

GOG hoax: “we could not miss a chance to generate some buzz” - e1ven
http://www.pcgamer.com/2010/09/22/gog-com-apologise-for-hoax-closure/

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xal
Genius, you guys are seriously underestimating how good this will be for them
in the long run.

Everyone here has now heard of them, most of you probably felt a lost
opportunity when you found out what they offered and now you couldn't have it
anymore. Well surprise!

Robert Cialdini would be proud.

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jordanroher
I would love to hear the discussion that took place when they decided how to
announce the upgrades to their site. Not a fancy splash page like Blizzard or
CCP, not a traditional marketing e-mail, but closing their doors and telling
their customers to get lost. And then, psyche!

At least they understand what people want from gaming products (no DRM).
Another example of what not to do in marketing.

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jselzer
For a digital distribution service that depends so much on consumer trust that
their purchased content will still be available well into the future, this is
even more puzzling...

Why even hint at the idea that you may one day shut down and remove access to
purchased content? Surely there are ways to build hype without eroding trust
in your brand and angering your audience.

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dangrossman
The entire selling point for this site is that they sell DRM free games.

Since the games are DRM free, you never have to worry about the publisher, or
anyone else, pulling servers offline and making the games unplayable.

GOG can go out of business the day after you purchase and you still have the
games you already bought and downloaded.

They're not a game backup service. They're a game store. Once you've bought
and downloaded your games, you can make your own backups; you don't rely on
them to keep anything available forever.

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jselzer
That is true, but I think many people still use GOG as a backup service simply
because it is convenient. In my opinion this is a big selling point for
digital distribution, DRM or not.

I personally own a few games on GOG but currently don't have local copies of
any. When I saw the notice on their website and assumed they were gone I
briefly thought I would never be able to get a legimate copy of the games I
bought. One could argue that it's my own fault for not backing them up myself,
but still...

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dinedal
I love the end of the article, where they say that they don't like GOG for
doing this for buzz alone, and then announce the interview coming up.

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eru
I had not heard of them before.

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TeHCrAzY
And in 8 hours time, I will have forgotten them, instead of picking up an old
classic that caught my eye right now.

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jcromartie
Honestly? I'll still buy from them.

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jerf
The nice thing about no DRM is that I'm not buying a relationship, I'm buying
a product. I can just archive the bucket o' bits I receive and they can turn
full-on evil in the future for all I care.

There's some rumor that the "no DRM" thing may be going away, or at least
modified; the original announcement left the door open to that possibility.
That does change the calculus a bit.

I will be disappointed if DRM comes in (and by "disappointed" I mean "not a
customer"). Some people were claiming that if you poke around the torrent
sites you can't easily find torrents of these games. I didn't verify that, but
an enterprising journalist or blogger looking for a good post may consider
verifying that before they come back with DRM. "Publishers stupidly insist on
DRM even when the game is demonstrably not being pirated" would be a great
post. (But I'd definitely verify first.)

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sp332
Preventing users from downloading the games they paid for, and bringing down
all the user-generated content in the forums, was not good buzz. Seriously,
you should never take down other people's content (the forums) without
warning.

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jimbobimbo
They're taking a page from T-Shirt Hell PR book - those guys even made it to
the Techcrunch post.

Good move in any case. Will attract new people who would never known about
them before.

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PixelRobot
Faking your own death for fun and profit. Classy.

I don't think looking dishonest and irresponsible is a good marketing strategy
in the long run.

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jpcx01
Any publicity != good publicity

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Devilboy
In this case it most certainly WAS good for them.

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jpcx01
what... why? how?

they got a bunch of negative publicity that proves they are immature and
untrustworthy

~~~
Devilboy
Before this I had never heard of them, and now I'm a paying customer. And I am
not alone.

