The GOG.com team (also known as Good Old Games) is fighting to preserve older video games. Everything moves so fast in the games industry, we often miss the fact that it’s becoming harder and harder to play our favorites from years past. That’s where GOG comes in. The GOG Preservation Program exists to make it so that no matter how long it’s been, you can play a game decades from now without a publisher turning off the tap and basically saying, “Yeah, you can’t play this anymore. Sorry.”
I had the absolute pleasure of speaking to GOG legends: Piotr Gnyp (Senior PR), Adam Ziółkowski (Technical Producer), and Marcin Paczyński (Senior Business Development Manager). The following interview is one of the highlights of my games journalism career, and I hope to continue supporting GOG to protect this medium we love so much! And, now? Bliss.
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Part 1: The Genesis of GOG.com
Piotr Gnyp: Was there a specific moment that set everything in motion for GOG, or was it a gradual process?
Marcin Paczyński: It all started around 2007. Marcin Iwiński, and others, noticed that games were starting to disappear. This was during the transition from physical to digital media. Games bought on physical media, even just a couple of years earlier, often wouldn’t work anymore. This was due to several factors, primarily problematic DRM (Digital Rights Management) that frequently broke, preventing legitimate owners from accessing their games, while pirates had no such issues. This situation sparked the idea of creating a platform that would address these problems and preserve games. That was the inception of GOG as a digital distribution platform, with a strong focus on older, classic titles.
Adam Ziółkowski: If I remember correctly, this was also an issue with Steam in its early days. Their focus was on new releases, leaving older games only available on often-unreliable CDs. The idea was to leverage the “Good Old Games” concept and bring back the classics. The first game we released was Fallout, right? It had the ID number one.
(Cont.)
Marcin Paczyński: Yes. We initially launched with a catalog of Interplay games. Later, we added larger publishers like Ubisoft and EA. But it all began with Interplay, and most notably, the Fallout titles. From the very beginning, we put enormous effort into ensuring that these games were technically perfect. We tested them extensively and made sure they worked flawlessly. We also focused on including all the bonus goodies — manuals, the Fallout Bible, game design documents, soundtracks, and other extras.
Piotr Gnyp: I remember your first ad, which highlighted that old games would now work on Windows XP.
Marcin Paczyński: That was a key selling point. Remember, this was a period when new versions of Windows arrived every few years, and Windows had stopped supporting MS-DOS. This meant that DOS games from the ‘90s simply wouldn’t run on the latest operating systems. So, it was no exaggeration to say that games you bought just a few years ago might no longer work. That’s how it all began.
Part 2: Favorite Resurrections
Piotr Gnyp: What has been your favorite game to resurrect and bring back to a new generation?
Adam Ziółkowski: For me, it was working on Dino Crisis. I never had the chance to play it when it came out because I didn’t own a PlayStation then. It was a game I always wanted to experience, and being able to bring it back to GOG and work on it was amazing.
Piotr Gnyp: We should mention that back in those days, a PlayStation was extremely expensive in Poland — comparable to the price of a PS5 now, but with much lower wages. It was often priced above the minimum salary.
Adam Ziółkowski: I had one friend who owned a PlayStation, and he only had Resident Evil 2. He played it constantly and knew everything about it. I truly enjoy bringing back games I knew from my younger years. Seeing Dino Crisis come to life, with cool added features — and witnessing Capcom’s excitement — was incredibly rewarding.
Marcin Paczyński: For me, it was System Shock 2. I worked on that many years ago. System Shock 2 was a game we always wanted on GOG. It was highly beloved and had one of the biggest, if not the biggest, wishlists on the platform. It was a huge milestone we wanted to achieve. But, it was incredibly difficult to acquire due to licensing issues. Then, surprisingly, we received an email from, let’s say, a “random guy” on the internet who claimed to have the rights.
Piotr Gnyp: Really?
Marcin Paczyński: It really happened. And that “random guy” was actually Stephen Kick!
Piotr Gnyp: The founder of Nightdive Studios?
Marcin Paczyński: Yes.
(Cont.)
Piotr Gnyp: So, if anyone out there has the rights to a cool classic game, please email us!
Marcin Paczyński: Back to the story — it was surreal. We checked the domain, unsure if it was legitimate. He sent us some documents confirming he had the complete rights, and we were able to make the release happen. It was a massive milestone for GOG, a major success in game preservation for a popular but unavailable title. One of our first trailers was made for System Shock 2, and it’s still on our channel.
Another game that stands out is the Wing Commander series. This was the first time working so closely with an extremely passionate community. These individuals helped us release the games in the best possible way. This was back in 2012. The versions we have on GOG today were made with their assistance. They collected an amazing amount of additional assets related to the game’s development — design documents, developer notes, and more. All of this is available on our website. The current version is a “Frankenstein” creation, combining elements from several different releases.
Some of these versions had unique elements but were missing others. The community helped us create a version that included everything, particularly the high-resolution movies featuring Mark Hamill. Their input was invaluable. They guided us on how to do it right, and we listened. The release was a huge success, and everyone loved it. It was an incredible experience.
