Indeed. Game devs have a nasty habit of doing this, especially for old games that haven't seen support in years. They'll make a patch for the Steam version, but not the GOG version, leaving GOG players in the dark. Petroglyph did this with Star Wars Empire At War, one of my favorite games of all time, and it makes me sad because there are a lot of mods I'd like to play but can't because all the mod developers are stuck on the Steam version.

I've already bought the game twice; once on physical discs when it came out, and once on GOG. I refuse to buy it a third time just because the developers are lazy, and yes, I do think a lot of it has to do with laziness. I don't believe that the difference between the GOG version of a game and the Steam version of a game is so different that it requires such an extensive amount of effort to update both that the developer is forced to choose between one version or the other.

What shenanigans? Why would it matter if he's a moderator for their Discord server? He wants DRM-free, you want it, and I want it. We should all be on the same side, no matter what DRM-free store it is.

Also, what a massive gap they're missing by not utilizing things like Wine or Boxedwine.

...Have there been any games recently that run on ScummVM for that matter?

Sanitarium was updated with ScummVM. After that they added a Linux and recently a Mac version.

I'm not going to post any further in this thread, as it's getting a bit silly. I would suggest though that you try to stay on topic. Last time I checked, the thread was supposed to be about discussing why there aren't more indie games coming to GOG, not putting me on trial.

I was talking more to Doomsooth. Your right let's stay on topic for OP.
You can DM if you want to talk about shenanigans

This issue (and the issue of indie games being removed from GOG) has been at the forefront of my mind for awhile...

Game-Labs brought Ultimate General Civil War and Ultimate General Gettysburg but NOT...

... Ultimate Admiral Age of Sail or the American West survival game This Land is My Land, both single-player. And most likely they won't bring their upcoming pirate game Sea Legends either.

Dark Quest and Dark Quest II released here, but will Dark Quest Board Game release on GOG? They're Early Access on Steam now. Wish I felt certain they'd be here after full release.

As OP pointed out Darkest Dungeon released here but all that's been stated by them for Darkest Dungeon II is a full release on EGS and Steam.

And then there's the GOG defections like...

... For the King and The Long Dark.

Had hopes that For the King might return when Curve Digital recently brought Bomber Crew and Space Crew here, but no... And now...

... For the King 2 is about to release elsewhere.

I understand that publishers / ownership changes and that can make certain GOG releases questionable (ie Game-Labs)...

... but...

... with the sheer number of one-offs, defections, and indies that simply never show up on GOG, there seems to be a real problem.

Is it the introduction of EGS and their deep pockets?

Certainly that makes things more difficult.

If a Steam release makes 80 - 90% of a game's sales... and EGS can cover 100% (or more) of a game's development monies in their release contract...

... how does GOG compete?

I have a number of ideas, but ultimately IMO it has to start with a dedication to retention (and outreach). Does GOG have this? GOG may fight hard behind-the-scenes to retain game series and publishers, but... from the outside looking in...

... it has always felt like GOG was simply a shell of a digital marketplace meant to simply stay afloat with low-cost classics (and indies) until CDPR ultimately provided the amazing blockbuster exclusives to jump-start the business (which hasn't succeeded yet). Without powerhouse exclusives, GOG has simply muddled through... waiting...

Again I flash back to Sony PS a few years back. They released the PS4 and it had very few games. That's when Sony made a concerted effort to court indie developers. Sony met with indie devs and small publishers, asked how they could better facilitate them, and attracted them to the platform (prior Sony had very few indie games on PS platforms).

Is some of this money? Certainly. But I think there are also many intangibles that would attract and retain indie devs and publishers. But this all starts with building relationships. Is GOG willing to do that?

I've spoken to MANY indie developers over the last 2 - 3 years... and most say they've simply never thought about GOG and know next to nothing about it.

Sorry for the rant, but IMO if GOG wants to retain indie series, devs, and publishers (which IMO they have to do since they can't attract day 1 AAA releases or rely solely on classic games)...

... they need to work hard on OUTREACH and RETENTION.

But sadly I just don't get the feeling they want to expend the energy or capital.

And with that all said... I really do value GOG -- what it provides -- and want it to succeed!

