@@federicocasali1565 @thiccbaron Both of you play it now. Put down whatever game you're grinding or show you're binging. It also interested me but I never got until I saw that review (picked up a key on the grey market,) and it was amazing. It was everything I ever wanted from a spy game and more, and there's so many ways the game can end. The shooting is whack AF though, just a warning. Aside from that, have fun guys.
As a professional theatre worker this is absolutely a necessary fight. The amount of works that are destroyed by copyright fights over ownership or production style is depressing. It feels futile, especially in an industry with far less appeal than gaming. But with the crowd of people finally beginning to recognize the importance of preservation, maybe there’s hope. Let us keep our art alive.
I heard the classic John Woo movies can’t get the 4K remaster treatment because supposedly some architect company in Hong Kong of all things own the rights to them. They have no interest at all in selling them (or haven’t had a price offer they were satisfied with).
Hearing how Obsidian doesn't get to own their first original IP solely because of a song choice is absolutely infuriating. IP "ownership" and copyright law has done more damage to the arts in general than it has ever helped artists, and it's not even close. But goddamn do I hope the winds are finally changing.
Dogma comes to mind. One of my favorite movies isn’t available anywhere because of a mess of copyright and ownership issues. Or the Brave Little Toaster. Or countless other media that can be lost to time over the greed of companies.
@@Seolisti For gaming there's No One Lives Forever, a partnership between 3 companies where no one is sure who owns how much and no one wants to spend money to discover so we can get an official remaster and ports, at least it's old so it runs on any PC.
@@Seolisti sigh, I've been looking for a movie called 11:14(2003) for a few years now, just because I caught it late and night as a kid and wanted to know if it was as good as I remember lol, the thing is impossible to find
@@xboxplzfixmeif you bought it you can still download and play it. they just removed the ability to buy it, that's why people say that it is 'delisted' .
In an age where so many IP's can easily fall into the digital black hole of copyright and other bullshit (sad No One Lives Forever noises) this is a huge service. Thank you Raycevick and GOG!
Clive Barker's Jericho, Armies of Exigo, The Battle for Middle-Earth series, Rise of Legends, Duke Nukem - Manhattan Project, Battlefield 2, Enemy Territory: Quake Wars, Wolfenstein 2009 Man I don't want to forget about the amazing games that are not around anymore
@@TerzaGuardia Well Undying is still available on GOG (I still have the physical box too by the way), but Jericho is not available anywhere. I still have it in my Steam Library because I bought it years ago, but I would buy it again without hesitation if it was (re)released DRM-Free on GOG.
I'm so sick of publishers trying to push this "limited time service" with their games, and I'm glad GOG and most of the video game audience are hearing none of it. Great video, as always.
@@ProjectRedfootThat's why GOG exists, it prioritizes our rights as gamers of ownership of games. Isn't that the whole point of the distribution platform as a whole?
@@KnightspaceORG After all they're mainly specialized in game preservation as well as digital distribution, obviously. That being said at least they actually let you keep your games once you've made a purchase because as it has been stated on the official website, that they are DRM-free. Protecting and defending gamer's rights is their top priority above all else.
Some people might simply see this as shallow promotion, but I think GOG genuinely deserve this sort of coverage for their preservation efforts. Sure they make money from it, but it's something I'm more then happy to finance (when I can) in the current day gaming landscape. This video is dope, and we need more like it for the sake of video game preservation. Awesome work as always
@@gamingblowsofficialWorth mentioning as for many years they were unprofitable... But it's really good to see that they finally turned a profit of 1.2 million 2022. Idk why this happened but I hope this trend carries into the future... mainly to fund their legal teams lol
@@gamingblowsofficial because gamers are, on average, stupid fanboys with brand loyalty to a digital store, bringing the console war toxicity to pc. I buy games where they are cheaper, or on gog because drm free is the best feature of any digital store.
@@gamingblowsofficial I think there is a post breaking this down. The storefront itself is not what makes it unprofitable. It’s the side projects that normally put them in the red. IE development of the 2.0 app.
I still need to finish the video, but one thing that struck me throughout the interviews is just, you can feel the happiness coming off of them as their game, seemingly doomed to be forgotten, has gotten to return from the metaphorical dead. It's genuinely really touching.
I'm really glad you shouted out Ross (Accursed Farms) I've been following him for 10+ years and I've been following his steps in trying to stop games from dying and I'm hoping this gives him a boost in viewership not to bump his subscriber count or anything but so that some change actually gets made and we can set a precedent so games will always be playable in the future.
really glad i had a random coworker recommend Freeman's Mind to me a few years ago. after getting up to date on that, i started scrubbing through his game dungeon, his first Crew video really got my attention towards this issue.
When I was a kid, I pirated games because my country was under sanctions and nothing was available. Then I grew up and eagerly bought games to support my favourite developers and franchises. Now I'm back to pirating because support for all those games in nonexistent. Glad to see somebody advocating for the consumers
@@christophernoneya4635Could have also been Iraq, where the sanctions were so bad that over a million children starved to death as Madeline Albright laughed about it.
@@nemo5335 Not Iraq, our sanctions never got that bad thay millions were starving, we could always produce our own food, but it did make all contemporary media harder to access.
i grew up in Iran, because reasons said we had no legal access to any outside media for 40+ years. Despite that we had and continue to have one of the most passionate communities i have seen about gaming. to the point where rockstar game releases are almost a country wide event for us. and it's all built on pirated and DRM free copies of many media because that was the only option we had. many of us, including me, grew and ended up making a steam account with VPN to buy and support our beloved games no matter what even if it means paying in a currency not from our country and paying all the mockup that comes with it. Companies like Valve and GOG are our heroes because they are the only ones offering a helping hand in these times where passions of millions of people and an entire new generation of games is being wasted
Point is this isn't just a problem of the gaming industry. Windows terminating support for older versions, Adobe forcing shut downs of older licenses of their catalogue, Apple and Samsung nerfing older products, even car companies charging you for stuff that is already installed on the car you "own" (or even worse the case of the GM EV1). Ownership right now is seriously an illusion that big companies force on us, hoping we're all good with our subpar products that already cost a lot of money to purchase but cost even more to run. We need a serious rewriting of the Copyright laws, that were lobbied into hell by Disney and other powerhouses, we need to stop live services, we need to decriminalise piracy and on top of them all we need to ensure the right to repair and modify. Because if I paid for something, I fucking own that thing.
IMO Windows does this pretty well though. They bend over BACKWARDS to try and keep support for older hardware and software. You can't expect a company to keep updating the same OS in perpetuity, economically that's impossible, but they do go to extreme lengths to keep things working, Apple and recently Samsung provide almost 10 years of software updates, this is also excellent imo. And Apple never "nerfed" older products for a reason that wasn't making sure you're battery still works. I agree with the rest though, except piracy, why would piracy be necessary if things just worked conveniently?
I feel like MS gets a bit too much hate for this. Like, no fucking shit that a game originally meant to run on a 3DFX GPU won’t run on your brand new PC. Outside of that, they’ve done a lot to keep compatibility with earlier programs. I can open an application meant for Windows XP and it will work fine on Windows 11. Apple is much worse.
I strongly agree with Logicherrormusic in his statement especially in the last sentence. If we paid for something we fucking own the thing. The corporate ass hats can't convince or tell us otherwise that we don't. Better yet if more people did piracy that'll change people's perspective on what's going on currently. Piracy needs to be decriminalized so that it can count towards owning something and actually having proof of it.
@@reshadegaming6285all those companies are multi-billion dollar companies. The literal richest companies in the world, they can absolutely keep software they sold updated until their company stops running. It is easily economically viable. Stop spreading and internalising this techgiant misinformation that these companies try and feed you and think for yourself bro. Secondly piracy is the only method us consumers don't get absolutely cucked by those giant corporations. That's why. Piracy is more effective in preserving and providing access to old software then any company has ever done or will do.
