Welcome to the brand new GOG.com

Yeah well that is a point you make there, but if they are your avarage greedy corporation then let's just look at the facts: They had a few days of down-time, and promised that re-downloading games will be possible. Any decent corporation would do this if they went bankrupt, and no, don't come at me with "but they just proved that they cannot be trusted" they proved that for two years, so if they would go bankrupt, then you can be sure they'll let you redownload your games and back them up. You can back them up anyway if you are afraid. If you are the cautious type, then you back up your winchester as well, right? So much as a grain of dust gets in and you can kiss it goodbye usually. Or your DVDs. They are only good for a few decades you know. Digital distribution is very comfortable, but of course it's not a guarantee.
Yes, it's not so groundbreaking, is it...I expected something more myself, but this will do. Although looks aren't everything, and I'm not a professional when it comes to web pages.
Yes, this is probably what my old teacher meant under "Kids, this is a somewhat cruel world". Of course investors have to know about it. They would really go bankrupt extra fast if they wouldn't. And if they told the customers, it wouldn't be much of a surprise. This marketing stunt was based on the shock of customers, and the ripples such shock creates. You might think it was a dumb move, but in that case, you must understand the essence of it.

The messages told plenty for those who's skepticism went further than "I knew they couldn't be trusted!" and read and understood every word. They never spoke of bankrupcy, they never spoke of stopping. They actually stressed it out, that the idea behind GOG won't die. (Yeah, that kinda makes the farm or the car thing unlikely, but who knows, right?) They hinted much at the beginning, and the video made it obvious that this is Not some terrible swan-song, but rather a phoenix-something instead. And nothing has changed is a bit of an exaggeration, isn't it...
Count the times when Steam offered something at (or under) 10$, especially here in Europe. Or the number of their customers. Now do they need such trickery, I wonder...
Your choice.
Yeah, but you can't play empty discs, can you...You cannot possibly think of downloading software illegally, now can you (yeah, some games here are old enough to be considered almost-freeware...well no need to buy them here if they work)...besides, GOG offers life-long support for the price they ask, and compatibility with the new OS-es. Very important nowadays. So buying discs is a good way to spend time and money, but I will stick with buying games. If this is costy, please show a place where I can get games cheaper.

QFT

also... maybe i'm behind the times, and this went away a while ago... but what happened to the game recommendation feature that the community used to have?

two votes to fire him!!

and what was the accent on the videos

After some thought, I came to the following conclusion:
Gog.com is back, and they don't seem to be financially unstable. They still sell great games and I'm personally not too bothered by their daring stunt.
I'm sorry to hear what others think, or what they say about loosing trust and the like. I beleive they overreact, but who am I to judge them. Their feelings are as valid as mine.
So let me apologize to everyone I might hurt with any of my comments. I tried to be as logical as possible, and I hope this is true for the rest of the debaters here on both sides.
I will not write more, because there is no point. I wrote what I think thoroghly enough to be understandable for everyone. I beleive that time will heal the wounds made, one way or another, and hopefully some of the people who were "present" at GOG's relaunch will buy a few games in the future.
Last but not least I'm happy that Good Old Games.com is alive and well, and look forward to their new releases in the future.

Yes, prez, exactly so. As I said earlier, serious damage has been done, though many fail to see it.
If I am GOG and witnessing the reactions here, hard to see how this can be a good thing.
I love the GOG business model and concept. It has been my primary source of games for the last two years. I've been a huge supporter and have bought tons of games here. But they seriously blew it with this stupid stunt.
I really don't think they (GOG) get it, which has me worried.And what's with the huge delay in posts appearing now?

For all their work on improvements, they still have the lamest forum software of any site I visit.

yeah I remember this being a unique community, unlike the rest of the net where everyone is always flaming each other. nice job GOG! ya gave us a reason to fight.

and I was thinking about something else. it was really dumb to to screw with a group of people (gamers) who get obsessed over stuff that really doesn't matter (games). and I wholeheartedly include myself in that group. so don't be surprised when we focus on your stupidity for awhile. all you can do now is wait and hope the whole thing fades. or maybe you could try another stunt. even if you gave away some games as a sincere sign of your regret you have still lost a great deal of respect.

So basically what you're saying is if someone was were here in the beginning, got tricked, and freaked out, somehow that makes their feelings and opinions on the subject more valid? No. It doesn't. If anything it makes them more biased, and much less able to be subjective. Don't get me wrong, I fully understand getting freaked out when someone pulls a practical joke. I think we've all done that before. But to carry around a grudge about it afterward and demand more than an apology? That's just childish. And as I said before, this site has never been anything more than a business, people need to stop treating it like an old friend that betrayed them.

I think you missed the point... pretty much entirely. GOG didn't start the "community", they put up the forums and the "community" formed itself. GOG could take down their forums, destroying the 'community' and hardly anything about the website would change. They'd still be selling games, the website would still run. The creators aren't your friends and colleagues, they're business men. They don't make money off your forum posts about how awesome a certain old game is. Your assumption that they must be "sane and respectful" towards you shows you think they owe you this. They don't. As I said before, this is their site, if they wanted they could call their customers slack-jawed idiots and still put their games up for sale. It's their call, not ours. At that point it comes down to a decision: Are you overly sensitive and require the utmost respect out of people you buy things from? Or do you not really care about the opinions of the site owners and are just happy to get your DRM free old game for a very cheap price? I guarantee you, there are enough of the latter to keep this site running. In the end though, they didn't ruin the site, it's better than before, everything is still working okay, and we just have a lot of butthurt people running around condemning the site and being a general nuisance. People who love the drama so much they attack anyone who tells them to calm down. To them, I quote Christopher Titus "Why don't you climb down off the cross, use the wood to build a bridge, and get the hell over it."

