

Gog.com giving away Dungeon Keeper for free - cmsefton
http://www.gog.com/

======
JohnTHaller
Whatever you do, do not let your enjoyment of Dungeon Keeper tempt you into
even installing Dungeon Keeper Mobile:
[http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GpdoBwezFVA](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GpdoBwezFVA)

It's the new poster child for the suckage that is Free to Play games with In
App Purchases.

~~~
prezjordan
I'm curious where most HNers would draw the line between Doom's "Get 3 levels
for free, pay us $50 for the rest" and something like Candy Crush's "Play the
whole game for free, pay us $x for any x to get more out of it."

I'm playing a bit of devil's advocate here, because I am very much against in-
app purchases. But, when you think about it, you can play Dungeon Keeper
Mobile for _free_ , or you can pay something like $20 (or $10, or $5, maybe
even $1) to get more out of it (boosts, etc).

So where does the issue lie? I here a lot of people saying "Well they reel you
in with a free app and then make you pay for it!" but isn't that exactly how
shareware works?

~~~
JohnTHaller
There's a fundamental difference between shareware / free trial apps and apps
that require constant in-app purchases to... well... play. Doom and others use
the free trial model, which is what we used to call shareware (before the
internet, they wanted people to share the free trial with each other to
inspire them to then go buy the full version). As long as these are properly
listed as such, there's nothing sleazy about them at all. And it's fine to use
an in-app purchase to go from trial to full version. Again, as long as its
clear to the user that this is the way it works.

Games that have in-app purchases run the spectrum. Some use in-app purchases
to do customizations and other fun things that don't affect gameplay. Then
there are those like Dungeon Keeper which are basically unplayable without in-
app purchases. Watch the video I linked above for details on why. You have to
pay over and over and over just to keep the game playable.

This is very different from a shareware/free trial model. You pay ONE TIME and
you own the whole game. It's a classic commercial game scenario except they
give you a taste of it... a trial... for free. It's the same thing with 'lite'
versions of commercial software that are also free.

The in-app purchasing model is more akin to getting a free version of an FTP
client that only allowed you to upload software at 10KB/s. You can then pay
$0.99 to upload that one file at full speed. But, your very next upload would
again be 10KB/s unless you also paid $0.99 to upload that one at full speed.
But wait, for an even better value, you can buy a 20-pack of full-speed
uploads for only $9.99 or a 100-pack of full-speed uploads for only $29.99.
Once those run out, of course, you're back to 10KB/s. Unless you spend even
more money.

Now, it seems silly with the FTP client example above. Who would ever use that
software? But this is exactly how many of the free to play games work. And
this is the way a lot of people coming in to gaming for the first time think
games work.

~~~
prezjordan
Great explanations, thanks. I think the biggest difference is that some games
(like Dungeon Keeper Mobile IIRC) have IAP into perpetuity - meaning you can
essentially _never_ unlock the full game. I like your FTP client example, I'll
be using that.

------
hdivider
I've always loved GOG's value proposition: DRM-free, old-school exe installers
on _your_ disk, no activation needed, no limit on the number of installs, can
redownload at any time with all associated assets.

No confusion over who actually owns the games. You buy a copy of a game, not
some ill-defined permission to play a game.

I'm just concerned these constant promotions will condition their customers to
always wait for the next massive sale, never paying full price for anything.
Isn't that unsustainable?

~~~
benologist
I think it's sustainable, it's not exclusively about getting the games cheaply
it's also about removing the consequences for buying games you don't like. If
I buy a game on GOG or HumbleBundle and never play it I don't feel any
remorse, and I do it again and again and again.

------
tlarkworthy
I did not like Dungeon Keeper first time round. The optimal strategy is
turtle, making missions 3 hour affairs. Furthermore, you get to keep your best
monster in the next level, so you need to mine every map to death if
min/maxing. Multiplayer was very wonky strategically too. The outcome was
decided in the first 10 mins based on whether you could out recruit monsters,
but the death blow could not be dealt until about an hour later :s

The actual concept was pretty amazing though. It certainly stuck in my mind
for one of the coolest concepts for a game. Playing the baddie is always fun.
Just the actual dynamics of the game were pretty flawed. I bought Dungeon
Keeper 2 though anyway, haha.

~~~
Chattered
In the days when I had too much time on my hands, I used the editor to pit
every combination of monster against each other in the arenas. The balancing
was way-off, and monster's fighting abilities are inconsistent with their
description in the manual.

For instance, dragons, supposedly tough hombres, are singularly useless. No
matter how many spells they learn, they only ever use their puny fire breath,
presumably due to a bug.

Your best troops are orcs by a large margin, followed by mistresses. At high
levels, orcs can kill everything except the horned reaper in single combat,
and are incredibly cheap to train (1/10 the expense of reapers, and 1/2 of
mistresses). Build an army of these guys as soon as you can and you're sorted.

It's a great concept, but for this sort of game, I thought Bullfrog's
Populous: the Beginning, was infinitely superior. Get hold of that in GOG! It
plays beautifully under WINE (even better than on Windows, and not arbitrarily
limited to a maximum 800x600 resolution).

~~~
tlarkworthy
That's really interesting.

Powermonger I liked better than populous. Populous was too many levels and
maps were too big IMHO. I never understood the ecenomic strategy (build big
houses or small ?) but I was quite young (small then big I spose).

~~~
Chattered
Ah, you want Populous: The Beginning, not the original Populous.

The original Populous is a simulation. Populous: The Beginning is a fully 3D
real-time strategy game, where you control individual units.

~~~
tlarkworthy
AHhhhh. I'll check it out!

