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General discussionGame catalog count is down by one...What happened to Death Gate?(61 posts)(61 posts)
(61 posts)
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This is my favourite topic
Posted March 04, 2018
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Hoop: Be a real shame if it's the ip on Death Gate. I was looking forward to these Legend games coming here. Most of their games catalogue are based on books and such. I hope they don't go the way of the Dune games , Darkseed , Blade Runner and others.
I remember in the past that Hickman and Weis had crossed paths with the D&D brand over Dragonlance. So I wouldn't be surprised if that is where the cog in the works is coming from this time. Hopefully it's just a matter of agreeing on the proper royalties.
Posted March 04, 2018
*sigh* GOG. Disappointed again (re: the culling of Call of Cthulhu: Dark Corners of the Earth is still a recent wound, and I haven't forgotten the loss of Re-Volt and other beloved classics).

This is one of 3 games that was in my wish list that I cared about including in my library. Like others in this thread, I love the old Legend Entertainment games. In fact, I love old games... and there are fewer good old games showing up on GOG these days.

I am becoming disheartened by the silent game pulling, GOG, and... just... whatever. I suppose no one needs to hear more complaining, though I hope our cumulative misery and growing lack of trust in GOG will be noticed.

GOG, at the very least, it would be a great courtesy to your user base to implement a warning or notice a few hours before you pull a game from your catalog.
Post edited March 04, 2018 by zakmckracken
Posted March 04, 2018
If there is NO info before pulling the game you can count on it to be a cease and desist-order, which MUST be enforced at once. All other removals were anounced ahead of time by GOG.

Yeah, we need a LOT of luck in the case of Legend Entertainment titles, most of them are IP-based ("Shannara", "Wheel of Time", "Death Gate"...), if they cannot agree on renewing the IP rights, they can't be sold anywhere.

Until now I did not even know about the IP behind "Death Gate", fortunately I bought it day 1. All old IP based titles should be bought es soon as possible, because rights owners tend to pull them fast if not satisfied.
Post edited March 04, 2018 by Anime-BlackWolf
Posted March 04, 2018
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Anime-BlackWolf: If there is NO info before pulling the game you can count on it to be a cease and desist-order, which MUST be enforced at once. All other removals were anounced ahead of time by GOG.
That statement got me curious so I wen looking about Softporn.

Al Lowe has it available for free download on his website:

http://allowe.com/downloads/games.html

I know from previous discussions that GoG seems to not like making available games that can be downloaded legitimately for free although the early Elder Scrolls seem to be an exception to this.

I wonder if someone on staff noticed this.
Posted March 04, 2018
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Anime-BlackWolf: If there is NO info before pulling the game you can count on it to be a cease and desist-order, which MUST be enforced at once.
That still doesn't excuse why there is no explanation forthcoming a long time after the fact. They could have pulled the game at once and then as soon as possible afterwards, also published an explanation.
Posted March 04, 2018
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zakmckracken: *sigh* GOG. Disappointed again (re: the culling of Call of Cthulhu: Dark Corners of the Earth is still a recent wound, and I haven't forgotten the loss of Re-Volt and other beloved classics).
To be fair, Re-Volt's removal was at least announced somewhat ahead of time. Dark Corners was a bit more like this case, but a blue came out with a statement explaining the removal (vaguely, but it was probably legally-required vagueness) a couple days after the fact. It's apparently been four days now since someone noticed the removal of Death Gate, and still no statement. That's kinda shitty (especially in light of their wanting to try to improve communication with the community) -- though, to be perfectly fair, two of those days have been weekend days, and I don't imagine securing legal clearance to announce a (appropriately vague) reason for a short-notice (for them) removal of a game from sale would be something that could necessarily be done in a day. (And, to be clear, a store ceasing the sale of a product isn't something that they HAVE to announce in advance -- it's a courtesy.)

The lack of any statement regarding the pulling of a game (Softporn Adventure) from people's libraries, however, is rather less excusable. This is a case where even just saying "Hold on, guys, we're trying to work out this issue, we should have more info next week" would've been preferable to merely doing the JRPG "..." schtick.

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zakmckracken: [...] In fact, I love old games... and there are fewer good old games showing up on GOG these days.
No, there are just fewer games that YOU consider "good old" showing up here. ;)
Seriously. According to JMich's most recent report, last year tied with 2011 and 2012 for having the second-most pre-2000 releases (which are presumably what you're thinking about when you think of "old games"). It was also second in terms of games that were at least ten years old upon their release here (which is a better objective measure). It's true that the proportion of old games has been following an overall downward trend, but that's because GOG is releasing more games per year (in general), and newer games are typically more profitable. (But some of those profits can and will be put to work trying to resurrect more old games!)

Also, the old tried-and-true post link I drop whenever this complaint shows up.
Posted March 04, 2018
Hello, HunchBluntley. Thank you for the reply.