I love the video, but " Every month, 12 games are delisted from digital storefronts. GOG can eventually bring back one. The question is... _how do we bring back the other eleven?_ " was such a missed opportunity.
Matthew Rorie's Alpha Protocol really deserved a sequel. I would have loved to have seen what some polish and some more horsepower could've done for it. Michael Thorton was ahead of his time.
I'd love to see a sequel of AP. I'm curious if they could stealth revive the game under a different name and lead character while making vague references to AP.
I fucking love GOG and CDPR's dedication to game preservation. Game preservation should be an industry standard and the amount of games being lost to negligent publishers and developers is disheartening. Now if only GOG can work something out between EA and Lionhead to get their games out of Abandonware status.
Shoutouts to Accursed Farms and what he'll be doing in April with The Crew's shutdown Hope the best for him and his efforts, it's really the best we got for preserving online games (if not games in general)
Every 2 months we get a GOG surprise, these guys are awesome at keeping old games alive. Not just re-releasing it, but getting the effort to shape it in the best way possible. It's something not much people put care into nowdays but I do, and they do as well.
It's worth noting that spec ops is well preserved *as* an abandonware title. Anyone who wants to play the game can find it quite easily. Delisting isn't the end. As long as the game can be found, installed, and played by the average person, preservation was successful. And making alpha protocol DRM free, and making it compatible with modern systems, is the benchmark for successful preservation.
Yeah, that’s the other reason why I like DRM free games. So even if the game is delisted, as long as someone has the files somewhere, it’s still accessible in a legally grey manner. And you don’t even need to worry about potentially shady cracks since it’s DRM free from an official source. That’s something which saved a delisted game I like, which is Prey 2006. The latest patch removed even disk check DRM, so you can easily play it right now by downloading it off some abandonware site, install the game as normal off the ISO, then install all the patches, and play.
Everyone showing up in this video Raycevik, Louis Rossman, GOG of course, etc, you are all amazing, thanks for doing this for the love of doing what is right and not for getting rich quick. Possibly even getting poor quick but doing it anyway. Big big love. I guess it's you guys, and Nightdive, who are spearheading this fight for us. Keep it up.
@@RaycevickJust finished watching the video and it was super cool to see the passion everyone in it has for games and preservation. Get some rest dude.
Video games are entering (and imo have long ago entered) the transitionary period between throwaway entertainment and the historically/culturally significant. Even if a game is looked at as "bad" when it releases, it still should be preserved so that future generations can learn from what it did right and what it did wrong. Not only that, but the historical record must be kept intact and in context for the wider public to learn what it needs to. As an amateur military historian i know how hard it is to combat both malicious misinfirmation as well as well meaning misunderstandings of events that get routed in the popular psyche because no one was around to tell them they were wrong. (The easiest to understand being the 5 shermans to 1 german tank myth that perpatuated due to peoples misunderstanding of US armor doctrine) The point being that there are a lot of things that future game developers and publishers can learn from, so long as the historical record of games remains intact, in context, and easily accessible to them. I applaud GOG for taking on this long and arduous task of attempting to do just that.
i think that transition started happening in the 90s, either shortly before or right on the advent of 3D home consoles, ie the PS1, Dreamcast, and N64 and basically concluded with the first Last of Us game. i think because of this transitional period, especially surrounding TLOU, that was when a very real shift happened to tighter, more focused narratives with fewer contrivances--you'll also notice that localization issues and mistranslations became significantly less prevalent, alongside a growing desire for either proven voice talent or celebrity voice talent, and i also think that AAA gameplay innovation has massively suffered as a result: Ubisoft is sticking to a formula they made over 15 years ago with FarCry 3, shooters rarely have interesting gameplay, a lot of games are turning into generic, box-ticking open worlds, etc. You'll notice that maybe because Nintendo rarely cares about storytelling in their games, they can put out genuinely the most interesting and innovative games of the last decade with Mario Odyssey, Breath of the Wild and Tears of the Kingdom, or Pikmin.
As someone who will always take a stand for game preservation, at least it's good that we actually have people who prioritize the gamers and their righs as consumers before everything else. Because GOG is the perfect representation of that. They don't give a single rat's ass about the DRM motive because they're aware of how fraudulent and malicious that practice is. GOG cares about US more than they do money or any corporate bullshit.
This is a topic I'm super passionate about as a nerd who enjoys audio-visual entertainment. I lament the legal shenanigans and the tom-fuckery of publishers/licensers. It's always a fight worth fighting. Excellent video. Happy to have the game back. I may never play it again, but I am ABSOLUTELY buying it to support the cause. Good on GOG and thank you for covering it. Great video. Makes me a little misty-eyed
Since the sudden pulling of games from storefronts . I have shifted a good portion of my singleplayer library of games to GOG, to a point of rebuying games I already have on steam. Even dowloaded the offline installers to a backup drives to insure their longevity.
@@raptorjesus5488 the problem here is ACCESS for others. As much as we can point to piracy as a solution for preservation, it shouldn't be the only solution, mainly cause of the number of untrusted sites out there that others are none the wiser
For such a relatively short video, I'm impressed how well you hit all the important points. Funniest thing is, DRM on Steam is entirely optional. I think that says just as much about it as the reason why all major media companies love HDMI, HDCP prevents low-effort ripping. That's what it's all about, control. Everything else is just a result of it
This is great to see! This is a sponsorship I can get behind. I have been behind GOG for years. Outside of Steam, most of my PC game purchases come from GOG. I have been behind them, especially since they started releasing many of the Star Trek games from the 90s. Hope this sponsorship is long lasting! Great video too.
That GOG takes the time to bring back old games and port them onto new hardware is one of the many reason I will always buy from them first over any other store.
It's good to know the original creators are getting some royalties from the re-release of the game, even if they don't fully get the rights back. Even other games that get brought out of legal limbo or are pulled out of the abandonware pit don't compensate the original creators, only whoever currently owns the rights. I've had people ask me why I pirate, and the two biggest reasons I always give are "I want to actually keep what I get" and "The creators aren't getting the money anyways." I don't like things being revoked or modified after I've bought them, and is a major reason why even after I buy a game I go get a pirated copy so that it can't be messed with. And regarding who is getting the money, some people have gotten so confused they've gotten angry with me when I explain that, for instance, I would directly give money to Jim Croce if possible... Except Jim Croce has been gone since 1973, and anything of his I buy is giving money to Universal Music Group who is the third corporate inheritor of his discography rights. I'm not giving money to some rent seeking rights squatters profiting off the career of a man who lost his life over fifty years ago and who refuse to give a penny to his son.
God bless you, Raye. This was beautifully done and as someone who privately preaches on the subject of game preservation, this really hits close to my heart. Can't tell you how much I miss even 7th gen games that are "unplayable" today because of this kind of shit. Games I may never get to play again that shaped who I am as a 35 year old gamer today.
It makes me happy to have hard copies of many XBOX, PS2/3 and 360 titles. Can't imagine how many of my favorite PC games games have been purged and are now unplayable.
I would have agreed with you a few years ago. But after GoG went into politics on twitter and proved they're willing to publish games w/ DRM like Hitman, now I just buy on G2A.
So much of the catalog of games that I played throughout my life that made me who I am today just got left in the dust by their license holders, and its a huge reason why as passionate as I am about gaming, I've become so bitter towards the gaming landscape and how these works of art are treated as time goes on. So I'm really glad to see so many people take a stand for the preservation of video games, because this stuff is important, certainly not the most important systematic issue we face but important nonetheless. Because even one game can have a monumental impact on someone's life, and that should absolutely be preserved for future generations to experience themselves. And Ray, years ago you convinced me to seek out my own copy of Alpha Protocol on PS3 and I'll likely be grabbing it on GOG now, it's awesome to see how far you've come since then, thanks for everything.
