GOG.com’s Holiday Celebrations are Almost Here!

UPDATE: The Witcher 2 sale has already begun, grab The Witcher 2 for $23.99 and get The Witcher 1: Enhanced Edition for free here!


Winter is settling in around us, and we wanted to share with all of you guys what GOG.com’s holiday celebrations are going to be so you know what’s coming up from your favorite digital downloadable games distributor.

Starting on this Thursday, we’ll have The Witcher 2 on an eye-popping 40% off discount for 48 hours AND we’re bundling in a free copy of The Witcher: Enhanced Edition with any purchase of The Witcher 2. We’ll be running this from 11.00 GMT on Thursday 8 December until 10.59 GMT on 10 December, and it’s the best bargain we’re going to have on the Witcher series this holiday season!

Then, on Saturday, we will start a season of holiday celebrations by awarding a number of game codes to you guys! We’ll have copies of Master of Orion I + II, courtesy of GOG and Atari, copies of Realms of Arkania I + II, and lots of codes for $5.99 and $9.99 games. We’ll be giving them away through social media (that’s Facebook and Twitter) as well as through our forums right here on GOG.com! Be sure to check in with us this weekend and you just might win an awesome game or two from us.

Finally, we’re starting our winter sale with a huge bang--we’re giving anyone a free copy of Empire Earth Gold Edition for 48 hours. Starting on Monday 12 December at 11.00 GMT and running until Wednesday 14 December at 10.59 GMT, anyone can add Empire Earth: Gold Edition to his or her shopping cart for free as a holiday gift from us to you!

Also, starting on Monday at 11.00 GMT, GOG.com is adding virtually every single game in our catalog for 50% off from now until 2 January 2012. Pick up games from fantastic publishers and developers like EA, Interplay, Atari, Activision, Sierra, and many more for half off this holiday season!

With an incredible 50% off Holiday Promo, we hope that we’ve solved all your holiday shopping needs, whether its an action-packed shooter like Painkiller for your cousin Timmy, a great thinking-man’s chess game like Chessmaster 9000 for your Uncle Bob, or even a restaurant-management simulation like Restaurant Empire to try and encourage your crazy roommate to learn how to cook, you will be able to pick it all up from GOG.com at incredible holiday savings!

Happy Holidays to all!

http://www.gog.com/en/news/gog_com_s_holid...are_almost_here

New release: Time Commando

Fight your way through time or you’re history!

Play a fantastic action-adventure title with a unforgettable plot with today's release of Time Commando for only $5.99! An advanced virus has infiltrated a top secret military research facility's supercomputer. The computer can simulate any combat from any period throughout history, but it's such a powerful computer that the virus has created a vortex that threatens to tear a hole in the very fabric of time. Your job is to suit up, travel through time, and prevent the virus from destroying the universe. A good antivirus program could have prevented this threat to the universe, but now that the virus is assaulting the fabric of reality, it has all come down to you.

You are Stanley Opar, a member of S.A.V.E (Special Action for Virus Elimination), an organization that was created to clear the system of the virus. You must travel through many of the historical eras that the supercomputer simulates while using a wide array of weapons (from stones to samurai swords, slings to laser rifles, and a killer yo-yo) to fight through time and collect data bits scattered over the various worlds to repair the damage done.

Time Commando is an action adventure with a little bit of puzzles here and there. Graphically the game was very advanced for the 1990s with beautifully rendered 2D backgrounds coupled with the vivid 3D animated characters. The control scheme takes the best elements out of the Alone in the Dark series and improves upon them.

Grab yourself some action-adventure brawling action for only $5.99 from Adeline Software!

http://www.gog.com/en/gamecard/time_commando

Q&A with Kurina - the GOG user who won the whole catalogue

The first edition of the "GOG Contest Week" has ended, winners have received their prizes and everything has turned back to the daily presence. Or hasn't it? For one GOG users - Kurina - it's still very hard to believe that now she owns the whole GOG catalogue. We decided to talk to her and learn something more about probably the happiest GOG users at the moment. Check out the Q&A session with Kurina.

