Good Old Downloads taken offline, but REPLACEMENT is now available!

Misfit203 wrote:just thought i'd pass this on...

I know by now most people on this site are familiar with zlOrigin and that it is a free alternative to Origin. so i figured i'd let you all in on another free online game store alternative to www.GoodOldGames.com aka GOG...called Good Old Downloads.

Which can be found at http://tinyurl.com/yaupxrhq

Have Fun!

Torrentfreak wrote:(...)

“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,” the team confirmed.
As reported here on TF on Saturday, rival pirate sites have recently been making life difficult for each other with various bogus anti-piracy reports, some of which involved GOD.

While it is difficult from the evidence available to definitively point the finger at any particular platforms, it does seem that there’s been a simmering tit-for-tat conflict.
GOD doesn’t indicate specifically who they had problems with but as a parting blow, the platform has taken the unusual step of publishing the results of an ‘investigation’ into the security of two “gaming piracy sites” on its main page.

The report makes for interesting reading but it controversially involves the ‘doxxing’ of individuals said to be behind two popular rival sites, something that rarely ends well.

“The purpose of this document is to summarize information found online that reveals the identity of the individuals that operate the gaming piracy websites ‘igg-games.com’ (http://igg-games.com/) and ‘gamestorrent.co’ (http://gamestorrent.co/) which profit from the distribution of illegal copies of video games via advertisements (pop-up ads, etc). At the time of publication, they are ranked 1,305 and 5,958 globally by Alexa.com,” the report notes.

Predictably, this is causing additional friction and conflict. IGG-Games has already retaliated with the apparent ‘doxxing’ of the alleged operator of GOD and even his alleged family members, something that makes particularly uncomfortable reading.

Due to the hugely private information placed online, we aren’t linking to either report and several gaming piracy discussion forums have also banned their publication. Considering the details published, it’s possible that the fallout from this war of words could have serious implications for all of the parties involved.

(...)

The_gh0stm4n wrote:Just noticed this here:
https://torrentfreak.com/goodolddownloads-calls-it-quits-publishes-source-on-github-181202/

Well, it was nice while it lasted.

//EDIT


This passage here is interesting:

Torrentfreak wrote:(...)

“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,” the team confirmed.
As reported here on TF on Saturday, rival pirate sites have recently been making life difficult for each other with various bogus anti-piracy reports, some of which involved GOD.

While it is difficult from the evidence available to definitively point the finger at any particular platforms, it does seem that there’s been a simmering tit-for-tat conflict.
GOD doesn’t indicate specifically who they had problems with but as a parting blow, the platform has taken the unusual step of publishing the results of an ‘investigation’ into the security of two “gaming piracy sites” on its main page.

The report makes for interesting reading but it controversially involves the ‘doxxing’ of individuals said to be behind two popular rival sites, something that rarely ends well.

“The purpose of this document is to summarize information found online that reveals the identity of the individuals that operate the gaming piracy websites ‘igg-games.com’ (http://igg-games.com/) and ‘gamestorrent.co’ (http://gamestorrent.co/) which profit from the distribution of illegal copies of video games via advertisements (pop-up ads, etc). At the time of publication, they are ranked 1,305 and 5,958 globally by Alexa.com,” the report notes.

Predictably, this is causing additional friction and conflict. IGG-Games has already retaliated with the apparent ‘doxxing’ of the alleged operator of GOD and even his alleged family members, something that makes particularly uncomfortable reading.

Due to the hugely private information placed online, we aren’t linking to either report and several gaming piracy discussion forums have also banned their publication. Considering the details published, it’s possible that the fallout from this war of words could have serious implications for all of the parties involved.

(...)

As an afterthought, these GOG games and the official platform are a preferred way of distribution for many Indie publishers. Piracy is still piracy of course, but in case of Indie publishers, I could imagine (though I have no way of knowing for sure) that they may be somewhat more lenient to piracy, because they want their games to "get known".

When reading the article first I thought "ah, another false-flag initiated by game publishers who are posing as pirates". But thinking about it more closely, and specifically in the context of Indie games, that options seems a little less likely.

anadius wrote:From what I've read GOD doxxed first BUT IGG was preparing their info way before this event started. FitGirl said this on one reddit post in r/crackwatch.

Another thing are ads/scripts on IGG. Even with Ublock Origin and Firefox set to block popups they still showed up after clicking somewhere on the page. I've been helping people in comments under Sims 4 post there for a while. Sometimes recommending my repack when people asked for new DLC only - for which I was warned and told not to do it again because they are loosing revenue. Right now ESET detects "JS/Adware.Agent.AA" and simply blocks the website.

Previously I got the updates from ZLO and the crack from GOD. Well it's time to find another website.

Eeyore311 wrote:Not sure what I'm doing wrong, but I keep getting a message that firefox can't find the server.  Checked all the settings and everything is allowed.  Any ideas on what else I can try?

Misfit203 wrote:I was about to edit the thread title with (now closed) but seems i cant. perhaps you can do that for me. @The_gh0stm4n

Misfit203 wrote:(...) which lead to G.O.D. deciding to shutdown shortly after finally opening up a highly anticipated ROM section to make up for the recent closure of some big name ROM site(s). 

The_gh0stm4n wrote:It's especially a pity because a lot of these smaller Indie games can't/couldn't be found anywhere else, or at least not as easily. If you wanted one of these bigger titles that made it into GOG-format as well (e.g. Mafia III), you may be more lucky in that there may be alternative repacks on other torrenting-platforms like ThePirateBay.

I'll give that workaround a try, thanks again for sharing the news @Misfit203!