Guess some people already told you... you talk to much and it is usually "killing" a lot of stuff.

Anyway, yes, (both) games are not working for me. The ratings are pretty good... so i wonder how is it possible. Are they all running it on a Windows XP or is there a good mod available? No hint from the forums...

Ok, Ground Control 1 actually got an easy fix, simply by adding a DLL, so it works now. Ground Control 2 is still broken...

I was trying alot now but can not get it to work, and had to reboot the system several times because of all the freezing... soon gonna use my Notebook for all this "abuse"... i worry it will damage my OS.

Some other user said:

°°°°°°Ground Control 2 won't launch
Title says it. Remembered an old game I loved and I've been spending all day trying to play it. I found the old physical disk only for me to realize my new pc no longer has a disk drive. So i tried steam but game wont launch. Now im trying gog and once again game wont launch. Would love any help!°°°°°°°

Solution:
°°°°°°°°°°°°Originally posted by Vanomas#1:
Bruteforce it. Compability - win95, run as administrator. Try open it 40-50 times. That all

LOL... It's weird but works...
#11
John Hannibal Smith [has Ground Control II] 15 May, 2024 @ 3:12pm
Success rate is about 1-3%

Access violation writing to 0x04211020 at 0x6e3e2021

0x6e3e2021
0x6e3e325c
0x6e3e39ba
0x6e3e12c8
0x6e3d5fef
0x6e3dbffb
0x6e3dc04c
0x6e3dde83
0x6e3dc24d
0x6e3dc33a
0x0055f5ce°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°°

OK...at least games never lack to entertain me, not even if it goes very bad or wrong.

It does feel like GOG isn't doing their job properly, granted they never talk about this so we can only speculate, but it's weird they can't bring more games here, popular and somewhat old indies like Hades or Subnautica should be easy to get, and some of the triple As that had their DRM stripped already seem like obvious picks... yet weeks go by and we only get shovelware crumbles

The fact that christmas went by without a surprise release was shocking to me, I think the last unannounced (and good) game that we got was The Talos Principle 2.. back in september

Sometimes i doubt they even try... most likely because "low on coins" and they worry they can not afford it and/or simply to less sales.

However... it is still one of the biggest miracles how they got Sony to release several high rated franchises here.

Besides, Hades never got any DRM attached... i can run it without any client at all.

Ground Control 2 will become uninstalled... i lack the time to deal with it, and it seems to be broken pretty bad; because no one can so far provide a clear and easy solution. At least the first title is working now, already a big win for less than one buck.

They shotdown the System Shock fans, who had already preserved the games and even improved both games. Then after stealing mods and implementing them half assed. Broke them at launch on gog. Pretty much giving the fans the middle finger.

That was the beginning of the company.

I would have been impressed if gog staff cobbled together the fans that gave life to the games. While having them do a remake, if inclined and funded.

Indeed:-

ScummVM = "All this hard work done by 147 contributors across 8,493 commits has resulted in us being able to preserve Blade Runner, starting from ScummVM 2.1 released on Oct 11, 2019"

Nightdive = "Hey guys, we just released a very blurry overpriced Blade Runner EE on June 23rd 2022, and took down the original from sale after "borrowing" a lot of its code. It's great that we're gonna get free marketing for being such great 'preservationists' in 5 years time, eh?"

Another example - On April 2nd 2019, The 7th Guest was removed from the store and The 7th Guest 25th Anniversary added in its place. Plot Twist - Mojotouch's 25th Anniversary Edition literally uses the same ScummVM (as the original they simultaneously removed), they just added a couple of language / subtitle / soundtrack files (that could have easily been added to the normal ScummVM version as they have to other games like Broken Sword, Toonstruck, etc) then hid it inside a Windows Presentation Foundation wrapper to make it look less obvious...

^ It may not be GOG's choice to remove original versions (that's usually the publishers decision), but at the end of the day all the time original versions keep "disappearing" due to Remakeitus, it's very hard to see this as anything other than a shallow PR gimmick. The people who truly deserve the credit for making thousands of old PC games playable are the DOSBox / ScummVM / GZDoom / NewDark / dgVoodoo2 / OpenMW, etc, coders, not those who simply sell / repackage someone else's work. And the sad truth is the only people capable of retaining original versions post-remaster are pretty much everyone else (museums, Abandonware sites) except for-profit stores constrained by publishing agreements.

Yeah, that bait & switch crap is already obnoxious enough by itself, but using fake Windows wrappers around ScummVM games means you if you don't already own them then you can't buy the old versions (because new versions tried to erase them from history) but you also can't buy the new GOG versions to play them on say Android phones / tablets / Chromebooks anymore (because ScummVM doesn't see the intentionally obfuscated files / original DOS .exe may be missing), making the "enhanced" Windows-only ones more like downgraded crippled versions for cross-platform users. "Game Preservation (tm)" at its 'finest'...

