This thread is not going to one a beacon of rational discussion on GOG, but I'll just say no not really. I haven't noticed much of a change other than them letting way more games in, which doesn't really bother me much as its easily curated by myself.

My wish list is not reporting an accurate number of games in it. My item inventory still has sections with items from games that I returned for refunds... Multiple levels of DRM is partially their fault. They do have some power to negotiate in a deal, you know. LOL, my number is very close to your number.

Noticing?

It's been downhill since Sierra stopped publishing Valve games.

Fill out your wishlist and go through some discovery ques, and you won't be coming across things you don't wanna see. I've done the same, and I'm sometimes even surprised when I hear about some shit game and remember when it exists, because I haven't seen it on steam in such a long while. Their algorithm is quite good, and its recommending games based of what you play, what you wish for and what store pages you visit. Just flesh out that info by doing those things, and you can have a much more tolerable steam store.

As to curation by steam itself, I don't think demanding what we know to be a small team at Valve to investigate every game that requests to be on the world's largest DD site is feasible or sensible. Do we want steam to be like the M$ Store where only the big names and previously popular stuff can get on?

I'd much rather have steam and PC be a platform where new genres and diamonds in the rough can be found and evolve rather than a corporate-curated hellhole that uses its own vision of what a good game is to be marketed on the site (and hence, the PC platform).

Gotta admit that I disagree with that. Not trying to be negative but seems like we don;t even have many visual novels here.

Of course I have all those girls flirting with my character in Stardew Valley. That might be something.....

Indeed. GOG has its own problems. I sent an email to an indie studio about some of their games that I had bought on GOG and they replied saying that GOG is not good to deal with. They ignore what devs ask for. This particular dev said that they wanted to reduce the price of their game but GOG's finance team denied the request. The dev said that they're probably not going to publish with GOG ever again and are even considering pulling their games eventually.

Then they gave me free steam keys for the games I was asking about. Since I received that email it has left a bad taste in my mouth regarding buying games here. Now I usually visit the developer's website and buy there or email them asking where would they like me to purchase their games. That's ultimately who I want my money to go to anyway if I'm bothering to open my wallet to support a product... to the people who actually make the game. Otherwise what's the point?

Should have sent them proof or purchase and told them to go F themselves and you're never supporting them again for being such dicks.

Back in 2014 Totalbiscuit was going on the quality going down, but when they opened the floodgates... Ugg...

I'm glad i barely bought anything there. I joined back when QUBE was new and being pushed as i recall, looked promising. I was never that happy with any game i got there; With the exception of the dungeons of dredmore.

As long as it's "Good + Low quality" games I'm personally not that bothered by the amount of games on Steam. It's not like they're not still offering the same quality games they otherwise would've been, they're just also offering a ton of other games alongside them.

It mostly comes down to what you use the store for. If you want the store to be a place of discovery for games then it's definitely a downside that there's so many games now.

Personally, I have tons of ways to discover games I want to buy, I don't need Steam to be that place for me. I'm more concerned with them being a supplier of games. That when I've found a game I want, that they actually have it.

They stopped caring a very long time ago. That's what happens when you have a monopoly/extreme market dominance.

Change only happens due to threats or to make things cheaper. Refunds came about due to being sued and not wanting to ensure quality control.

SFS (which is massively abused on Valve own forum) was the unwanted by product of a vanity project.

Which courtcase was that? The ACCC required no such thing.

It required they follow the Laws of the country, and the "NO REFUNDS EVER" policy was a direct contravention of such.
The ACCC success would have had other lawsuits (which may have already been happening) from the many other countries with decent customer protections.

Now I know it was possible to get refunds before this case, but there was an onus on the customer to know their rights and press past the unenforceable clause of the SSA.

Removal of that clause would mean having processes in place to handle Refunds. At that time Steam support took over 2 weeks to process a case, adding refunds to that would have been even more damaging.

Simplest solution is an automated process, it also had the advantage of being able to further distance itself from the wash of low grade products swamping their store.

Refunds was not some altruistic act or an attempt to increase customer satisfaction, it was a reaction to a threat.

Steam never had quality. Even when I signed up using their client, it kept crashing and freezing until I got to where I wanted to be.

If we're talking games, well yes, they had a gateway to entry, but not anymore after. Greenlight simply let a lot of crap get past, and all you need to succeed Direct is a hundred bucks per "game." Quality was never Valve's forte.

At least GOG has its gateway up and tight, despite how often it rejects great titles like Opus Magnum. We haven't been flooded with an array of asset flips. Unfortunately, of those who push for enabling better visibility for quality games on PC, they rarely address GOG as a solution to that.

Yet another delightful thread!

"The quality of Steam is going down because they don't curate the store!"
"Curation is censorship!"
"Get your govt interference out of my corporate freeze peaches!"

(And the same people in both threads. It's not diversity, it's schizophrenia.)