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

Same here, Since I have a really Slow internet connexion in my country, I bought games with the intention of downloading them in the near future.
I haven't downloaded a single game i've bought coz we have a monthly restriction, and with every excess GB we pay a lot of money :s

So if the games i'm starting to buy are losing their goodies, ... what's the point of stocking them :( ?

Yep. While I didn't notice any content disappearing, I would be very disappointed if GoG removed some of my favourite soundtracks.

I agree that a warning would be nice. However, I believe that there might be a legal risk involved. Example: If it turns out that GOG offered something (mistakenly) for download without a valid license, and is forced to remove that content, then the removal needs to follow quickly. If GOG then encourages its members to download the infringing content before it gets removed, then they could be held liable for causing damage to the rights holder.

In the end, you really _should_ download everything you buy, and make a local backup. There is no other way to be safe from deletions or removals. More warnings from GOG would be welcome, but they won't replace the need for local backups.

@OldFatGuy: The license "Amendment" you propose would put GOG out of business if they followed through. You are basically asking them to break the law. Not a good idea imho.

Also: I don't know, but to me "Open Letters" always sound a bit melodramatic. I don't think that's necessary. Why not just make a suggestion? Or, well, why not use the new updated wishlist that has been implemented just recently to collect such suggestions?

http://www.gog.com/en/forum/general/removed_extras_on_some_games/page1 Sorry.

Ok, let's all let this thread die now please. I don't know how to delete them or I would.

Sorry to everyone for this mess.

My bad.

Please no more posting here now and let's let this thread move down to the depths of GOG forum hell. lol

I might very well be blind, but I had no idea that GOG is planning on removing content. What content are they removing, an when?

They never planned to remove content, but for some reason or other, they needed to (licensing issues, likely).
Some examples here. Don't worry, everyone makes mistakes. And discussions are good, they show that we, the users, care about these issues - even if some suggested solutions are infeasible - and may prompt GOG to do something about it.

No this thread doesn't deserved to be move down to the depths of hell (although i agree "Open letter" is melodramatic and cliche). Maybe by chance TheEnigmatic will read this and forward it to higher ups.

What OldFatGuy suggested is how GOG has handled some games disappearing from the storefront in the past, giving everyone the chance to buy before they go, and keeping the games in your account to download. The rights and legalities situation is different for each piece of content.

Furthermore if you know of content you didn't get the chance to download, I'm sure other users or the rest of the internet would have it available for you, without any moral complications. The legalities there are not something I'm interested in.

Whilst this (might be) is poor form on GoG's part, it further highlights the absolute NEED to back up every game and extra you buy drm free. If only once. This can eliminate such confusion and annoyance.

Please keep this in mind for the future, OP. Let's hope GoG responds soon though, it is way outside of thier nature for such a thing to happen.

Backups are important, but obviously they are only a solution if you happen to buy a game before the extras are removed. Since I haven't bought the Atlantis games yet, I will never get their soundtracks even though I keep complete backups of all my games.

Well, but that's YOUR problem. When you buy them (whenever that is) you will do it knowing what extras are there or not, so you'll make an informed purchase. The problem is when you buy a game AFTER checking all its extras (let us all remember GOG talks about goodies as one of their main selling points), and 4 months later when you finally get to download it (for whatever reason, it doesn't matter) you find a particular extra you have bought is gone.

so, GOG states your games are here FOREVER ("until the heat death of the universe" in fact), but the goodies are not apparently, in this way GOG encourages us NOT to make backups because they claim to essentially be doing that very thing for us. Now, I KNOW this is not GOG's fault, but it would be cool if they manage to secure some forewarning with publishers, so that those who buy games with certain extras can make copies of them before they are taken down. After all they've paid for said extras.

I think it has to do with the question of what exactly you're buying and what exactly they're promising. Personally, this isn't ever going to affect me as I immediately download both the game and the goodies and keep them backed up.

But, for others it's a bit tricky because ultimately, they are included with the purchase of the game or perhaps are a gift with purchase of the game. Which does make it a bit complicated as consumer protection laws in parts of the world really ought to dictate that access be maintained for the people that bought the game while the goodies were available.

But, as I said, it won't ever affect me unless I happen to buy during that extremely short period of time where they're offering the goodies and then removing them.

At the very least sending out a mass email to all registered users warning them of certain content being taken down for a game they already own is a must, at least 1 or two days in advance so they have a chance to download the free goodies that came with the product they paid for. Especially when it comes to soundtracks, oftentimes there might be a mediocore or average game but if it has a nice soundtrack and is a free extra for download someone might purchase the game solely for that as well as supporting GOG.

Its doing right by the customer, not corporate business suits that tell you something has to be taken down just because and that's what's important, doing what's best for the customer, lest you alienate them like what happened with the GOG PR stunt.