After my mum died, Alpha Protocol was a game I played when I was at my lowest. My older brother and I never got on, but he and I found a little friendship in this game. It's absolutely absurd, and I love it.
This is absolutely massive. I’m really proud of you and everyone who was involved in making this happen. With how much gaming culture surrounded alpha protocol, it being delisted would have felt like Dragon’s Dogma becoming unplayable for me. So many cult games mean a lot to us, and making sure we can still play them is so important.
I was fortunate to be walking along in a video game/board game/card game store when I saw this Alpha protocol on a nearby shelf for the xbox 360 for 20 bucks. I have yet to complete the game, and have never doubted my purchase.
I've heard of GOG for the last couple of years off and on, but I never really knew what it was until this video. This video was a wonderfully heartening thing to hear about an industry that I've been deeply cynical towards for the last several years, in spite of how many games and experiences that I love have come out since the halcyon days of PS2 and GameCube stuff I grew up playing. Reckon I'm gonna go re-watch that Alpha Protocol video now
I’ll always remember Alpha Protocol as the game my friend finished 8 times in a row at launch, but also told me not to play 😂 But yeah, game preservation is important. No matter how jank or broken, art should be protected
Common GOG W. I'm really happy whenever I see stuff like this addressed, we're losing so much without most people realizing it, nor the chance to ever get to.
I still have Alpha Protocol on steam. It definitely had its issues and unfinished content, but it still stood out against the crowd if you gave it a chance. I wouldn't mind seeing a fully realized remake in the future.
i too have it on steam, but i *didn't* give it a chance, and now gog are making me wonder what i missed. if it has re-bindable controls, i'll probably give it another shot on gog. if not...
God Bless Poland and GOG. Y'all are incredible. At some point in the future, I will probably pick up the hot mess and enjoy discovering all that AP has to offer!
I never really looked into GOG before, other than knowing they sold older games. Didn't think that hard about the effort they would be putting on the other end as far as preservation and contractual and licensure things that would make distribution complicated. Thanks for sharing!
TUUUURN UP THE RAAAADIO! Alpha Protocol IS BACK! The game is a gloriously godawful broken mess of a masterpiece! You have no idea how much i love this game, or how many times I've bought it. The player agency is like nothing else before or since!
Everytime i see this conversation about preservation, i remember about Hideo Kojima and Death Stranding. Kojima buys every music album CD/LP, hardcopies of games and Deluxe Editions, DVD movies, physical artbook of games and movies, collector´s editions and etc, under the sun. I never really understood it, since these things are way too expensive for me or "unnecessary" since there's other "convenient" digital ways to obtain them. Then, came Death Stranding. There´s a character named The Collector, who likes to receive deliveries from Sam of hardcopies of magazines. There's the Movie Collector too, who talks about how people used to flock to cinemas and own movies. And basically what they say is that, on that post apocaliptic world, that's one of the few ways to still experience art: Through physical means. Through preserved media. The message here, in my opinion, is that we should never EVER take for granted this digital ownership of shit. And not only the ownership, but the very existence of the product.
this is an interesting point, but something i think a lot of people wont really consider in terms of this kind of preservation is the fact that the medium matters just as much as the art. You do have to take into consideration the complexity of the technology required to store/use it. this is why i think vinyl is probably the best way to buy albums, because they could be played on anything in between a basic gramophone to a Crosley-style battery operated electronic turntable. and this is also why retro video games are going to be the hardest. Old school arcade games were purpose built machines--the devs basically worked with the board manufacturer if possible to make it capable of everything they needed, or adapted older games boards to do new tricks. Same with a lot of early NES and SNES or equivalent games, the boards inside the cartridge could be modified in a number of ways to increase capacity or offer flash memory--this is all not to mention the console itself. Digital ownership, in a perfect ecosystem where publishers can't just take away your software and host all software indefinitely and until an electronic apocalypse happens, is actually the best way to own your games because the system wouldn't matter. that said, obviously we aren't in that perfect world so, whatever.
@@quinnmarchese6313MollyRocket on YT here makes an interesting point about games and software should return to these purpose built systems. Since it would greatly improve performance and also ensure compatibility since testing can be done incredibly robust versus having endless amounts of system configurations and having to deal with 12 million lines of code that just the operating system layer provides. It would make porting (through emulation) also much easier and just in general improve ease of development in the long run since developers won't need to deal with that gigantic overhead.
OMG I had no idea this was landing on GOG. I already own it on Steam, but I love this game to death, because it is just so, so unique, that I purchased another copy on GOG. Thanks for the content!
This is amazing news. A die-hard fan of Obsidian, I've been curious about this game for years now, and am very lucky to finally have the opportunity. Beyond that, though, I am so glad to see this work of game preservation come to fruition. Although this broader problem is beyond the scope of one company, in the absence of systemic change, Good Old Games is doing invaluable and important work. I sincerely hope that GOG continues to support game preservation and DRM-free releases. If anyone from that company happens to read this, please do everything you can to re-list "Spec Ops: The Line" -- one of the most important games of the last few decades.
Absolute legend. It's so great seeing this game finally return. The tragedy is most are willing to write it off as "a little bit half-baked" but preservation is so important to making sure the best ideas from this live on. Alpha Protocol managed to figure out how to solve most of the problems in narrative design that crept into the 7th gen BioWare style RPGs, but largely went ignored and it's a crying shame.
Thank you! For making this happen as indirectly or directly as you did… I guess? Genuinely, though, this is my most expensive single-game purchase on GOG yet. This commitment needs to be rewarded. [And I already have the game on Steam.] [I should really play it sometime now. :D]
Amazing thanks for SEGA to allow their Intellectual Property (IP) to be released 🔵 Also thanks for Obsidian Entertainment for developing this masterpiece and thirdly, GOG in Poland ⭐
My mindset about how I get digital content like games, music, and movies have shifted over the past year or two for pretty much the entire message of this video. I've begun favoring the purchase of physical media or DRM-Free media that I like outright instead of relying on a streaming service or volatile digital marketplace and it's felt great. GoG has been seeing more and more of my attention for the same reasons lately. They're an underappreciated lot, blaming myself included there, but that one simple thing they fight for, providing and reviving games without DRM, is something none of us should be taking for granted. I'm glad this video exists to remind me of that.
When he said “legally obligated” I thought it would just be hyperbole. Also 9:38 Finally FINALLY Someone on the other side of the fence experiences this pain. When it happens for a modern game, you can reach out to support, or not even do that, it’ll probably get a fix in the next update. For olde, forgotten games? Better hope there’s a community fix. Better hope anyone at all has figured out how to mod the game in some capacity.
Your channel was always a favorite of mine. I can't believe how insane the production has been for all these years, and I can't imagine the effort you put into all your videos. When you release a video, my reaction is always HELL YEAHHH, like being a kid and seeing that a movie that I enjoy whatching was on TV. I hope you are doing fine!
I remember "abandonware" discussions going on while I was in high school. 25 years ago. So this conversation has been happening before digital storefronts were first introduced, let alone became the norm. And back then, a game was largely considered "abandonware" if two criteria were met: 1. the game was more than 5 years old and, 2. you could not acquire a copy of it except through secondary channels. Shareware downloads didn't count. If you couldn't buy a copy from the publisher or through any primary distribution channel, it qualified as abandonware - a game or software pretty much "abandoned" by its authors and publishers. Jordan Mechner I know helped that conversation about preserving games when he engaged a few experts to to preserve the *original* Apple II code for Prince of Persia after finding really old floppy discs with the original code - it's since been put on Github. It's why Nintendo, Sega, and other (current and former) game hardware manufacturers really need to get onboard with offering ROMs and developing emulators of their original hardware rather than going after those who are trying to preserve those games the way Project Gutenberg is trying to preserve books.
