So let me get this straight, GOG, a privately owned company, wants me to donate money to them so that they can buy the rights to games in order to sell them to me?
why not a classic game subscription
GOG Patrons- Join gamers keeping classics alive
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Re: GOG Patrons- Join gamers keeping classics alive
#42Emphasis added: > The GOG Preservation Program is our ongoing effort to save classic games from being lost to time. That means working to secure rights , fixing compatibility so they run hassle-free on modern systems, and even rebuilding missing features so the experience is the best you can get, while staying true to the original. It still baffles me how the "rights" to a game (or any IP) can be a thing when the com…
That's how copyright law works. There's no "use it or lose it" provision. Once you create something it is yours, and others only get rights to it 70-100+ years later.
Re: GOG Patrons- Join gamers keeping classics alive
#43Emphasis added: > The GOG Preservation Program is our ongoing effort to save classic games from being lost to time. That means working to secure rights , fixing compatibility so they run hassle-free on modern systems, and even rebuilding missing features so the experience is the best you can get, while staying true to the original. It still baffles me how the "rights" to a game (or any IP) can be a thing when the com…
Just because a company doesn't have their IP available for modern systems doesn't mean they abandoned the IP, see also all the remasters and remakes coming out today. That said, my gut feeling says it's mainly about them not willing to invest in it, because they can't see the economic viability. If GoG were to go to the rights holders and say "Hey lad, we have a platform and a lot of experience in reviving older game…
See all the remasters and remakes that didn't happen because they weren't legally able to. We are worse off as a society that enforces artificial scarcity on ideas than we would be if we returned to a world that did not have such bogus laws (not that long ago, but beyond the memory of anyone alive).
Re: GOG Patrons- Join gamers keeping classics alive
#44Seems weird to ask for donations for game preservation without pledging to release the games under an open license. Why would I give you money so you can go buy a game and then turn around and sell it back to me?
Re: GOG Patrons- Join gamers keeping classics alive
#45Terrific thing! The FAQ should state explicitly that patron money will only be used for preservation, not put into GOG general revenue, if that is indeed true.
That distinction doesn't really exist. You have to pay employees. You have to pay for equipment. You have to pay for office space. And the countless other costs of running a company. There's no way they can realistically say "this particular dollar we got from you was used for exactly this purpose".
Re: GOG Patrons- Join gamers keeping classics alive
#46So let me get this straight, GOG, a privately owned company, wants me to donate money to them so that they can buy the rights to games in order to sell them to me?
That's what it looks like. I kind of get it, as there's no guarantee that a game they make available again will sell enough to cover the costs - it's as much a preservation effort as a commercial one. For a lot of games it's just a matter of configuring dosbox and packaging it, I can't see how that would be very expensive. But for others it's a lot more involved.
If this were a real preservation effort, they could set up a charitable foundation for computer game preservation, and encourage donations to that.
Re: GOG Patrons- Join gamers keeping classics alive
#47A noble goal, but I'd be shocked if they manage to compete in the preservation realm against Good Old Piracy™.
If you find a playable version of an old game on a piracy site chances are that it originated from GOG.
Re: GOG Patrons- Join gamers keeping classics alive
#48Seems sus. I’d be happy to help fund a classics restoration trust if it was more transparent, but this just looks like a branded cash grab.
Re: GOG Patrons- Join gamers keeping classics alive
#49Earlier quoted context omitted.
"Good Old Piracy" does not (always) help much with incompatibilities arising from running on new machines/OSes.
For those old games emulators do the job
That makes total sense for eg DOS/gameboy/arcade games and the like, but is it ever that simple for PC/windows games? And there are many different issues that I have experienced when running older games myself, even if they can technically run, eg with ultra-wide and higher dpi monitors.
What I also like in this project is that they also share logs with what they worked on each game, eg for the resident evil series [0]
[0] https://www.gog.com/blog/resident-evil-1-2-3/#:~:text=RESIDE...
Re: GOG Patrons- Join gamers keeping classics alive
#50A noble goal, but I'd be shocked if they manage to compete in the preservation realm against Good Old Piracy™.
Piracy isn't only a matter of money, it can also be convenience or outright accessibility (no way to purchase the item legally).