First of all congratulations once again on winning the Grand Prize in our contest and thank you for your time to answer those questions. I'm sure our users would like to know something more about you. Tell us what do you do?

I am currently returning to school to complete a degree in Sociology. I have always found the subject to be highly fascinating, and I believe it will be an opening to some very interesting and exciting opportunities. Previously, I worked as a contract web designer and programmer.

How did you become a gamer?

I was blessed to be born into a family of avid video gamers. My parents were playing video games from the moment consoles became a household item. They would often play the Atari 2600 with relatives, and grabbed the Intellivision the day it was released. I was born two years later, and began playing video games as soon as I could grasp and manipulate the controller.

Video games have essentially been part of my life since I can remember. My earliest memories center around playing the Intellivision, NES, and Sega Master System with my family. Additionally, my family had invested in a computer around the same time, introducing me to many of the great classics you can find on GOG today. I cannot imagine the hours we must have spent with games such as the original King's Quest!

How did you find out about GOG.com and what brought you to the service?

I remember hearing about GOG through some other websites and a few forums. Upon checking the site out, I saw it catered to gamers such as myself, who grew up playing older titles and wanted to relive those experiences once again. I promptly signed up for beta, and luckily I was invited in as soon as the service launched.

What really captured me about Good Old Games, aside from selling some excellent titles, is that I felt it was digital distribution done right. As my friends can attest to, I am a very vocal opponent of online distribution services. I am of the belief that no other company should control my games or my access to them. Good Old Games shares a similar belief, and allows me to download and control my purchases without the interference of DRM.

However, as a bonus, what has kept me returning to the site multiple times a day is the community. I am often amazed at the helpfulness and generosity that can be found here, and it is unlike any other community I have seen thus far. Where else do you see strangers freely giving away games to each other, running their own contests with prizes, and helping each other with any problem or question one may have? Clearly this community goes against the norm, and that is why I love it.

read more: http://www.gog.com/en/news/qanda_with_kuri...ole_catalogue/0

Rebellious JC Denton or death-dealing Mr 47? What kind of hero will you be today?

GOG.com is proud to announce that Square Enix is the newest heavyweight addition to our ever-growing GOG.com catalog of great games. SquareEnix is one of the biggest publishers of the modern gaming world with almost 30-years of experience and famous releases for every single existing gaming system.

Deus: Ex Game of the Year Edition and Hitman: Codename 47 are the first titles we’re releasing from Square Enix, and they're available today for $9.99 and $5.99 respectively. Both games were originally released by Eidos in 2000, but not a single drop of greatness has been lost since then. Deus Ex is a magnificent blend of remarkable storytelling, RPG customization, and action-packed shooting. With all GOG.com’s heart we recommend Deus Ex for $9.99 as one of the most captivating and rewarding games ever. EVER! Hitman, a demanding stealth/action/planning game, created a now-iconic bald assassin Mr 47. With a vague name and a vague past, Agent 47 at least has a clear goal: eliminate the target at all costs. For you, the cost of Hitman: Codename 47 is $5.99.

There are a few more heroes from SquareEnix, that deserve a special treatment from GOG.com, and we will be announcing them in coming weeks. Today, it’s time to shave your head and buy an AMT Hardballer or wear sunglasses at night and save the world from the Illuminati.

You decide what kind of hero you want to be.

It’s a Steal!

THIEF™ GOLD is the definitive version of Thief: The Dark Project, the first game that introduced sound and light (or silence and shadows) as stealth gameplay mechanics, so there is no way you can sneak past this gem on GOG.com for just $9.99.

Garrett, the main protagonist in Thief trilogy, is one of the gaming’s most appealing hidden anti-heroes. Sure, he’s a thief (and a killer!), but he makes it up with sarcasm, intelligence, and rougish appeal. Thief’s surprisingly elaborate storyline throws Garret between a rock and a hard place where he needs to restore the political and magical balance of the city by using silence, stealth, and thievish skills as a weapon. The chaotic Pagans and technological Hammerites are preparing to tear the city apart in their battles with each other, and it seems that only a little judicious theft can keep these titani forces from clashing. No matter who's the employer and who's the victim, he plans to stay neutral and is always upholding his beliefs with a simple key principle: always get the loot.

