To the joy of many gamers worldwide, the number of PC game launchers has increased significantly during recent years. There’s Steam, Origin, Xbox, UPlay, Itch.io, Windows Store, Bethesda Launcher Battle.NET, Epic Games Store, and more… And you know what they say, the more competition, the better it is for consumers.
In this article, we are covering GOG (formerly known as Good Old Games).
To immediately spoil the ending of this episode, we’ll say that GOG is one of the most loved platforms among players due to their DRM policy. However, we won’t end this here but instead, encourage you to keep reading to learn about the many advantages of this platform.
What is GOG?
GOG is a CD Projekt Red subsidiary based in Poland. CD Projekt Red will no doubt ring a bell for you since they are the developers of the highly renowned The Witcher series and Cyberpunk 2077.
GOG is distributing both old and new titles, but we would say that the focus is on keeping a huge catalog of classic, old-school PC titles. Due to the issues that come from modern operating systems despite the wide compatibility options in modern Windows, some games that were popular during the 95/98/2000/XP days, for example, cannot be run on 7/8/10/11.
The platform resolves this issue by updating the games and optimizing them to run as if they were new, with no additional tweaks, or setups. This is great for at least two reasons: one being ease of access, and, more importantly, the preservation of old-school titles for future generations. Most of our staff lived their childhood days in the 90s and you can only imagine the nostalgia trip with loads of seemingly timeless gaming classics. We’ll close off this paragraph with this PSA-style announcement: “And remember kids, gaming history preservation is important.”
GOG and DRM in Video Games
“So, what’s this DRM thingy you’ve mentioned?” you may be asking. DRM stands for digital rights management. Consider it analogous to old CD keys from physical PC games in a way.
All of GOG’s games are DRM-free. Full stop. This alone is a huge selling point. A DRM-free environment allows you to have access to your installed games without an active internet connection. We’ve recently seen issues where “Always Online” DRM causes access problems on many platforms (Xbox Live, we’re looking at you), so this move is something that the community greatly commends. This comes in handy if you suddenly (and hopefully temporarily!) lose your internet connection, if you have your laptop set up in a wood cabin far up in the mountains, or if you’re taking a long ride by train and you need something to pass the time with.
Most importantly, if GOG ceases to function for any or no reason whatsoever, you own your downloaded games instead of just paying a “license” to use them on the distribution platform. Certain gaming journalists and YouTube personalities are hard advocates for ownership rights when it comes to games; they try to maintain their collection whenever and however possible, and it’s perfectly understandable why most gamers dislike DRM.
DRM practices are typically (in theory, at least) implemented to combat the everlasting piracy in the gaming industry by ensuring players have the appropriate license to play a game. This is done by checking for the license via the internet, thus forcing the consumer to have a constant connection, even for single-player titles.
GOG’s Refund Policy
Here’s a direct quote from GOG’s official website regarding their refund policy:
You may request a refund for a product up to 30 days after purchase, even if it was downloaded, launched, and played. To apply for a refund, start from your account’s Order History page, find the appropriate order and click “Ask for a refund”.
Please keep in mind that we’re actively monitoring the effects of our new Refund Policy to make sure no one is using it to hurt the developers that put their time and heart into making great games. We may refuse refunds in such individual cases.
Customers should really feel very confident with their purchases from GOG as a result of this policy. This is something that’s very rare to see nowadays, and players around the globe are very supportive of this business practice. In comparison, Steam has a lot of limitations – albeit fair – but they are not as loose and customer-friendly like as GOG’s.
The policy states that it protects the interests of both gamers and developers. As long as you refrain from excessive refunds and be fair with the requests that you submit, you shouldn’t ever have an issue getting your money back.
We rate GOG and deem it to be a safe and legit place for your game key purchases. Despite so many websites that sell codes nowadays, they’ve cemented themselves as one of the top players.
Thank you for reading our GOG review. Feel free to check out our other reviews for a lot of other websites that offer game codes. We will link them all below:
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