Is gog worth the hassle?

At some point in the last two or three years I came across gog.com which had DRM free games for sale. And they seemed like a great deal with a lot of the old favorites available and ready to download at an attractive price.

And they had a very attractive money back guarantee. As a matter of fact as of the date of this writing May 22nd, 2015, I find this on their home page. Click the Money-back guarantee link and you will see:

"Whenever you buy something and it doesn't work, you should feel safe knowing that you can take it back.

We don't understand why games or movies should be any different, so if your purchase doesn't work and we can't help you fix it, you get your money back.

Our Money Back Guarantee covers you for 30 days."

All very straight forward and above board. And indeed I had purchased 2 or 3 games in the past that would not work right on my system because they were too old and something about the graphics card or driver or who knew what was wrong so I put in for a refund with gog.com and after some troubleshooting they refunded my money. No muss no fuss as they say.

That is until just the other day I had been reading about the release of Witcher 3 which I was keen to play. I looked around on the website, the page devoted to the game and could find no pre-requisites (graphic card memory etc...) in order to play the game but since I had such good experiences with gog in the past I thought I would go ahead and give it a try and indeed I thought it pretty unlikely that I couldn't play the game because of hardware.

Well I downloaded and installed it, but when I tried to play it it would load in memory attempt to run and then die. So I put in a ticket with gog.com's support which had in the past been pretty good about response.

I got the typical first response about all the generic things to try that gets sent out to everyone on the first pass. This didn't really bother me much as it is pretty typical. Basically they were giving me instructions on how to *download* the game, which I had no trouble doing. My problem was the game would not run. So obviously no one had actually read my ticket.

However, it did bother me that the incident had already been closed with their support queue. There was no question of finding out whether I had got the game to work or not. I had to respond to the email with the almost exact information pointing out (again) that I had no trouble downloading but could not *run* the game.

Well I got exactly the same canned message again (?!?). Both times I had sent along a system info file with all the hardware etc... specs of my PC.

But after trying twice I decided to look a little myself. It turns out that there was a link in the generic email they had sent to me detailing the game requirements (which I could not find before) and I discovered that the game *required* a video card with 6 gig of memory. Mine only has 2 gig, so obviously that was not going to work.

So I sent a message to the support (again) telling them what I had found and asking for a refund.

Imagine my surprise when the support guy who had actually read my message this time sent back a response telling me they did not refund for systems that didn't meet the minimum requirements but that he could give me store credit, which by the way was only good for a year....

Well, I had no intention of getting store credit on a $50 dollar plus game. I wanted a refund, so I again requested a refund which he again responded with the same offer of store credit along with a link to the gog.com web site detailing this unknown provision (at least to me) of the "Whenever you buy something and it doesn't work, you should feel safe knowing that you can take it back." policy.

So perhaps I should have taken the credit. But by this time I was adamant that I was not going to do any such thing.

I told him in no uncertain terms that unless he refunded my money, I would never do business with him again. Which I have now determined not to do.

So what you ask? Why am I bothering you with all this sad story?

Just this.

I promised gog.com that I would tell as many people how they treated me as I possibly could so that if someone was thinking of doing business with them at least they would do so fully informed.

I gave him my solemn word that I would tell as many people as I could and I am doing that.

So whether your bored with all this or you are interested or whatever, if you got this far at least now you know.

Off-Topic is a game-free section so I'm moving this to PC Society.

Also, if you want to check game requirements before buying a game I suggest http://www.systemrequirementslab.com/cyri It's quick and with no hassle.

Feels like their refund policy should only be on older games since they're mostly running off dosdox.

But on the other hand,you didn't verify if your PC could handle the game and I'm having doubt about the "2 gb" part of your GPU.

Sorry to say this TC but your post sounds pretty ignorant. Witcher 3 runs with a video card with "2gb of video ram" just fine as long as you have the required hardware. I am running it on a I54590 and a 2gb 960 just fine. I have had 3 instances of a old game not working with GOG. I followed there guarantee procedure to the letter and got returns without any hassle.

MoneyBack Guarantee See Number 13

Also, for Witcher 3 specific, "Please mind that we only officially support full-size desktop graphics cards". If you were having problems on a laptop, they again do not have to fulfill any moneyback guarantee as the system requirements on there page states for only desktop graphics cards.

If you actually read it, not having correct system requirements does not entitle you to get a refund. Ignorance is not a excuse to throw criticism. I would have been grateful to get store credit. It was something they did not have to do.

