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GOG Preservation Program announced – preserving old games for current and future PC setups (over 100 games "Preserved by GOG" starting today)

Thick Thighs Save Lives

Thick Thighs Save Lives

NeoGAF's Physical Games Advocate Extraordinaire


With the celebrations of GOG’s 16th Anniversary, we are thrilled to announce our new initiative.

We’re launching the GOG Preservation Program – an official stamp on classic games that GOG has improved, with a commitment of our own resources to ensure their compatibility with modern systems and make them as enjoyable to play as possible.
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This initiative was created to make games live forever and once again bring the utmost attention to what the center of our work has been for the last 16 years: video game preservation.

We begin with the re-release of 100 classic games from our catalog with updated, improved, or quality-tested builds, including masterpieces like Heroes of Might and Magic® 3, Resident Evil, and Diablo+Hellfire.

Visit our website dedicated to the Program to learn more: https://www.gog.com/en/gog-preservation-program
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One of our core missions from the very beginning was to preserve video games. For over a decade and a half, this mission has been our driving force. However, 2024 has made it clearer than ever just how vital this initiative is—and how crucial our role is in its continuation, as shown by the restoration of Alpha Protocol and the original Resident Evil trilogy.

Moreover, The Video Game History Foundation has recently shared that 87% of games created before 2010 are inaccessible today. This is something that we cannot accept, and with the help of the gaming community, we are set on getting that number down to zero.
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The GOG Preservation Program is how we’ll achieve that. The GOG store identifies games that are part of the Preservation Program with a dedicated stamp. This stamp ensures that those games will run on your PC hassle-free, and you can enjoy them just as much as you did the first time you played them. These are not empty words – you can understand GOG's work on each game by looking at its Preservation Log.
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Expect more and more games to join the GOG Preservation Program, both from our existing catalog and new classic additions.

We’ve made great efforts to make it happen, and we truly believe that with the Program, we can fight the dire situation of video games becoming inaccessible and keep them alive forever.

And lastly – thank you; your support and love for games make everything possible.
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TintoConCasera

TintoConCasera

I bought a sex doll, but I keep it inflated 100% of the time and use it like a regular wife
That's very cool.

I wonder if they'll do this just via fan patches or if they'll put in some work of their own developing those fixes.

In any case, it's pretty nice from them to do this, more ease to access to old games is always good news.
 
M0G

M0G

Member
I'll take this as a re-affirming of their commitment. I mean, there's some games that are problematic or unstable. I can't think of specific examples but I think Wing Commander Prophecy and Tex Murphy Overseer are quick to be massive assholes with Windows 10/11.
 
Senua

Senua

Gold Member
brent-rambo-pixelated-doom-head-meme-6wp8w0iu5vktjoy1.gif
 
StereoVsn

StereoVsn

Gold Member
Hopefully this means GoG will go through the games to make sure they work on Win10/11. A lot of titles have issues on modern platforms and a whole bunch have really old/odd Dosbox settings.
 
Ivan

Ivan

Member
They're not doing what they're selling here at all. Way too many games simply don't work at all and haven't been touched since launch who knows when. Still love gog, but that sounds like bullshit.
 
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ArtHands

ArtHands

Thinks buying more servers can fix a bad patch
Console fans take note: this is how and why digital is better at preserving games. Not buying some discs that will be in compatible with future hardware
 
Solarstrike

Solarstrike

Gold Member
Good. Does bringing back Chronicles of Riddick: Escape from Butcher Bay/Assault on Dark Athena count? lfg
 
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adamsapple

adamsapple

Or is it just one of Phil's balls in my throat?
Aren't all GoG releases like that already?

DRM Free and designed to work on the latest OS's ?
 
A

a multicultural team of v

Member
They need to go the other direction. I want to see fully preserved original releases - proper disc/disk images with full manuals, inserts, code wheels, etc.

There are a few efforts going on (TOSEC is one), but a comprehensive centralized official source would be awesome. Have a phone app that easily allows you to access the manuals or wheels so that you can refer to them while playing... That would be great.
 
NeverYouMind

NeverYouMind

Member
If they keep the new releases coming I will keep buying from them. Still waiting on some Steam games to drop on GOG with upcoming label in the meantime.
 
Danny Dudekisser

Danny Dudekisser

I paid good money for this Dynex!
This is cool. I'm curious how extensive this work will actually be. A lot of games - particularly DOS-based ones saddled with Dosbox now - just don't look or feel good. It'd be nice to have these games integer scale and run at the correct refresh rate out of the box. The work that GOG did on stuff like Diablo is a really good example of how I'd like to see it approached - that game might be decades old, but it feels good in the GOG release, in a way that old games that are played on modern PCs typically don't. Same thing with the recent Resident Evil re-releases.

Anyway, big fan of GOG and this is a really cool effort that puts a new spin on their original slant towards classics.
 
A

a multicultural team of v

Member
chokotoureiki said:
Oof...I imagine that would be pretty expensive to implement. If it could be done, most likely with classics that are guaranteed to sell and make back the costs.
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Would scanning old manuals really be that expensive? People do it for free on archive.org. The app can just be a fancy front end for PDFs essentially... what I'm asking for I could kind of already get myself for each game with a bit of searching, but it would be cool to have it all officially in one place. I don't know why this stuff is never considered whenever "preservation" is brought up...

