Why not GoG.com??

NuAngel

Rear Admiral
Who do we have to petition / bribe / sleep with / rough up / beg in order to bring the Wing Commander games to http://gog.com.

For those who don't know, GoG stands for Good Old Games - the site has low prices on classic games which you can directly download to your PC. The best part: every game is guaranteed compatible with newer versions of Windows. A lot of care and work goes in to their games, and I tell you this, if every Wing Commander (WC1+Expansion, 2+Expansion, Armada, Academy, 3, 4, and Prophecy) ever made an appearance on GoG.com, I would not hesitate to purchase every single one of them. Even if I didn't intend to replay them any time soon (like my WC4 I bought for the Playstation a few months ago), I would have to buy them.

So, I'm 115% serious: how do we get the ball rolling on this??

NuAngel
 
I think you can express interest in the series on their forum. Alternately, they're announcing another publisher deal soon, so if you have any favors owing from the beyond, maybe it's time to call those in.
 
I started hunting some more... found the games!!!

EVERYONE, PLEASE VOTE FOR WING COMMANDER GAMES!!

http://www.gog.com/en/wanted/

Search for Wing Commander at the top of the page and vote for whatever you can (I'm voting for all of them!). If you have to be a member to vote (already logged in, I'm not sure), please do! They have 3 free games listed on the site 24/7 and from now until Christmas Eve, 2009, you can also get another game. Just go to the catalog, and sorty price, they're easy to find!

NuAngel
 
See, here's the thing - you don't have to vote for Wing Commander. Everyone knows Wing Commander is a great title to have in a service like this. Heck, even the people behind GoG have said they would love to have a bunch of games from EA's back catalogue, and Wing Commander was specifically mentioned. EA would obviously have been one of the first companies they contacted when they started working on GoG back in 2007. So, why isn't EA onboard yet? Obviously, they haven't been able to come up with a deal that satisfies both sides. To be honest, I don't think EA is going to ever get into GoG - it just wouldn't be in their interest. Their back catalogue is so huge, they could set up their own GoG equivalent - and they probably eventually will.

Whether they offer their old games via GoG or through their own service makes no difference to us, though - either way, it's only a matter of time before these games become available.
 
Quatro, you are completely tight, although, I do not care who does it as long as I get to run my old games on a current PC, im happy.
 
While I agree with you, Quarto, I'm sure they know that Wing Commander should come to GoG - I still think that pushing for it would might convince them that they should pay the ransome that EA is asking, if they think they could genuinely make the money back.

Thanks for front-paging this. I'd be excited to see this thing grow!

-Nu
 
To be honest, I don't think EA is going to ever get into GoG - it just wouldn't be in their interest. Their back catalogue is so huge, they could set up their own GoG equivalent - and they probably eventually will.

I have no idea if EA will ever strike a deal with GoG or not, but to suggest that they won't simply because they could set up their own service doesn't ring true. EA already has their own download service yet they consistently put out their new releases on Valve's Steam service. Basically, EA will release their games on whatever platform they feel makes economic sense. So I think this is closer to a situation where they just haven't been given the right offer yet.
 
Right, yes - I went a little bit too far there. They clearly can work with other online publishers - not just Steam, for that matter, since there had also been Gametap before. I get the feeling - but it's a little hard to explain this specifically - that their unwillingness to cooperate with GoG is not about money, but about the total absence of DRM on GoG.
 
But that is a good thing, beause they find the name and title valuable, and might intent to use it again....
 
Right, yes - I went a little bit too far there. They clearly can work with other online publishers - not just Steam, for that matter, since there had also been Gametap before. I get the feeling - but it's a little hard to explain this specifically - that their unwillingness to cooperate with GoG is not about money, but about the total absence of DRM on GoG.

I would believe that. EA in general is a stickler about that stuff. But the lack of DRM is one of my favorite things about GoG - even though I've given up on my old piratey ways, I just don't like the concept of DRM.

IIRC, I believe iTunes quit using DRM, and they haven't reported any rampant piracy problems since doing so? I don't know, not an iTunes user... but I think people really like the idea of "if I'm honest with you, you should be honest with me." I don't want your company to go bankrupt all of the sudden, then no longer have access to my files, or the registration/validation servers, or whatever. Standalone EXE's from GoG that I can archive on my own are so great!

