GOG Preservation Program Nov 13th 2024 Launch: GPP-Stamped Games Maintained by GOG for Compatibility & QoL Improvements

slipkord on 14/11/2024 - 09:27
Welcome to the GOG Preservation Program – Making Games Live Forever!

For the occasion of GOG's 16th anniversary, get ready for one-of-a-kind news: we are proud to announce the launch of GOG Preservation Program, an official stamp on classic games improved by GOG!

So, what’s this all about?

If a game is part of the Preservation Program, it means that we commit our own resources to maintaining its compatibility with modern and future systems. It also means that the GOG version of this game is the best anywhere. For a game to join the GOG Preservation Program, we run it through extensive quality testing and often apply custom improvements to ensure compatibility and quality-of-life improvements.

We are launching the Program with over 100 games. Over the next few months, we will continue to add more!

What can you expect from games in the GOG Preservation Program?

  1. Expect it to work on current and future popular PC configurations,
  2. Be sure that this version is the best and most complete available anywhere, including compatibility, manuals, and other bonus content, but also DLCs and even features that are missing in other editions,
  3. Access GOG's Tech Support if you encounter technical issues with running the game,
  4. As with all titles in our catalog, always keep access to their offline installers, granting you the power to safeguard them how you want.

GOG Preservation Program - Make Games Live Forever

Explore the GOG Label catalog today and join the mission to make games live forever. By buying games from the Program and talking about it to your friends and family, you are preserving these iconic experiences and ensuring that our shared legacy endures.

Together, we can keep these games alive!

If you’re a game developer or publisher and would like your game to join the Program, please reach out either through your assigned business developer or at [email protected].

Gaming

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Comments

  • AngusD on 14/11/2024 - 10:23
    +2

    Great initiative. Although I assume it's just limited to PC games? Ie not going back to old systems like C64, Spectrum, ZX80/81, older consoles etc?

    Still, it's a good start. Hopefully with time and resources it can be broadened.

  • freefall101 on 14/11/2024 - 10:25
    +3

    Is this just rebranding what they already do? They're literally Good Old Games, they take old games and make them work.

    Diablo is one of the games in this new "program". They slapped something in the changelog today that they verified it still works, prior to that they hadn't updated it in over 5 years years.

    It might just be a reverification program though. That had over 1400 games in their old good old games list, now it's down to 100. So presumably they had a degradation issue.

    • FezMonkey on 14/11/2024 - 14:33

      It looks like this preservation program means they will continue to keep the stamped games up to date as systems change over time.
      I suppose the rest were one and done, and may end up unplayable again until they're redone.

      • freefall101 on 14/11/2024 - 15:50
        +1

        There's an arstechnica article out about this today, apparently a lot of games are just packaged up with dosbox to emulate them and sold. GOG never got the rights to make changes to the core game itself on those, so those will never get on the list.

        It will be interesting to see how it goes in a few years. Right now their games mostly targeted Windows 10, that they still work on Windows 11 isn't surprising.

        But GOG still uses Dosbox for emulation in a lot of games, which itself is still a 32 bit app (it hasn't been updated since 2019), so Windows runs that in a 64 bit emulated mode. Add to that if you run it on Windows 11 on ARM, you've got another level of emulation going on.

        At the moment that just means it's stupidly inefficient, but new chips are so much faster than 20 years ago it doesn't matter. But if one of those layers breaks at some point, GOG could be doing a lot of dev work just to keep these games running.

  • daydream on 14/11/2024 - 15:29
    +1

    Great to see an organisation take an major interest in preserving them when the publishers often don't care and often lose the assets forever (but are all too quick to penalise others when they do).
    Sad that some of the Silicon Valley rich and famous haven't gotten behind the preservation of older hardware and software too. Paul Allen's Computing Museum was the only one that I can think of and even then his estate closed it down when he passed away.

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