This is ABSOLUTELY amazing. After watching your Alpha Protocol videos i was very interested in playing it. I used to have a PS3 copy somewhere, which is nowhere to be found. Looked for PC keys online without luck. Having GOG and indirectly CDPR do this is of utmost importance. This just reiterates, to me, what great companies GOG and CDPR are, and what they really mean for the gaming community, despite the shortcomings with CP2077, which they have been adamant on fixing, and have already done so much work for. I hope GOG will bring back many more lost titles. Some of their fixes for old titles which still exist on, e.g. Steam, are essential and extremely convenient too. Absolutely adore them.
Excellent write-up. The work they've done over at GOG looks brilliant! I am concerned that the game has simply been granted another lease of life until the rights expire again - but I guess that's why Ross Scott's work is so important - it might ensure that this revival is the last one Alpha Protocol will ever need.
Not really, Ross's fight is primarily to stop getting games killed that people already paid for. Even if by some miracle he pulls it off it would do nothing to deter games being delisted for licensing reasons -- just that people who already bought it will still be able to access it, which was already the case for Alpha Protocol before it was rereleased on GOG.
Alpha protocol does last forever for me, because of its fundamental game design, story, the sum of all it parts in other words. A masterpiece that demands to be refined and perfected
i just hope one day the Transformers War for Cybertron and Fall of Cybertron are made avalible to play again, they're too good to just be forgotten and unplayed
The second you said it was available on GOG I went and bought it. I didn't care how much it was, or how shitty of a port. I wanted it on PC. I NEEDED it on PC. It will NEVER leave my hardrive.
I will always leave the same tip on any Alpha Protocol video I find. If you find yourself too frustrated with the shooting and stealth mechanics, do the following: -Switch game to easy -Play a melee only build This will get you pretty much the best possible outcome for any mission, since you will always be spotted, but you'll have 0 kills, so all factions are still okay with you. Also your melee moves are equal parts hilarious and badass. Have fun.
I've genuinely been wanting to play this game ever since you did the years later video on it. This is exactly the kind of game that needs to be preserved. Not a best seller. Not even really that good. But something innovative and ambitious. Thanks, Ray!
I got the email that this came to GOG and it made me so happy. I was having a very bad day filled with pain and it washed that all away. I loved AP so much I bought it for 360 back in the day then overpaid for a physical PC copy. Now I'm gonna buy it a 3rd time to support this.
It's sad that Sega decided to ignore the owners of the Steam version. Ok, GOG wanted to update it and sell it and they want it to be an exclusive. Let them do it and sell it to the new customers. But release the patch with improvements to Steam as well (do not sell it there, just update the game for the owners). It's just disrespectful to your customers. I already bought both Steam and PS3 versions back in the day, I wrote a review and recommended it to everyone around. And I would've gladly bought it the third time on GOG If GOG hadn't suspended sales of all games in my country because of the war (unlike Steam, there simply aren't any convenient ways to get around the restrictions and make purchases from GOG). BTW, the game is great, I really enjoyed it and I was planning to replay it in the near future.
![ROSÉ(로제) - APT. (Band VER.) (With. 이영지) [더 시즌즈-이영지의 레인보우] | KBS 241129 방송](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/IW8qaemx74g/mqdefault.jpg)
www.stopkillinggames.com/ has just opened, the biggest current effort to stop companies from destroying games forever!
Woohoo. LET'S MAKE HISTORY!
Thanks for pinning this, it definitely needs more exposure!
You should probably make a quick and dirty video about it. It will get more awareness. You can even make it a TikTok. which I would suggest
@@Hmanpc I've written a short video for it, just waiting for the Canadian Petition to open up and hopefully rally more people around it.
*Alpha Protocol…10 Years Later: 4 Years Later*
4 years after 10 years later surely?
I love Yahtzee crowshaw so much
I still have the game sitting in my steam library. Maybe i should play it some day.
@@thiccbaronsame
@@federicocasali1565 @thiccbaron Both of you play it now. Put down whatever game you're grinding or show you're binging. It also interested me but I never got until I saw that review (picked up a key on the grey market,) and it was amazing. It was everything I ever wanted from a spy game and more, and there's so many ways the game can end. The shooting is whack AF though, just a warning. Aside from that, have fun guys.
As a professional theatre worker this is absolutely a necessary fight. The amount of works that are destroyed by copyright fights over ownership or production style is depressing. It feels futile, especially in an industry with far less appeal than gaming.
But with the crowd of people finally beginning to recognize the importance of preservation, maybe there’s hope.
Let us keep our art alive.
I heard the classic John Woo movies can’t get the 4K remaster treatment because supposedly some architect company in Hong Kong of all things own the rights to them. They have no interest at all in selling them
(or haven’t had a price offer they were satisfied with).
Hearing how Obsidian doesn't get to own their first original IP solely because of a song choice is absolutely infuriating. IP "ownership" and copyright law has done more damage to the arts in general than it has ever helped artists, and it's not even close. But goddamn do I hope the winds are finally changing.
Dogma comes to mind. One of my favorite movies isn’t available anywhere because of a mess of copyright and ownership issues. Or the Brave Little Toaster. Or countless other media that can be lost to time over the greed of companies.
@@Seolisti For gaming there's No One Lives Forever, a partnership between 3 companies where no one is sure who owns how much and no one wants to spend money to discover so we can get an official remaster and ports, at least it's old so it runs on any PC.
@@Seolisti sigh, I've been looking for a movie called 11:14(2003) for a few years now, just because I caught it late and night as a kid and wanted to know if it was as good as I remember lol, the thing is impossible to find
That Spec-Ops reminder hurts despite being telegraphed for the whole video. Great writing, man.
Very on-brand, as well.
Do you feel like a hero?
Can it still be played if it was already bought on steam or is that now impossible?
@@xboxplzfixmeif you bought it you can still download and play it.
they just removed the ability to buy it, that's why people say that it is 'delisted' .
@@xboxplzfixme Yes, it's still in my library. Haven't installed it though but I'm pretty sure it'll boot up :)
In an age where so many IP's can easily fall into the digital black hole of copyright and other bullshit (sad No One Lives Forever noises) this is a huge service. Thank you Raycevick and GOG!
nolf is epic
Used to love nolf. Sad I got rid of my bigbox pc games years ago.
Copyright needs a massive rethinking.
It's sad that the music industry has litigated itself into irrelevance with regards to the rest of the entertainment industry.
Clive Barker's Jericho, Armies of Exigo, The Battle for Middle-Earth series, Rise of Legends, Duke Nukem - Manhattan Project, Battlefield 2, Enemy Territory: Quake Wars, Wolfenstein 2009
Man I don't want to forget about the amazing games that are not around anymore
Jericho was super underrated, just like Clive Barker's Undying
One of the reasons I still have my 360 is Jericho lol
So true! That Wolverine game..
@@TerzaGuardia Well Undying is still available on GOG (I still have the physical box too by the way), but Jericho is not available anywhere. I still have it in my Steam Library because I bought it years ago, but I would buy it again without hesitation if it was (re)released DRM-Free on GOG.
Pirate
Went from working with COG to working with GOG
I'm working my HOG
try working with a DOG!
sorry, i had no other joke for this lol
POG
There is a lot of FOG outside, oh, it´s just the contamination in the air.
This video my my LOG hard
I'm so sick of publishers trying to push this "limited time service" with their games, and I'm glad GOG and most of the video game audience are hearing none of it. Great video, as always.
It's total B.S.! If we buy it, we should OWN the right to play that game!
@@ProjectRedfootThat's why GOG exists, it prioritizes our rights as gamers of ownership of games. Isn't that the whole point of the distribution platform as a whole?
@@TheSilverShadow17Partially at least. GoG doesn't keep all versions of the game, or at least they don't allow you to download older patches.