Yes, it may make them easier to pirate, but I think you'll get a more positive response in general, and piracy will always exist in one form or another anyways.

NuAngel
 
I also just read that EA is making major cuts which means they've cut about a dozen smaller projects and are only focusing on making games that they know will be successful. This basically means that they'll just be rehashing the same old shit of the last five years over and over again, no innovation and probably no reboots of classics. Why? Because EA sucks.
 
It's the economy. Every publisher is making cuts right now.

I would love for Electronic Arts to bring back Wing Commander, but lets admit it: that's about as far from innovation as you can get. We *want* the new edition of the same game every year, not something groundbreaking or different.

Which is what EA has been doing. I'd go so far as to say your record machine is stuck in 2001. They've spent a lot of money and effort on rebuilding their 'hardcore' image in the past few years. EA has put great deal into entirely new IPs (Dead Space, Mirror's Edge, Dante's Inferno, Army of Two, The Saboteur, Mass Effect, etc.) and a good deal into attempting to relaunch Command and Conquer as a prestige brand.
 
This basically means that they'll just be rehashing the same old shit of the last five years over and over again

The main Wing Commander series has been the same old shit with better graphics since WC2, nothing wrong with that.

Besides, Space Sims don't seem to sell outside russia these day anyway, so why waste money making them? I'd love to see a new WC game, but I'm not gonna rage against EA for not making one right now.

and a good deal into attempting to relaunch Command and Conquer as a prestige brand.

I really don't 'get' C&C... I've played all of the Tiberium games, and I can't see what's so amazing about them, though the first one was pretty fun. The story is weird, gameplay is nothing special, and neither are the factions or units, but they seems to be making a lot of games recently, so they must be fairly popular.

I did love Generals, though.
 
I'm not sure why my link to Abandonia was deleted as "warez" as far as I know Abandonia only distributes Abandonware, which means that the games can legally be distributed as freeware to anybody.

Anybody know if the first two Wing Commander games are freeware?

And yeah, obviously a new Wing Commander game would be considered a rehash, which would be awesome, but I'm pretty sure they'll only make games that have been successful recently I don't think they'd take a risk on a reboot right now...which kind of kills my soul.
 
I'm not sure why my link was deleted as "warez" ...

No, the WC games are *not* abandonware or freeware. Just because some sites put up warez versions of the games does not mean it's the case either. And before anyone protests further, reread the forum rules about posting links to *any* site that supposedly has WC to download for free. Abandonware is really just a term people made up so they could feel good about themselves for stealing games on the internet. There are very very few actual cases where copyright no longer exists for a given game or series. If the copyright holder decides to give a game away for free then it becomes "freeware". Though just because a company gives a game away free as a promotion at one time also does not automatically mean it is freeware either though, as often such promotions are limited in scope and time.

Just to emphasize the current WC situation you can *Currently* buy WC1 in the EA replay pack for the PSP. You can also just now buy WC4 PSX on the Playstation network for your PSP and PS3 for something like 6 bucks. Does that sound like EA has abandoned the IP to you?
 
I really don't 'get' C&C... I've played all of the Tiberium games, and I can't see what's so amazing about them, though the first one was pretty fun. The story is weird, gameplay is nothing special, and neither are the factions or units

The original Command and Conquer was a breakthrough, regardless of how we feel about it now. The armchair historians are going to tell you there were nine 'RTS' games that came out before it... but C&C was the 'DooM' to their Wolfenstein or Ultima Underworld--a game that set the tone for a million immitators, the game that created the 'RTS craze' that lasted through the late 1990s.

but they seems to be making a lot of games recently, so they must be fairly popular.

The amazing thing is that they really aren't. It's a prestige project, something that's more about repairing reputation than selling millions of games. EA would be very happy to have C&C become an incredibly lucrative IP again... but right now it isn't.
 
As far as the Abandonware and Warez versions... I still have original versions of most of my Wing Commander Archive (at one time I owned them all - sold the entire lot, now rebuilding my collection). But I wouldn't mind having one that is guaranteed to be Windows compatible, without me having to re-live the good ol' days of choosing my sound card and remembering to run himem. ;)

NuAngel
 
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