gog does not cater vintage enthusiasts

content/links.md

@@ -33,4 +33,4 @@ I've categorized these according to my own social circles. This is not a complet
 - [Gergely Orosz](https://blog.pragmaticengineer.com/), The Pragmatic Engineer newsletters. 
 - [Retronauts](https://retronauts.com/), the seminal retro gaming podcast by ex-1UP members.
 - [Blake Patterson](https://bytecellar.com/), a modern day old Byte Cellar junkyard to marvel at.
-
+- [Brian Bankler](https://taogaming.wordpress.com/), The Tao of Gaming: boardgames and lesser pursuits.

content/post/2022/08/gog-does-not-cater-vintage-enthusiasts.md

@@ -0,0 +1,32 @@
+---
+title: GOG Does Not Cater Vintage Enthusiasts
+date: 2022-08-08T15:56:00+02:00
+categories:
+  - retro
+tags:
+  - games
+---
+
+Popular digital retro game store [Good Old Games (GOG)](https://gog.com/), does not _really_ care about vintage PC hardware fans. That is my conclusion after watching GOG evolve from a superb retro PC game fixer to a giant struggling to compete with the Steam and Epic game stores, thereby also catering to the needs of not so _Good Old_ gamers. GOG has been in trouble financially speaking a few times, especially combined with the botched Cyberpunk release, as [The Verge reports](https://www.theverge.com/2021/11/29/22808199/cd-projekt-gog-losses-restructuring-earnings-2021):
+
+> GOG launched in 2008 as Good Old Games, a platform built around selling hard-to-find classic games without digital rights management or DRM. Since then, it’s expanded into a more all-purpose storefront selling new third-party games and internal studio CD Projekt Red’s The Witcher 3 and Cyberpunk 2077, plus an online service called GOG Galaxy. But it’s also faced apparent financial problems before, laying off a reported 10 percent of its staff in 2019.
+
+All-purpose storefront, selling new third-party games? That worked out really well didn't it? Or how about that new GOG Galaxy game launcher, a butt-ugly and pathetic attempt to emulate the even more butt-ugly Steam application that simply gets in my way when I want to play something. Luckily, there's still the option to download the _Good Old_ (ha!) single-binary installer. 
+
+Except that now we're facing a new problem: "old games"---that's subjective, right?---such as my beloved point & click horror adventure [Sanitarium](https://www.gog.com/game/sanitarium) now suddenly require Windows 7+ to play. It was originally released in 1998 and ran on Windows 95/98. If I download the file on my mac and use a simple USB stick to transfer it to my Win98 machine, I won't be able to extract it. I don't have a modern Windows machine: a 32-bit Windows XP is the best I can do. To add insult to injury, GOG does not provide Mac-compatible installers or even stupidly simple `.zip` files. 
+
+It gets worse. Most DOS games come packaged with DOSBox, an emulator that does its job relatively well. some adventure games come packaged with [ScummVM](https://www.scummvm.org/) (great!), opening up compatibility to multiple platforms. Except, well, the original platform a vintage gamer wants to run it on---you know, DOS?---won't work, because the GOG installer does not even come with the original `.exe` binary, as ScummVM only requires the data files. 
+
+That meant I had to download an illegal version of a game I just bought to get one file to run it on the original hardware. I'll let that sink in for a while.
+
+---
+
+Thankfully, the [VOGONS Community](https://www.vogons.org/viewtopic.php?f=7&t=48490) (_Very Old Games On New Systems_) stepped in and created [a digital DOS games retro PC compatibility sheet](https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1jojqkdH47c7XarISYTFm6dnr6D4YdG5Q_MRJCxNP5eQ/edit#gid=0). The sheet comes with handy columns such as "How is the game packaged?", "How do I install the game on a DOS PC?" among with specs, and "how do I configure this game?". If you scroll down to "Gobliiins 1--3", it states _N/A.  Necessary executables are not included._
+
+Unfortunately, Sanitarium isn't on the list, and I should add it after I cursed my way through the installation process. No wonder that GOG is losing money. Is it too much to ask for a simple zip file with original files that can be opened on any operating system? I don't care for support, provide both if you're into self-unpacking Windows installers. 
+
+GOG used to make me [really, really happy](/post/2021/02/the-insanity-of-retro-game-collecting/). Nowadays, I only go there to buy something during a sale if I can't easily get it elsewhere. That said, "elsewhere" isn't a great option for PC gamers either: I've had second hand floppy disks fail on me, I've bought scratched-up and thus unreadable CD-ROMs, and I've tried ignoring outrageous prices of older big box PC games.
+
+Even worse, GOG is silently removing games from their digital shelf. Seminal first-person dungeon crawler _Ultima Underworld_ was no longer available. It was just... gone. Why? I have no clue. Rights management gone wrong? And we're not talking about an insignificant release here: _Underground_ was---and is---a big deal, a huge milestone in computer role playing games. And then, suddenly, in August last year, it returned, and was free until September. Why? I have no clue. 
+
+Remember, digital purchases mean squat. [Keep it physical bro](/post/2021/05/re-is-collecting-physical-games-worth-it/).

content/post/2022/08/implementing-searching-in-static-websites.md

@@ -38,9 +38,6 @@ The other downside is that it still requires you to run another executable---thi
 #!/bin/bash
 
 sites=( brainbaking jefklakscodex redzuurdesem )
-export WEBMENTION_TOKEN="supersecret"
-
-echo "building at $(date)... with $1"
 
 for site in "${sites[@]}"
 do
@@ -59,7 +56,6 @@ do
 		echo "nothing to do for $site"
 	fi
 done
-echo "done building."
 ```
 
 This boils down to: