Tuesday, January 14th 2025
GOG Amps Up Game Preservation Efforts with New EFGAMP Game Archive Project Partnership
We recently reported on the Good Old Games's Game Preservation Program's success, with the storefront preserving two 30-year-old Warcraft games. Now, however, GOG is partnering with the European Federation of Game Archives, Museums, and Preservation Projects (EFGAMP) for future preservation efforts. EFGAMP is "the largest organization in Europe dedicated to preserving video games as cultural heritage," giving GOG's commitment to game preservation a lot more weight than previously. The partnership could also help GOG work within and with European governmental and non-governmental institutions, like museums and other organizations, in order to further the game preservation cause.
Perhaps more interestingly, as a game distribution platform with some development talent behind it, GOG actually brings something to the table that was previously missing from EFGAMP as a foundation. In the announcement, the foundation and GOG claim that 2024 was something of a tipping point for consumers when it comes to both the erosion of game ownership and game preservation as a whole. The subject of game ownership was a recurring theme in 2024, with games like The Crew joining the aforementioned Warcraft games in being delisted from stores—at least with the GOG delisting, the games are still maintained for existing owners. The goal of both GOG and EFGAMP is to preserve the history of gaming culture, allowing future generations to experience and learn about important moments in gaming history.
Source:
GOG
Perhaps more interestingly, as a game distribution platform with some development talent behind it, GOG actually brings something to the table that was previously missing from EFGAMP as a foundation. In the announcement, the foundation and GOG claim that 2024 was something of a tipping point for consumers when it comes to both the erosion of game ownership and game preservation as a whole. The subject of game ownership was a recurring theme in 2024, with games like The Crew joining the aforementioned Warcraft games in being delisted from stores—at least with the GOG delisting, the games are still maintained for existing owners. The goal of both GOG and EFGAMP is to preserve the history of gaming culture, allowing future generations to experience and learn about important moments in gaming history.
15 Comments on GOG Amps Up Game Preservation Efforts with New EFGAMP Game Archive Project Partnership
Seems more likely to me that CD Projekt decides this is no longer worth pursuing.
Which I don't see happen for a loooong time.
Yeah, I have no idea either. GOG itself was profitable only for a single quarter in 2023 and had mild losses throughout 2024. It’s still better than their disastrous 2021. It doesn’t matter, really, since the point, at least according to CDPR, was never profit, but the whole preservation and anti-DRM movement. As long as they keep on trucking with that they will continue to see GOG as worthwhile. But they aren’t playing to compete with Steam, that was never in the cards.
Even now if I want to play Warcraft 1 and 2 I can't do it because it is desisted, even though it is preserved on the GOG but only people that bought it before delisting can download it on their store.