GOG.com announced on Thursday that both of Playdead's grim but beloved titles, Limbo and Inside, will be leaving the DRM-free platform on July 17th. While there is no stated cause for the delistings some have speculated that the ongoing legal spat between Playdead co-founders Dino Patti and Arnt Jensen could be to blame. I personally
GOG and itch’s approach to preservation is always gonna be limited by legality, you can’t keep a game on your platform if the publisher requests its delisting; ofc piracy isn’t constrained by this, so it’s inherently better at preservation
at least, since the games on there don’t have DRM, once you have them you keep them (and with GOG, you can also download offline installers that you can reuse on any computer you want). they make piracy (and therefore preservation) way easier in that way, because pirates don’t even need to repack the game!
GoG is very much about the marketing of game preservation. That said, to my knowledge, they (like Steam) don’t remove it from your account. Just from the store. So if you bought it, you can still play it.
GoG is a bit better in that their DRM model only requires you to authenticate to download, not reinstall. So you can theoretically archive all of your purchases if you have way more storage than you should. But it also is horrible at surfacing when an installer has an update so… mostly this is only viable for truly dead games.
I like GoG a lot as a platform but it has always rubbed me wrong that they pretend they are focused on game preservation. But that also might be because I am old enough to remember The French Monk incident.
What about the next generation of kids that want to play old classics, or just plain ol patient gamers that never got to it? If it’s just people that have private personal backups, then it’ll eventually die with them and be lost forever to time.
Lol, should they just keep the games up? See if any blood hungry lawyers notice? (Piracy is probably the best way to preserve though, I will agree on that.)
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What is difference between any platform like itch or GOG if they will also delist games? Game preservation my ass, piracy is the true preservation.
EDIT: Relevant video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H-ejBTJeu74
GOG and itch’s approach to preservation is always gonna be limited by legality, you can’t keep a game on your platform if the publisher requests its delisting; ofc piracy isn’t constrained by this, so it’s inherently better at preservation
at least, since the games on there don’t have DRM, once you have them you keep them (and with GOG, you can also download offline installers that you can reuse on any computer you want). they make piracy (and therefore preservation) way easier in that way, because pirates don’t even need to repack the game!
Not having DRM is better for piracy. So in a way they’re helping “true preservation” more than other platforms that allow DRM.
GoG is very much about the marketing of game preservation. That said, to my knowledge, they (like Steam) don’t remove it from your account. Just from the store. So if you bought it, you can still play it.
GoG is a bit better in that their DRM model only requires you to authenticate to download, not reinstall. So you can theoretically archive all of your purchases if you have way more storage than you should. But it also is horrible at surfacing when an installer has an update so… mostly this is only viable for truly dead games.
I like GoG a lot as a platform but it has always rubbed me wrong that they pretend they are focused on game preservation. But that also might be because I am old enough to remember The French Monk incident.
Yeah I don’t think GOG has removed delisted games from users libraries.
Unfortunately it did happen to Oxenfree on itch instead of letting people who bought it retain access to download it after delisting. https://www.pcgamer.com/games/adventure/another-reminder-that-your-digital-library-isn-t-forever-oxenfree-will-be-completely-removed-from-itch-io-next-month/
It’s DRM free. Just practice good backups man. No need to jump to piracy.
What about the next generation of kids that want to play old classics, or just plain ol patient gamers that never got to it? If it’s just people that have private personal backups, then it’ll eventually die with them and be lost forever to time.
Existence is entropy. Everything you love will be dust one day. That is natural and good.
This post isn’t about the games being removed from the face of the internet. It’s just one platform.
It’s too early to panic.
Lol, should they just keep the games up? See if any blood hungry lawyers notice? (Piracy is probably the best way to preserve though, I will agree on that.)