Part 3: gog’s Day-to-Day Game Preservation efforts
Piotr Gnyp: What does the game preservation fight actually look like on a day-to-day basis?
Adam Ziółkowski: To keep games alive and playable, we have a list of GOG-maintained games. This has evolved into the GOG Preservation Program, which currently includes about 100 games. Our goal is to eventually include all the classic games under our umbrella, which is around 2,500 titles out of our total portfolio of over 10,000. We started this focused effort last year. Our QA team tests each game on Windows 10 and 11.
If anything is wrong, it’s noted for another team to address. We also rely heavily on community feedback, support tickets, and game reviews on our website. We’re also checking forums and our official Discord for issues and proposed solutions. If a viable solution already exists, we’ll consider using it if it meets our quality and legal requirements. But, we never use fixes without consent unless there’s open permission. One of the core tenets of the GOG Preservation Program is that GOG will maintain these games even if official support ends.
We’re currently ensuring games work on Windows 10 and 11. We’re starting to prepare for Windows 12, which will likely introduce significant changes. The process of adding a game to the program starts with QA research and local testing. If something needs fixing or improvement (which happens in 60%-70% of cases), it’s addressed before the game is added. Once a game is in the program, it receives constant maintenance. Any issues arising from new drivers, Windows updates, or other factors are fixed as quickly as possible.
(Cont.)
Marcin Paczyński: We actively seek user feedback and constantly monitor the games in the program. We’re not yet able to do this for all 2,500+ potential titles, but we’re working towards it. This is a monumental task, and it’s one of the reasons we haven’t fully implemented this until now. Maintaining a catalog of this size is extremely resource-intensive. However, we now believe we have the tools, resources, and expertise to maintain these games at scale — not just today, but also in the future. This is a huge commitment: these games will work in 10 years, regardless of what happens. We can’t predict the future of Windows, but we’re confident we can adapt.
Piotr Gnyp: But these games offer features like 4K resolution, multiple screen support, gamepad compatibility, and cloud saves!
Adam Ziółkowski: Yes, over the years, we have developed a set of internal tools that help us with game rendering, handling modern inputs, and improving compatibility. We are also relying on third-party tools. For instance, all DOS-era games are emulated with the fantastic DOSBox that allows for easy, one-to-one emulation. We’ve been working with DOSBox since almost the beginning of GOG. They even helped us create a special version of the DOSBox emulator just for us to be able to support features like cloud saves in DOS games. This support is unique to GOG.
Part 4: The gog process of reviving games
Piotr Gnyp: So, we’ve covered how you maintain existing games. How does the process of reviving games work?
Marcin Paczyński: The process starts with prioritization. We look at the GOG wishlist, now called Dreamlist, to identify the games most requested by our community. This helps us focus our efforts. Of course, we can’t release everything, but you can be sure that the top 500 games from our old wishlist have been approached at least once by our business development team.
The first step is researching who owns the rights. We reach out to those we believe might hold them and proceed from there. The paths that unfold after this initial step are incredibly varied. We might encounter split rights, situations where the supposed rights holders are unaware they possess them, or other complexities.
Piotr Gnyp: Do you conduct this detective work in-house, or do you rely on external help?
Marcin Paczyński: We’ve actually hired a detective in the past to find someone we believed held the rights to a game. I can’t disclose which game, but it happened. It’s necessary because sometimes, companies no longer exist. Or, they’ve gone bankrupt, and the rights to some games were sold, but not all. That’s why we haven’t yet released all the games from the wishlist.
For games from major publishers, the problem is usually a complicated rights situation that needs to be resolved. It’s solvable, but it takes time, effort, and money. When you approach a multi-billion-dollar publisher about a small, classic title from the ‘90s that our community wants, they’re primarily focused on AAA, day-one releases. Here’s GOG asking them to spend time and resources figuring out the rights for a game that will sell for, say, $5.99.
(Cont.)
The biggest challenge in business development is creating a situation where focusing on these older games makes sense for the publishers. It requires creativity and, above all, patience. You keep knocking on the same doors for years, trying different things, and eventually, many of those doors open. Persistence and creativity are key. We saw this with Diablo, for example, which we tried to get on GOG from day one. It was always “no” until, finally, it was “yes.”
Piotr Gnyp: Okay, so you’ve secured the rights, and the rights holders are willing to talk. What happens next?
Marcin Paczyński: Then it’s about figuring out the business terms and evaluating the game. Once the business terms are agreed upon, the business side is essentially done, and the release and technical teams take over to work on the release.
Adam Ziółkowski: We receive the game and assess what we have to work with. The ideal scenario is getting the source code, allowing us to rebuild the game on our terms. However, this ideal scenario is rare for the Preservation Program. We probably only have the source code for a handful of games. If there’s no source code, our reverse engineering team steps in to rebuild the game from the existing code.
(3)
Piotr Gnyp: Are you doing this on original hardware from the era, or are you emulating the computers?
Adam Ziółkowski: For older games, we sometimes have to recreate the original development environment. This might involve using the original machine, compiler version, or even specific motherboard components to compile the game again. With the exception of DOSBox, we generally don’t rely on emulation. We work on PC ports, which is why Resident Evil and Dino Crisis are the PC versions.