The shithurling seems to be perpetrated mostly by a select few users, most of which are relatively new. Some of which, in fact, only discovered the site because of all the press, and are now for some reason trying to defend it.

It's the kind of case that brings the cockroaches out of the woodwork; it's on fire.

Right on. Right on. BTW keep - rep my posts, pricks, it only strenthens my resolve!

The people who got upset can't read. They clearly said they'd be back at one point, said they had something to announce in the upcoming days AND said you'd be able to redownload your games in the upcoming week.
Jeez, if that's not hinting enough that you'd have your games back for download/they'd be back then I don't know what is.
The people who overreacted about the whole situation must have trouble leaving.
At no point did GOG.com say they were down for good. If people read, they clearly stated they'd allow you to download your games again soon, that they had news about the whole thing within the next couple of days AND that they'd be back at some point. If that's not hinting enough at the fact that they weren't dead then I don't know what is? The people who overreacted about the whole situation must have trouble leaving.

At no point did GOG.com say they were down for good. If people read, they clearly stated they'd allow you to download your games again soon, that they had news about the whole thing within the next couple of days AND that they'd be back at some point. If that's not hinting enough at the fact that they weren't dead then I don't know what is?

Well I do not like it because this was one of a handful of places that gamers would talk and converse about the great classic games themselves without all the banter and bickering.

The only positive thing to come out of this was a 10-fold increase in traffic to the site. I am happy GoG is finally getting that but it has come at a price. The community has become "dirty vanilla" just like all the other immature BBS's.

The games themselves and them being DRM-free should be the focus of all posts on the site. I hope it returns but I highly doubt it can or will.

PS - There is one other positive that I forgot. Hopefully people who have spent their hard earned money on purchasing and downloading digital products from GoG will backup their purchases. It will help GoG grow because they will have to spend less for bandwith usage and people that were too lazy or did not care to backup their software.

It's nice. And all we need now is the option for an 8-bit site look and I'll be happy.

I think you mean objective; and yes, I believe that on the specific subject of the emotional impact of GOG's trick, the reaction of people who experienced that trick is more valid than those who did not. Personally, that seems like a no-brainer to me.

Maybe you think I am saying more than I actually am, in that case (because I'm really not saying very much more than that).

Well I don't recall demanding anything. I just think it was an incredibly dumb thing for them to do. As for not carrying a 'grudge'... well, if you are capable of instant and complete forgiveness in any situation, that's impressive. As I said in my initial post, I will continue to shop here because nobody else does what GOG does, and I am sure they will go straight back to being awesome; but this stunt certainly irked me enough that if GOG had any competition, I would be taking a close look at them right about now.

To me that says that GOG's community has never meant anything to them besides money, and I simply have to disagree with that assessment based on my impressions since they launched the site.

If you're right, they've certainly fooled a lot of people over the past two years.

The adage "the customer is always right" exists for a good reason, and it's sure as hell not because the customer is always right. It's because it is sound long-term business practice to do your best to always treat your customers with respect, and to make their experience with your place of business a positive one.

I don't think they owe us respect. I do think they are completely nuts to go out of their way to do something which was liable to damage our respect for them, on the other hand.

I cannot help but wonder if some of these "new" users are sockpuppet posts by GOG trying to balance the conversation.

I don't think they need to do it. Posters without manners are frequently observed everywhere in the internet. They come and they go. However maybe they serve a purpose here, producing small posts in between so that one own's post don't get clued together by the software and then the post size limit is exceeded and then earth will open itself and eat GOG and all its servers for good and then... :) It wasn't polish english accent? What then?

Ha-ha -- thanks for a good laugh -- and a good point!
Sorry, but I disagree. a big part of GOG's whole business model was that *they* said they *were* different. They said "Hey, we're gamers like you!" -- they explicitly made it about more than just business. Or so I and many thought.

But enough. I, for one, have had my say. Time to move on and get back to gaming.

Uhm ... That is exactly what I said? ;)

Amazon did a revamp of their interface a while ago. No down time at all. Steam did the same several times and I can't remember that there ever was a downtime.
I also know from my own experience that it is really not a problem to do a relaunch or upgrade of anything IT related with little to no downtime.
To all the hammer legion members: The down time itself wasn't necessary but also isn't the reason for all the hate - The stupid PR jump behind it is.
Online distribution plattforms are about trust or why do you think that Steam for example is so big now?

Like nu-R421 said gog.com isn't poor. The prices are fair, nothing more or less. I see no reason that we should be thankful that gog.com exists. If it wasn't gog, someone else would do the job.

The mature ones are still here. We're the ones laughing at everyone bothering to get angry and type up huge internet heartache posts about a prank. If you're this emotionally invested then maybe you should go offline for awhile. GOG's the best place to find classic PC gaming, hands down, and being offline for a couple of days doesn't change that fact.

There are so many companies out there actively trying to fuck their customers over that maybe you should direct your anger towards one of them, instead of one that provides a great product, service, and price but just had a poor taste in practical jokes.

go fanboy go!

Definitely not a fanboy. If there was some competition better than GOG, I'd switch, sure. But I've yet to find one, so unless you know of one to point me to, your post is useless. Most of these games never would have seen the light of day again.