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GOG Patrons- Join gamers keeping classics alive

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Re: GOG Patrons- Join gamers keeping classics alive

#81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But either case we talk about commercial products. The games are still copyrighted commodities to be sold. I assume they get licensed by the copyright holders to update them and sell them in gog. I do not see how a "charity"-based process would make sense or be honest here.

What are you talking about? Charities can sell products, they're just not supposed to make a profit, so all profits would have to go back into preservation. I mean we can go off on a tangent about why IKEA should not get away with being registered as a charity, but as long as GoG is not doing tax evasion I don't see the problem.

The copyright holders still make profit from the sales as for-profit entities. I do agree that non-profit status would make more sense for the preservation program though. But it still would not mean that nobody makes profit out of the result.

Re: GOG Patrons- Join gamers keeping classics alive

#82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Speaking personally I'd rather pay a few dollars than risk my PC getting Good Old Virusy, which may or may not be a real risk, but is certainly an idea that puts me off pirating software.

For many older games, I've been in the habit of running them inside VMs for this very reason.

Not only is this a sensible idea, it's also just a fancy way of running in an emulator like you would for another game.

Now I'm wondering if you could put e.g. a Windows virus into a Gameboy game, such that if someone did the opposite of what we're talking about and ran it "natively" then they'd be infected. Afaik this kind of native execution as an alternative to emulation is being done via recompilation projects - see e.g.

NES - https://andrewkelley.me/post/jamulator.html

N64 - https://deepwiki.com/Zelda64Recomp/Zelda64Recomp/3.1-recompi...

Re: GOG Patrons- Join gamers keeping classics alive

#83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Their DOS releases are fantastic. I install the games, then copy the files to my virtual C: directory for DOSBox-X and know those games will always Just Work and I will never have to reinstall anything or mess with configurations. Some games I also copy to my phone to play in DOSBox in Android. To repeat myself from old threads, it would be awesome to have something like a WindowsBOX, like DOSBox but emulating (proba…

Really I'm surprised nobody's done "WinBox" yet. Proton kinda covers that except it runs in Linux, not Windows. I dunno how it handles old Windows games as I've got zero nostalgia for those, my Steam Deck mostly runs modern stuff from small teams.

It’s almost not necessary. Windows has – in contrast to Linux – a very good and long compatibility guarantee. You can put up any program from 1995 (at least being 32-bit) and it will start and run.

The things GOG is improving are some bugs that occur mostly in games, e.g. something with color palettes in pre-2002 games. But I think every game using DirectX 9 or later will work without any adaptations, even ten years from now.

Re: GOG Patrons- Join gamers keeping classics alive

#85
Wait, what? Subscribe for £4 a month to fund a for-profit company so they can buy rights to patch up old games I used to play so I can... Buy them again?

I've bought Resident Evil twice before guys, I'm not paying £7.99 to get another copy. I get that there's some service provision —maybe even some first party dev work— but patrons should either be the product and these games get released for free, or the price of the game should recoup the hassle of licenses.

What am I missing? It seems like they're trying to double-dip.

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