The GOG.com alternative, called Good Old Downloads, or GoodOldDownloads.com, has shut down. The site offered free downloads of DRM-free games from GOG.com for people to pirate without having to pay. After being targeted by rivals and pressured with closure, they decided to finally call it quits.
Over on the GoodOldDownloads.com website, there’s a farewell message that reads…
“We looked at other popular game piracy sites and discovered they were all filled with dozens of tracking scripts, infuriating ads (sometimes viruses) and mainly existed for the sole purpose of making money.
“In response, we created a website without any of those things and improvements; it was easy to download files, a clean design, and dead links became a thing of the past with the voting system where you could vote to have games re-uploaded automatically. Best of all, almost everything was automated so you didn’t have to rely on some person at their computer to upload files!
Which brings us to…
“Shutting Down
“Rival sites started to target us by making threats and claiming they have reported us to anti-piracy corporations. We also want to move on with our lives and enjoy other things without the constant fear of legal action breathing down our necks.”
So basically, people who wanted to pirate games from GOG.com without paying for the games, will have to find another source in which to pirate their DRM-free games from.
They also decided to get back at some of the other game piracy websites by having an investigative report published via PDF to give gamers an idea of which piracy sites are safe and which ones aren’t.
The site itself prided itself on being ad-free and running based on donations, where games would be added from the actual GOG.com storefront and uploaded for free for gamers to download.
On the FAQ page they made it known that games offered on the service were provided on a vote-based system, and they attempted to keep the system updated to provide all the latest games for free.
But now Good Old Downloads is closing the window, shutting the door, and lowering the shades as it bids gamers farewell.
(Thanks for the news tip correctus)
