How many of you remember the full form of GOG? Good Old Games, as it stands for, was originally created with the mission of making retro PC games more accessible to the public. But over time, and due to competition from other video game marketplaces and platforms, GOG shifted its focus to target modern games. However, it seems that the platform will be going back to its roots.
GOG's management has announced that the website will be shifting its focus back to retro games. "Originally, GOG stood for Good Old Games. The idea for the company was born from the wish to play older games in a legal and easy-to-use way," said GOG via a blog post. "As the classic games hold a special place in our heart, we’d like to devote more attention to highlighting them. It means that our goal is for GOG to become, once again, the best place for the classic PC games."
"Our job isn’t to simply release the games that are already on the market. It’s to make them available to everyone - that oftentimes means fixing them, and making sure that they will run on the modern systems that you have," it continued. "So far we achieved that by our internal work, and various cooperations with DOSBox or ScummVM, among others."
GOG also noted that legality is a major hurdle when it comes to dealing with retro games. Mostly because rights have changed hands numerous times, companies have been acquired, and in some cases, the developers no longer exist. But while the company has its work cut out, it wanted to celebrate the occasion by showcasing some of the available games. They include Diablo + Hellfire, Theme Hospital, Dungeon Keeper Gold, Deus Ex GOTY Edition, System Shock: Enhanced Edition. But the highlight is The Wheel of Time with modern OS compatibility and hi-res support.
GOG is only one of the numerous entities in the video games industry who are doing their part in helping with relief efforts in Ukraine. The company announced that it would donate its share of profits from Slipways and This War Of Mine to the Ukrainian Red Cross, just like the developers were doing.