Well, if you bought a game without even checking the minimum requirements it's on you.

And you still got store credit for something that was totally your fault.

You could not find the system requirements? I find that very hard to believe. The system requirements for games can be found at numerous sites in addition to GOG. It is typically on the right hand side of the game page.

There is a hassle to GOG? That service is the most lax and convenient service on the market with no intrusive drm what so ever. Furthermore this idea of refunds I find amusing because back in the days of buying physical copies of games you were usually always denied a refund if you broke the jewel cases seal.... Furthermore you did not research what you were buying on the page or you would have read the requirements for the game. Not to worry though, you own the game and one day when you buy a new machine you will be able to play it. This expectation of straight refunds literally rarely ever happens when it comes to games..

The game does not require a 6GB video card. In fact, it never hits 2GB in 1080p. Not sure where you got that info.

They list 6 GB of system RAM as a requirement, not VRAM. I can see this being very confusing for people who are not familiar with computers, but as a PC gamer, you should know this stuff. Just a general rule of thumb... If you even have to look at the requirements, you should probably upgrade.

I don't know why this needs to be said, but here goes:

Games have minimum requirements. There are many places you can go to learn these requirements. Before putting down money for a AAA game, it is advisable to always check and double check the minimum requirements from a reputable source (the website of the company that made the game, perhaps?).

Having to worry about minimum requirements is the price you pay for not keeping your system up-to-date, so you might consider becoming a regular lurker at a site like Anandtech or Tom's Hardware if you plan to be a PC gamer who plays the latest games.

To add to this, actually totally ignore minimum requirements most of the time. That just tells you that the game will start, not that's it's always playable at decent settings.

Try to get as close to (or surpass) the recommended requirements and you will never have an issue.

Im not sure why they can't refund your money. This is just a bad thing to hear. Thanks for sharing this story... i actually thought gog would refund your money if there was any kind of problem. Sounds like they aren't as good as they claim to be... lots of false promises but when it comes down to it, they are just like Steam. In store credit is not the same as a refund... pretty bad service here.

On another note... the requirements are actually right on, I checked my ram memory usage while the game was running it it was over 6gbs... this is actually the first time i've ran a game that used this much. I'm not sure why it uses so much, it doesn't look much better then other games i have that use 3-4x less.

I have a friend who is running Witcher 3 on a Geforce 570 with 1.2 gigs of VRAM. So no, the VRAM is not the problem here. I think you mean 6GB of total system RAM. So you are blaming GOG when you obviously had no idea whether your system met the minimum requirements or not? Welcome to PC gaming my friend.

Not much hassle with GOG. Seems fairly lightweight.

The DLC install process is pretty unclear and messy though.

@justaghop i can guarantee there is a written clause describing the terms of getting a refund. you should always read contracts before agreeing.

if you're a consolite and fairly new to PC gaming i may understand you getting confused. but the games all show their system requirements on site so why wouldn't you have verified first anyway when you saw them? i see hundreds of comments every week on forums, articles, support sites with new users asking if their regular home computer can run a certain game. so it is fairly common knowledge that you need to reach a certain requirement.

gog.com is the best thing that has happened to digital gaming in a long time. now them having more and more "AAA" releases they are only growing. it is totally on you for not reading the agreement, and after not verifying you fit the requirement.

@nutcrackers65 what's unclear about clicking on an executable? the only "problems" i've heard with gog DLC downloads is pirates trying to use them on the cracked bs.

@justaghop: If it seems too good to be true -- probably is. I wouldn't quit GoG over this. It's $50 and they gave you more than any other retailer would.

I much prefer prefer Steam now but like 5 or so years ago I used to use Gog.com. I just don't see value in DRM-free downloads, as stupid as that sounds. The whole steam community package is so much better to me.

@True_Sounds: Agreed. Steam definitely feels like a platform. Without a client GOG feels like a "deals" website only. I will say however they package their games with some really cool exclusives. I bought the first Witcher game at an extreme discount (like $5) and it came with all kinds of goodies. Perhaps Steam had the same stuff but I found the GOG purchase and download process to be straight forward.

I feel like people who use GOG instead of Steam due to the DRM-free download are also probably self-ascribed freedom loving libertarians :P

@nutcrackr: are you talking about gog galaxy? I had some confusions in the beginning too. On galaxy you can click the more button and choose configure. This lets you select/deselect DLC packs.