@@KnightspaceORG After all they're mainly specialized in game preservation as well as digital distribution, obviously. That being said at least they actually let you keep your games once you've made a purchase because as it has been stated on the official website, that they are DRM-free. Protecting and defending gamer's rights is their top priority above all else.
It turns game purchasing into some sort of FOMO trend imo. "If you don't play this within X years it will no longer exist."
Some people might simply see this as shallow promotion, but I think GOG genuinely deserve this sort of coverage for their preservation efforts. Sure they make money from it, but it's something I'm more then happy to finance (when I can) in the current day gaming landscape. This video is dope, and we need more like it for the sake of video game preservation.
Awesome work as always
@@gamingblowsofficialWorth mentioning as for many years they were unprofitable... But it's really good to see that they finally turned a profit of 1.2 million 2022. Idk why this happened but I hope this trend carries into the future... mainly to fund their legal teams lol
@@gamingblowsofficial because gamers are, on average, stupid fanboys with brand loyalty to a digital store, bringing the console war toxicity to pc.
I buy games where they are cheaper, or on gog because drm free is the best feature of any digital store.
@@gamingblowsofficial I think there is a post breaking this down. The storefront itself is not what makes it unprofitable. It’s the side projects that normally put them in the red. IE development of the 2.0 app.
@@mondodimotori ^^^^^^^
I gladly give them money to get games working for me, especially when the prices are fair
I still need to finish the video, but one thing that struck me throughout the interviews is just, you can feel the happiness coming off of them as their game, seemingly doomed to be forgotten, has gotten to return from the metaphorical dead. It's genuinely really touching.
People from Poland are very passionate about gaming, as it should be, I love Gog, keep it up my fellow countryman!
I'm really glad you shouted out Ross (Accursed Farms) I've been following him for 10+ years and I've been following his steps in trying to stop games from dying and I'm hoping this gives him a boost in viewership not to bump his subscriber count or anything but so that some change actually gets made and we can set a precedent so games will always be playable in the future.
really glad i had a random coworker recommend Freeman's Mind to me a few years ago. after getting up to date on that, i started scrubbing through his game dungeon, his first Crew video really got my attention towards this issue.
There was also another awesome Ross mentioned in the video - Loius ROSSman i.e. the right to repair guy. Also deserves all the support he can get. :)
Here here
When I was a kid, I pirated games because my country was under sanctions and nothing was available. Then I grew up and eagerly bought games to support my favourite developers and franchises. Now I'm back to pirating because support for all those games in nonexistent.
Glad to see somebody advocating for the consumers
Is that Cuba or Iran? Or were there other serious sanctions?
@@christophernoneya4635Could have also been Iraq, where the sanctions were so bad that over a million children starved to death as Madeline Albright laughed about it.
I’m betting Iraq, did you get your hands on games by buying hard-drives loaded with pirated games?
@@nemo5335 Not Iraq, our sanctions never got that bad thay millions were starving, we could always produce our own food, but it did make all contemporary media harder to access.
i grew up in Iran, because reasons said we had no legal access to any outside media for 40+ years. Despite that we had and continue to have one of the most passionate communities i have seen about gaming. to the point where rockstar game releases are almost a country wide event for us. and it's all built on pirated and DRM free copies of many media because that was the only option we had.
many of us, including me, grew and ended up making a steam account with VPN to buy and support our beloved games no matter what even if it means paying in a currency not from our country and paying all the mockup that comes with it. Companies like Valve and GOG are our heroes because they are the only ones offering a helping hand in these times where passions of millions of people and an entire new generation of games is being wasted
Point is this isn't just a problem of the gaming industry. Windows terminating support for older versions, Adobe forcing shut downs of older licenses of their catalogue, Apple and Samsung nerfing older products, even car companies charging you for stuff that is already installed on the car you "own" (or even worse the case of the GM EV1). Ownership right now is seriously an illusion that big companies force on us, hoping we're all good with our subpar products that already cost a lot of money to purchase but cost even more to run. We need a serious rewriting of the Copyright laws, that were lobbied into hell by Disney and other powerhouses, we need to stop live services, we need to decriminalise piracy and on top of them all we need to ensure the right to repair and modify. Because if I paid for something, I fucking own that thing.
Well said!
IMO Windows does this pretty well though. They bend over BACKWARDS to try and keep support for older hardware and software. You can't expect a company to keep updating the same OS in perpetuity, economically that's impossible, but they do go to extreme lengths to keep things working,
Apple and recently Samsung provide almost 10 years of software updates, this is also excellent imo. And Apple never "nerfed" older products for a reason that wasn't making sure you're battery still works.
I agree with the rest though, except piracy, why would piracy be necessary if things just worked conveniently?
I feel like MS gets a bit too much hate for this. Like, no fucking shit that a game originally meant to run on a 3DFX GPU won’t run on your brand new PC. Outside of that, they’ve done a lot to keep compatibility with earlier programs. I can open an application meant for Windows XP and it will work fine on Windows 11. Apple is much worse.
I strongly agree with Logicherrormusic in his statement especially in the last sentence. If we paid for something we fucking own the thing. The corporate ass hats can't convince or tell us otherwise that we don't. Better yet if more people did piracy that'll change people's perspective on what's going on currently. Piracy needs to be decriminalized so that it can count towards owning something and actually having proof of it.
@@reshadegaming6285all those companies are multi-billion dollar companies. The literal richest companies in the world, they can absolutely keep software they sold updated until their company stops running. It is easily economically viable. Stop spreading and internalising this techgiant misinformation that these companies try and feed you and think for yourself bro. Secondly piracy is the only method us consumers don't get absolutely cucked by those giant corporations. That's why. Piracy is more effective in preserving and providing access to old software then any company has ever done or will do.
That Lord of War opening is the best most obscure opening to any RUclips video ever. You did it. Man that's a great movie.
I love the video, but
" Every month, 12 games are delisted from digital storefronts. GOG can eventually bring back one. The question is... _how do we bring back the other eleven?_ "
was such a missed opportunity.
I thought I recognized the shot, one of Cage's best.
I was wanting to hear Buffalo Springfield 😎
I understood this reference when I saw it. Thinking back on the video I get the choice.
This was the comment I was looking for.
Matthew Rorie's Alpha Protocol really deserved a sequel. I would have loved to have seen what some polish and some more horsepower could've done for it. Michael Thorton was ahead of his time.
I'd love to see a sequel of AP. I'm curious if they could stealth revive the game under a different name and lead character while making vague references to AP.
I fucking love GOG and CDPR's dedication to game preservation. Game preservation should be an industry standard and the amount of games being lost to negligent publishers and developers is disheartening.
Now if only GOG can work something out between EA and Lionhead to get their games out of Abandonware status.
Bro I would buy fable 2/3 instantly if I could. Thankfully I don't have to pay on the high seas at the very least
I'd love to get my hands on Need for Speed: Pro Street again. It was such an underrated gem.
Yet, they kneel to China and refuse to publisher game like Devotion on their store.
Shoutouts to Accursed Farms and what he'll be doing in April with The Crew's shutdown
Hope the best for him and his efforts, it's really the best we got for preserving online games (if not games in general)
Every 2 months we get a GOG surprise, these guys are awesome at keeping old games alive. Not just re-releasing it, but getting the effort to shape it in the best way possible.
It's something not much people put care into nowdays but I do, and they do as well.
It's worth noting that spec ops is well preserved *as* an abandonware title. Anyone who wants to play the game can find it quite easily.
Delisting isn't the end. As long as the game can be found, installed, and played by the average person, preservation was successful. And making alpha protocol DRM free, and making it compatible with modern systems, is the benchmark for successful preservation.
