On Tuesday, GOG.com announced that beginning with a remastered release of the 1999 Wheel of Time game, a first-person shooter based on the series of fantasy books, they will be returning to their roots as a resource for the classic titles they call “Good Old Games.” GOG added a “Good Old Games” hashtag for the site, thereby making it easier for customers to browse GOG’s selections. So far, there are 468 games listed under that tag.
As you might have guessed, when the site began in 2008, GOG stood for Good Old Games. There are plenty of legally dubious emulators for old, beloved games out there. The site’s mission statement was about making it easy to play them legally, but without overly onerous digital rights management.
GOG Is Going Back to Classic Games on Their Site
In recent years, GOG had focused on that retro gamer flair less, but due to recent financial troubles, it makes sense that they might want to stress a niche gaming interest instead of trying to cover all PC games ever. In their announcement, the GOG site says that their “job isn’t to simply release the games that are already on the market. It’s to make them available to everyone…making sure that they will run on the modern systems that you have.” Wheel of Time was not a big deal game, but it has already gotten fairly positive results in its its revamped form
GOG Is a Labor of Love Birthed from CD Projekt Red
Good Old Games sprung directly out of necessity. In Post-Soviet Poland, Marcin Iwiński and Michał Kiciński turned from game pirates to legitimate distributors and publishers when they founded CD Projekt Red in 1994. In 2007, the released the very first Witcher video game, with two more to follow, as well as several spin-offs and DLCs. (The series is based on Polish novels, after all!). In 2020, the grabbed more attention with Cyberpunk 2077.
By 2008, the team had started GOG, and began the arduous tasks of dealing with game licenses. For a while, they seemed to be turning more into an attempted, Steam competitor, but that was never realistic. Retro is where they began, so a renewed focus on that sounds ideal. Why not start with a forgotten Wheel of Time game? We have that added Amazon Prime show hook to provoke renewed interest!
Wheel of Time Game is Just the Start for Retro Titles’ Return
Image courtesy of Nightdive Studios
The 1999 Wheel of Time first person shooter is the first game that GOG is highlighting. The Nightdive Studios game has been remastered, and by PCGamer’s account, ain’t half bad now. Certainly, you have to be a fan of games from the last millennium to want to dabble in it.
Some gamers might prefer to stick with the flashiest, newest $60 drop. And there is nothing wrong with that! The cutting edge of gaming involves brilliant, creative stuff, with the best technological marvels money can buy. But if games are just another popular art medium such as movies and books, it feels a little bit odd to not play older ones as well. That is like refusing to watch any film made before the year 2000.
GOG’s new focus will not only lead to happy retro gamers, but it may also incentivize further classic game preservation efforts. A game is no use to anyone, if it cannot be played. Wheel of Time has beefed up graphics and will run on Windows 7 and beyond. It will be exciting to whatever other forgotten classics they dig up and dust off.
Are you interested in trying the 1999 Wheel of Time game? What are some of your favorite classic video games? Let us know!