install and keep GOG games easily up to date on Linux / Steam Deck with the Heroic Games Launcher.
Article taken from GamingOnLinux.com.
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robertosf92 Nov 13
Wish they added the option of using libre engines for some of those games, imagine if they provided a installer for OpenMW along with morrowind or openrct, julius, augustus...
Man that would be awesome
Man that would be awesome
10 Likes, Who?
Kinda moot, of course they need to keep the games in playable state if they want to sell them. But a net positive nevertheless.
0 Likes
Kinda moot, of course they need to keep the games in playable state if they want to sell them. But a net positive nevertheless.Not quite.
If they sell them on the basis of it working on a particular system (or version), and people can still install that system somewhere, they don't have to actually do anything. It's the same across Steam, Epic - anywhere. Except in this case, GOG are ensuring the games work on the latest versions.
9 Likes, Who?
Nice, yet another reason to continue preferring GOG over Steam. 
5 Likes, Who?
I wonder whether they will keep the original versions available too for those who still have original hardware.
3 Likes, Who?
I wonder whether they will keep the original versions available too for those who still have original hardware.
For what it's worth, in older adventure games where they use ScummVM (as opposed to say, Dosbox) they eventually removed original versions but not at first. They originally did include the executables as well, and people could use them on original hardware, but as ScummVM doesn't actually need those they always had the option to not include them, and eventually did remove them.
I don't think they ever announced why, unless I missed it somewhere. I always kind of assumed it was a "support thing" in that they solved complaints that the games wouldn't start or that people would get errors because they'd try to launch the games directly (in which case the simplest solution would be to remove the problem wholesale). Just conjecture on my part, but feels like a reasonable explanation.
Last edited by dibz on 13 November 2024 at 4:37 pm UTC
4 Likes, Who?
redneckdrow Nov 13
I just got to thinking: am I the only one who thinks that this doesn't improve the preservation problem? 
As long as you only receive a license, things won't improve one bit! DRM-free or not, you still lack the ability to preserve it as an individual!
Proprietary physical media is really no better, ever read the back of a CD/DVD case/game manual? Draconian EULA's need to go the way of the dodo for ownership of media (and therefore, ability to legally preserve it) to really happen; and they won't.
Sorry if I sound grumpy. The last few weeks have been rough.
As long as you only receive a license, things won't improve one bit! DRM-free or not, you still lack the ability to preserve it as an individual!
Proprietary physical media is really no better, ever read the back of a CD/DVD case/game manual? Draconian EULA's need to go the way of the dodo for ownership of media (and therefore, ability to legally preserve it) to really happen; and they won't.
Sorry if I sound grumpy. The last few weeks have been rough.
5 Likes, Who?
Caldathras Nov 13
Wish they added the option of using libre engines for some of those games, imagine if they provided a installer for OpenMW along with morrowind or openrct, julius, augustus...Or even just a link to the related open source project on the download page ...
Man that would be awesome
3 Likes, Who?
I just got to thinking: am I the only one who thinks that this doesn't improve the preservation problem?I see as ports to current/modern systems. "Preservation" use for PR to sell copies. ROM dumps, ISO cloning or what id Software (and very few others) done with source code and proper archiving, public availability - what's preservation.
2 Likes, Who?
Kimyrielle Nov 13
As long as you only receive a license, things won't improve one bit! DRM-free or not, you still lack the ability to preserve it as an individual!
The biggest threat to preservation isn't the license issue, but more and more large studios putting intrusive DRM/anti-cheat systems on their games that are basically guaranteed not to run on any system 20 years from now on, combined with many popular games being online games or having online modes that won't run without the devs releasing the server software.
5 Likes, Who?
Eh, I can't say I have any excitement for that announcement. Sure, it's nice for those on Windows, but it doesn't really mean much, in terms of actual preservation, if they don't even actually preserve the original versions.
If they announced that they would start making sure classic games were properly preserved in their full original release states, that would be much nicer news to me. As an example, "Gorky 17" is sold on GOG, but only the Windows version, despite the game releasing on Linux and AmigaOS as well - hunting down those versions is actually tricky these days, so the "preservation" of that game would actually be generally useful.
Now, I know that "Gorky 17" isn't on their list of "preserved" games, but "SimCity 3000" is and it's only available for Windows, despite also releasing for Linux and MacOS; "Worms United" is and it's only available for Windows, despite originally releasing for Amiga (there are a couple more Amiga games on their list as well that are in the same situation).
Maybe I'm nitpicking, but I just don't like them using the word "preservation" when they actually mean "ensuring they work with modern Windows versions" - those are two different things.
If they announced that they would start making sure classic games were properly preserved in their full original release states, that would be much nicer news to me. As an example, "Gorky 17" is sold on GOG, but only the Windows version, despite the game releasing on Linux and AmigaOS as well - hunting down those versions is actually tricky these days, so the "preservation" of that game would actually be generally useful.