In THIEF™ GOLD, you have a wide range of equipment at your disposal: a blackjack, a sword, lockpicks, holy water, explosive mines, flash bombs, and seven types of arrows to assist you on 12 treacherous missions in a steampunk-medieval metropolis called the City. The game’s FPS mechanics are a big change from then-traditional DOOMlike “shoot and run” to the unthinkable "it's quite amazing how much fun it can be to avoid action". The game received much critical acclaim (92! Metascore), with reviews ranging from “immersive gaming experience”, through “bloody good”, to the quite expected “my favorite game of all time”.

You don’t have to get your hands dirty to get THIEF™ GOLD from GOG.com’s secret stash for $9.99

Get more gaming done with your dollar!

Surprise sale for all of you RPG lovers! From now until 23.59 pm EST on the 28th of February, we’re offering you a chance to buy one D&D game and get one FREE! More than that, though, if you buy ANY D&D game during our sale, you will get Temple of Elemental Evil for free if you don’t already own it!

Now, we assume if you’re coming to GOG.com you probably have something of an appreciation for old games, but in case you aren’t familiar with these fantastic RPGs, let’s cast our mind back to the ancient days of yore and reflect on the digital bundles of concentrated awesome that these titles represent:

Baldur’s Gate: The Original Saga and Baldur’s Gate II: Complete collectively received over 10 “Best game of the year” awards from publications such as PC Gamer, Eurogamer, Computer Games Magazine and IGN. They are both rated over 92% on Metacritic, and combined will bring you at least 100 hours of some of the best computer game RPGing you can get for less than ten bucks during our sale. That’s less than ten cents per hour of gaming goodness!

Likewise, the Icewind Dale series brought the D&D license to action RPG gaming, first in the old-school 2nd edition, and then with the updated 3rd edition mechanics in the second game in the series. Set in the howling blizzards of Icewind Dale, these action RPGs feature incredible in-depth tactical combat and just enough story to propel you along to newer and greater battles.

Planescape: Torment is another one of those games that every RPG player needs to have on his or her shelf. Winner of multiple RPG and Game of the Year awards in 1999, it is widely considered as one of the best storytelling RPGs in gaming history. With a gentler gameplay difficulty than some of the other AD&D-licensed games Planescape: Torment makes an excellent entry into the Hasbro D&D games for someone who’s new to the genre.

Neverwinter Nights is not only an incredible game in and of itself (It’s a recipient of several critic awards for best RPG game of the year), but it has one of the most enthusiastic modding communities of any RPG ever created, and the quality and variety of adventures you can go on after you’ve finished the main quest are truly staggering. This game is literally one you could play for the rest of your life, if you were determined to get through every single user-created campaign.

Dungeons & Dragons: Dragonshard is a fascinating blend of RPG and RTS. While it is not the first D&D RPS, it is the first one set in the Eberron world, and it uses the fascinating mythos of Eberron to good effect, drawing the player into a complicated many-sided struggle over an artifact of immense power. Not an RPG in the traditional sense, it is a very interesting use of the D&D license, and one that received positive reviews for its two-layered tactical approach and fun gameplay.

Forgotten Realms: Demon Stone is an action RPG with some interesting tactical elements to go along with the usual hack and slash of the genre. The game never gets dull because it has three characters, each using a different style of combat, and the player can switch out the active character at any time. The voice acting is filled with star talent like Patrick Stewart and Michael Clarke Duncan. All told, it’s a whirlwind RPG with a fast-paced story and plenty of monster killing--a great example of action RPGs that any fan is sure to love.

Finally, Temple of Elemental Evil is not only a great tactical RPG based off one of the most famously brutal old-school tabletop RPG modules, it’s also FREE FREE to you with the purchase of any other Atari D&D game during this sale! If you’re hankering for one of the tougher tactical RPGs you’re likely to play any time soon, be sure to pick up any of the Atari Hasbro D&D games this week and you’ll be rewarded with this as well!

This sale ends at 23.59 pm EST on the 28th of February, so be sure to pick up your D&D classics now!

For the last four days we’ve been promising you the Bigger, Newer, and Fresher version of GOG, not only the website, but the service and the philosophy of game distribution as well. However, there’s much more to today’s GOG.com than just three words.

Bigger.
Year after year we’re getting bigger and so our service needs to adjust. Bigger means more users, and therefore more website features, more social interaction, more customer love. Bigger means AAA new and newer titles and more partners--and especially developers!--signed every month. Bigger means a mix of the classic titles that you’ve come to know and love from GOG.com and newer with the kind of great gameplay that makes them feel like instant classics.

Fresher
GOG.com does not need a brand-new start. We’re doing great and hundreds of thousands of you agree that the road we’ve taken is the right one for the industry to follow. However, spring is nearby, and a little cleaning to spruce up the place is never amiss. Fresher GOG.com means changes to the website layout, which now offers a more modern look; it also means we’re featuring our Facebook, Twitter, and Google Plus accounts at the footer of every page and more social integration overall. Fresher means more of the features you want. The My Account page now has a built-in search feature, new organization options for the games library, and the website is no longer the only way to deliver notifications to gamers. We’re offering the new, faster than ever GOG.com downloader, which integrates support for downloading game patches, goodies, and notifications to keep GOG users up to date on changes to games they have purchased, replies to forum threads, or PMs.

Newer
Don’t worry, no matter how new we’re getting, GOG.com will always stick to our three core values: No DRM, Fair Pricing, and Love for our GOG-ers. Newer means simply newer games, whether they’re big, recognized names, indie games, day-one releases, or pre-orders. Pre-order for Legend of Grimrock for only $11.99 today, or pick up Trine and The Whispered World right now; Spacechem, Machinarium, and Darwinia are coming soon. We have more than 20 great indie and newer games signed on GOG.com that will be showing up in the next few months.. These games lead the way on our the transition from Good Old Games to simply GOG.com. It doesn’t matter what G, O, and G stand for, Gee Oh Gee dot com stands for high-quality, DRM-free gaming, each week with bigger and newer games.

Future
As the world changes, so are we, and this is only the beginning. As always, we rely heavily on user opinions and wishes. A new revamped Community Wishlist now allows users to suggest, vote, and discuss games and site features they'd love to see on GOG.com. You make all of this possible. Thank you and stay tuned for more amazing in coming days, weeks, months, and years to come.

The Thief, the Sorcerer, and the Knight--Intelligence, Charm, and Strength merged through the power of an ancient artifact.
Guide Zoya, Amadeus, and Pontius through the forsaken kingdom in search for the Trine, in one of the most impressive releases in the 2D action genre of recent years, for only $9.99 on GOG.com.

For old-school gamers who love platformers, Trine is like visiting your hometown after a few years' absence and being completely surprised by the small changes and shiny new construction, but at the same time feeling warmly familiar and comfortable with the world that surrounds you. Trine is extremely well-balanced and polished, easy to pick up and play for 10-minutes or two hours. A little bit of sword-wielding here, a little skill-requiring platforming there, some physics-based puzzles (using Nvidia PhysX engine) and some physics-based magic, and ta-da: you have one of the best platformers available on PC--one that combines graphics, sound, and mechanics all together to make an extraordinary game.

Playing as Zoya, the Thief; Amadeus, the Sorcerer; and Pontius, the Brave Knight, you will have to switch between characters to utilize their unique abilities, solve inventive level puzzles, defeat enemies, pass through platforming obstacles, or get to really hard-to-reach places as you go about your quest. However, the most important thing about Trine is that it doesn’t pretend to be anything else that it is--it’s not an epic, monumental adventure but a little diamond of a game, an excellent and entertaining piece of eye candy with some clever ideas to keep you entertained for more than a few evenings.

