I have become embroiled in discussions regarding a certain DRM-loving competitor service. I just read this article and found it brought up some interesting ideas. Was anyone here around for the Atari videogame crash? I only buy games here so I had not really considered the opposite approach of allowing any random piece of junk to flood a store (needless to say, I am heavily in favor of curation...and I was fine with some of the more mobile-looking games not being on GOG).

My thought recently has been there is a flood of indies into gaming that are of questionable quality. It is not so much an issue with too many games from bigger publishers, but moreso just with indies. This is likely because the big "AAA" games take longer to make...I'm sure the big companies would love to churn out their franchises twice a year or more instead of "only" annually, if they could, but it is simply not possible resource-wise.

Malstrom writes about how random companies like Colgate had tried to get into videogames right before the Atari crash. However, it is to the point now where I think I would rather see some of these corporations try their hand instead of gaming having so many walking simulators and pixel games (sorry, I know this is hot button but it is time for more indie games to resemble N64/PS1/Dreamcast-level).

I might rather play Burger King's "Sneak King" than the typical stuff that seems like it is flooding the Scheme marketplace!

https://seanmalstrom.wordpress.com/2018/03/25/steam-is-a-slow-motion-atari-implosion/

That "article" didn't really say a god damn thing. Just a bunch of hyperbole. Am I missing something?

Okay, I have two things to say in regards to this subject:

1. Everyone loves curation until a game they want gets rejected. Then it's a great travesty and how dare they reject this masterpiece. Happens all the time in this forum.

2. Comparing Steam's situation with Atari's is based on a fundamental misunderstanding. Just because both platforms have/had a lot of shovelware does not make them equivalent. In Atari's case, no one knew what was good and what wasn't, which corroded consumer trust and led to the crash. In Steam's case, 99% of customers will only see the games featured on the front page, which are all perfectly fine, competently made games. You'll only find the shovelware if you go looking for it. Steam has a greater problem of good games being buried under the cavalcade of releases and not getting the attention they deserve, than they do of customers unwittingly buying shovelware.

I don't care about the Valve hate meme as long as it doesn't zeitgeist and idiots end up running with it to no particular good for anybody. Good thing is that lately I find the media has stopped stoking it through use as piece fodder.

That's a really good distinction.

One situation where curation doesn't work so well is for games that appeal only to a few people, but for those few people, it's the perfect game for them.

Secret Little Haven is an example of this sort of thing. A game like SLH would likely not get past curation, as the people who make the decision are likely not to be interested in this sort of game; however, there are some people who would really like to play this game. (Actually, I think that, if that game were released here, the release thread would become rather toxic and would need to be closed by a moderator; this is judging from experience with this forum's userbase and seeing certain other threads get closed.)

There's also games that were made in events such as game jams. Such games are not exactly what you'd call polished, but can be quite entertaining, and in some cases can be previews of the sort of game the developer in question wants to make.

For this reason, it is good that there exists non-curated sites. Currently, I would recommend itch.io for your non-curated game needs. Note that it's probably good to look for reviews before you actually pay for a game on that site. If you'd rather have curation, GOG still exists. The way I see it, these two sites compliment each other nicely.

(Incidentally, itch.io does sometimes get more popular releases. Celeste, for example, is available DRM-free from that site, if you want it.)

Personally I like many niche games, and I am glad there are stores out there without heavy curation that let me buy and play the games I want, not only what they think will sell the most.

This is not a choice of 'curation' for GOG. It's a limitation they're still bound by in their current state. Theres a ton of 'behind the scenes' work to releasing games on GOG, lines of communication need to be opened, licensing deals created, both need to be maintained after contracts are signed as well as create and/or update the games for GOG/Galaxy from that point on.

GOG simply isn't at the size they have the luxury of foregoing the question of 'What will sell the most' because they can only release a limited amount of games within a certain amount of time. Marketing made a nice spin of it and called it 'curation' which plays well against the behemoth that is Steam but in reality GOG doesn't have the choice to open the floodgates yet.

Ideally one day GOG reaches that point some time in the future and honestly, personally, I say open the flood gates. There are tons of ways I can curate my gaming choices without needing the store to do that for me. What I can't do is buy the game on the store of my choice if they don't offer it. I doubt anyone is seriously going to complain the 'good' in GOG (old) is gone for good as long as they can still buy the games that hold their interest here DRM-Free as well. (there *will* be complaining, there always is, but it won't realistically be justified imo)

I am not feeling strongly for or against it. Maybe it helps that so far I haven't really faced a situation where I'd feel "How on earth did GOG reject that masterpiece?!?". The examples that people here bring up time to time seem kinda meh to me, I can live without them. Even one finger death punch or whatever it was, or that RPG that looked like Might & Magic 4.

