Renzatic on 20/9/2010 at 23:44
Quote Posted by Matthew
What was great was that moderately hot girls asked me to fix their config.sys and autoexec.bat, that's what.
Ha! You did things the hard way. All I had to do was say "hey look, I can bring up all kinds of secret information on a computer", hop on the command prompt, and type dir/w. She looks at all that scrolling text, gets excited, and the next thing I know, my head is between two titties due to my awesomeness. :D
Things were so much simpler back then.
Shadowcat on 21/9/2010 at 00:21
Fafhrd: Alternatively, it was business as usual, and then something forced them to pull the plug in a hurry while they sorted things out behind the scenes. The 'speed' with which they are providing a 'solution' for existing customers could simply indicate a slightly modified version of the regular site, so no surprise that it wouldn't take long to put together. Honestly, I'd love for you to be right (and you may be), but none of what they've said comes close to 'clinching it' as some kind of (incredibly ill-judged) stunt.
mothra on 21/9/2010 at 09:15
i don't believe in a pubicity stunt either. that seems far fetched at this point and an ill-advised direction for any business.
addink on 21/9/2010 at 09:32
What I still don't understand is the vague and ill chosen words.
If they'd just posted something simple, something in the line of
[INDENT]Due to legal reasons we are forced to suspend operation. At least temporarily.
Our sincerest apologies for any inconvenience this may cause any of our valued customers.
We hope to have more information on the future of gog.com within the next couple of days.[/INDENT]
all this guessing wouldn't have been necessary.
But they didn't. And given their previous record of clear and open public relations, it gives enough reason to start wondering.
TTK12G3 on 21/9/2010 at 14:26
Oh, THIS SUCKS. :mad:
addink on 21/9/2010 at 14:29
They'd better be giving Baldur's Gate away for free to make up for this marketing disaster.
Renzatic on 21/9/2010 at 16:52
Quote Posted by mothra
i don't believe in a pubicity stunt either. that seems far fetched at this point and an ill-advised direction for any business.
After Brian's link, I don't see it as anything else but. I mean what company puts forth the effort of making what's basically a teaser trailer after being waylaid by financial woes and/or legal issues? Comeon.
Brian The Dog on 21/9/2010 at 17:04
I agree, but as marketing stunts this is a very bad one. Digital Distribution services rely on the fact that their servers do not got turned off with no prior warning. If this is only so they can move from Beta to Gold, then they've handled it very badly - either you have redundant servers you develop behind the scenes and then have a fairly instantaneous switch-over, or you at least tell people you will be taking the service down for a day or so to make the service Gold. From a business perspective, shutting your shop for a few days when you don't need to is a bad idea, especially when you make it look like you're closing for good.
Renzatic on 21/9/2010 at 18:00
Quote Posted by Brian The Dog
I agree, but as marketing stunts this is a very bad one. Digital Distribution services rely on the fact that their servers do not got turned off with no prior warning. If this is only so they can move from Beta to Gold, then they've handled it very badly - either you have redundant servers you develop behind the scenes and then have a fairly instantaneous switch-over, or you at least tell people you will be taking the service down for a day or so to make the service Gold. From a business perspective, shutting your shop for a few days when you don't need to is a bad idea, especially when you make it look like you're closing for good.
Oh, most definitely. It was about hamfisted and ill conceived as you can get. Whatever the new GOG ends up being, it probably won't be worth the loss of goodwill and trust this little drama club stunt has cost them.
That said, I'll still continue to use GOG, so long as they continue to follow the same business model that made them successful in the first place. I don't think they should be punished for one amazingly stupid move. It wasn't done any malicious intent...just pure dumbness and lack of foresight. As long as they'll continue to be DRM free, they'll get my business. If not, I'll just get whatever on Steam and keep things simple.
Oh, and yeah, the whole situation has made even more wary about trusting some anonymous server with my bits and bytes. It's kinda funny how I've always said that the cloud is best used for redundant backup rather than exclusive storage. Shame I didn't practice what I preached, cuz here I am, eating crow.
