Sierra games debut on GOG.com!

[crawford,crawford_michaelcrawford_com]

Hi all,

One of my suggestions for Ken should he have purchased the Sierra rights when they were up for sell has come to pass – I got an email this morning announcing that Gabriel Knight: SOTF is now available for download on GOG.com. Of course, the announcement was titled “Introducing Activision Catalog” and I nearly deleted it without reading. But it looks like Sierra games are on the way – they’ve also released the more recent Sierra RPG Arcanum.

I’ve really enjoyed GOG’s releases so far – they package the games for download, and make them compatible with modern systems. It keeps the classics alive, which makes me happy. It also gives companies an easy way to make money off of these classics, which should inspire further delving into the vaults. Maybe it’ll inspire someone with a little cash-on-hand to make an investment in the Sierra name… 🙂

[Andy,Linnenkohl]

Michael,

Great catch.  I’ve added a link to both Steam and GOG on the Links Page based on your post.

I believe the late Sierra collections are available on Steam and it looks like GOG is going to be rolling out more of the Sierra collection (some stuff was already out there – Impressions games I believe).  The digital distribution networks seem to be the wave of the future.  If it makes great games available again, more power to them.  I think I’ll likely be forking over the $5.99 and giving the GK download a test drive today 🙂

Andy

[C_Guy,C_Guy]

Michael: I did the same thing when I received my e-mail from GOG this morning!  It is strange to see the games listed under ‘Activision’ since they have sold all Sierra property to Electronic Arts.  (No, they didn’t… never mind!)

Andy: Unfortunately, the only Impressions games GOG currently has are the Lords of the Realm series and Lords of Magic.  I really hope they release Impressions’ city-building series as I’ve had a real challenge trying to get them to run on Microsoft’s latest and greatest OS. 

The whole concept of GOG is executed very well.  If I didn’t already own these legendary titles I would download from this site without hesitation.  And you can’t beat the price! 🙂

[crawford,crawford_michaelcrawford_com]

While it’s great to have those collections on Steam, those are the versions released a few years ago that I heard were hit-and-miss with modern OSes. The great thing about GOG is that they package everything together with the loader so you just have to install and go, and they make sure it all runs correctly.

And WHOA… I didn’t know about the EA thing. I’ve been busy lately, but I don’t know how I managed to miss that…

[C_Guy,C_Guy]

So how does GOG get these games to work?  Do they run in a Virtual Machine or do they tweak the code to enable it to run on modern OS’s?

[rudy_marchant,rudy_marchant_hotmail_com]

I haven’t checked, but i guess they include a DOSBox installer (hopefully a better one than those of the 2006 Quest collections), for Sins of the Fathers at least. Arcanum should work fine on newer OS.

[Collector,]

All 4 of the VU collections had serious issues. For a list of all of what was wrong with the KQ collection, see this thread: The Many problems with the last collection of the KQ series. The other three collections have similar issues. What Steam offers are the same collections with all of the same flaws. My 2006 Collections DOSBox patches address all issues with the collections.

[crawford,crawford_michaelcrawford_com]

They do indeed come bundled with an installer, but they work far FAR better than the shovelware that was the VU collections. I’ve yet to have to tweak any of them in any way – they just install, and run like any other software.

[C_Guy,C_Guy]

That’s good to hear Michael!  Maybe they will eventually get to have the entire Sierra catalog available.  I think it would do very well 🙂

[crawford,crawford_michaelcrawford_com]

FYI to all – This week, GOG.com added Phantasmagoria and a bundle with Space Quest 4-6. This weekend, they have a Red Baron collection and Incredible Machine for 50% off. Just in case anyone wanted some gaming goodness for the weekend! But oh how it makes me sad to see them labeled as Activision titles…

PS. LOVING what is going on with the site here… it looks fantastic!

[Andy,Linnenkohl]

Thanks Michael.   The admins are working hard to get the things up on this site. 

The current release schedule of two InterActions a week puts us on about a four month schedule to have them all up.  I’m hopeful to have the bulk of the work done by then.  Variant releases, continued Sierra Museum entries, the works.  There was a lot of Sierra history!

Andy

[crawford,crawford_michaelcrawford_com]

New games today! GK2 and King’s Quest IV-VI bundle. Who says these games aren’t marketable anymore?!

[Collector,]

But it seems that they are not being handled much better than the VU release. Steam had been referred to me before they re-released the VU collections by someone that should have carried some weight, but all they did was to change the installer to install the games inside of the Steam folder with all of the same (numerous) problems. It is beginning to look like the GOG releases are only marginally better. They really need to consult with people who understand the games before they package their releases.

[crawford,crawford_michaelcrawford_com]

That’s a real shame, and I hate to hear it. I’d had really good luck with GOG in the past so I thought for sure they’d manage to package these games with class. Hopefully they can get it together.

It’s funny now to think of downloading GK2… can you imagine that back in the day? All those CDs?

[Collector,]

There are quite a few problems with the GK2 release, most of which are fixable. If you get GK2, be sure to read my post in the GK2 subtitles thread on the GOG forums on how to fix the problems with this release.

[C_Guy,C_Guy]

Has anyone actually purchased any of these yet?  I am very vurious about the technology behind it, especially for King’s Quest 6.  As I’m sure most of you are aware that is a real pain to get working on Windows XP.  I’m not sure if it works on Vista but it sure won’t work on Windows 7. 

I e-mailed the GOG team to ask what they do to get them running on modern computers.  Is it an emulator?  A modified installer?  Or is the game somehow re-coded?  The response was “we don’t give away are secrets”. 

Seeing how I already own multiple copies of the KQ series I am not interested in buying it again to play on Windows 7 if it’s simply the DOS version bundled with an emulator.  But if it works under Windows 7 I would buy it.  Can anyone offer some insight?

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