People shouldn't rely on legally grey means to access video games
@@votch2798 no, publishers shouldn't make those areas legally gray to begin with
Yeah, that’s the other reason why I like DRM free games. So even if the game is delisted, as long as someone has the files somewhere, it’s still accessible in a legally grey manner. And you don’t even need to worry about potentially shady cracks since it’s DRM free from an official source.
That’s something which saved a delisted game I like, which is Prey 2006. The latest patch removed even disk check DRM, so you can easily play it right now by downloading it off some abandonware site, install the game as normal off the ISO, then install all the patches, and play.
Everyone showing up in this video Raycevik, Louis Rossman, GOG of course, etc, you are all amazing, thanks for doing this for the love of doing what is right and not for getting rich quick. Possibly even getting poor quick but doing it anyway. Big big love. I guess it's you guys, and Nightdive, who are spearheading this fight for us. Keep it up.
Ray are you feeling OK? Two videos in a week is awesome!
No, I'm really exhausted.
@@RaycevickI hope you feel better man!
@@RaycevickJust finished watching the video and it was super cool to see the passion everyone in it has for games and preservation. Get some rest dude.
Go eat a sandwich and take a lie down slime @@Raycevick
@@Raycevick You can rest now.
If GOG pulls off No One Lives Forever, I will buy and play exclusively on their platform.
Video games are entering (and imo have long ago entered) the transitionary period between throwaway entertainment and the historically/culturally significant. Even if a game is looked at as "bad" when it releases, it still should be preserved so that future generations can learn from what it did right and what it did wrong. Not only that, but the historical record must be kept intact and in context for the wider public to learn what it needs to. As an amateur military historian i know how hard it is to combat both malicious misinfirmation as well as well meaning misunderstandings of events that get routed in the popular psyche because no one was around to tell them they were wrong. (The easiest to understand being the 5 shermans to 1 german tank myth that perpatuated due to peoples misunderstanding of US armor doctrine)
The point being that there are a lot of things that future game developers and publishers can learn from, so long as the historical record of games remains intact, in context, and easily accessible to them. I applaud GOG for taking on this long and arduous task of attempting to do just that.
i think that transition started happening in the 90s, either shortly before or right on the advent of 3D home consoles, ie the PS1, Dreamcast, and N64 and basically concluded with the first Last of Us game. i think because of this transitional period, especially surrounding TLOU, that was when a very real shift happened to tighter, more focused narratives with fewer contrivances--you'll also notice that localization issues and mistranslations became significantly less prevalent, alongside a growing desire for either proven voice talent or celebrity voice talent, and i also think that AAA gameplay innovation has massively suffered as a result: Ubisoft is sticking to a formula they made over 15 years ago with FarCry 3, shooters rarely have interesting gameplay, a lot of games are turning into generic, box-ticking open worlds, etc. You'll notice that maybe because Nintendo rarely cares about storytelling in their games, they can put out genuinely the most interesting and innovative games of the last decade with Mario Odyssey, Breath of the Wild and Tears of the Kingdom, or Pikmin.
As someone who will always take a stand for game preservation, at least it's good that we actually have people who prioritize the gamers and their righs as consumers before everything else. Because GOG is the perfect representation of that. They don't give a single rat's ass about the DRM motive because they're aware of how fraudulent and malicious that practice is. GOG cares about US more than they do money or any corporate bullshit.
Great video! I love that people are starting to seriously fight for games preservation. I wish GOG the best in their mission
This is a topic I'm super passionate about as a nerd who enjoys audio-visual entertainment. I lament the legal shenanigans and the tom-fuckery of publishers/licensers. It's always a fight worth fighting. Excellent video. Happy to have the game back. I may never play it again, but I am ABSOLUTELY buying it to support the cause. Good on GOG and thank you for covering it. Great video. Makes me a little misty-eyed
Man is so powerful he brought back Alpha Protocol, thank you so much, Raycevick. (please bring back Driver San Francisco now)
I’d probably forever respect gog if they somehow got driver san fransisco
def never gonna happen though
@@bounceysteve licensing issues is the problem
@@Antipiperosdeclony yeah so it’s probably never gonna happen
Is driver san Francisco not playable anymore, or just delisted? I own a copy of it for xbox 360 on disc, I hope it still works if I try to play it.
@@CadgerChristmasLightShow xbox 360 was made before the drm we have today, it will work
Since the sudden pulling of games from storefronts . I have shifted a good portion of my singleplayer library of games to GOG, to a point of rebuying games I already have on steam. Even dowloaded the offline installers to a backup drives to insure their longevity.
Same here, ended up prioritizing buying on GOG now cause of all these concerns. Plus, GOG does Steam-like discounts.
@@OfficialDJSoru And the private email only discounts can be really good too, better than Steam sometimes
Even if a game gets pulled from steam owners can still download and play it
@@raptorjesus5488 the problem here is ACCESS for others. As much as we can point to piracy as a solution for preservation, it shouldn't be the only solution, mainly cause of the number of untrusted sites out there that others are none the wiser
same, have over a half a terabyte of every GoG and Humble Bundle DRM free game I ever bought saved, and try to buy on GoG whenever is possible.
shoutout to Scott Ross (from Accursed Farms channel) efforts of brought publisher responsibility of try keeping the Crew alive
Shoutout to the Accursed Farms comment section marketing interns.
@@noneofyourbusiness4616 it's a living
Yeah he's a friggin legend
I really wish I owned this game. Would love to stand up to those game publishers and who just throw their art away like its worthless.
Yeah more people need to know about his campaign.
For such a relatively short video, I'm impressed how well you hit all the important points.
Funniest thing is, DRM on Steam is entirely optional. I think that says just as much about it
as the reason why all major media companies love HDMI, HDCP prevents low-effort ripping.
That's what it's all about, control. Everything else is just a result of it
This is great to see! This is a sponsorship I can get behind. I have been behind GOG for years. Outside of Steam, most of my PC game purchases come from GOG. I have been behind them, especially since they started releasing many of the Star Trek games from the 90s. Hope this sponsorship is long lasting! Great video too.
That GOG takes the time to bring back old games and port them onto new hardware is one of the many reason I will always buy from them first over any other store.
It was looking pretty grim a few years ago for game preservation. I’m glad more people are joining the cause.
YOU'RE TELLING ME ITS BEEN 3 YEARS SINCE THE AP REVIEW
TIME IS MADE OF CIRCLES
@@Raycevickthat is why clocks are round!
It's good to know the original creators are getting some royalties from the re-release of the game, even if they don't fully get the rights back. Even other games that get brought out of legal limbo or are pulled out of the abandonware pit don't compensate the original creators, only whoever currently owns the rights.
I've had people ask me why I pirate, and the two biggest reasons I always give are "I want to actually keep what I get" and "The creators aren't getting the money anyways." I don't like things being revoked or modified after I've bought them, and is a major reason why even after I buy a game I go get a pirated copy so that it can't be messed with. And regarding who is getting the money, some people have gotten so confused they've gotten angry with me when I explain that, for instance, I would directly give money to Jim Croce if possible... Except Jim Croce has been gone since 1973, and anything of his I buy is giving money to Universal Music Group who is the third corporate inheritor of his discography rights. I'm not giving money to some rent seeking rights squatters profiting off the career of a man who lost his life over fifty years ago and who refuse to give a penny to his son.
God bless you, Raye. This was beautifully done and as someone who privately preaches on the subject of game preservation, this really hits close to my heart. Can't tell you how much I miss even 7th gen games that are "unplayable" today because of this kind of shit. Games I may never get to play again that shaped who I am as a 35 year old gamer today.
Alpha protocol is one of my guilty pleasures. The how many children you've orphaned tracker is beyond peak rpg, too me.
This! That stat fundamentally changed how I approached the game.
So if someone doesn't have children... ;-)
This is the best shameless promotion I've ever watched.
