GoG countdown to Thursday - Expect the Unexcelled

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I'm shocked no one has made a thread on this yet.

On the front page of GoG is a countdown clock, counting down to Thursday, January 28th. Underneath it is the tagline "expect the unexcelled". The only clues we have are these -

- In 2009, GoG worked out a major publisher deal. In an interview, the interviewer called it "one of the top 3 publishers in gaming today".

- Unexcelled is an older word that, to sum up, basacially means something that has never been topped. Whatever GoG is putting on the site is something they think they could never top again.

- Thursday's are usually when they unveil a new publisher onto the website.

- GoG has claimed they have three huge announcements for the first quarter of 2010. One has already passed (I forget what it is, to be honest) and this could very clearly be the second. A twitter post from 2009 by a GoG employee claimed that they were "very excited by the publisher deal they just worked out for next year".

A lot of people are thinking it's finally going to be EA - they are unexcelled at many of their older PC games, they are a top 3 publisher, and well, it's a new publisher. It would be a huge deal for GoG that would finally, imo, elevate them to the level of Steam / Impulse, especially if they had some kind of exclusitivity.

Some people on GoG's forums think it means Deus Ex is coming... which would be highly disappointing since it's already available elsewhere. They think Deus Ex would be the first game in Eido's catalog coming to GoG, but for the most part this catalog is already on Steam. Would be nice to get Thief 1 and 2, but there is not a lot about Eidos that excites me.

Your thoughts?

Edit: This has been posted on the message boards by GoG's staff -

Some of you guys were damn close or even had a right guesses. So the answer is within ;) The answer is (as usual) not the easiest and definitely not the most obvious , though.

But hints were given. And this is gonna be the biggest announcement ever in the GOG history (maybe except the opening of the site itself but this is different category;)
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At the time it was posted, some of the major ideas have been - EA, Deus Ex (with Eidos), Lucasarts, all the old Infinity Engine games like Baldur's Gate. One of them was the site opening and redesign, but it's not this.
 
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Is it just me, or is it not kind of ridiculous that, in a time when we're so used to seeing timers counting down to the announcement of the next countdown timer which will in turn be counting down the the next announcement of the next big future game unveiling, that now we're seeing countdown timers counting down to an announcement about re-releases of games that were first released probably at least a decade ago?
 
I'm guessing that it's a major publishing deal. Hopefully it involves games that aren't available elsewhere. I think it's either Atari or EA. I really doubt it's Lucasarts though. Lucasarts is really into DRM for their games. They even released their adventure games on Steam with a different executable that isn't compatible with SCUMMVM, to prevent people from playing them without Steam.
 
[quote name='crystalklear64']Unless the announcement is, "We now have all our games available for free" who cares?

They are already dealing in borderline abandonware.[/QUOTE]

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I'm going to guess Activision (which owns Sierra now)

I would love to get some old school point and click adventure games.

- edit [quote name='crystalklear64']Unless the announcement is, "We now have all our games available for free" who cares?

They are already dealing in borderline abandonware.[/QUOTE]

Abandonware is a term used to describe computer software that is no longer sold or supported, or whose copyright ownership may be unclear for various reasons. While the term has been applied largely to older games, other classes of software (such as productivity applications or utility software) are sometimes described as such.
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:roll:

It really bothers you to pay $5.99-9.99 for a DRM-free game that will work on any modern machine without having to fuck around with it and comes with extra bonuses?
 
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Good reply Sporadic :)

I just randomly went to GOG.com a few minutes ago and saw that countdown....so naturally had to come here!

I'd love if EA started releasing games there. There's quite a bit of their stuff I missed and would like to buy. (Heck, if they put some of their newer stuff up that had activation, I'd buy that now too).

Can't really think what this would be though, but regardless who it is, I'd love to get ANY new publisher :)
 
First hint from their Twitter account.

