Alpha Protocol - About the GOG Release

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Game Developer explains how Alpha-Protocol was re-released on GOG:

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Deep Dive: How GOG perfected the imperfect with the re-release of Alpha Protocol

GOG's game releases technical producer tells us about the challenges involved in updating a nearly 15-year-old game for a modern digital platform.

Game Developer Deep Dives are an ongoing series with the goal of shedding light on specific design, art, or technical features within a video game in order to show how seemingly simple, fundamental design decisions aren't really that simple at all.

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In this edition, GOG's game releases technical producer, Adam "Adim" Ziółkowski, tells us what the process was like updating Alpha Protocol for the modern era, particularly the demands on DRM and cloud saving.

Hi, I'm Adam "Adim" Ziółkowski, game releases technical producer at GOG, and today I'm here to talk to you about the challenges involved in updating a nearly 15-year-old game for a modern digital platform.

Alpha Protocol is back! But why and how exactly did this happen?

The typical first reaction from people is, "Why Alpha Protocol?" We're aware that when Alpha Protocol was released on May 28, 2010, it wasn't a perfect production. Obsidian Entertainment embarked on a very ambitious and extensive project, which, in many ways, can be considered revolutionary. Players received an espionage RPG with a highly elaborate storyline that drastically changes depending on their decisions. However, with such extensive projects, it often happens that ambitions begin to eat their own tail, and excessive growth of the game leads to difficulty in controlling it. That's why the developers weren't able to anticipate and eliminate all the bugs and problems that appeared after the launch. Nowadays, it's nothing extraordinary, as developers spend weeks, months, or even years fixing their productions. Titles that could be considered pulled from the depths of player disapproval include hits like No Man's Sky or Diablo III.

At GOG, we all believe that every game deserves a second chance, whether it was released a year or 20 years ago. One of our main goals, just like with Alpha Protocol, is to revive titles that are not available in digital distribution and bring back as many of them as possible. Bringing all titles from the past might very well be an impossible task, but that's why our entire company was created. That's our reason to exist.

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