Dear GOG,

I love you guys, I'm a big fan, and a good and loyal customer. In fact, I believe I'm probably in the top half of your customers as far as number of games purchased, and it's these customers particularly that I'm worried about.

Because I've read two threads here recently about extra goodies disappearing from GOG and about complete games disappearing from Gamersgate.

I personally have well over 100 GOG games on my shelves, and I believe I wouldn't be alone in NOT downloading them all. Instead, I know they're there whenever I want them. In other words, a lot of your best customers probably use this method.

And it's these customers that suffer when things we've paid for "disappear." For the occasional buyer that downloads as they purchase, it won't affect them.

I'm not trying to say because I own "X" games that I'm "special" or deserve any "special' treatment. I'm merely pointing out the business reality that of all of the portions of your customer base this issue is likely to affect, it's probably your very biggest customers. That doesn't seem wise to me.

Please, PLEASE, can you post something, amend something (EULA's, POLICIES, whatever) or do SOMETHING that will put to rest my (and potentially others) anxiety over this issue. A simple one word sentence would work for me: "It is GOG's policy to allow access to any material already purchased by our customers for as long as we are in business, despite any possible loss of rights to continue to sell this material to new customers."

Or at a MINIMUM, give a NOTICE to all that this material or that game will become unavailable in X number of days (and I would hope that X could equal at least 30).

Thank you.

Joe Weakly, Jr.
OldFatGuy
Commonwealth of Virginia
USA

I do believe it's their policy to continue to allow those who purchased content that has since been withdrawn to still have access to it. I know I bought TOCA Race Driver 3 before it was pulled and I can still DL the files and all the content.

Yes but in rescent events they've removed some goodies for games that are already purchased and on shelfs

However, you only have access to the general "game package", if the package is changed - say some extras are removed, which has happened in a couple cases - you'll find yourself having those changes applied to your shelf as well. Yes, the game package is the same for everyone who has access to it. New or old buyers. If the package is removed from sale, those who already bought it still have access to it (so far, though we have been warned that such might not be the case).

I suppose that it might be possible to remove the package from sale and create a new package for the same game, though this would likely create inconsistencies regarding files (both packages would have to be updated in case another extra was added, or the installer was updated for whatever reason, which would probably be extra work for GOG).

It's true. I have several removed games all still downloadable.

However this is about the bonus content. Apparently that has been removed from some games, including on your shelf. Might just be due to the transition to the new site though.

I support this letter. Even though I am not aware how much of an "issue" this is. Apparently it would be an extremely bitter experience for customers to loose their access to things they purchased simpy because of some "digital rights transfer".

Yeah, I think you shouldn't worry too much. If GOG suddenly decided to remove all access to a game people have bought, there would be trouble and havoc. Their PR would suffer tremendously because people would be too afraid to buy new games, dwelling on the thought "what if it gets removed suddenly, then I would've lost ACTUAL MONEY".

Gabe Newell has said that if for whatever reason Steam had to be shut down, he has a big red panic button and that by pressing it, customers would still have access to the games they've ever bought. I'm betting GOG has a similar back-up plan. Not that both scenarios are even remotely likely to happen anytime soon.