It Really Was Just a Publicity Stunt

Posted by Rampant Coyote on September 22, 2010

Dear GOG.COM –

Next time you choose a PR stunt, try one that doesn’t abuse your customers, okay? Kind of a jackass move that I thought was beneath you. Faking your own death was merely lame, but not allowing downloads of purchased games was not cool. That being said, I’m glad you are still around, and dressing up in monk robes was kinda amusing.

UPDATE: Video

Filed Under: Biz, Retro - Comments: 17 Comments to Read

Andy_Panthro said,

Truly bizarre.

Glad they’re still around also.
Bad Sector said,

I still have a small belief/hope that there was a legitimate reason they shutted down so abruptly the site and even now they don’t have the games back. There may be some things that are better left as “bad PR moves” instead of being explained.
Michael Miller said,

This is just beyond bizarre. I guess it got us all paying attention, but they really are trying to find the limits of the old ‘no such thing as bad publicity’.

And monk robes? Computer games have addled their fragile little minds…
Rampant Coyote said,

I’m an indie and old-school gamer, so I’m already addled. I was amused by the robes.
Rigor Mortis said,

Doing their bit to perpetuate gamers’ reputation as ill-socialized jerks, all right. I dig their non-apology apology: “First of all we’d like to apologize to everyone who felt deceived or harmed in any way by the closedown of GOG.com. As a small company we don’t have a huge marketing budget and this why [sic] we could not miss a chance to generate some buzz.”

You “felt” deceived or harmed, but it was your own damn fault for feeling that way, you see. You weren’t actually deceived or harmed, because we say so, and our opinion trumps yours about your own feelings or the reality that the games weren’t downloadable for a week and potentially forever. And we’re just trying to get some attention and make a buck here, because it’s all about us, not you, the ones who actually… have the bucks.

Bleah.
getter77 said,

I hope they, somehow, after the fact, actually learn some proper lessons on this mess, their handling of the mess, their handling of the fallout from their handling of the mess, and so on.

:sigh: Looks like some days to be eaten ahead of me downloading, backing up to external, and finally giving my dvd burner a go. :/
Trover said,

I’m glad it was just a PR stunt and especially pleased that they plan to stay DRM-free, but one word keeps comming to mind … UNPROFFESIONAL. I’ve purchased several games from them in the past, but this mea culpa on thier part makes me wince – Apologies don’t mix well with humor, and it also adds to the unproffesional vibe.

There are some alternatives to GOG (like DotEMU). And while I”ll be checking out GOG’s ‘new’ site, I’ll also be spreading my buisness around to other sites as well.

All-in-all I’m rather disapointed in them.
McNutcase said,

When they first showed up, my Too Good To Be True light went on at high intensity. It finally sputtered out around last Friday.

Now, they’ll be lucky to ever see a cent from me. If you want my money, lying to me isn’t the right way to get it. I don’t deal with pranksters.
LateWhiteRabbit said,

I suspected this was the case, and it makes me angry that they would pull such a stunt for publicity. It’s very childish, believing that any attention is good attention.

But you know what’s worse? This video. Them dressing in robes to issue a backwards apology. It’s unprofessional. It’s not what I expect from a company I previously trusted with my credit card information for financial transactions.

I won’t be trusting them again. The stunt proves they don’t have good business sense (I say this as someone with a degree in business, for whatever that is worth), and they have shown the professionalism of an awkward teen misfit with their video.

Goodbye GOG. You really are dead to me.
GhanBuriGhan said,

Actually its not childish, but a very proven PR fact, like it or not. I have a feeling they will benefit from it overall despite having pissed off many people – this stuff was on every gaming newssite I know, and a LOT more people now know about GOG.
I can’t blame people for being angry. For me its one of these “laugh but smack your forehead at the same time” things. But I would in their defense point out that they never did anything that actually makes them untrustworthy as a business partner, imho. A statment that the downloads of purchased games would be reenabled in short order was a part of the original message after all.
Miral said,

Heh. 10 minutes after the servers went back up, and now they’re down again. I guess they weren’t quite ready for all the new traffic after all.
Greg Tedder said,

As a web developer who is currently working with an entire infrastructure of old antiquated code and data I was listening in, and it sounds like it would have had to come down PR stunt or no, so they took that opportunity. These are usually moments where you have to do difficult data migrations that depend on the data not changing until you have it all modified, uploaded, and tested. There are other ways to go about this, but in the long run data maintainability is much better this way. Glad their not out, I’m looking forward to an opportunity to finally play Arcanum.
Andy_Panthro said,

They seem totally overwhelmed by traffic.

According to twitter, they’re having 20X the traffic they’ve ever had previously.

Since I’ve only seen the website this bad when Activision were announced, that must be a hell of a lot of people…
Rampant Coyote said,

Yeah, I’ve already had a friend suggest I should fake my own death just before releasing Frayed Knights to double my sales… I mean, it worked for GOG.COM….
Steve said,

“Yeah, I’ve already had a friend suggest I should fake my own death just before releasing Frayed Knights to double my sales… I mean, it worked for GOG.COM….”

John Romero tried that for Daikatana, didn’t work out
too well though.

Steve
Rampant Coyote said,

Oh, yeah, I forgot about that….
Greg Tedder said,

Just get a fake blogger like Steve Jobs.