Frankly I think the disc/k images are woefully underrepresented and never considered when it comes to retro gaming. People have either forgotten or never knew that back in the DOS/early Windows days every installer was different - different UI, artwork, messages, integrated readmes, unique setup/config settings (even seeing how each game's installer tests that stereo sound is working is cool) etc. Its all interesting and important stuff that is being lost despite the huge movement for "preservation."
 
chokotoureiki

chokotoureiki

Member
a multicultural team of v said:
Would scanning old manuals really be that expensive? People do it for free on archive.org. The app can just be a fancy front end for PDFs essentially... what I'm asking for I could kind of already get myself for each game with a bit of searching, but it would be cool to have it all officially in one place. I don't know why this stuff is never considered whenever "preservation" is brought up...

Frankly I think the disc/k images are woefully underrepresented and never considered when it comes to retro gaming. People have either forgotten or never knew that back in the DOS/early Windows days every installer was different - different UI, artwork, messages, integrated readmes, unique setup/config settings (even seeing how each game's installer tests that stereo sound is working is cool) etc. Its all interesting and important stuff that is being lost despite the huge movement for "preservation."
Click to expand...
Scanning and printing manuals from archive.org isn't the same thing. You'd want authentically made manuals that are every bit as real as the originals. If I were to spend good money on a reprint, I don't want it to look like something that came out of a cheap printer, at least for me.

You also wanna consider it costs money for supplies like paper, staples, etc. With PC games especially, some booklets were different, like I remember the Civilization manuals being really thick that came with charts and tech tree maps, which are made from different papers. I imagine it'd be a complex process bc not all physical games, esp PC games are made the same. Some don't come with manuals, while others are packed with all kinds of things. And then you have game boxes with really fancy embossed covers, and that's where it gets even more complicated.
 
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Pejo

Pejo

Gold Member
Fantastic initiative. Between GOG doing this and Valve's work with Proton/Linux, it's nice to see a few businesses still care about making gaming better and not necessarily focusing on what makes the most profits at any given time.

Stuff like adding in all of the language support and fixing old registry stuff to a "master" version is such a cool idea and probably not a negligible amount of work, so cheers to GOG for doing this.
 
ZehDon

ZehDon

Member
Good to have it re-affirmed, and I like the new branding. Hopefully it catches on.

I buy games on GoG quite often simply to download and backup their offline installers. Having OG RE2 on PC legally squirrelled away gives me warm fuzzy feelings, and I'd like for other developers and publishers to follow suite, even if it were only for their older back catalogue titles. I'd kill to have proper installers for games like Drakken Order of the Flame, without having to go through the abandonware repacks and community patches.
 
A

a multicultural team of v

Member
chokotoureiki said:
Scanning and printing manuals from archive.org isn't the same thing. You'd want authentically made manuals that are every bit as real as the originals. If I were to spend good money on a reprint, I don't want it to look like something that came out of a cheap printer, at least for me.

You also wanna consider it costs money for supplies like paper, staples, etc. With PC games especially, some booklets were different, like I remember the Civilization manuals being really thick that came with charts and tech tree maps, which are made from different papers. I imagine it'd be a complex process bc not all physical games, esp PC games are made the same. Some don't come with manuals, while others are packed with all kinds of things. And then you have game boxes with really fancy embossed covers, and that's where it gets even more complicated.
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Oh sorry I didn't mean like, physically printing the items. I meant a phone app that has PDF scans of everything all in one place, so that if I wanted to reference anything I can just open the app, pick the game, and have everything that came with it in the box right there.

Though, actual physical recreations would be really cool now that I think about it. Surprised this isn't more of a focus with LRG and all those companies... you are right though, some manuals were massive - I have a Sim City/Earth/Farm combined manual that is over 400 pages lol. And this was a budget re-release, yet they still printed 400 pages.
 
ChoosableOne

ChoosableOne

ChoosableAll
It seems that some games have received more attention, but if they deliver on their promises, that’s great. I’m especially curious about how they've preserved Vampire: The Masquerade.

Morrowind

Changelog (13 November 2024)

Validated stability
Verified compatibility with Windows 10 and 11

Vampire the masquerade

Validated stability
Verified compatibility with Windows 10 and 11
Verified Cloud Saves support

Resident Evil

All 4 localizations of the game included (English, German, French, Japanese).
Improved DirectX game renderer
New rendering options (Windowed Mode, Vertical Synchronization Control, Gamma Correction, Integer Scaling, Anti-Aliasing and more).
Improved timing of the cutscenes
Improved game video player
Improved game registry settings
Issue-free game exit and task switching
Full support for modern controllers
Validated stability
Verified compatibility with Windows 10 and 11
Added Cloud Saves support
 
Krathoon

Krathoon

Member
Some GOG games will simply not run in Win11. I have had this problem with Wing Commander Prophecy and King's Quest 8.

It seems like the problem is with nGlide. WC Prophecy seems to also have a problem with the game executable.

I can get them to work in vmware with Windows XP. So, it is definitley a Win11 issue.
 
Krathoon

Krathoon

Member
There is a python script out there that will let you backup all your gog games.

I have been backing up to a huge backup drive.
 
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