For the record, no disagreements on my end with what you've explained. I was intentionally overdramatic in my post, and realized the tone would be hard to interpret. I am, of course, still disappointed, though I recognize that situations like this could be largely out of the hands of GOG in some ways.

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HunchBluntley: (And, to be clear, a store ceasing the sale of a product isn't something that they HAVE to announce in advance -- it's a courtesy.)
Understood that it would be a courtesy. The final sentence in my post was only a suggestion. It would be awesome if they were able to give us that opportunity, however.

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HunchBluntley: The lack of any statement regarding the pulling of a game (Softporn Adventure) from people's libraries, however, is rather less excusable.
I am one of the people who still has that game in my library at this time. Strange.

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HunchBluntley: It's true that the proportion of old games has been following an overall downward trend, but that's because GOG is releasing more games per year (in general), and newer games are typically more profitable. (But some of those profits can and will be put to work trying to resurrect more old games!)
Good point! And if I'm honest, the number (and quality) of 'good old games' on GOG is exceptional. I was essentially noting a trend toward more newer titles, which makes sense business-wise. I am hopeful (and mostly confident) that GOG will continue to appease those of us who enjoy revisiting and/or rediscovering classic games.
Post edited March 04, 2018 by zakmckracken
Posted March 04, 2018
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Anime-BlackWolf: If there is NO info before pulling the game you can count on it to be a cease and desist-order, which MUST be enforced at once.
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Ancient-Red-Dragon: That still doesn't excuse why there is no explanation forthcoming a long time after the fact. They could have pulled the game at once and then as soon as possible afterwards, also published an explanation.
We are talking about "Death Gate", right? If the c/d-order is combined with a non-disclosure order, GOG may know all about the problems/removal of the title from sale, but may be forbidden to tell us more. See what HunchBluntley posted after you...

My "Soft Porn Adventure" is still in my account, I think this one has to be an error in the GOG database. It surely will be corrected, but if it must be corrected manually, there won't be much reaction from GOG on the weekend.
Post edited March 04, 2018 by Anime-BlackWolf
Posted March 08, 2018
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zakmckracken: *sigh* GOG. Disappointed again (re: the culling of Call of Cthulhu: Dark Corners of the Earth is still a recent wound, and I haven't forgotten the loss of Re-Volt and other beloved classics).
Exactly this. :(
Posted March 16, 2018
I hope we still get more Legend games, as I would love to see games like Spellcasting, Superhero League of Hoboken, Gateway and Eric the Unready here.

Death gate is no big loss, however: The game is actually quite awful. Most of the good jokes and puzzles are taken from the books, everything interesting about the story is cut out--it skips about four of the seven books--the ending makes no sense because everything that leads up to it is cut out and the characterization is simplistic and disjointed because a lot of it is also cut out of the game. You are not missing anything.

I miss the Mechwarrior games, which if I remember correctly were removed from this website. I love giant robots and I am eagerly awaiting Battletech and Mechwarrior 5.
Post edited March 16, 2018 by brilliance
Posted March 17, 2018
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brilliance: I miss the Mechwarrior games, which if I remember correctly were removed from this website.
No, the Mechwarrior games were never released here.
Posted March 17, 2018
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brilliance: Death gate is no big loss, however: The game is actually quite awful.
Disagreed. The puzzles are always fun, it is very nicely drawn, the magic system adds some spark to the puzzle solving and it is well written. I think you can only say that it is awful when you are a harcore fan of the books that will never like any adaptation as it is different of what you think it should be ideal.
Posted April 13, 2018
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Anime-BlackWolf: If there is NO info before pulling the game you can count on it to be a cease and desist-order, which MUST be enforced at once. All other removals were anounced ahead of time by GOG.
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drmike: That statement got me curious so I wen looking about Softporn.

Al Lowe has it available for free download on his website:

http://allowe.com/downloads/games.html

I know from previous discussions that GoG seems to not like making available games that can be downloaded legitimately for free although the early Elder Scrolls seem to be an exception to this.

I wonder if someone on staff noticed this.
Al Lowe doesn't own the rights to Softporn, so technically downloading from his site is not 'legitimate'. He doesn't own the rights to any previous Sierra game. Softporn was never a game he worked on to begin with. Though Larry 1 was based on it.
Posted April 13, 2018
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drmike: I know from previous discussions that GoG seems to not like making available games that can be downloaded legitimately for free although the early Elder Scrolls seem to be an exception to this.

I wonder if someone on staff noticed this.
I'm not sure that CD versions of first two chapters of Elder Scrolls are available for legitimate download anywhere outside of GOG.com.

We must inform staff immediately if it's not.
Posted April 14, 2018
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Cadaver747: I'm not sure that CD versions of first two chapters of Elder Scrolls are available for legitimate download anywhere outside of GOG.com.
Not sure it's the CD version but the first two games were released for free a few years ago on the ES website:

https://elderscrolls.bethesda.net/en/arena
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This is my favourite topic
Community
General discussionGame catalog count is down by one...What happened to Death Gate?(61 posts)(61 posts)
(61 posts)