Suggestion: put most popular games on a virtual server and rent time to play them. That way people can run them on their iPads and GOG gets a scalable revenue stream that is not hardware dependent.

That would require a huge investment on the part of GOG just to get the necessary infrastructure up and running, not to mention the development of the backend software required to run the games remotely. They are a very small company, I don't think they have it in them t make something like this happen. You'd probably be better off petitioning a company like OnLive, which already does what you want, to add old games to their library.

Part of my point: OnLive doesn't do what I want with old games. What I am suggesting is to add a separate subscription business model as a premium over the existing one as a start. Not a huge investment rip-and-replace that alienates current users.

You may be right about the technical limitations of GOG - I just found this site today - and I am being deliberately newbie-naive in my suggestion. However, the infrastructure required could well be an elastic cloud-type service/CDN. And there might be other parties (fans) interested in seeing this happen, such as XBLA. I would love my kids to be able to play some old school on XBOX (they already can on Wii via downloads).

What happens if GOG doesn't do something like this? it would be sad if after a brief renaissance these games will only run on museum pieces or emulators like early Mac games.

Considering a lot of the older games are running under DOSBox and ScummVM anyway, I doubt future compatibility is much of an issue.

I don't know how much money there would be in this. GameTap is pretty much what your asking for, but it wasn't exactly a huge success. I don't know any sales figures or anything, but I can say from a users standpoint that its currently just a shadow of what It used to be. There is also the fact the all the games on GOG are really cheap to begin with. Its not like you would be saving any money by renting them instead of buying. Then there are the publishers to think about. GOG cant just decide to do something like this without each publisher also agreeing, and they wouldn't agree to do this without compensation.

Another issue with this is that GOG would have to renegotiate all their contracts to allow the streaming subscription model you suggest. On top of that, the model is really the most extreme form of DRM, since you are literally renting the game since the files are not even installled to your PC.

I also don't see the point to this for older games. Most of the games on GOG will run on any relatively modern computer quite well and the price points are cheap. When all your games are priced between $6 and $10, renting them just doesn't make sense.

If someone wanted to play these games on their console or iPad they aren't $6-10. They are unavailable. This suggestion is not aimed at happy existing GOGers.

Yes renting is defacto DRM but is not evil by default - depends on terms. I can buy, install and serve any game from my home PC to my iPad with VNC. I would rather have GOG do that and provide an SLA and the convenience of trying without buying. Some day I won't have a PC.

Sure there are business concerns that would need to be addressed with the publishers - and... so?

I will have to look into Dosbox and ScummVM - sound interesting.

Sounds like what you want is GameTap... before Metaboli raped it of everything it once was.

remember that these are /old/ games, even if you did get it to stream onto your ipad or console, the source code for most of them is lost and you wont have any real way to control them.

iPad, eh? Was that something you wipe your ass with? :)

Also, many of these games were designed as PC games from the ground up and are thus optimized for mouse and keyboard input. I couldn't imagine trying to play an RTS on a console. Or trying to read all the text on a game like Planescape on a TV screen.

I do think the touch screen and gyro in the iPad could make for some good control on some of the games, but you would need access to the source code to implement that. Something gog doesn't get from the dev/publisher, and in some cases is completely lost.

On top of that, I don't see there being a lot of demand to play old PC games on modern consoles or iPads. Most people who use those devices want to play newer games that were designed for their system of choice. Most people who are interested in playing old PC games want to play them on a PC, their native platform. And before you argue that the iPad would make them portable, most of the games here can be run on a netbook, which is just as portable as an iPad and often much cheaper.