Now, I know that "Gorky 17" isn't on their list of "preserved" games, but "SimCity 3000" is and it's only available for Windows, despite also releasing for Linux and MacOS; "Worms United" is and it's only available for Windows, despite originally releasing for Amiga (there are a couple more Amiga games on their list as well that are in the same situation).
Maybe I'm nitpicking, but I just don't like them using the word "preservation" when they actually mean "ensuring they work with modern Windows versions" - those are two different things.
10 Likes, Who?
Reading the headline I was expecting gog to have taken over publishing rights for these games or something similar. But given their entirely noncommittal FAQ entry, I will chuck that one in the "marketing intern had a cool idea so we ran with it" bin.
Can a game be removed from the Program?
We never want a game to be removed from the GOG Preservation Program, and at the time of this writing, we don’t see a reason it should happen.
4 Likes, Who?
This is cool, and I definitely agree with and heavily appreciate the mission statement of this, but I think they should have held off on this thing till they had like, a brand new announcement for games we didn't know were coming to the platform, or hell, even a chunk of brand new releases that show upfront an extra commitment to this.
Normally I would not ask for this kind of proof, but we just lost a few games like The Suffering and Spec Ops: The Line, and far before that, stuff like Riddick. While the automation of patches and fixes for modern systems is appreciated, this mission statement doesn't really mean as much as it should to me if the games they pledge to preserve can just arbitrarily get yanked from the store.
Normally I would not ask for this kind of proof, but we just lost a few games like The Suffering and Spec Ops: The Line, and far before that, stuff like Riddick. While the automation of patches and fixes for modern systems is appreciated, this mission statement doesn't really mean as much as it should to me if the games they pledge to preserve can just arbitrarily get yanked from the store.
0 Likes
one of the arguments i aways use in favor of linux is that, we have no guarantee that microsoft will keep backward compatibility forever, but if something run on linux its easier to make it run forever, the system is open if anything break its easier to see what change break it and fix it...
now with this program, i have one less argument to use, at least for the games covered...
still a good thing this is happening, now if only someone could get ride of censorship, region locking and delisting...
now with this program, i have one less argument to use, at least for the games covered...
still a good thing this is happening, now if only someone could get ride of censorship, region locking and delisting...
1 Likes, Who?
Normally I would not ask for this kind of proof, but we just lost a few games like The Suffering and Spec Ops: The Line, and far before that, stuff like Riddick. While the automation of patches and fixes for modern systems is appreciated, this mission statement doesn't really mean as much as it should to me if the games they pledge to preserve can just arbitrarily get yanked from the store.The problem with some of those games is that they use licensed properties that isn't cheap to upkeep for the games companies and they would rather delist them instead. Also, some of the games get delisted because they would rather you pay for their newer remastered version instead. For GOG to preserve these games, they would have to do a lot of back and forth with the game companies that make the delisted games just like what happened to Alpha Protocol earlier this year.
0 Likes
thinking about it a little bit more, i think they want to avoid regulation...
see governments? we dont need piracy to ensure video game preservation, nor mods to ensure the games still run on modern systems! we as an industry can provide that service!
sure, but if they plan to patch the game everytime it break on newer versions of windows, what they gonna do if their patch isnt compatible with an mod?
and what about people who purchased those games elsewere and will have to purchase again?
or all the games they dont sell?
so... i hope they dont plan to use this as an bullshit argument against regulations that allow "fair use preservation", its an good thing what they are doing lets hope its not for some nefarious reason.
see governments? we dont need piracy to ensure video game preservation, nor mods to ensure the games still run on modern systems! we as an industry can provide that service!
sure, but if they plan to patch the game everytime it break on newer versions of windows, what they gonna do if their patch isnt compatible with an mod?
and what about people who purchased those games elsewere and will have to purchase again?
or all the games they dont sell?
so... i hope they dont plan to use this as an bullshit argument against regulations that allow "fair use preservation", its an good thing what they are doing lets hope its not for some nefarious reason.
0 Likes
The interesting question is if any of those changes break wine compatibility, since they explicitly mention that they only look at things from the Windows perspective.
3 Likes, Who?
Reading the headline I was expecting gog to have taken over publishing rights for these games or something similar. But given their entirely noncommittal FAQ entry, I will chuck that one in the "marketing intern had a cool idea so we ran with it" bin.
Can a game be removed from the Program?
We never want a game to be removed from the GOG Preservation Program, and at the time of this writing, we don’t see a reason it should happen.
sigh, in other words, useless
0 Likes
The interesting question is if any of those changes break wine compatibility, since they explicitly mention that they only look at things from the Windows perspective.so long as we can install old versions, its not a big deal
2 Likes, Who?
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