Just a little discussion on quality of games.

I've seen a few posts pop up where GOG had refused a game. I think one was because the developer wanted too high of a price. That, I can understand.

I could also understand if the developer didn't want to remove DRM.

The Delaware St. John developer mentioned he approached GOG and they passed on his games. (I'm going to make the assumption that the reason was not price or DRM since they don't have DRM now and they are very cheap games - AND difficult to find)

With that assumption, what benefit is there to pass on a working game?

I can't really buy the "quality" argument as that is so subjective. Some of the games we have now are abysmal to SOME of us. Diversity keeps us ALL happy.

So, in general... if the game works, is moderately and subjectively decent... why say "no"?

Wrong price point.
Do not fit with company image.
Unfavourable contract agreements.
Bad impressions "(Face factor").

You know what they say about people who assume.....

It could be any reason.

I don't think we need this discussion. I doubt that Mr. Gog is going to tell us anything we don't already know.

But, OTOH, this is sort of what happens when you deviate from doing retro games into such new ones.

Because (a) GOG celebrates every release, each game requires a certain amount of work to prepare and present it, and it needs to be worth that (and more so than other games that are competing for GOG's attention), (b) GOG has to evaluate whether a big enough share of their audience will be interested in the finalized product, which often may not be the case, and (c) - this is speculation - there's a downside in having revenue spread among too many low-selling games, you can't use such numbers to convince other publishers (those that need convincing) to use GOG as a distributor.

There can be many reasons for GOG to refuse a title - some might be:

1) Failure for GOG and the company to agree to a fair price for the title. GOG has a hand on the market they serve and if they feel a company is pitching too high a price for a title they might refuse to distribute the title at that price - whereupon the title won't appear unless the other party accepts.

2) Failure to agree to an agreed split of income from a title. Linked to price, but not quite the same, this is an area that can get complex if there are more than one copyright holders out to have a slice of the cake that is the games sale. Again this is an area of negotiation, GOG has to ensure that they get a fair amount per sale to make it a viable title for them; at the same time the rights holders will want their fair share of the profits as well. Agreement to the division of the earnings is a key point.

3) Title isn't seen to be of a suitable quality - now quality might mean anything and I'm sure that there are a long list of variables from the games code, to its visual presentation to its playability etc... If a game fails to meet the standards GOG might not wish to distribute it.

4) Code to difficult to repair for modern OS systems - whilst I'm sure GOG does their best, they might feel that certain games are too time consuming (or estimate it to be so) to patch them to a modern playable state. This might be the difference between taking a title on now or putting it on a long term hold until there is lull in their work load to work on the title.

5) Title isn't a big enough name to gather enough estimated sales; this I feel is more an issue for newer and indy games as opposed to older titles. Again its an area for debate, but at the end of the day whilst I'm sure GOG want to have as many titles as they can they also have to pay their way as well. Taking on too many highly niche market games might damage sales.

6) GOG unable to give an early enough release date for right holders liking; GOG has a release schedule and titles will fill it up. When that becomes full and GOG can't envision adding more titles to their schedule this will create a lag between the time when an agreement is made and when the title appears (and thus starts to make an earning for the rights holders). Some rights holders might feel that the lagtime is too long for their liking and thus negotiations might fall apart or be put on hold till a later date for revision (ie nearer a time when the lag time is smaller).


In general any failure could be any one of a number of the above or more factors. Also many might also not be outright failures, but rather pauses in the process where both parties move away with the intent or negotiation at a later date. Also remember (esp for older titles) each time a franchise right gains more than one organisation holding the rights that increase the complexity of the situation .

GOG can only release so many games in a week; they want those games to be games people will buy, so they can make money off of them. So there's why you'd say no: if you think the game will sell poorly compared to the other games you *could* be releasing instead.

(Yes, there are subjective aspects to it, but the GOG people of course have access to all the sales records; I imagine they usually have a pretty good idea of how a game will do before it's released).

I come to the GOG forums to discuss GOG :p

I used the word assume, but I think its pretty logical. Of course he could have approached them and said, "I want 59.99 for each sale!" But that's not very logical since the games typically sell on amazon for about 5.00.

But this is more of a theory discussion because the one viable option amok mentioned is "company image". And my claim is that unless you dip into the AO market... there isn't a game that can hurt company image. On the other hand... having too small of a catalog can. More games = more options, even if the sales will be low.

One answer that might make sense (sort of) is if there is a dollar amount GOG faces by simply offering a game. So if they think they game won't sell enough copies it would be a loss. This would be difficult to understand in a digital market and seeing some of the GOG games that likely don't sell well, but its one I could understand as well. Still, I would think there is value in buffing the catalog.

I like to bring up the example of GamersGate which is absolutely flooded with games. Bargain bin titles sitting happily next to triple-As.

I believe GOG's trying to become something like a Criterion Collection of games, presenting a curated selection which is less discerning when it comes to older titles, but very picky for contemporary ones. And I don't think that's a bad approach, to be honest.

Botanicula, Legend of Grimrock or SpaceChem are good examples of games that really stand out even at a first glance. Delaware St. John, on the other hand, looks very much like a "me-too", run-of-the-mill adventure game.

(Though yeah, considering that Journey to the Centre of the World game is sold here on GOG, there definitely are some double standards present here.)

Man I here the same question over and over "Why does GOG refuse this game" or "Why does Steam refuse to sell some games like say No time to explain but will approve say a crappy iphone game like Bumbledore for a insane price" and so on. Truth is no one save for the people behind this decision know for sure and I doubt in they are going to keep popping into these threads and explaining the reasons time and time again.. So why bother? As everything else is pure speculation and nothing else.

This is why I posed the question. I've heard the "standards" argument before. I also kind of like that GOG seems to have high standards... but with all the subjectivity in trying to keep a broad range of "good" titles, it seems a little weird to say no to other titles that in SOME people's opinions are better that titles that have passed.

There are some good replies here.

It also occurred to me that some of the more bad titles that ARE here may be the result of a contract that allowed for better titles that we wouldn't have seen otherwise.

It might all be speculation, but I feel it can be discussion which helps people appreciate what goes on behind closed doors in the industry - even if speculation isn't from those working in the industry.

Yes but the problem is very rarely does it ever stay like that it usually ends up truing into alot of pointless complaining and back and forth bickering.

This is the main reason.

GOG only release 2-4 games per week, so they may just not be interested in games which won't sell well. If they have choice to release a game they expect to be selling well, and a game they don't think so, they'll refuse the second one.

They limit themselves with only 2-4 releases per week, but on the other hand, their catalogue isn't a mess.

Also, I think I read somewhere that GOG has very high percentage of sales per amount of users. GOG users buy more games from the catalogue than other DD users. That's because GOG don't sell casual games and such.

There are also different reasons (price etc.) but I'm talking about the situation, when there's no problem with such things, but GOG refure a game.

Pretty much, and then you get the bitching about the bitching and the meta bitching about the bitching and so forth. Threads like this ought to be banned from the forum as I can't imagine anything good coming of it.

My yi jiao.