------
tgb
They've also got Temple of Elemental Evil at 80% off at the moment. That's one
of the most under-appreciated D&D games I've ever played. The turn-based
combat is rich and interesting without dragging to a crawl. Unfortunately it's
marred by bugs, though the unofficial patches alleviate most (but not quite
all) of that problem. It's the closest to a true pencil and paper experience
I've ever had on the computer.

~~~
nolok
For those interested note that ToEE, while good, is about combat and combat
only. The story and npc are not interesting (compared to the other games in
that sale).

------
pkorzeniewski
And Dungeon Keeper 2 [1] discounted to $1.49 which is a bargain :)

[1]
[http://www.gog.com/game/dungeon_keeper_2](http://www.gog.com/game/dungeon_keeper_2)

~~~
nodata
Shame it's Windows only :(

~~~
frik
Dungeon Keeper 2 works fine on Linux using Wine:
[http://appdb.winehq.org/objectManager.php?sClass=version&iId...](http://appdb.winehq.org/objectManager.php?sClass=version&iId=26254)

Dungeon Keeper 1 works fine on Linux using Wine:
[http://appdb.winehq.org/objectManager.php?sClass=version&iId...](http://appdb.winehq.org/objectManager.php?sClass=version&iId=28495)

~~~
wil421
What about OS X?

~~~
snuxoll
Crossover.

------
jaachan
Hm, I got a "You'll get an e-mail when your copy is ready", something about
supply depleted or so. Can't even visit the game link[1] anymore. Guess it's
in high demand? =)

[1]
[http://www.gog.com/game/dungeon_keeper](http://www.gog.com/game/dungeon_keeper)

~~~
Diederich
Might have been a burp; I got that e-mail right away, and downloaded a couple
of them. :)

~~~
AndyJ1972
I got the eMail straight away, with some great free games I wasn't even
expecting.

Ultima 4, DragonSphere, Treasure Hunter...

But as yet no Dungeons for me :-)

~~~
_delirium
Yeah I got that first miscellaneous-free-games email immediately; got the
Dungeon Keeper email about 90 minutes later.

------
LeoNatan25
And this is true free to play Dungeon Keeper, not the EA abomination on
mobile.

~~~
MartinCron
What a brilliant stunt this is. I only heard about Dungeon Keeper in the
backlash to what EA is doing, now I am curiuos and GOG comes in to scoop up
some good will. Nice.

~~~
Karunamon
Looks like EA is directly involved in this[1]. A less charitable person would
say it's their attempt to save face after their gaming media drubbing over
their money-sink mobile version.

[1]
[http://www.reddit.com/r/Games/comments/1xw0kw/dungeon_keeper...](http://www.reddit.com/r/Games/comments/1xw0kw/dungeon_keeper_is_free_on_gog_for_next_48_hours/cff50bh)

~~~
logfromblammo
I seriously doubt it. I am having difficulty imagining EA giving away anything
for free and without DRM.

~~~
Karunamon
Well the alternative is that GOG is lying, since one of their verified
employees said this in the linked thread.

~~~
logfromblammo
Given my biased and prejudicial opinion of EA, I haven't ruled that out as a
possibility.

On the other hand, EA is very large, so I also cannot rule out the possibility
that its left hand is facepalming even while its right hand is giving all
gamers everywhere the longest, fattest middle finger yet seen in the world of
microtransaction-driven gaming.

------
kriro
I've spent quite some money on GOG but haven't really played many of the
games. DRM-free is great though and I'm just snatching up stuff on sale here
and there.

I enjoy retroish games and have a pipeline of entertainment for years to come
lined up so that's good :)

Edit: Just checked, my collection contains 137 games

~~~
dspillett
I've done similar with Steam seasonal sales and HumbleBundle's. I've got pile
of games just waiting for the arrival of the mythical "spare time".

------
frik
It would be great if GOG would provide also the Win32 version (which works
with minor glitches on modern Windows).

GOG provides the DOS version that runs using Dosbox and feels a bit slower.

Btw. to increase the resolution make it fullscreen with Alt+Enter and then
press Strg+G to double the output.

Hint: to rotate the map, press Del / PageDwn. To zoom press Pos1 / End.

~~~
Chattered
I'm pretty sure the D3D versions are included, but by default it fires up
DosBox. Good luck getting them to work on the latest windows though. I
remember having issues getting them to work even on XP.

~~~
frik
It's only the DOS version, as I said.

The original CD back in 1997 contained both the DOS and Win32 version. The DOS
version has a lower resultion and runs slower in Dosbox even on a high-end PC.

Nevertheless, I love the game and had played it the last few days, one level
per night ;)

------
kzrdude
Dungeon Keeper is the only game I've ever enjoyed in a localized, swedish
voice version. It's really very well produced.

~~~
frik
Yes, true. The german voice-over is in my opinion even better than the good
original english one.

GOG provides only the English edition, good that I have still the orginal
german CD edition.

------
xhrpost
I had some great fun playing DK and it's sequel years ago. What amazes me is
that there hasn't been any A-title clones made of it in all these years.
Closest I've seen is the indie title War of the Overlord, still in development
though.

------
MichaelTieso
GOG has been pulling off some fantastic marketing lately. Good for them.

------
eponeponepon
Between this and De La Soul, looks like my entire weekend's entertainment is
going to be free..!

------
ansimionescu
I've been watching DK on gog for a long time, thank you so much for saving me
some bucks!

------
luuk2305
Good to know! brb, telling this to my friends. All of them. Which is 3.

------
ap22213
Some classics in that list.