Steam is not any different, They got more shinys but at the same time a huge load of rubish, Even Steam was turning down games... not unknown there. Not because a game is crap, instead if a game is "politically not correct".

Subnautica's lead dev actually asked devs on twitter if it was worth doing a GOG release and was advised No. This was quite a few years back.

Do you mean he asked other developers who made other games (who have released on GOG) about their sales here and they said No (due to low sales or something)? That doesn't sound great when it's a popular game that's sold several million copies. :-(

I am absolutely with you guys. I don’t want to come across as dismissive of indie games. I'd buy something like Hades in a second (and that source code is pretty much public :D).

Agreed! Things should not be messed with, but sandboxed. But sandboxing is a general effort. Remakes are sellable ;)
The issue with old games breaking isn’t about the game code - it’s about shifting APIs. That’s what compatibility layers like dgVoodoo2 or Wine/Proton do. There's no need to alter the original code; instead, focus on providing the right sandbox environment for older games to run in. GOG could easily do this. Basically package a game with a runtime. Probably, in the end that's what most of these "devs" do. They mentioned "emulation" as well. In fact, as a linux user, I would not be surprised if half the issues you run into under Windows, I don't observe. Since wine / proton are effectively such a sandbox for older APIs. Also agree on the fact that most of these 5 minute remakes are not that great and have similar issues or quirks that then never get finished (because not worth). On the other hand, if it's a sandbox, the fix can happen naturally as part of further sandbox improvements - and just needs to be repackaged.

The video mentions "video games as cultural heritage" and EU a few times. I wonder if EU cultural funding is an angle here.
Basically, the business will be: "milk retro" not "be DRM free" (Controversially, the one thing - as the video rightfully says - that prevents them to be accessed freely :D)

The problem with this argument is that it already starts too late. What makes it more troublesome then worth to release on GOG? That should be the number 1 priority to fix - if you still want to sell games that you didn't "restore yourself" that is ;)

I think at this point, I just would like GOG to tell me if they are still trying to sell general games or not. I guess I have to go by behavior and conclude. No. Because otherwise, they are not doing a good job, and I don't get quite why. If finance was the issue, there are solutions for it.

This is surely very sad... especially because Subnautica is available DRM free on Steam and EGS (so this is NOT the reason it is not on GOG)... yet... GOG apparently got such low sells.. at least according to those devs... they rather avoid GOG: As they feel it is just "not sufficiently fat for any reliable income!". However... what means "good income"? 10% of the market? 15%? Or perhaps less than 10%? I feel it will start to hurt if it is below 10%. Sure GOG is not a perfect platform... yet i can not say any other platform is even nearly "perfect" for me... as every platform got a lot of things i do not enjoy. The only question is just... "is someone able to deal with the weakness" or is it hitting them as hard as a DRM is hitting me... but instead if they lack achievements?

Whats clear to me... the reason why we still did not get a single Final Fantasy (as a good example) is not because of the DRM... it is because the publisher thinks "it is just not worth it". Almost everyone is buying it on Steam like crazy and every modder is almost exclusively supporting Steam and is not even trying to avoid Steam... as over 90% of the gamers are (explicitly) asking for Steam, Achievements and whatelse... it is a crazy customer demand i barely understand, yet simply reality... and reason why the GOG market share is lower than it could be. In my mind not truly fair because "GOG is better than what they get rewarded for".

Still... many publishers are barely updating their games on GOG, so their maintenance work is not to big.

It is a 2 edged sword... because the reason GOG is often avoided is aswell the reason customers are avoiding it. If publishers give lower support, the customers will as well buy lesser and slowly losing trust... and then the lack of trust goes back to the publishers. It is a "downward spiral"... and the only sword-action able to break this spiral is a powerful slash able to break this "Gordian knot". Trust is not always earned... it can be given such as "love" without demands... yet it surely is hard without getting back some "real stuff".

I still got a lot of hope... because most likely a game from a comparable "caliber" Kingdom Come: Deliverance II https://www.gog.com/en/game/kingdom_come_deliverance_ii may come to GOG in not more than 6 months i guess.

Surely, GOG got somewhat "special" customers... as i can clearly see on the wishlist. The games who are by far with biggest demands are "old and sometimes even new western PC games (comparable to Kingdome Come, but preferably older and even more extreme toward western style)"... The games that barely got any audience... and i dunno why exactly... is almost anything in the direction of eastern or Japanese games. So... in usual... GOG is not trying hard getting those games... unfortunately. However... it was a blast GOG got many of the Sony titles.

True, but how should GOG tackle this issue? As long as Steam is steamrolling nearly the entire market and sometimes Nintendo and Sony in between (with some squeeze) nothing will change. The very success of Steam is not really because they are overly friendly to "preservation" or customers in general; the reason is because they simply provide the most valued stuff currently asked for "a powerful server farm, a achievement and bragging-rights mode, online services because we got no real life anymore and of course many extremely cheap Steam keys, so almost everyone can afford a game from all around the world". However... Steam will do nothing in the sense of "trying to preserve our heritage... such as original software"... and the only reason they are such a big Linux lover... is because so they can become even more "independent" as even MS will slowly lose power vs. them. I know, many Linux friends believe Steam is supporting Linux out of "sheer altruism".... but nope... all they care for is preserving their power... at least with highest priority, and the Linux community is even assisting them.

