When it launches in September, CD Projekt's Good Old Games will offer cheap, DRM-free digital downloads of long-lost old-school PC titles like Fallout, Fallout 2, Jagged Alliance 2, Sacrifice, Descent 1-3 and Kingpin: Life of Crime, among others.

Priced at either $5.99 or $9.99, these aren't straight re-releases. CD Projekt has done work to ensure that each game is now compatible with Windows XP and Vista, going so far as to create a custom installer for each game. A closed public beta demonstrating this is set to go live on August 1, with the site currently accepting applications.

The company is even removing DRM from titles that featured copy protection upon their initial release.It's already got the support of publishers Interplay and Codemasters, with the company hoping to eventually expand its catalog to include classic titles from others, such as EA and LucasArts.

But how does it actually work? How far back with GOG's offerings go, and what's stopping them from offering modern games as well? Isn't CD Projekt afraid of piracy? What about reprinting old game manuals, or adding features such as achievements?

And, most importantly, how will GOG compete in the already-crowded digital distribution space, which is dominated by Valve's Steam platform and other efforts?

For the answers, I turned to CD Projekt marketing VP Tom Ohle.

Shack: How does Good Old Games work? Is it just a website, or is it a dedicated platform a la Steam?

Tom Ohle: Essentially, GOG.com is just a website. You go to GOG.com, we'll have the latest games listed up top, reader reviews. We'll have a news section dedicated to retro gaming, or classic PC games.

The focus will be on the games catalog, online. So you go to GOG.com, either search for your game or start browsing, we've got a pretty deep browse feature for different categories.

The games are gonna be priced at either $5.99 or $9.99. You buy it, pay for it, download it and install it. You can go back and re-download it any time you want.

Shack: How far back do these games go?

Tom Ohle: I'd say most of the games that we've got in our initial pack will probably be from the, let's say, mid-90's to mid-2000's. The range of titles that we're looking for is anything that's not brand new, and going back as far as we can. As far back as stuff like Zork, who knows. We can go back as far as we need to. I shouldn't have mentioned Zork. At this point, we don't have it.

Our main goal is to try and deliver the best games of all time for PC. We've got a pretty long history to work with there.

Shack: What about DRM? Online activation? Can I download Fallout at home and then go to work and download another copy? Maybe put it on my laptop?

Tom Ohle: Nope. The whole goal is basically totally free of copy protection and DRM. We've got custom installers that come with each product. Run it [on one PC], and if you go to your laptop or whatever, you can just download it again.

Shack: If there's isn't any copy protection, aren't you concerned about piracy? How do you ensure this will be a profitable and long-lasting enterprise?

Tom Ohle: Realistically, it's probably out of our hands. What we wanted to do is kind of, provide that unique value in terms of--it's something that other competitors don't offer. Separate just from the games catalog itself, every other digital distribution platform basically requires some kind of online authentication, some sort of copy protection in there.

For us, it's basically log into your account and download any game [you've bought], any time. The concern about piracy is something that we've gotten from publishers, who kinda go, "We'll give you these games, you sell them, and then they'll just be out on torrents immediately."

We're hoping that with the low price point--we're also adding a bunch of added value features. For some of the key games, we're gonna have really in-depth game guides. And just trying to have that low price point, plus the no DRM, sort of working on a bit of an honor system.

The gamers that we're targeting are going to end up being a more mature audience anyways, because they're these hardcore, old-school PC gamers. For $5.99 or $9.99, it's pretty cheap. Hopefully people won't be too tempted to copy it and give it to their buddies, because it's pretty cheap. And hopefully the more sales we get, obviously, the more likely we are to bring on additional publishers and different titles. If everyone's pirating games right off the bat, then I guess we'd be in a bit of trouble.

Keep reading for more on GOG's attitude towards piracy, community features, "holy grails" and beta details along with the the possibility of achievements and boxed retail copies.