GOGcom Start guessing, we're giving you the first hint: The return of incredible karmic awareness.
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People are guessing that TROIKA (The return of incredible karmic awareness.) is the answer and that Arcanum will be the game.

Arcanum was published by Sierra (now owned by Activision) so Activision could be the big announcement.
 
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[quote name='Sporadic']First hint from their Twitter account.



People are guessing that TROIKA (The return of incredible karmic awareness.) is the answer and that Arcanum will be the game.

Arcanum was published by Sierra (now owned by Activision) so Activision could be the big announcement.[/QUOTE]


That would be pretty huge! excited to see what they have.
 
I'm hoping it is that GOG has been purchased by Valve and will be working on bring all their current catalog to Steam and will be solely dedicated to licensing old games, patching them for current systems and then bringing them to Steam.

I know that isn't gonna happen, so I don't really care about what it could be.
 
[quote name='darthbudge']I'm hoping it is that GOG has been purchased by Valve and will be working on bring all their current catalog to Steam and will be solely dedicated to licensing old games, patching them for current systems and then bringing them to Steam.

I know that isn't gonna happen, so I don't really care about what it could be.[/QUOTE]


That would be a huge step backwards... :bomb:
 
[quote name='darthbudge']I'm hoping it is that GOG has been purchased by Valve and will be working on bring all their current catalog to Steam and will be solely dedicated to licensing old games, patching them for current systems and then bringing them to Steam.

I know that isn't gonna happen, so I don't really care about what it could be.[/QUOTE]
So you want them to take their entire no-DRM catalog and saddle it with DRM? :wall:
 
[quote name='Sporadic']First hint from their Twitter account.



People are guessing that TROIKA (The return of incredible karmic awareness.) is the answer and that Arcanum will be the game.

Arcanum was published by Sierra (now owned by Activision) so Activision could be the big announcement.[/QUOTE]


Ugh, Arcanum is nice in concept but that game's combat system is pretty much broken. Maybe they'll get Vampire the Masquerade: Bloodlines. That's a Troika product along with Pool of Radiance.
 
[quote name='Sporadic']First hint from their Twitter account.



People are guessing that TROIKA (The return of incredible karmic awareness.) is the answer and that Arcanum will be the game.

Arcanum was published by Sierra (now owned by Activision) so Activision could be the big announcement.[/QUOTE]

I'm still going with EA. Just a few years ago, EA was known as this huge evil publisher who did nothing good. These days, EA is not really that evil, and dropping their whole back catalog on us DRM free would be a huge step onto the side of good.
 
Damn, why do people want everything on Steam and Steam only? Competition is good people. In the long run, monopolies hurt the consumer. Besides Steam is a form of DRM and DRM is something that GOG is against.
 
[quote name='mogamer']Damn, why do people want everything on Steam and Steam only? Competition is good people. In the long run, monopolies hurt the consumer. Besides Steam is a form of DRM and DRM is something that GOG is against.[/QUOTE]

Wow wow...Hold on, son. You talking with too much common sense. You know most of the fellas have an innate need to submit themselves to a corporate rule.


You just leveled up! :)
 
Another site leaked the news.

IT IS ACTIVISION! The two games are Gabriel Knight: Sins of the Fathers and Arcanum: Of Steamworks and Magic Obscura and they will both be $5.99 each.

In a new deal with classic gaming Web site Good Old Games (GOG.com), game publisher Activision is rereleasing many of its classic titles in a DRM-free format. Two of the games are available starting January 28, and Good Old Games says additional entries "will be unveiled gradually in the coming weeks."

One of the two initial releases is Arcanum: Of Steamworks and Magic Obscura (2001), a cult-favorite open-ended RPG. Our sister site GameSpot said of the game: "If you're serious about role-playing games--so serious that you don't care about graphics but instead just want to immerse yourself in a different world and try to explore it, perhaps even exploit it, as fully as possible--then Arcanum is well worth the investment of time, money, and effort."


