BeatriceElysia: GOG obviously think it won't sell enough. Either they are right or they may change their mind. Would you buy the game if it comes to GOG?
rjbuffchix: I would buy it if it comes to GOG and I would also buy it if it came to itch.io or from the developer's own site I suppose. Apparently it is also DRM-free on Steam (for those who can hold their nose long enough to purchase). I do not plan to buy it on Steam.
I don't think that it's "obvious" GOG thinks the game won't sell enough. I'm more interested in observing patterns and behavior, so even if GOG came out and said "we think it won't sell enough, that's why we rejected it", I would still be a bit skeptical.
It is very weird to me how old-school dungeon crawler RPGs are consistently the games getting rejected. It leads me to believe GOG is not interested in satisfying the customer base with these RPGs even if they would sell ok. What some refer to as "hipster indies" appear to be a CLEAR priority over any old-school dungeon crawler, based on observing the patterns and behavior of GOG/curation.
The curation staff likes "hipster indies" and other such games(and those that don't have UN-pc content in them) when choosing games for the site, or so it would seem lately.
If they don't want my money for that game i'll buy it elsewhere...their loss.
darthspudius: and there's already a lot of games like that as it is. They don't need anymore. Especially a game that isn't even finished according to the Steam page.
As others have said server storage is cheap for these sorts of stores and people have a search function in the store.....why not add a few more games to the pile to we have more choice?
Also why not reject some of the currently accepted indie games that seem to be cr*p?
clarry: My thoughts are that yes, of course GOG should let
good old school / retro RPGs on the store, just as they let
good old school platformers such as Shovel Knight.
That said, I can't tell whether LoA is good. I can say for sure that
these screenshots on Steam alone are not enough to sell me a Windows-only early access game for 21 eur. No way. Maybe after testing it, GOG came to a similar conclusion?
That is, if you believe in curation in the first place. As a matter of fact, I'm not a huge fan of curation. I'd prefer to decide what's good for myself..
The game itself harkens to the look/style of the older Might & Magic titles(like the xeen games), and fwiw I would likely get it once the price dropped during a sale(or even at full price if I found it was good enough through research/etc).
tomimt: This is, of course purely speculative and based on the GOG's bestselling lists, but they do indicate that modern retro pixel games don't really sell all that well in GOG. On the first 10 pages arranged by all-time best selling, there are 10 or so modern pixel games. The best selling list has a few more, but all in all, they are overshadows by either actually old games or games with bit higher production values.
Then again, GOG does seem to try push visual novels as well and they seem to sell even worse. I am guessing there are many fans of VNs on the curation team.
paladin181: Pretty gross looking pixel graphics... Stop trying to sell games with bad graphics as nostalgia. Pixel graphics were used in the best games at the time because it was the best graphics (or at least comparable) at the time. Now there are much better options for 2D games. Look at Hollow knight as an example. Stop muddying your game's appearance to disguise how bad it looks.
If the game plays and feels good I couldn't care less how it looks. ;)