Good Old Games admits closure a hoax, relaunches

Retro PC game download service God Old Games (GOG.com) has revealed its apparent closure over the weekend was a hoax.

Admitting it was a marketing stunt to raise the site's profile, co-founder Marcin Iwinski and managing director Guillaume Rambourgthe appeared dressed as monks in an online press conference this evening.

The pair claimed they had "sinned," before going on to accusing the games industry of being too "stiff" in its response to the ruse.

The service, whose temporary suspension since Saturday had denied existing customers access to their prior purchases, will relaunch and reopen tomorrow.

As well as lifting its long-held 'beta' tag, the new-look service will boast improved coding, new features such as download timers and friend recommendations, and several additional games.

The most notable new recruit is classic Bioware RPG Baldur's Gate, with hints that its sequel may follow. Rumours that GoG might drop its no-DRM stance proved unfounded.

In a statement provided before the conference to PC Gamer, a GoG spokesperson said:

"First of all we'd like to apologize to everyone who felt deceived or harmed in any way by the closedown of GOG.com. As a small company we don't have a huge marketing budget and this why we could not miss a chance to generate some buzz around an event as big as launching a brand new version of our website and even more important, bringing back Baldur's Gate to life."

Iwinski and Rambourgthe closed the fancy dress conference by asserting that they intended GoG to become "the number one alternative to Steam."