The second Activision game launching this week is Gabriel Knight: Sins of the Fathers (1993), an award-winning classic point-and-click adventure game set in New Orleans. Voice actors included Tim Curry, Mark Hamill, and Michael Dorn, giving the game some extra nerd cred. We included the Gabriel Knight series in our feature on five classic adventure games that need to be rereleased as digital downloads, so we're pleased to see someone was apparently listening.

Both games will be available for $5.99, and video game history buffs will recall that both were originally published by a company called Sierra, which was eventually taken over by Activision, which now holds the rights to these games.


The Good Old Games model offers self-contained .exe files of vintage PC games, usually for $5.99 to $9.99, which can be redownloaded from the site at any time and installed on any PC. This offers some distinct advantages over forms of PC game digital distribution, such as Steam or Direct2Drive, which include digital rights management tethers that range from mildly annoying to highly restrictive.

We've tried several GOG games since the site's launch last year, and found them to work well on Windows XP, Vista, and 7, despite the fact that many were written for much older operating systems. The downloads also often include PDFs of the original manual and downloadable soundtracks.

We're especially fond of GOG as a resource for games that work well on a Netbook. Our recent roundup of Netbook-friendly PC games included several titles from Good Old Games, from Sanitarium to Duke Nukem 3D.
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http://news.cnet.com/8301-17938_105-10441275-1.html
 
[quote name='Megazell']Wow wow...Hold on, son. You talking with too much common sense. You know most of the fellas have an innate need to submit themselves to a corporate rule.


You just leveled up! :)[/QUOTE]

Damn Meg, you know how to hurt a guy... *reaches for his Valve-branded medkit*
 
In a landmark deal for the DRM-free digital distribution movement, Activision Publishing Inc. is bringing a wide range of classic games to GOG.com!

It's now official, we're bringing you the biggest announcement in GOG.com's history - Activision with it's wealth of PC gaming gems has joined our DRM-free family. With the announcement we're revealing first two classics which should be instantly recognizable to any fan of good, old games: Arcanum: Of Steamworks and Magick Obscura and Gabriel Knight: Sins of the Fathers. Other games from the Activision catalogue will be unveiled gradually in the coming weeks, so expect more from this publisher during Month of Activision on GOG.com!
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Month Of Activision...fucking awesome.
 
Wow, Activision, nice! I wasn't going to get my hopes up that it was a big publisher, but this is nice!

Not getting either of these first two (at least not unless I actually get through my backlog somehow :lol: ), but this is really cool.

On a separate note, it occurred to me last night that if they had Quake 2, I'd buy that. The Giant Bomb guys talked about it last week, and I've still never played it. (Or 4, though I own 4 and am looking forward to it.)

I noticed that they've got the complete Uru now! I assume that's as a single player game. Is that worth playing? I loved Riven but never quite got my head around what Uru IS :lol:
 
[quote name='Wolfpup']On a separate note, it occurred to me last night that if they had Quake 2, I'd buy that. The Giant Bomb guys talked about it last week, and I've still never played it. (Or 4, though I own 4 and am looking forward to it.)[/QUOTE]

I don't know why that would make you hot to trot, all they said about it was "That game is DEFINITELY not best game of all time."
 
It reminded me of it and that I hadn't bought it yet. Played through the demo a bunch of times.

I wonder how it'll look to me today, as it looked awesome back in the day.
 
Dang, I wanted Interstate '76 back in the day. Do I care now? I don't know. I remember the Next Generation cover.

Ceasar 3 looks like it could be cool.
 
[quote name='Wolfpup']Dang, I wanted Interstate '76 back in the day. Do I care now? I don't know. I remember the Next Generation cover.[/QUOTE]

For $6 can you really go wrong?
 
[quote name='Sporadic']For $6 can you really go wrong?[/QUOTE]

No, but my backlog is well over 100 games, and getting longer all the time :lol:
 
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