such a huge company. Asking for the
documents, which are in paper form,
that’s a level of time and engagement
that might not be worth it in terms of
business. But there was this one guy
who knew about the case because he
was personally interested and he said
that all the rights had reverted to Frank
Herbert’s family.
Somehow, I don’t want to know how,
one colleague got a contact for them,
and they unfortunately said they didn’t
want to revive anything. It wasn’t a case
of not understanding games, just a
straight-up, ‘If it’s old it should stay old’.
It was so unbelievably frustrating. But of
course, they have a right to that
decision. It’s theirs. If they feel so
stronglyaboutit,whoarewetojudge
themforthat?
oleg Klapovsky: Unfortunately, Dune,
even though it’s one of my most loved
titles, never worked out. But we keep
chasing everything on the list, once a
year or every two years. We don’t give
up on any title; it’s just a matter of how
regularlywechase,andmaybeoneday
somethingwillhappen.
Martaadamska: We revisit these
situations once a year or so, because
maybe it wasn’t a good moment. Maybe
we caught the daughter of that
developer by surprise. We’ll send her
some articles about classic games,
show her how happy people are. I’m
hoping that’s going to work.
oldGaMes reborn
Once a game has finally been signed,
it’s down to GOG’s head of product,
Marcin Paczynski, and his team to
get it ready to release.
Marcin Paczynski: I was hired in March
2009 as a tester. I was told, hey, this is
your PC, and your first game to test is
Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time. We
will be releasing it in two days, so just
play it for a few hours. That was my job!
So it started with a pretty good game.ABOVE: Marcin
Paczynski started as
a tester playing
Prince of Persia.BELOW: A look inside
GOG’s office.But then I played games like Crystals of
Aborea, an Ishar RPG, where there’s no
map. Those games were very difficult!
Very, very annoying at times. I was the
newest guy, so the best titles were given
to the others. Then I got to enjoy those
games. Being forced to do it, I started to
see why they’re considered classics.Getting old games working on
modern Windows systems is often
difficult. For the oldest, GOG’s biggest10 Years of GOG
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