Good GOG Game Sources?

[Slow Mo]

Known not-so-good, unclear value or empty:

• The "GOG Games" site, it goes totally insane on doing Google ReCaptcha plus 1-3 Filecrypt captchas per page. Tiring to do on scale.
  
• RIN is not GOG-oriented, drunk-on-power moderator Christsnatcher causes too many troubles, destructively likes to delete entire accounts with hundreds of messages.
  
• Torrminatorr too has problematic modertators. Downloads are in a disarray, chaos: Some have topics, some don't, some are in a pile, others are dead, nobody cares.
  
• Rutracker is alrighty, has potential, except misses over 25% of the collection, many are unupdated. A similar site, Rutor is basically empty.
  
• Tapochek does supposedly have a large collection, the 1st on the list mainly gets from it. Requires an invite, too hard to get in. I pay no hopes.
  
• GazelleGames is maybe promising, I only know of it because how I got GOG's 1st "Ashes of the Singularity" from a person on Rutracker. Invite only, unfortunately.
  
• The Pirate Bay, well, is The Pirate Bay, GOG is not really its strong side. Reminds of Rutor.
  
• Some few others: Either chaos, unfull, or unmaintained. Not fit. Finding good is tough.
  

What good and pleasant full sources do you know, folks? That have over 3,943 games, 11.4TB, preferably akin to before-captcha GOG Games with ZippyShare, like Good Old Downloads was.

Full GOG List for 2022-08-25 (Names Only)
3,969 Products, ~11,623GB Total
https://paste.ee/p/yil79

The majority of today's GOG is not DOSBox
Full DOSBox GOG List for 2022-08-25 (Names Only)
313 Products (10.54%), ~81GB Total (0.69%)
https://paste.ee/p/ji6gI

[RobertX]

I do have DOS games and early DirectX games, but they're not GOG-assimilated.

You can try archive.org; I believe that it's your best bet.

[Fant0men]

To acquire good copies of games, I recommend browsing the Redump uploads on archive.org. Simply change the letter "A" in the URL to whatever letter in the alphabet you need. You need an account @ archive.org to be able to download the games though.

The procedures they follow to make 1:1 copies are very strict. It's probably your best source for DOS / Windows disc images. They do other platforms as well, like Playstation:

https://archive.org/download/redump-sony-playstation
https://archive.org/download/redump-sony...ion-part-2
https://archive.org/download/redump-sony...ion-part-3
https://archive.org/download/redump-sony...ion-part-4

They have a website too where they store info about the various rips that have been accepted into the database. So you can verify your CUE sheets against theirs, and checksums for the individual tracks.

[RobertX]

The topmost item of that list is taken down, Fant0men.

[Slow Mo]

Every GOG installer is digitally signed. The re-dump is not GOG; GOG is not ISO, rips, repacks, PlayStation, etc; GOG is 100% licensed legal copies of PC games without DRM.

The Web Archive does not provide a full collection.

[RobertX]

You can also try https://gamepciso.com

It's still not totally what you're looking for, but you might find that alternatives are valuable.

[Fant0men]

Every GOG installer is digitally signed. The re-dump is not GOG; GOG is not ISO, rips, repacks, PlayStation, etc; GOG is 100% licensed legal copies of PC games without DRM.

The Web Archive does not provide a full collection.

A disc image that is 1:1 identical to the original disc, down to the level of individual sectors, is better than what you'd get @ GOG. And if you have a proper disc image you don't even need to worry about DRM, cause you can just mount the disc in Daemon Tools or Alcohol 120%, or in DOSBox using the imgmount command, eliminating the need for a crack cause the DRM will never even get triggered.

GOG is not the end-all be-all of authentic sources of games. Have you looked at their DOS game releases for example? They're highly unprofessionally put together.

All they've done is buy game licenses (for cheap probably), but they don't even bother to package their games properly or get good sources for their disc images. It's unclear to me if they even make those disc images themselves, or just get them from P2P sources. Redump images are likely much more accurate than the ones you get from GOG (they do tend to bundle the disc images, but rename the BIN file to have a different extension).

Anyway, I hope you saw the PM I sent you, and you're happy with that link.

[Slow Mo]

Code:

wget -qO - -- 'https://freegogpcgames.com/a-z-games-list/' | grep -Ec -- '^<a href="https://freegogpcgames.com/[0-9]+/.+/">$'

3,296 out of 3,969 for 2022-08-25. Unavailable: 673 (17%).

The site's links are from GMT-MAX, Rutracker, R.G.GOGFan, etc. BTDigg does automatically, has a significant downside of limiting the search query to 101 pages (1,010 items), by default gives imprecise search results. If FGPG covers most of the range, 83% is the maximum what is available on today's P2P network.

[Slow Mo]

Well, the circumstances changed, let say. The topic is no longer important. Thanks everyone.

[RobertX]

GOG is not the end-all be-all of authentic sources of games. Have you looked at their DOS game releases for example? They're highly unprofessionally put together.

I can vouch for those statements, and it's not just DOS games.

I downloaded Star Trek: Armada, and it doesn't show the menu properly; the animation is excluded and I tried it on two machines: the outcome is the same.