The classic RPGs vanish from the service effective today.
Good Old Games has carved a fantastic niche for itself by digging old games up, dusting them off, and fixing them up for modern machines. It’s not just nostalgia, but this evergreen idea that games never die or go obsolete. Even the oldest and most persnickety of games can be resurrected with a well-configured DOS emulator and proper drivers. But even the restorative arts of the most talented engineers must bow before the law. Shortly after GoG kicked off its New Years bash, it also announced, in somber tones, that all Fallout titles are being yanked from the service, effective today.
“Due to circumstances beyond our control, we needed to pull the three classic Fallout games, that is Fallout, Fallout 2, and Fallout Tactics, from sale and remove them from our DRM-free catalog,” the proclamation read. The games have already vanished from GoG’s catalog, leaving an aching 404 error behind. If you’ve previously purchased these games (or got it during the free giveaway), they’ll still be in your account for later download, so don’t panic.
Legal wranglings with the Fallout series is nothing new. The rights for older games can be more tangled than obsolete driver dependencies. During the legal fight between Interplay and Bethesda over the Fallout MMO, it was revealed that Interplay would retain the rights to sell the classic titles until today, December 31, 2013. That said, don’t expect Fallout to stay gone for long. It’s only a matter of time before the new rights holders strike a deal with GoG and get the post-apocalypse rolling again.