"Repackaging" in most cases sounds bad. As the original software is usually lost after and if gotten by piracy in many cases full of malware. So those games are often damaged beyond repair. Sure it may become playable after but only "by destroying the original source", which is not the first choice. Better choice is to make some "wrapper" or even a emulation... and if it a remaster or remake is still with a high demand, simply make a bundle with the old version included, thats very critical. However, GOG simply lacks the power to make this demand always (or not even very often) come true and those who in theory got the power... they do no care. Because they are overly "Industry-friendly" and the industry mainly simply will offer and use the stuff which has been asked for... and... what is asked for is "remakes, remasters" and not much more than that.... as hard as it may hurt the minority of gamers.

However... i would never give up and always stand up for the stuff important to someone else... no matter if the opposite force is blowing those out of the socks... the one opposing it simply need to be as sturdy as a iron monkey... and just as "long lasting".

This is not true. First of, malware from 30 years ago is easily detectable and removable. Secondly, most games are completely "findable" in their raw binary product form. Source code or assets are mostly lost - if anything. And for "preserving" the game the source is not needed. It would be nice if it was public domain or open source (all hail doom). So quite frankly, I am not buying that source manipulations are needed in most cases. There are a few where you either have to patch a bit, or emulate. But neither is an issue. It's just that people will call you a fake and ask why you want 30 bucks for it. Rightfully so.

If you wanna remaster a game, that's a different story (I bought the Tomb Raider remaster) but it's not needed to preserve.

But the solution to that is quite simple right? It goes back to my original question: "Why?"

I have a few thoughts on where things might be going wrong:
- Release Reviews: For large games, this is unnecessary. Just give trusted developers an API key and let them release their games and set prices as they see fit, minus your cost calculations. Require no DRM and make sure the game works, or revert it. That's all. Or just check if a steam release for the same version exists and auto-approve it. This also saves cost.
- Steam VS GOG integration: This should not be an issue. If it is, fix it. Don't bother companies with yet another integration issue. They likely already don't wanna pay anybody to release with you. So don't make them. You need to have a drop in DDL to map steam features to GOG. Or at least a compatibility layer that compiles in. Nothing else is gonna fly. At most they should need to put an IF around the steam account check. Same about the release pipeline and store pages. Match steam as close as you can or create a converter.
- Automated Testing: Only test GOG Galaxy integrations around, cloud saves and achievements (the stuff you drop-in replace). Rest is up to the dev.
- Agreements, licenses etc. discuss and agree in bulk. Make simple. Favor publisher. In the end, you are a shop. It can't be that hard to streamline this.

Basically, if it takes a dev more then a day to release a game here as a big publisher, GOG is making a mistake.
Regarding compatibility layers: It probably takes at most a few weeks to create one from GOGs side. I don't know how to neatly exactly deal with the steam account / auth-token integration, but even that should be solve-able (I know pirates do that). In the end, the APIs are very similar mechanically. Same for release pipelines. Basically, realize that you are nobody compared to them and work with that, don't fight it. My estimate for developers currently is likely that it takes them a few weeks. That's not ok, I agree.

(Multiplayer/Matchmaking, Steam Workshop or SteamVR are not something to target for such a drop in replacement if anybody from GOG will ever read this :P So yes, multiplayer is something were studios (or GOG) would have to sit down considerably more.)

I do not get 2 major points you do:

-The game is not needed for prevervation... EXPLAIN!
My knowledge is... a game is a main code structure with a lot of assets, yet, for preservation we do need eveything... we do not only need its "backbone without assets or anything else"... everything is needed for the best preservation.

-It takes a publisher several weeks for creating a GOG version, but many games... even from huge publishers... are not much more than a "stripped down" Steam version with a installer provided. It would be different if they make a truly unique GOG version but in many cases it is just a somewhat stripped down and "barely adapted to Galaxy", Steam version... even Steam leftovers can be detected in many cases. Even on Nintendo or Sony they do a lot of work for a custom build but on GOG (or even EGS) it is usually just a slightly modified Steam version... but at least DRM free.

So, i do not really get it... i need a good explanation why you come to such conclusions.

I assume you mean me.
1) it's kind of a spelling mistake (hasty omission of words). It should be: And for "preserving" the game [the source] is not needed. - corrected
2) Not sure what you mean. But my point is that it shouldn't take them this long. It actually at-best shouldn't require them to touch their software at all. That's kinda the point. For simple features that GOG supports like cloud saves and Achievements, it really shouldn't. There should be a DDL mapping steam calls to GOG equivalents.