Define game then, would you?
You consider that a game or a book?

It doesn't really matter, I was just wallowing in nostalgia.

But I'm genuinely curious!

If you want, we can extend the discussion to FMV games. Most of them are not videogames for how I define videogames. If what you do (and see) is exactly what I'm doing (and seeing) we're not playing a videogame. Choices should be meaningful and the game should include some actual gameplay, most VNs lack both. I mean, I loved To the Moon and Finding Paradise, but they're not videogames.

Well, if anything interactive is a game, then my bank website is a game.

Look, feel free to think these are games. I don't. I think a game requires mechanics, puzzle-solving, ingenuity, and/or strategic skill. And that's off the top of my head. Perhaps all or some of these. Simply clicking a choice and seeing what happens is not a game to me; it's a digital, illustrated "choose your adventure" book. In fact, some of the Telltale games stretch my idea of a game.

Not sure why you're so invested in my opinion. It's not like GOG is deciding how to organize their store based on it.

Oh, and I consider the "choose your adventure" books, well, books.

Yeah, Telltale is another developer that stopped making real games many years ago.

I'm invested because I want to hear WHY people think how they think. You're of course very entitled to your opinion, I'm not saying otherwise. I'm just curious, that's all.

Unfortunately this doesn't "translate" well, but what the hey =)

Those were actually called gamebooks, right?
So both, I'd say.

I hope my explanation helped you to udnerstand how I think, then. I just think to call something a game, it requires more than clicking a choice. Even ultra-casual hidden object games require that you solve a puzzle here and there and find the objects.

My one hope is that since GOG is a smaller volume paltform in general than Steam that I won't have to filter through a sea of these to find actual games. Aftern enjoyingmy time checking Steam's new releases each day, I have virtually stopped using the paltform because it is so full of literal crap and VN's that it is hard to find games worth my trouble to consider.

I'll confess I'd also prefer not to look at products that revel in objectifying women, but I'm hardly an SJW and don't stand on some false idea that nothing in life should offend me.
No, they were called books. Not gamebooks. At least, never called that in the US.

To comment on the original subject, I agree.

Both Twitch and Valve have been very icky and dumb in my opinion when it comes to this topic.

A properly separated adult uncensored section that requires age/phone verification to access on a major platform would be a huge step in the right direction. Not all of these games are porn cashgrabs, some of them have a lot of work put into them and great stories behind, and devs shouldn't feel forced to jump hoops to censor them.

I think if any major company is smart enough to pull something like this, it's GoG.

Cmon GOG take my money :o

And once again GOG surprises everyone!

Personally I'm not a fan of VN, but I don't think they can't be considered video games either, after all they're still more interactive than Pong, which is considered a game, but in which you can only press two arrows, and it repeats endlessly.

The only real criticism I would make is that all the Japanese VNs are really not very original, they always draw in the same way and without inventiveness, they have settled on a style for decades without evolving it.

And on the curation issue, I just hope that also the VNs are carefully examined by some experts and that they pass only the deserving ones, like every other game genres here, but I'm quite confident on GOG.

Indeed, I really didn't expect them to take this opportunity. I thought it was a situation similar to Hatred, though I guess with Hatred perhaps GOG thought, because of the game content, the PR might be too negative ultimately.

if gog keeps on landing these events then it means good for other devs to sink feet here. I find it a chance to grow major in different fields. :)