Seeing all those people fighting off in different fronts made me tear up a bit
piracy has done more to make games last forever than anyone else
As a pirate I agree
Arrr Matey@@Seno_was_taken
Arrr Matey@@Seno_was_taken
Especially abandonware games.
Absolutely loved this, and I'm super excited to finally do a full playthrough of Alpha Protocol! Great work as always pal.
so this is the contractual obligation
Don’t translate... भवतः हृदयस्य धड़कनं कतिपयेषु घण्टेषु स्थगयिष्यति, अस्य शापस्य मुक्तिं प्राप्तुं एकमात्रं मार्गं मम चैनलस्य सदस्यतां कुर्वन्तु….…..
one of two,yes
Oh no im scared :( @fantaguyreal
@@fantaguyreal Delete your channel permanently and remove yourself off of RUclips. You're unfunny and stale.
@@fantaguyrealky5
Second video in a week? What a treat!
It makes me happy to have hard copies of many XBOX, PS2/3 and 360 titles. Can't imagine how many of my favorite PC games games have been purged and are now unplayable.
Bringing back Alpha Protocol from the dead was a champion move. Thanks, GOG!
Thank you GOG for preserving old video games
GOG policy of "DRM-Free" is the sole reason we should consider them as the first choice, opposed to Steam or Epic.
I would have agreed with you a few years ago. But after GoG went into politics on twitter and proved they're willing to publish games w/ DRM like Hitman, now I just buy on G2A.
@@KonglomeratYTwhat do you mean they went into politics?
In terms of sponsored videos, this is about as good as it gets. I support GOGs mission.
Holy crap TWO Raycevick videos within a week?!
How are we this blessed?
So much of the catalog of games that I played throughout my life that made me who I am today just got left in the dust by their license holders, and its a huge reason why as passionate as I am about gaming, I've become so bitter towards the gaming landscape and how these works of art are treated as time goes on. So I'm really glad to see so many people take a stand for the preservation of video games, because this stuff is important, certainly not the most important systematic issue we face but important nonetheless. Because even one game can have a monumental impact on someone's life, and that should absolutely be preserved for future generations to experience themselves.
And Ray, years ago you convinced me to seek out my own copy of Alpha Protocol on PS3 and I'll likely be grabbing it on GOG now, it's awesome to see how far you've come since then, thanks for everything.
After my mum died, Alpha Protocol was a game I played when I was at my lowest. My older brother and I never got on, but he and I found a little friendship in this game. It's absolutely absurd, and I love it.
@adamm2091--> best wishes for the loss of your Mother
Thank you for the shout-out to Ross Scott's work against Ubisoft. I hope he gains enough traction from this video.
This is absolutely massive. I’m really proud of you and everyone who was involved in making this happen.
With how much gaming culture surrounded alpha protocol, it being delisted would have felt like Dragon’s Dogma becoming unplayable for me. So many cult games mean a lot to us, and making sure we can still play them is so important.
I was fortunate to be walking along in a video game/board game/card game store when I saw this Alpha protocol on a nearby shelf for the xbox 360 for 20 bucks. I have yet to complete the game, and have never doubted my purchase.
I've heard of GOG for the last couple of years off and on, but I never really knew what it was until this video. This video was a wonderfully heartening thing to hear about an industry that I've been deeply cynical towards for the last several years, in spite of how many games and experiences that I love have come out since the halcyon days of PS2 and GameCube stuff I grew up playing. Reckon I'm gonna go re-watch that Alpha Protocol video now
I’ll always remember Alpha Protocol as the game my friend finished 8 times in a row at launch, but also told me not to play 😂
But yeah, game preservation is important. No matter how jank or broken, art should be protected
Yknow, even though you told us this video was going to be here soon, I was not expecting the same week. Thanks for giving us more Raycevick!
Common GOG W. I'm really happy whenever I see stuff like this addressed, we're losing so much without most people realizing it, nor the chance to ever get to.
I still have Alpha Protocol on steam.
It definitely had its issues and unfinished content, but it still stood out against the crowd if you gave it a chance.
I wouldn't mind seeing a fully realized remake in the future.
i too have it on steam, but i *didn't* give it a chance, and now gog are making me wonder what i missed. if it has re-bindable controls, i'll probably give it another shot on gog. if not...
I love 13:26 with the imagery of the "hotline" from Control, which lets you get in touch with the dead.
Good choice!
Glad I've still the PS3 version AND the PS3 to play it, Alpha Protocol is indeed one of those game that you don't forget, even after 10+ yeras.
Same I played the ps3 version with a best friend and finished it
Only someone who has played Alpha Protocol understand the love/hate sentiment that Raycevick has.
heh yeah i absolutely got that - the game was a hot mess... but damn it, it was a bloody amazing hot mess that i wouldnt want to have missed =)
Alpha Protocol was like a Eurojank gem, but released by American dev Obsidian
Alpha protocol is one of my favorite games of all time. It’s very ok.
Hated that garbage. You can softlock progress in it fairly late game. Guess who stumbled into it...
Best 15 minute ad I've seen in years
No seriously.
I'd rather they do ads like this as opposed to some AI Temu bullshit
0:05 Yo seeing Psi-ops makes me smile best game I ever played. Played it multiple times wish there was a sequel even when they hinted it at the end
God Bless Poland and GOG. Y'all are incredible. At some point in the future, I will probably pick up the hot mess and enjoy discovering all that AP has to offer!
I never really looked into GOG before, other than knowing they sold older games. Didn't think that hard about the effort they would be putting on the other end as far as preservation and contractual and licensure things that would make distribution complicated. Thanks for sharing!
TUUUURN UP THE RAAAADIO! Alpha Protocol IS BACK! The game is a gloriously godawful broken mess of a masterpiece! You have no idea how much i love this game, or how many times I've bought it. The player agency is like nothing else before or since!
Sure you're not talking about Fallout: New Vegas with that description?
@@MishraArtificer extremely.
Everytime i see this conversation about preservation, i remember about Hideo Kojima and Death Stranding. Kojima buys every music album CD/LP, hardcopies of games and Deluxe Editions, DVD movies, physical artbook of games and movies, collector´s editions and etc, under the sun. I never really understood it, since these things are way too expensive for me or "unnecessary" since there's other "convenient" digital ways to obtain them.
Then, came Death Stranding.
There´s a character named The Collector, who likes to receive deliveries from Sam of hardcopies of magazines. There's the Movie Collector too, who talks about how people used to flock to cinemas and own movies. And basically what they say is that, on that post apocaliptic world, that's one of the few ways to still experience art: Through physical means. Through preserved media.
The message here, in my opinion, is that we should never EVER take for granted this digital ownership of shit. And not only the ownership, but the very existence of the product.
this is an interesting point, but something i think a lot of people wont really consider in terms of this kind of preservation is the fact that the medium matters just as much as the art. You do have to take into consideration the complexity of the technology required to store/use it. this is why i think vinyl is probably the best way to buy albums, because they could be played on anything in between a basic gramophone to a Crosley-style battery operated electronic turntable. and this is also why retro video games are going to be the hardest. Old school arcade games were purpose built machines--the devs basically worked with the board manufacturer if possible to make it capable of everything they needed, or adapted older games boards to do new tricks. Same with a lot of early NES and SNES or equivalent games, the boards inside the cartridge could be modified in a number of ways to increase capacity or offer flash memory--this is all not to mention the console itself.
Digital ownership, in a perfect ecosystem where publishers can't just take away your software and host all software indefinitely and until an electronic apocalypse happens, is actually the best way to own your games because the system wouldn't matter. that said, obviously we aren't in that perfect world so, whatever.
@@quinnmarchese6313MollyRocket on YT here makes an interesting point about games and software should return to these purpose built systems. Since it would greatly improve performance and also ensure compatibility since testing can be done incredibly robust versus having endless amounts of system configurations and having to deal with 12 million lines of code that just the operating system layer provides. It would make porting (through emulation) also much easier and just in general improve ease of development in the long run since developers won't need to deal with that gigantic overhead.
