🚀 go-pugleaf

On Fri, 05 Jul 2013 22:33:10 -0400, Ross Ridge
<rridge@csclub.uwaterloo.ca> wrote:

>Andrew Rybenkov <arybenkov@gmail.com> wrote:
>>No kidding, do you believe they have sources for all games they sell,
>>or maybe they disassembly .com/.exe's?
>>
>>How without reprogramming you can modify a program to run on "modern systems"
>>(if it did not run initially)?
>
>GOG.com does do a fair bit of work themselves to get old games working on
>modern systems.  Whether that's wraping an old MS-DOS game in DOSBox,
>applying official or unofficial patches, or modifying the program
>themselves, the games are rarely distributed unmodified from their
>original releases.
>
>Using Mike S's Might and Magic VII as an example, the GOG.com version
>streams the background music from MP3s on the harddisk.  The original
>played its background music directly from the CD-ROM as normal audio
>CD tracks.  From the looks of things GOG.com created this modification
>themselves, but it could be based on some third party's work.  Either way,
>if GOG.com hadn't applied it then the game likely wouldn't work a large
>number of modern systems, many which don't have optical drives any more
>let alone audio cables connecting the drives to their sound cards.
>
>Steam on the other hand seems to leave this all to the publisher.
>Which is a reasonable enough policy, but a lot of of publishers aren't
>going to bother. 

The original publisher or the original developer or both may no longer
be associated with a game's IP. Case in point, System Shock 2. 

>>From the SS2 Wiki:-

At GOG.com, a digital distribution website that sells popular older
titles, System Shock 2 was the game most requested to be added to the
catalog, but they were unable to do so until February 2013 as the
rights to the title were caught in complications between Electronic
Arts and Meadowbrook Insurance Group (a subsidiary of Star Insurance
Company), the entity that acquired the assets of Looking Glass Studios
on their closure, though according to a lawyer for Star Insurance,
they themselves have since acquired the lingering intellectual
property rights from EA. Stephen Kick of Night Dive Studios, seeking
to bring the game to modern systems, started negotiations with the
rights holders in October 2012, and was able to secure the rights to
update and release the game for modern systems. Kick worked with
GOG.com for a timed-exclusive release on the site; the title was later
available on Steam on May 10, 2013. This version, considered by
GOG.com to be a "collector's edition", includes updates to the
original game to make it work on modern systems while still allowing
user-made modifications to be applied, and contains additional
material such as the game's soundtrack, maps of the Von Braun, and the
original pitch document for the game. The update rights also allowed a
Mac OS X version of System Shock 2 to be subsequently released on June
18, 2013 through GOG.com. customer-requests, 

> If GOG.com hadn't taken on it on themselves to do
>this work for many of their games then a lot of them simply wouldn't be
>available to buy and download from any source.
>

INDEED

>
>As your early comment about the prices during GOG.com's Summer sale, I
>doubt you'll find a single game they had on sale for a lower price during
>Steam's Summer sale.  That is assuming Valve even has one this year.
>They seem to be shying away from seasonal sales in preference for daily
>and weekly deals.
>

A disappointing trend at Valve/Steam. However, there are alternates.
Amazon.com currently has Suimmer Sale Deals (June 30- July 14) on PC
and Mac Digital Downloads (some are just Steam-keys).

Ross,  thanks for your clarity on GOG's genuine "added-value"
activities. 

I personally have a large collection of classic PC games going back to
~ 1990. GOG has enabled me to gradually 'pension off' the original
CDs. I also have a machine that runs Win98SE/ME (at 3GHz) with both
3dfx and Geforce hardware installed that I have preserved to run some
of the older titles.  Thanks to GOG, this machine is finally getting
less and less use.

John Lewis

>					Ross Ridge
>
>