GOG Returns to the Roots and Publishing Old Games
GOG.com will again focus on expanding its offer of „good old games” and making it easier to find classic titles.
GOG.com is going back to its roots, i.e. publishing classic games for PCs. CD Projekt Group announced this on the platform's official website.
GOG.com returns to good old games
A return to the original concept of GOG (which used to be called Good Old Games, after all) is to intensify efforts to add old titles to the platform's catalog.
- This includes modernizing the technical layer of these games (in cooperation with the developers of, among others DOSBox and ScummVM) to ensure their proper operation on modern systems, as well as legal issues.
- In addition to intensifying these efforts GOG has also added a new search category: Good Old Games. This category includes titles that are at least ten years old and have gained widespread recognition, stood the test of time, or made a positive mark on video game history in one way or another.
- Along with the introduction of the "Good Old Games" tag, GOG.com relased the remaster of The Wheel of Time - an action game based on The Wheel of Time novels by Robert Jordan (yes, the same one that received a series from Amazon last year).
Back to the classics to cut losses?
What prompted CD Projekt to refocus on releasing old games? The announcement simply states that the "preservation" of old works is an important issue - on a similar basis as in any other cultural field:
"Why did we decide to pivot in this direction? Because we believe that celebrating and preserving classic games is important. They have the power to connect generations. They have the power to evoke nostalgia. They have the power to teach us about what came before and shaped the games we enjoy today. And they deserve to be remembered, and available for everyone to enjoy."
However, similar plans were heard already last year. At that time it was motivated by the losses that GOG.com was bringing to CD Projekt in recent years. At the time, the company didn't explicitly mention a return to releasing classic titles, but that's how the reference to "providing access to a carefully curated selection of DRM-free games" can be understood.