OMG I had no idea this was landing on GOG. I already own it on Steam, but I love this game to death, because it is just so, so unique, that I purchased another copy on GOG.
Thanks for the content!
2 Raycevick videos in a week feels like Christmas
Sounds like someone had shitty christmases
This is amazing news. A die-hard fan of Obsidian, I've been curious about this game for years now, and am very lucky to finally have the opportunity. Beyond that, though, I am so glad to see this work of game preservation come to fruition. Although this broader problem is beyond the scope of one company, in the absence of systemic change, Good Old Games is doing invaluable and important work. I sincerely hope that GOG continues to support game preservation and DRM-free releases. If anyone from that company happens to read this, please do everything you can to re-list "Spec Ops: The Line" -- one of the most important games of the last few decades.
Absolute legend. It's so great seeing this game finally return. The tragedy is most are willing to write it off as "a little bit half-baked" but preservation is so important to making sure the best ideas from this live on. Alpha Protocol managed to figure out how to solve most of the problems in narrative design that crept into the 7th gen BioWare style RPGs, but largely went ignored and it's a crying shame.
Back to back Raycevick vids? A most welcome surprise.
Thank you!
For making this happen as indirectly or directly as you did… I guess?
Genuinely, though, this is my most expensive single-game purchase on GOG yet. This commitment needs to be rewarded. [And I already have the game on Steam.] [I should really play it sometime now. :D]
Amazing thanks for SEGA to allow their Intellectual Property (IP) to be released 🔵
Also thanks for Obsidian Entertainment for developing this masterpiece and thirdly, GOG in Poland ⭐
My mindset about how I get digital content like games, music, and movies have shifted over the past year or two for pretty much the entire message of this video. I've begun favoring the purchase of physical media or DRM-Free media that I like outright instead of relying on a streaming service or volatile digital marketplace and it's felt great. GoG has been seeing more and more of my attention for the same reasons lately. They're an underappreciated lot, blaming myself included there, but that one simple thing they fight for, providing and reviving games without DRM, is something none of us should be taking for granted.
I'm glad this video exists to remind me of that.
When he said “legally obligated” I thought it would just be hyperbole.
Also 9:38
Finally
FINALLY
Someone on the other side of the fence experiences this pain. When it happens for a modern game, you can reach out to support, or not even do that, it’ll probably get a fix in the next update. For olde, forgotten games? Better hope there’s a community fix. Better hope anyone at all has figured out how to mod the game in some capacity.
Thank god for PC gaming wiki
Your channel was always a favorite of mine. I can't believe how insane the production has been for all these years, and I can't imagine the effort you put into all your videos. When you release a video, my reaction is always HELL YEAHHH, like being a kid and seeing that a movie that I enjoy whatching was on TV. I hope you are doing fine!
From 'just a video games RUclipsr' to a 'real' video game journalist. Your character arc 🔥
Genuinely, Ray, you are one of THE best video editors in my subscription feed. Masterful work, my friend.
I remember "abandonware" discussions going on while I was in high school. 25 years ago. So this conversation has been happening before digital storefronts were first introduced, let alone became the norm. And back then, a game was largely considered "abandonware" if two criteria were met: 1. the game was more than 5 years old and, 2. you could not acquire a copy of it except through secondary channels. Shareware downloads didn't count. If you couldn't buy a copy from the publisher or through any primary distribution channel, it qualified as abandonware - a game or software pretty much "abandoned" by its authors and publishers.
Jordan Mechner I know helped that conversation about preserving games when he engaged a few experts to to preserve the *original* Apple II code for Prince of Persia after finding really old floppy discs with the original code - it's since been put on Github.
It's why Nintendo, Sega, and other (current and former) game hardware manufacturers really need to get onboard with offering ROMs and developing emulators of their original hardware rather than going after those who are trying to preserve those games the way Project Gutenberg is trying to preserve books.
This is ABSOLUTELY amazing. After watching your Alpha Protocol videos i was very interested in playing it. I used to have a PS3 copy somewhere, which is nowhere to be found. Looked for PC keys online without luck. Having GOG and indirectly CDPR do this is of utmost importance.
This just reiterates, to me, what great companies GOG and CDPR are, and what they really mean for the gaming community, despite the shortcomings with CP2077, which they have been adamant on fixing, and have already done so much work for.
I hope GOG will bring back many more lost titles. Some of their fixes for old titles which still exist on, e.g. Steam, are essential and extremely convenient too. Absolutely adore them.
Excellent write-up. The work they've done over at GOG looks brilliant! I am concerned that the game has simply been granted another lease of life until the rights expire again - but I guess that's why Ross Scott's work is so important - it might ensure that this revival is the last one Alpha Protocol will ever need.
Not really, Ross's fight is primarily to stop getting games killed that people already paid for. Even if by some miracle he pulls it off it would do nothing to deter games being delisted for licensing reasons -- just that people who already bought it will still be able to access it, which was already the case for Alpha Protocol before it was rereleased on GOG.
Alpha protocol does last forever for me, because of its fundamental game design, story, the sum of all it parts in other words.
A masterpiece that demands to be refined and perfected
Creators and companies making a real difference. Love to see it!
i just hope one day the Transformers War for Cybertron and Fall of Cybertron are made avalible to play again, they're too good to just be forgotten and unplayed
We need more of this. Every game from the best to the worst have so much passion and so many stories to tell.
So that was the reason of the strict deadline, a fuckin' awesome reason! Can't wait to finally jump back into Alpha Protocol, been way too long.
That section including a clip of louis rossman was not expected but very appreciated
The second you said it was available on GOG I went and bought it. I didn't care how much it was, or how shitty of a port. I wanted it on PC. I NEEDED it on PC. It will NEVER leave my hardrive.
I will always leave the same tip on any Alpha Protocol video I find. If you find yourself too frustrated with the shooting and stealth mechanics, do the following:
-Switch game to easy
-Play a melee only build
This will get you pretty much the best possible outcome for any mission, since you will always be spotted, but you'll have 0 kills, so all factions are still okay with you. Also your melee moves are equal parts hilarious and badass. Have fun.
I've genuinely been wanting to play this game ever since you did the years later video on it. This is exactly the kind of game that needs to be preserved. Not a best seller. Not even really that good. But something innovative and ambitious. Thanks, Ray!
What the hell 2 Raycevick videos in 3 days? We will never see something like this again
I got the email that this came to GOG and it made me so happy. I was having a very bad day filled with pain and it washed that all away. I loved AP so much I bought it for 360 back in the day then overpaid for a physical PC copy. Now I'm gonna buy it a 3rd time to support this.
Alpha Protocol deserves to be preserved. It's got such personality, you just don't get games like that anymore nowadays.
The Lord Of War reference in the beginning is pure gold ...
More people should play alpha protocol. People need to see the innovations that old abandonedware games have made while modern gaming regreses.
Okay, but that flickering Sierra sign in the opening? *chefs kiss*
I've waited, and will continue to wait, for an Alpha Protocol sequel. Also, calling Obsidian "Triple A" is pretty fucking bold of you.
It's sad that Sega decided to ignore the owners of the Steam version. Ok, GOG wanted to update it and sell it and they want it to be an exclusive. Let them do it and sell it to the new customers. But release the patch with improvements to Steam as well (do not sell it there, just update the game for the owners). It's just disrespectful to your customers. I already bought both Steam and PS3 versions back in the day, I wrote a review and recommended it to everyone around. And I would've gladly bought it the third time on GOG If GOG hadn't suspended sales of all games in my country because of the war (unlike Steam, there simply aren't any convenient ways to get around the restrictions and make purchases from GOG).
BTW, the game is great, I really enjoyed it and I was planning to replay it in the near future.