Good Old Games Fall Sale until November 25
I like what Good Old Games has to offer. It started out as a service to bring classic video games to modern systems and has evolved since then to include some modern titles as well. Different from Steam and also from modern gaming platforms such as Origin it has craved out a niche and sits in it comfortably.
It evolved over time without sacrificing the community or principles that made the service great.
What I really like about Good Old Games is not only that they make classic games available so that you can play the games on modern hardware, but also that their games are DRM free and that you are not forced to use a client that holds all of it together.
The GOG Big Fall Sale started today. It is a big event that will end on November 25. More than 700 games will be discounted in that time according to the site operators.
Here is what it offers:
- Some games are available for free for a limited period of time. The first free game is Mount & Blade which you can add to your account for free in the next 48 hour period.
- Flash sales discount games for several hours after which they are replaced with other games put on sale for a limited time.
- Other games are discounted for longer periods of time. You find Daily Deals for example that are on sale for 24 hours.
- Collect stamps on the frontpage. You get a stamp each day and once you have collected seven -- clicking on a button on the frontpage -- you get the game The Witcher 2 free of charge and the excellent movie The Gamers: Director's Cut on top of that.
You do need an account to purchase games as they are only made available in digital form. Individual games get downloaded to the local system where they can be installed and run without third-party software.
This is a great opportunity to replay games that you have played in your childhood or to play classic games that you have never played before in your life.
Here is a short list of interesting games available on gog (not all on sale right now):
- Master of Magic - Probably the best fantasy-based strategy game of all time.
- Classic Sierra and Lucas Arts adventure games such as Gabriel Knight, Indiana Jones, Phantasmagoria.
- Classic Dungeons and Dragons games including Baldur's Gate and Icewind Dale.
- Classic Cinemaware games such as Wings or Rocket Ranger.
- Strategy and role playing games such as Fallout I and II, The Settlers, Master of Orion, Dungeon Keeper or Heroes of Might and Magic.
- Epic games such as Wing Commander, Syndicate, Ultima or System Shock 2
The site itself is slow loading at the time probably caused by the traffic it is getting currently.
Now You: Have you used gog before? Are you waiting for specific games to go on sale?
I use GoG a lot. I like to support their DRM-Free system. Especially their CDPRed titles like the Witcher series. I repurchased Witcher 1 and 2 from them, and am currently waiting for the Witcher 3 next year, pre-ordering it from GoG also gave me a good discount.
I added Mount & Blade to my account for free by mistake a few hours ago. I’m not that interested in the game, I wanted to view the info on it, and clicked the banner.
I try to buy from them when they offer the game instead of other sources.
Yeah!!! I like that GOG provides installers that let me easily play old games on modern systems. It’s a new challenge to play old action games at hyper speed.
The best part about GOG.com is that you could still play their games ten years from now, after they (God forbid) go out of business or get bought by EA.
You can’t say that about other digital distribution services. Look at Direct2Drive: they were bought by Gamefly, and users lost access to many of their purchased games. Now Gamefly is selling off their digital distribution service, and once again users lost most if not all of their library. It’s a nightmare.
With UPlay, Steam, Origin, you aren’t buying games, you’re renting them. But GOG could disappear off the face of the earth, and you’d still be able to play and install all the games you downloaded over the years.
Actually, to be fair, it looks like Direct2Drive has done a fairly good job of porting Gamefly games back onto their servers. But that doesn’t really make up for the act that when Gamefly originally bought them, some users lost, like, 2/3rd of their library. It just goes to show, when dealing with most digital distribution sites, there are no guarantees.
I have been watching them for a while but never signed up. I went there to check out the sale and saw a free game on the home page, so I signed up. I didn’t get just one free game, they gave me 5 or 6. Pretty doggone cool. I would get some more but I have a huge backlog of games to play right now. Sleep and work are such hassles. :)
I’ve used Gog for years, have hundreds of games from them acquired during their weekly sales. I may never play many of them, but I want to support the wonderful job they’re doing for gamers. The DRM-free is great, far-sighted and courageous, but the biggest value for me is how they update the games with patches and wrappers for each new OS that comes out.
I really hope they can stay independent so they can continue to put gamers’ interests first.