Every time people say some genre is dead, other people who disagree, like for example Frozenbyte from Finland, make a game like Trine, and faith in gaming is restored. Restore your faith in side-scrolling platforming for only $9.99 now on GOG.com.

It takes a young, sad circus-clown to end the world and save it.
The Whispered World, an enchanting adventure of boy-clown Sadwick and his caterpillar friend Spot, is available on GOG.com for $14.99.

Sadwick is a twelve-year old with a melancholic vein. He not only dislikes the circus, where he lives with his brother and grandpa, and his normal life, where he cannot travel and explore the world, but also, he’s just been told in a prophetic dream that the world is coming to an end, and it’s his fault. And even though Sadwick is not happy with the way things are going for him, he is not going to let the world simply collapse without a fight. This sad clown will travel through four game acts, with his caterpillar friend Spot, to the King’s Castle in Corona to prevent the beautiful but perilous world of Silentia from sliding into destruction.

This is just a beginning of an engaging and emotional dreamlike game starring this uncommon but sympathetic pair trying to save everything that exists. The graphics are suited for a fairy-tale: absolutely stunning hand-drawn scenery and animated cartoon characters. The orchestral score is wonderful, and it only adds to the magical experience of the whole. Subtle humor, usually coming from Sadwick’s cynical comments, strange encounters, otherworldly locations, and imaginative riddles guarantees an unforgettable adventure. The Whispered World is an enchanted point-and click with twists and turns to hold you occupied for days. The game won "Best German Game of the Year,” and is an excellent adventure game for all ages.

Pick it up on GOG.com now for only $14.99.

The Grimrock Mountain does not release its prisoners. Alive.
Legend of Grimrock, the dungeon crawler inspired by classic RPGs like Eye of the Beholder and Dungeon Master longed for, is available for pre-order with a 20% discount for only $11.99 until the 10th of April.

Many gamers argue that games used to be better: they used to be tough as nails, time-consuming, and relentlessly brutal. The game mechanics, rules, and controls were simpler to learn, but hard to master. Playing a game wasn’t just like watching an interactive five-hour movie--it was an immersive experience that made you skip school, take days off, or waste a whole weekend grinding, and fighting, and running, and leveling, and shooting. Nowadays, it takes a group of true gaming fanatics, like indie-devs Almost Human, to take inspiration from those classics, update them to suit modern sensibilities while still allowing old-school gameplay (if you’d like) and create a game that follows the long-forgotten and abandoned path of classic dungeon crawlers from the early ‘90s. Legend of Grimrock follows the path, yet finds its own way, and it’s the way to RPG greatness.

In Legend of Grimrock, four prisoners are sent to prison no one has ever left alive. The Grimrock mountain holds many secrets, and most of them have razor-sharp claws, knife-edged teeth, and use venomous vapors as eau de parfum. And, at the end of the labyrinth stands a thing that should not be, trembling terror, impossible to defeat. If you’re up for the challenge, order the game right now with a 20% discount.

Here’s what you receive:
Claustrophobia: This game takes place in a warren of tunnels, traps, deadfalls, and dead ends; in optional hardcore mode, you don’t even have an automap, so you have to plot your course yourself (using the included blank map paper PDF, if you’d like) Monsterphobia: That’s probably not a word, but what else would you say of a game that has tons of monsters thirsting for your blood? These aren’t easy battles--they’re a fight to death, and if you aren’t on your toes, it won’t be the monsters who die. Chromophobia: This game is visually stunning, with crisp graphics, great sounds, and an innovative runic spellcasting system that looks gorgeous in action.

If you remember Wizardry or Bard’s Tale, and miss the kind of RPG-ing they offered--or maybe want to find out what all those dusty old gamers mumble about when complaining about modern games--order Legend of Grimrock 20% off right now, for only $11.99 and get all of the goodies listed on the game card (wallpapers, manuals, maps. artworks, and theme) for download now.

