Tendo City

It was awesome while it lasted, but there's no DRM so all the games bought from them will still work as long as you keep the files around.

:bummed:

... What in the world happened, vanishing from one minute to the next? That's just bizarre...

It really came out of nowhere. I just browsed the site yesterday to see what was new and there was no indication that they were shutting down. Maybe there's financial problems with the parent company?

All hope may not be lost:

Quote:GOG's PR man Tom Ohle has responded, saying, "As the message on the site says, this doesn't mean GOG is gone. We'll have more to share in the coming days. No need to jump to conclusions :)"

http://www.neoseeker.com/news/14926-digi...es-closes/

Really though, yeah, the abrupt nature of it really is strange... it definitely does help reinforce why physical media is better, though. Yes, with GOG games are DRM-free so if you kept a copy of the download file you can install it again, but many people wouldn't do that I'm sure, and many games on other services are not DRM free... yeah, discs are better. DRM or not at least something like this can't happen.

It's not dead, just coming out of beta.

Baldur's Gate tomorrow.

So basically, they just undercut customer trust in their company by pulling a really, really stupid trick by making it seem like they were shutting down, right when they're trying to expand and convince people to buy more because it's live now? Um, could they have chosen a much stupider way to do that? Because that's pretty dumb.

By the time it's back up and running and they've got big games that people have been clamoring for, all this will be forgotten.

I agree with ABF. Undermining consumer confidence is a really poor advertising method.

What's there to be confident or not confident about? If you're worried about not being able to access your games, then burn the installation files to a DVD and keep them forever. Even with the first message they promised that everyone would be able to access the games they bought.

It's pretending they are disappearing when they aren't, that's dishonest.

They were trying to get attention, evidently. It was a pretty stupid way to do it.

It's a fine system, but randomly taking it down as a bad faith publicity stunt does not give me confidence. In other words, I'm less likely to buy games from them now than before this happened. There is such thing as bad publicity. Ask BP.

They "randomly" took down the site to bring it out of beta.

Anyone who's familiar with how servers work can tell you that that's just not how things are done these days. There's no excuse for the site being "down" for a whole day for an "upgrade". Rollouts are streamlined now to the point where there's basically no excuse for downtime for any decently sized company web site, which GoG is. It's simple, test your beta version of the site on it's own server, and when the time comes to make the switch, seamlessly make the new server the one that manages things. Why downtime? You don't see MS's site suddenly down for maintenance. For that matter, you don't see Joystiq.com's site go down for maintenance when they do a system upgrade. That excuse doesn't fly.

Besides, that's nothing but a distraction GR. You STARTED this thread because YOU were convinced they'd completely shut down. Clearly if it HAD just been for an upgrade, their page would have at least INDICATED that. You know, "We're not going away! This is just a transition!", that sort of thing? Nope, notta.

And, in the end, no one was harmed.

One day? Actually, DJ, it was several days.

And then when they finally did annouce that they had been decieving people and weren't shutting down, it was with a press conference that included stuff like these videos...

http://www.rockpapershotgun.com/2010/09/...og-videos/


And GR, DJ's right -- you made this thread, it proves that the thing had a negative impact... getting attention by making people think you failed and closed down really doesn't seem to me to be the good kind of attention!

Since I don't visit GoG everyday, I wouldn't have noticed that it had gone down and then come back up if not for everyone going crazy.

So, in effect, their plan worked because it got me to come visit their site again.

Steam's never lied to it's customers about shutting down.

Just sayin'.

Steam is number one by a wide margin (Direct2Drive is #2, in the US market, everything else is well behind), so they don't NEED more attention, they already have it simply by being Steam. GOG doesn't have that, so they thought they needed something to get attention... but yes, the question is, is that the good kind of attention or not. I think it definitely goes both ways.

EdenMaster Wrote:Steam's never lied to it's customers about shutting down.

Just sayin'.

Games on Steam are dependent on the service to continue operating. That's not the case with GoG.

Great Rumbler Wrote:And, in the end, no one was harmed.

That's really really immature GR. Seriously, and you know it. Lying about going down as a publicity stunt is simply not going to convince anyone to trust you on these things. Do you honestly believe that occasionally lying to your entire customer base is a legitimate business practice so long as, in your narrow definition of harm, it "harms no one"? Really? Seriously I thought better of you than that.

