Don't take Joe seriously. He's a whiny brat.

I love you Vagabond.

I do wonder how many people might potentially be disappointed tomorrow :S

I expect the vast majority of people will be disappointed.
I already am, and it's not even been annouced yet.

Also voices, which the original did not have at all. From the preview movie they seemed decent, a bit over the top though, but I'm used to the non-talkie original game and thus they do not interest me. As for the "better hand-painted graphics", this is debatable. I'm not fond of the new style at all because it looks too cartoony while the original managed to have a somewhat serious look while being ludicrously humourous.
Which is the problem I have with the whole project: why remake it when the original still looks good, plays the same and can run extremely well under a wide variety of systems with a piece of software like ScummVM? The main changes are only aesthetics in nature, varying greatly from the original, and that doesn't seem to be enough to justify the whole endeavour. I could understand a game like Pirates! being remade, due to its age and the possibility to improve the formula, but Monkey Island leaves me cold.

Great examples! Wow you really know how to prove a point!
Lets just bury everything that has ever been made and never reconsider remaking anything.

But pirates was fundamentally the same, about the only real difference was the addition of dancing to seduce the governors daughters
The new art style is optional, in addition to the original graphics, I'm sure there'll be subtitles and a volume slider for the voice for people who want the traditional old school game (and who will probably then complain about there being no reason to re-release it)
Basically the game's being re-released for modern systems and for people who haven't had it before. If you're happy with your 19 year old floppies then thats great for you. If you prefer a digital copy of the original, great. If you want the voices and updated art, great. If you want it on a console where its difficult/impossible to run homebrew stuff like scummvm then thats great too.
With the options there are, there's no good reason for ANYONE to bitch about this and yet people STILL manage it.

I'd wager 8/10ths of the people who bought Fallout 3 had never heard of the previous games in the series, much less played them. The name had little to do with sales.
And while I just don't see LucasArts coming to GOG, I don't doubt it will something mind-blowing, though, and I can't wait to be surprised. :)

If I had to guess, I'd assume it's because Lucasarts wants to sell it to newcomers, not just old fans of the MI series.
Think about it for a second. Let's assume that you're a typical gamer (not a retro-gamer), and that you've only ever heard gossip about Monkey Island, if that. Knowing absolutely nothing about the product, would you really be keen on spending $10.00 or more on some random 8-bit game? It'd be less expensive to produce that way, sure, but I can almost guarantee that it wouldn't sell as well as a remastered game.
That''s how I feel. Then again, I really don't like 8-bits. The closer to photo-realism a game is, the more attractive it is to me.

So it's a remake that builds upon the original formula, offering few differences. Fine with me. It also brought a classic back to the front and updated it for modern systems, going from 2D to 3D. Changes may not be to everyone's taste, and it is debatable if was really needed, but in the end it required more work than merely adding a new layer on top of the original game.
I'm glad that LA decided to at last release MI again, but I find the methodology questionable. There are no announcement about their other old games and it seems that they might be released again but only on the condition that the MI remake is successful. Sounds like a ransom scheme to me: buy this and maybe you'll get the right to buy something else later. I'm sure that people would be interested if they offered to buy the games from their website, looking exactly the same as they did when they were first released; no need to parade around with an ugly update and the promise of more of the same if it sells.
Glittering Gems of Hatred.
Hatred.
Old names sell. It's all part of the hype machine. You could already be certain that many would buy any crap with Bethesda's name on it — which is already a completely different animal from the Bethesda of Arena and Daggerfall — but telling that this franchise is old and respected gives some pedigree to the whole project. Fallout's name itself wouldn't have sold but it was carefully marketted by Hines. No surprise many websites suddenly paid hommage to Fallout just when Bethesda started to give details about Fallout 3.
By the way, the same thing is also happening with Baldur's Gate. Why? Because Bioware is marketting Dragon Age, a spiritual successor to that game. You may not have played it but if it's old — and thus unplayable for the refined gamer of today — and respected — be it right or wrong — you can be part of it too by buying the new game.
Oh and what about the recent announcement about sequels to Deus Ex and Thief after all these years? Do you start to see a trend there?
Of course it is. They try to expand the market for these kind of games. And why not? But I wonder if the ADD kiddies who only care about graphics will stick for long. They might cave in due to pressure — press says it's good so it must be so! — but will they stay around for the whole re-release of the LA games? I mean, games of this kind require you to think if you want to solve them. I'm curious to see if LA will add an option to have the puzzles automatically solved by the pressing of a button, or maybe some in-game hint system.

Well the MI remake has a 3 level hint system, the pinnacle of which involves a big yellow arrow pointing you where you have to go. Like everything you can turn it off and play it the proper way like a normal person or be a stupid git & get through it in the fastest time possible and then go back to COD4.

I'll admit, I'm totally excited about whatever LA has in store for tomorrow. Especially if it has anything to do with digital distribution.
As far as the GOG team remaining silent on this, if they do have a deal, they probably signed a big time NDA in order to get this exclusive deal.
I dunno, just mere speculation on my part.
BJ

:facepalm:
Why am I even surprised? Thanks for the info, I didn't read much about the whole thing so I wasn't aware of that. I thought they might do it too but I didn't think they'd actually implement it.
Sure, it can be deactivated, but LA still went out of its way to add it. The message is kind of clear.

This cracks me up.
First paragraph: I defend the prospect of old game remakes!
Second paragraph: I loathe the prospect of old game remakes!

Warning, thread derailing underway.
Fallout 3 isn't bad, it not the same as the earlier games (being 3D, real-time, and requiring a bit more twitch-gaming skill from the gamer - something I sorely lack), but that doesn't make it a bad game. On another note, I enjoy both Morrowind and Oblivion, but prefer the latter. I also greatly enjoy the Infinity Engine D&D games, and I do believe I'll like Dragon Age.
I have never played any of the Monkey Island games so I cannot comment on them with any real substance, but if you have the freedom to chose how to play the game (new/old graphics, with/without hints/sound) what the hell are you complaining about? You don't want a new generation of gamers to experience the same game you did 15 years ago? (random number as I don't know when MI was released originally).
To branch out to another series, do you feel World of Warcraft is not worthy of the Warcraft name either? I can enjoy all the games in the series and I do see the connections in the game universe and changes through the timeline, similarities that can be seen in the Fallout and Elder Scrolls games as well.
As for BG/DA, "spiritual successor" effectively means "played in a similar setting", in this case "high fantasy", given Bioware's earlier games, I have no doubt of the new game's quality.