THIS is my biggest gripe. Some may disagree, but I have ALWAYS disliked GOG's curation and have always wanted it gone. I'm here for DRM-Free games with offline installers, nothing else. There are very few DRM-Free stores out there and so they should not be acting as gatekeepers. It's hard enough to convince studios to go DRM-Free, so when they are willing, having some random GOG employee subjectively reject willing studios is not the way to go.

Some will say that I will open the flood gates, and maybe I will, but I'd rather sort through crap to find gems, than have a bunch of gems filtered out through an aggressive trash collection filter. If someone wants random subjective recommendations, they can look at GOG's affiliate program. That's all curation should be though. A bunch of recommendations, NOT a hard block. Perhaps GOG could expand and promote the affiliate program more, but the curation has to go. Allowing AO games was a good first step.

Some will always complain, but at the end of the day, no one is forced to buy anything they don't like. I would always push such developers to release their games on GOG once they've stopped patching them. They're ready to abandon the game? Now's the time to release it on GOG then. GOG gets a finished and patched product, developers don't have to re-compile offline installers, or make patches.

I always thought that the dumbest thing for GOG to do is refuse to sell certain games on their platform. I understand they want games that sell well, but their logic in picking which ones were accepted or not seems very odd.

Whoever was in charge was not doing a good job.

Indeed. Gog needs a couple sub-brands. It's all GOG behind the scenes, and can even run from the same site, just have 3 different "home pages"/"catalogs" (of course with an option to check all at once). One that is GOG as we know it, one that's GOGnsfw, and one that's GOGopen (minimal curation -- just basic sanity checks, not the full GOG curation).

(Note: I'm I have zero problems with NSFW games here, but I understand the difficulties that many publishers may not want to show up so tightly close to them in a storefront.)

I always wonder which games could possibly be considered sfw.
But when we're at it, we also should add GOGgore, GOGfps, GOGshooter, GOGplatform.

I mean ... those who like sims don't want to see shooters, right?

I've always wondered how difficult/time-consuming is to make builds for multiple platforms. Does it truly cut into profits or is GOG's small userbase just an excuse for laziness?

There is not much that can be done for developers who only want to cater to the largest platforms. However, GOG can do a better job at communicating with the few developers who do want to sell their game on GOG. For starters, they could respond to developers in a timely manner. If I recall correctly, the dev for Selaco expressed interest in GOG, but received no reply in months. Needless to say, this is unacceptable, and it worries me that this is not an isolated incident.

I've emailed / messaged with a number of indie developers in the past few years regarding releasing on GOG. Most said...

... I just never thought about releasing on GOG and have no idea what's entailed.

The was usually followed by...

... maybe we'll look into it (GOG) after we've released on Steam?

And finally I got these replies a few times...

... once in a great while...

... we were rejected by GOG and have no interest in trying again...

... but more commonly...

... at this time we have no plans to release on GOG.

And then there were a great number who just never replied (ie Microprose)

It's been pretty disheartening

While I think there could be an argument for a curated store (although my gut feeling is that "curation" on GOG has been an excuse for low effort in attracting and attaining "high end" games / series)...

... I've found more than a few indie devs who seemed to be intimidated by GOG's curation.

The opacity of the process and GOG's "peculiarities" drove a few devs I spoke with away... to (they claimed) simply go to Steam where the majority audience is and where they (the devs) felt pretty certain that their work would result in a timely release.

I understand a boutique curation if that ends in generally high-end, high-quality games, but at this point IMO, curation might be keeping a number of generally good, playable, and fun indie games from even applying for release on GOG.

Unfortunately, we can now certify that GOG has lost another very important publisher of indie games: Raw Fury.
This is a big loss, because they used to release all their games on day 1 and were often very polished and original games, with a popularity that we can consider slightly lower than Devolver Digital.

As I had reported, Tails: The Backbone Preludes, was never released on GOG, leaving the story stumped on this platform. But then a long series of other games were released on Steam and other platforms except GOG:

Dream Cycle
Superfuse
GUN JAM
Mr. Sun's Hatbox
Cassette Beasts

Just today Cassette Beasts, a very promising Pokemon like, was released on Steam, and the developers didn't seem at all interested in releasing the game on GOG.
Raw Fury, meanwhile, doesn't answer any questions on GOG, and on the other hand, the people interested seem to be non-existent.