I was mildly disappointed when I thought they were shutting down. Now that they're back up my thoughts are "Cool, I wonder what new games they're going to have?"

I have no reason to rage at them, because I've had all my games installed already. If the site was truly gone for good, they are all still be right where I left them.

The site's back now and everyone can download their games as many times as they want. So, time to move on.

If you want me to agree with you that it was stupid, then fine "It was stupid". But it probably worked too. GoG talked spread like wildfire and, in a few weeks, everyone will have forgotten about this whole episode and maybe buy a game or two. Or not.

Yep, it worked:

Quote:we're having 20 times the biggest traffic we have ever had in our history!

http://www.gog.com/en/news/the_launch_sl..._delayed/0

Anybody here who doesn't have Torment now has no excuse, and should buy it immediately. It is the best RPG ever for a reason, after all.

Is that what they call Xenogears in your funny little universe?

Sorry, was ABF talking about Chrono Cross?

What are those?

Isn't it funny, seeing people who probably have not played Torment commenting on its quality?

Do you even know much of anything about it at all?

ABF's argument is most prone to criticism on the grounds that he assumes, without justification, that I am in no position to comment on Torment's quality.

Well if I'm wrong, correct me...

Real Talk: Planescape Torment is one of the best games ever made.

A Black Falcon Wrote:Isn't it funny, seeing people who probably have not played Torment commenting on its quality?

Do you even know much of anything about it at all?

Well, when you start throwing around highly subjective terms like "Best RPG Ever", you should expect some people to disagree.

A Black Falcon Wrote:Isn't it funny, seeing people who probably have not played Torment commenting on its quality?

Do you even know much of anything about it at all?

I did not see anybody except you and Great Rumbler comment on its quality.

I know it's a PC RPG, and I have always had a strong preference for console RPGs, so I can reasonably assume that there's no chance it would ever displace Xenogears atop my personal list, no matter how good a PC RPG it happens to be.

But, to be fair, I bought it and am downloading it presently. It is very, very slow.

Make sure you read this before you play:

http://www.gog.com/en/forum/planescape_t...uide/page1

EdenMaster Wrote:Well, when you start throwing around highly subjective terms like "Best RPG Ever", you should expect some people to disagree.

But it's not just us saying it. Torment is widely considered to be the best PC RPG ever. If you've never heard anyone else saying it, then you people spend very little time on any websites relating to PC gaming, pretty much. Ever since its release in 1999 it has been given very high praise, and would be on almost any best PC games list, and at or near the top of most any best PC RPGs list.

So no, it's not just a few people saying that it's the best RPG ever. It's a lot of people, and members of the press too. Its strongest competition in most 'best PC RPG ever' lists is Baldur's Gate II, but I think Torment is the one more likely to come out on top, and rightly so; BGII is amazing, and my #2, but Torment is better, and more unique.

I mean, there's no other RPG I know of where the conversation aspect of the game is such a huge focus... don't play Torment expecting the hardest battles or the most combat, because the game is story first.

Oh yeah, and I highly recommend playing a character with high Intelligence or Wisdom stats. This is an RPG, and your stats matter -- you can't choose some dialog options if you're not smart or wise enough, and that has a big (negative) impact on the game.

Oh, and people who don't like reading text won't like Torment. There are ~100,000 lines (not words, lines) of text in the game. :)

Great Rumbler Wrote:Make sure you read this before you play:

http://www.gog.com/en/forum/planescape_t...uide/page1

I would highly recommend against 5b for your first time playing, because it's best to play it unmodded at first, but yes, the fix pack should be considered pretty much mandatory. Widescreen mods would be for people who want that. The 5b mods, though, change the gameplay experience. Don't do that your first time.

Great Rumbler Wrote:Yep, it worked:



http://www.gog.com/en/news/the_launch_sl..._delayed/0

Profits do not justify deceptive business practices.

Chrono Cross, Xenogears, and Torment are all awesome games. Don't make me pick between them!

Have you even bought any games from GoG before?

Great Rumbler Wrote:Have you even bought any games from GoG before?

...What's the relevance here? This is a discussion on the morality of this tactic, is it not? Why are you trying to distract the issue with completely pointless side issues like whether or not it got them business?

I think it's interesting that someone who's never been a customer is actually more upset by this than most of the people who actually ARE customers.

Hah, true...

