GOG gives Blizzard the middle finger over "Warcraft"

When it comes to gaming publishers, there are the "good guys" who win the hearts of the gaming community, and the "bad guys" who incur the displeasure of the gaming community through unconventional decisions. "Good Old Games", better known as GOG, is certainly one of the good guys - and is proving this once again.

The Preservation Programme from GOG

In November 2024, GOG announced its "Preservation Programme": The games that are included in it will continue to be maintained and adapted to new hardware. There are currently 102 titles in the Preservation Programme. For example, "Warcraft" 1 and 2 from the nineties.

On 13 December, GOG will have to remove the two games from sale at the request of Blizzard Entertainment, the developer and publisher of the "Warcraft" games. This was announced by GOG on 2 December. Blizzard has revisited these games itself and released remaster versions of them on 13 November.

More technical updates despite delisting

Although the games are no longer available via the GOG shop, the supplier promises to continue to maintain them as part of the Preservation Programme. This also applies to all other games that are in the Preservation Programme catalogue and may have to be removed from the shop in the future. This means that you can still buy "Warcraft" 1 and 2 on GOG now and expect technical updates from GOG even after 13 December - although GOG will no longer be allowed to sell the games.

And the supplier even offers a voucher code - MakeWarcraftLiveForever - for the game bundle, which you can use to buy it at a small discount until delisting. At checkout, you must select one of the supported currencies (US dollar, euro, British pound or Polish złoty).

The voucher and the maintenance promise probably show how GOG feels about Blizzard removing the games from the shop. Nevertheless, GOG thanks Blizzard for the good cooperation in the announcement. The whole thing should therefore be taken with a wink.