Watch the Legend of Grimrock Pre-order video

Woot... was about to post this but I guess you're almost an hour faster. Anyway, thanks for sharing such a great news again!

Amanita Designs created a new game, Botanicula. GOG.com (and GamersGate I gather) have had it up for pre-order for a standard "normal" price for about a month. Today's its release date. And it's immediately in a new Humble Bundle for pay-what-you-want, ALSO bundled with their previous games (which are sold separately in GOG/GG -- since the same time about a month ago), and also with extras like full soundtrack, etc, with the Humble, not available to those who pre-ordered with GOG/GG.

Hey everyone; we just found out about the Humble Amanita Bundle. We're not sure exactly what yet, but we're going to come up with something for everyone who preordered Botanicula on GOG.com. Stay tuned and we'll try to come up with something tomorrow.

Ouch... what a bummer.

The decision by Amanita to put out the stunning Botanicula as part of a Humble Bundle on the day of release sounds, at first, like a lovely idea. A brand new game in a pay what you want bundle? Amazing! Except of course for those who pre-ordered it at full price. Personally, I think the $10 it would have cost anyone is a bargain for a game as utterly lovely as this, and people who pre-ordered clearly believed it to be worth that much to them at the time. But I do understand the frustration of learning that others could be getting the game, along with two other Amanita classics, for as little as one cent. That’s galling. I caught up with Amanita’s main man, Jakub Dvorský, to ask him about the reaction, and he informs me that it was their mistake, and to make up for it everybody who pre-ordered the game will be receiving the fantastic soundtrack, an art book, and a copy of Machinarium, for free, tomorrow.


“There was definitely no intention to rob anyone or anything like that,” explains Dvorský, apologetic about the response. Everyone who pre-ordered on GOG.com and GamersGate, he tells us, will receive the full soundtrack, art book and Machinarium tomorrow, “as an apology.”

Hopefully the offer of another game, the art book, and the genuinely great soundtrack (I’ve listened through rather a lot of times) will make up for people’s disappointment. But obviously some will remain frustrated that it wasn’t thought through properly. And it does seem odd that the two sites that took pre-orders, GamersGate and GOG.com, seem to have not known about the Bundle in advance.

Meanwhile, the Bundle has already sold over 21,000 copies in just six hours, with an extraordinarily high average price of $8.67 at the time of writing. It’s getting expensive to unlock Kooky and Windosill! That’s over $184,000 split between the developer, the World Land Trust, and Humble. And the second highest donor so far? Er, apparently GOG.com, with $300. If that’s really them, what an extraordinary way to respond to their getting a touch messed with.

Posted: April 20, 2012

We want to apologize to everybody who pre-ordered Botanicula on GOG.com and GamersGate and now is upset because there’s a bundle for any price. We haven’t much time to take care about business and logistics in last few weeks because we were hard at work on the game fixing hundreads of bugs etc. so we made a mistake and let GOG and GG make pre-orders. We simply didn’t think about it and about the consequences, sorry for that. All the pre-orderers should receive some free bonus stuff from GOG and GG in upcoming hours or days. The bonus bundle will include Machinarium, full Botanicula Soundtrack and Botanicula art book which wasn’t released anywhere else yet. I hope it’s not that terrible deal for $9 you paid to support us so we can continue making independent games, we are very grateful for that!

1. GoG and GamersGate promoting Botanicula for like months
2. Customers PO through both of the sites
3. Amanita suddenly releases their Botanicula through Humble Bundle at the same day GoG and GamersGate release the game.
4. Compare between HB and GoG & GG, HB let you pay whatever price you want plus some extra contents like artworks and OST while those who PO'd through GoG and GG got the game and game ONLY by 10 USD.

I am surprise at the less of rage for what Amanita has done.

Haha you can say that. They gone "Oh sh*t son !! We forgot !!"

I might get the game on gog.com when sale come (implying there's summer sales on June, crossing my fingers).