Once we understand how we can work with a game, we determine what improvements we can make. For Dino Crisis 2, the biggest challenge was eliminating the low-resolution textures present in the PC version. The first Dino Crisis PC port already had higher-resolution textures, so the second game looked noticeably worse. We figured out how to fix this, and our version is actually an improvement over the original.
Piotr Gnyp: So, because you can reverse engineer the game, you can add new features, even without the source code, although to a limited extent.
(4)
Adam Ziółkowski: Yes. Without the source code, we use other tools, like wrappers. We have our own in-house DirectX wrapper for rendering and an input wrapper that supports most modern controllers.
Piotr Gnyp: Dino Crisis is a good example of what you can achieve. The game card lists numerous technical improvements.
Marcin Paczyński: We’ve come a long way. We’re now at a point where we believe we can do this on a much larger scale. That’s why we started the GOG Preservation Program. We also needed a way to show users which games are actively maintained and which are not yet part of the program. The games not yet in the program still work — we don’t sell games that don’t function — but sometimes, they could work better.
For example, in GOG’s early days, the inability to alt-tab out of a game wasn’t considered a problem. Now, for games in the program, minimizing the game is a core feature. Games in the program should work as if they were released yesterday. Alt-tabbing, multiple monitor support, resolution changes, modern controller support, and windowed mode all need to function correctly, even if the game is 30 years old.
Part 5: gog’s Challenging and Rewarding Experiences
Piotr Gnyp: Without naming specific games, what has been your most challenging, and subsequently rewarding, experience in preserving a particular title?
Marcin Paczyński: There have been many! One situation involved a set of very popular games with a dedicated community. We always wanted to bring them to GOG. I worked on this for years, contacting various companies. I received very vague answers from one publisher and didn’t understand why. This went on for years. Then I connected with someone who worked at that publisher when the games were released. It turned out there had been a fire in the room where they stored their agreements. Most likely — though I can’t say for sure — they no longer possessed any documents proving they held the rights.
Another situation involved rights split between two individuals who disliked each other. It required creatively convincing them to sit down together, almost like therapy. It definitely felt that way from my perspective. But it worked! What really helped were the voices from the community. I showed them the numerous requests and testimonials on the wishlist, demonstrating the game’s enduring popularity. This, strangely enough, I believe, made a difference. We were able to sign the papers and release the game. It was one of the most challenging but rewarding experiences I’ve had in game preservation.
(Cont.)
Adam Ziółkowski: When we bring back a game, there are two types of developers or publishers: those who give us complete freedom and those who want to be close to the process, usually for quality assurance. They want to ensure everything meets their established standards, which vary from company to company. Adapting to these requirements can be challenging. But we usually reach a point where everyone is on the same page, and things run smoothly. Trust is established, and it’s rewarding to see them working with us without doubts.
A particularly tough situation I recall involved a game with multiplayer functionality. We had trouble figuring out how the multiplayer should work, and the game was experiencing connection drops. We conducted extended play sessions, even after work hours, to determine how long we could play before the connection failed. Eventually, we found the cause and were able to fix it.
Part 6: No-DRM Policy
Piotr Gnyp: How does GOG’s no-DRM policy fit into all of this?
Adam Ziółkowski: We started with a strict no-DRM policy when GOG was founded because, as mentioned earlier, DRM was a significant problem. Those strange DRMs, like StarForce, were prevalent and often didn’t work.
Marcin Paczyński: It’s simple: no game can be considered preserved if it has DRM. The game must work completely offline. The single-player experience must be 100% offline and complete.
Part 7: The gog Dreamlist
Piotr Gnyp: Let’s talk about the Dreamlist. How did it come about, and what’s its impact?
Marcin Paczyński: We used to check the old wishlist to see which games were popular and how many people were requesting them. This helped us prioritize titles for publishing. Publishers also checked the wishlist to gauge a game’s popularity. However, our old wishlist wasn’t very prominent or visible, and the name was confusing. It was difficult to convey its value to publishers accustomed to the wishlist numbers on Steam, which were considerably higher, even though our wishlist conversions were arguably better.
With the Dreamlist, we wanted to take things to a new level. There was always value there, and it’s something we probably should have had years ago. We hope the Dreamlist will become a place where all gamers can contribute to game preservation through their votes and testimonials. We’ll use these testimonials and wishlist numbers when talking to publishers. The hope is that, over time, this will become a powerful argument in our discussions. Publishers will see that a game has hundreds of thousands of votes and recognize its importance.
The testimonials are incredibly motivating. They’re like a time machine, filled with nostalgia. The initial reception of the Dreamlist has been amazing, with thousands of testimonials and millions of votes.
Piotr Gnyp: Okay, guys, last question: what game would you add to GOG?
Adam Ziółkowski: That’s a no-brainer for me: the original Final Fantasy VII. It’s simply the best game ever.
Marcin Paczyński: From a GOG perspective, I’d love to see Freelancer, as it’s a game our community has been requesting for years, along with Black & White. But personally, I’d say Dune, especially the second one.