All the cases where the game has not appeared on GOG even though I wish it would seem to have been cases of the publisher/developer not caring enough to release it on GOG (be it either due to DRM, or just wanting to concentrate on Steam or Origin or UPlay, or whatever), not about GOG rejecting the game. This goes also for indie games, not just AAA games. Like that alien underwater diving game on Steam where there was lots of hype recently, yeah it would be nice to get on GOG but at this point the publisher apparently couldn't care less. Maybe later, or maybe not.

So, if GOG at some point rejects e.g. DRM-free Skyrim, Mass Effect Trilogy or GTA V, wake me up. Then I will surely pick my pitchfork and torch from under my pillow and join the raging crowds. (Not really, but I'll at least pretend I will.)


And yeah I agree with the notion that the GOG curation comes more from GOG's (in)ability to release and maintain only a certain number of new releases per month, rather than GOG just choosing to limit the input. In that sense I don't even see it is my "right" to demand GOG to release more games, or else. It is not my business to run, I am a mere customer.

It is not like I go to the local grocery store and go demand them to start selling sheep brains. Certainly I can ask them nicely, but if they say "umm how about no?", that's the end of it. If I still want sheep brains, I guess I have to buy them from the store next to it.

+1

TL;DR: rather than choosing between curated and not, why not "some curation"?

As always, confusion reigns because the initial quandary is a fallacy, namely a false dichotomy. This is very Manachaean (scilicet, the earliest cognitive model of the universe —the source of Zoroastrian theology— that there exists good and bad matter*), and better results are forthcoming if a different analysis is applied. The Aristotelian golden mean demonstrates that the ideal situation is not one extreme (on an arbitrary abstract scale of someone's whim), but some compromise between the extremes.

Let's meta-analyse the linear disjunctive abstraction that electronic delivery must be "either curated or not":
This identical issue was also present in the software distributions of this most recent technological wave (mobile computing). The Apple app store had (and, I think, still has) no boundary-checking; literally anyone could release any piece of software into the public domain and even charge for it; should customer complaints create a PR scandal, the offending software is easily removed (and in keeping with the paranoic-inducing, FOMA-reïnforcing update-to-the-latest-version methodology so prevalent now). The opposite system was deployed by Sony for their Playstation third-party content; unless a developer had explicit permission (assistance) from Sony, no publishing was possible.

I don't believe it is difficult to identify that neither extreme is desirable; some compromise is necessary. To remove malefic software before it's a problem, for example, and to allow maximum exploitation of the creativity available from the public domain, some sort of gatekeeper is necessary. Software delivery is more a garden, if you like, while unfettered distribution is a jungle.

So, there should be some universal minimum standard for all software (games) to meet, without being too onerous to administer (the more checks, the costlier the system, therefore, the higher the barrier to content creators).

The key (legal) term used for any standard is "reasonable", e.g., a new app is not going to break some other software.

Edit:
Nota Mihi: typing in the dark is not conducive to hypertext markup keyboard-finger dynamics. :/

=
* MTV generation please substitute the George Lucas Star Wars IP for relevance, specifically his "Dark Side" versus "Light Side" Force delineation. (Millennials might need to substitute Disney for "George Lucas").

I haven't read the article. (From what I understand, it's naff)

Curation is just fine. It's the selection process I don't understand.

For example. I am glad that Space Empires IV is on GOG. However, I have no idea why it is here.

It's an obscure space 4X from a now dead company. There were better games of the type then, and more especially now.

And then there's games like Bubsy, Master of Orion 3, and Empire Earth 3.

What are those doing here? I get that they complete a series and aren't absolute trash, but even then...

Or why Grandpa's Boring Strategic Wargame Part V: The 1100s: Slogging though the Foothills is chosen over something like Axiom Verge.

I realize that yes, there probably is some Author Appeal in those decisions, GOG is a Polish company, after all. If they could secure the rights to Robbo, I'm sure they'd dang well sell it. Or Kao the Kangaroo.

While it certainly sucks to have the game you want rejected (I do feel that), I agree that curation on GOG is not something I'm going to complain about. The reason is, that the internet is still a free place where everyone can gully up their own website and start selling the games they made. It's not like, either you put your game on GOG or Steam, or you are banned from putting your games for sale anywhere on the internet. What people are really grumbling about, is the convenience angle. And for the developers, the ability to have everything hands-off and done for them.

Is there an alternate front end to itch.io? As I mentioned in another thread, one of the things I like about gog is that it's easy for me to navigate. I can not only find what I'm looking for, I can also browse through what's there fairly easily. This is not true of any other DRM-free site I've visited. In fact, the only site I ever rage-quit before I even finished looking was itch.io. Unless they improve their web site or I find out through a third party they're carrying some game I really want (e.g. Disgaea), I'm never going there again.

Curation is a good and helpful way for GOG to position themselves against Steam, even though many of us scratch our heads at GOG's decisions sometimes.