Great Rumbler Wrote:I think it's interesting that someone who's never been a customer is actually more upset by this than most of the people who actually ARE customers.

By which you ACTUALLY mean you've got NO defense for this at all. Why must you turn every discussion about something into a debate instead about whether or not it's "worth discussing". Don't care about things, you say, stop worrying about what companies do because companies shouldn't ever be criticized.

Pay attention to the topic at hand. This is a poor and dishonest business practice, and at no point have you eve TRIED to honestly defend it. So, what's your actual opinion? All you seem capable of is criticizing the act of criticism. You're no different than countless others online who say "why do you care so much about phony psychics/Loose Change conspiracists". Well, I care because it's dishonest or wrong. That's ALL that's necessary.

(For the record, I've got a couple of games from them. I MEANT it when I said it was irrelevant, but if you MUST have an answer to the question, then YES. Now let's move on.)

From earlier in this thread:

Quote:If you want me to agree with you that it was stupid, then fine "It was stupid".

It's stupid because it could have easily back-fired on them. Without a strong showing when the site relaunched [Infinity Engine games] then whatever attention they gained from this would have quickly faded and might have left a sour taste in people's mouths [since they drummed up attention for what would essentially be nothing at all]. But they turned into something good by having that strong showing.

Deceptive practices are generally unethical, sometimes illegal, but, in this case, I don't think it's that big of an issue. Because, and this is the kicker, none of their "con" had anything to do with tricking people into either spending money or spending money on something that was different from what they thought they were getting. Again, I'll reiterate what I said before, no one was harmed in any way. Everyone's games are safe and the site is back and better than it was before.

You can't just label this with a generality like "they used deceptive practices therefore they are a terrible company and should be punished".

Quote:Everyone's games are safe and the site is back and better than it was before.

Their games were safe anyway, if they'd downloaded them yet, given that GOG is DRM-free...

I mean sure, I don't think scaring people like that was a good idea. I do think that it's good that it made some people think a little more about the perils of buying things from digital distribution, you don't own most DD things like you do a real physical product... GOG is better than most because of the lack of DRM, but with most other services that is not the case.

Plus of course provided you get a complete copy you'd get actual physical copies of those manuals, control cards, etc. At least with GOG you get copies of all the paperwork that came with the game originally, which isn't something you get with most other DD services, but still it's not quite the same.

But still, DJ you go a bit too far... no lasting harm was done, they didn't con anyone into buying something with a lie that they were going to shut down or something, they simply vanished for a few days without warning. And the service is quite good, has a good selection, and there's no DRM and those PDF manuals and more.

I agree it was a bad idea, and maybe poor business practice, but it did get the attention they wanted, particularly paired with BG and Torment coming out. That latter point really countered any bad PR they'd gotten, I think, and between the two they seem to have benefited... though yes, I do wish they'd done it in a less annoying way.

Quote:Their games were safe anyway, if they'd downloaded them yet, given that GOG is DRM-free...

There's that too, but not everyone does that [for space reasons].

Quote:hey didn't con anyone into buying something with a lie that they were going to shut down or something

This is the tipping point for me. If they'd done something like "Oh, if you donate to us, we might be able to stick around!" then, yeah, I'd be RAGING. But that wasn't the case at all.

I guess I'm just old fashioned in that I don't think that lying to the public is a good thing WHETHER OR NOT money was involved. Gee, sorry you sacks of human apathy. Arresting them? No, but calling them out on it publicly is exactly the right response. You act like the mere act of pointing out that what they did was immoral is too harsh, that simply CALLING IT LIKE IT IS is unacceptable.

You really didn't like their "apology" video where they dressed as monks, huh. :)

Quote:This is the tipping point for me. If they'd done something like "Oh, if you donate to us, we might be able to stick around!" then, yeah, I'd be RAGING. But that wasn't the case at all.

Yes, absolutely. If they'd done that, it would have been pretty bad, no question. But they didn't.

Quote:There's that too, but not everyone does that [for space reasons].

True, but the option's there, or you could put it on a CD-R or something.

I'm not "raging", I'm saying in no uncertain terms, minus the politeness, that what they did was dishonest. Besides, appeal to emotion is a distraction. At the very least, you seem to agree it was unethical. The only confusion on my part is why you'd react so strongly to me just basically STATING what they did was unethical.