Seems like most others, I only had a couple games on there. Well, I've got my copy of Verlies (only store I've found that sells it) and Maldita Castilla (which is a pretty nice Ghosts N' Goblins clone for free) backed up.

Sad news. I got their email message last night.

Unfortunately this was expected to happen sooner or later. The lack of activity on Shinyloot was obvious last year and it couldn't be for good.

Yeah, on top of everything else I've said in this thread, I guess I'm somewhat surprised they made it this long, considering how inactive they were last year.

A few recommendations if you want yo buy something before January 31th :

- Mark Leung Revenge of the Bitch (full of absurd humor, FMV with bad actors and pokemons)
- Helldorado (unofficial 3rd episode of the Desperados serie)
- Call of Cthulhu the Wasted Land (turn-based tactic in a Lovecraftian atmosphere).

I'm a bit surprised I didn't get the email, as I used to be one of their active backers and promoters. I even did an Xmas giveaway here on GOG that was loads of SL games. My collection there is not insignificant either:

3 Stars of Destiny
AGON - The Lost Sword of Toledo
AGON - The Mysterious Codex
Alien Shooter 2: Reloaded
Alter Ego
AquaNox
AquaNox 2
Blue Libra
Blue Libra 2
Castle Dracula
Commander: Conquest of the Americas Gold
Crayon Chronicles
Cthulhu Saves the World
Curse of Slate Rock Manor
Dark Arcana: The Carnival
Darkness Within 1: In Pursuit of Loath Nolder
DeadEnd: Cerebral Vortex
Defenders of the Last Colony
Doorways: Chapter 1 and 2
Drip Drip
Dwarf Quest
East India Company Gold
Enclave Gold
Faerie Solitaire
Flatspace
Flatspace IIk
Fortix 2
Gothic
Gothic 2 Gold
Gothic 3: Forsaken Gods
Gothic 3: GOTY Edition
Gravi
GREED: Black Border
Hinterland
Hotel - Collector's Edition
Hydorah
Jack Orlando Director's Cut
Judge Dee: The City God Case
Kaptain Brawe: A Brawe New World
Kilgazar
Kingdom Elemental
Laxius Force II
Lylian Episode One
Maldita Castilla
Micy Roll
Mosby's Confederacy
Nihilumbra
Oknytt
Out There Somewhere - Voskhod Edition
Pahelika: Revelations
Pahelika: Secret Legends
Painkiller Black Edition
Pandora: Purge of Pride
Pirates of Black Cove
Plazma Being
Railroad Pioneer
Raptor : Call of the Shadows 2010
Residue
Skies
SOL: Exodus
Space Salvager
SpaceChem
SpellForce 2 Gold
SpellForce Platinum
StarDrone
The Guild 2: Renaissance
The Lunar Pack: Lunnye Devitsy and Wake
The Perfidious Petrol Station
Trainz Classics Volume 1 & 2
Trainz Classics Volume 3
Twin Sector
Ubinota
Zigfrak
Zombie Shooter

Some of these I have on GOG as well, where they are available. But a number of good titles are not here. Maybe GOG will pick them up, maybe not. I can understand why the SL team is folding shop, but less choice in any market is a loss for the consumer.

FFS! Why the hell did this have to happen.
I quite liked Shiny Loot, I will admit I never spent as much there as I did here, but still I've a pile of games there to check I have backed up properly.
Best thing about DRM-free, I just back them up.

Thanks for the heads up. I got the email too but it landed in my bulk mail catchall which has so much junk in it I miss half of it so I didn't see that one. I just started re-downloading all 9 of my Shinyloot games and copying the Steam keys to my local key database. On the upside I notice they gave me 2 Steam keys for a bunch of the games, so those may go into some future giveaways somewhere. I'll have to check and see if the non-Steam games have made it to Steam or GOG since I bought them at Shinyloot, and contact the dev/pub to see if they'd consider offering keys on GOG/Steam etc. Never hurts to ask, but no biggie either way. I spent $9 there for 9 games and have a DRM-free copy of them all locally now at least plus handful of Steam keys.

Kind of has me wondering if any of the other random sites I've used before have died or are dying too though. I should scan all of the bundle sites that I don't frequent regularly, and bring my DB up to current, redeem keys, etc.

I've never used ShinyLoot before, but I see there are some free DRM-free games on there that I hadn't heard of before that could perhaps be interesting. Thanks for the heads up.

Which is a little strange, in some ways. DRM-free is something that all gamers prefer over DRM. However, it's something that many publishers despise, as they fear (with some reason) that they will lose money on it. Thus, services that utilize DRM simply get more games and more funding, allowing them to develop their services more into something attractive for users. GOG struck gold by starting with a strong niche, old games, and develop themselves from there after having established themselves. It certainly helps too that they've been around for quite a few years, before indie games became a big thing.

Actually, most gamers don't give a crap about DRM.

I agree with this. I do think that if more gamers were educated, they would prefer DRM-free over any DRM, but most just aren't impacted in any significant way by DRM. They play the newest shiny game till they've had their fill and toss it for the next one. I've never been significantly affected by DRM myself, and have only had 1 game I couldn't play due to offline servers etc (Battlefield 2) but I see how such tools could negatively affect anyone. Most gamers don't understand what their DRM actually does.

I think his point was, that given the choice, as long as both versions are otherwise identical in features etc., most wouldn't pick the version which has some DRM client/restriction added to it.

The only reason why gamers pick the DRM version, is generally because it also comes with additional features ( see: Steam ). And then of course there's the fact that for most AAA games we're not even presented with that choice, because you either buy the version which comes with half a dozen clients and other crap attached to it, or you don't play the game at all.

Sadly, yeah. But that's not something specific. Most people don't give a crap about anything.

SL began with a mixture of DRM-free and what it termed DRM-lite games, then became partly a Steam key reseller. Evidently neither strategy worked in its particular case.

Why are people distributing .rar files when there are plenty of free alternatives available? It annoys me everytime I see a download that is a .rar file rather than .zip, .7z, .tar.gz, or .tar.xz.

That game was one of the main reasons I became a customer of ShinyLoot. Downloading it now.

I checked my keys and have one spare from there, ironically a Desura key. Survivor Squad 1QJR4-MSMCP-MH8KY-HLVVD-VIHVM