So your argument is because I supposedly "started it" before the mod told everyone to stop, you are now entitled to keep attacking me until the end of days...

I don't have to say any more...the point speaks for itself...

Ok Op.....I might go play some Monkey Island myself for a bit(or another pirate themed game) soon, actually....talking about this game has put me in that sort of mood as of late. Y'argh?!?

It's pretty simple.
Right now GoG is struggling to make a profit.
Hence they are careful about the titles they bring to the store which is why they reject certain titles.

GoG has costs associated with their business model that other storefronts don't.
They test each individual title. They update wrappers to keep them compliant with modern OSs. They provide their own support to get games running, not just relying on the devs.

Thus, any title they bring to the storefront needs to overcome these costs to be profitable.

You are asking GoG to overturn their rejection. It is at least strongly implied that you think this title is good enough to belong here. And in all these threads, maybe not you personally, but all the same group that makes a new topic like this every time they find out about a rejection, a number of them try to argue that any copies sold are profit.

I'm pointing out that is clearly not true.
That is why it is very important they bring titles that sell enough to recoup their costs. And you know this, because I've explained it in detail in other threads you've taken part in.

So, do you really believe this title can make money or not? GoG is a business, not a charity...

It's normal that not everyone likes this game, so that's why I asked the topic visitors to vote for it only if they are interested.

This topic is definitely not about forcing someone to do something. I want to play fair.

And if one day someone from the GOG team appears here and says: "THIS GAME WILL NEVER BE HERE!!!", I will be completely okay with that. (:

***

However, I never said that this game will make lots of money for GOG. It's more like trying to make a dream come true, like many other community wishlist entries (Vendetta entry wasn't even made by me, btw). Barely possible, I know, but still worth a try. There is no need to take it to heart too much.

I'm glad you did. I found Two Worlds 1 and 2 to be very solid, though they were certainly no masterpieces. And there are not so many pirate games, so I'd like to have Vendetta without DRM. Although I have the Steam version, but it is always an emergency nail for me. The thing about the fake reviews was of course a big shit and I understand that many people are annoyed about it.

Yes, the promotional decisions for this game were very controversial. Starting with that story with fake reviews, ending with unboxing videos on unpopular YouTube channels:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5A0JbV88YHU

However, this "Treasure Chest" edition looks interesting. Unfortunately, it still costs too much, and I'm pretty sure that shipping to Russia will be even more expensive. :D

This is a good, well written, and well thought out post.....so I will reply in kind:

Good points, but then look at some of the newest releases: Pc Building Simulator, Cooking Simulator, and especially Molek Syntez....all very n*che markets yet gog accepted them anyways.....yet they reject an RPG type games which appeals to a wider market.

If gog was trying to be very selective as you say they'd likely be taking less such titles and more titles(even average ones) that appeal to a broader market.

Devs still do a fair share of the work, and the titles has been out for a bit so some of the testing has already been done(although if they cna make use of it legally is another matter).

See the first bit above again re: some of the recently added games.

Whether or not WE think it is or isn't should be irrelevant, or at least not AS relevant as how many copies gog could/would sell and how much money they'd make as a result.

They are after a certain point.

Yet, as said above, they took in some titles that obviously won't sell a ton of units and appeal to a narrow user base.

I myself think that IF they fixed any remaining bugs before gog sold it(or enough to where not many noticed or experienced them to where thy wanted a refund or couldn't play the game), and if they sold it for a fair price here(and perhaps offered it in sales here as well) then yes it;d work just fine here and make gog some money.

If they did pre-order style orders for it to gauge interest first they'd know if they should bring it here or not to a much more certain degree(perhaps make the page say clearly that money would be refunded if enough interest wasn't generated and the game was rejected anyways), at any rate, and could then decide the best course to take based on potential profit rather than personal preference of the team in charge of such currently.
-----------------------------------------------------------
So does any of this sound good to you?

PC Building Simulator - 91% positive from 11,318 reviews since Jan 2019
Cooking Simulator - 81% positive from 3,528 reviews since Jun 2019
MOLEK-SYNTEZ - 96% positive from 177 reviews since Nov 19, 2019 (9 days)
vs
Vendetta - Curse of Raven's Cry - 45% positive from 163 reviews since Nov 2015

In 9 days, this "niche" game has double the number of positive reviews. I'd say GoG knows far more about which markets are broader than you. But frankly, there is far more than the type of game. There is the quality and the promotion of it.

As to the rest, this game is almost 5 years ago now. They did a very cursory patch 4 years ago when they renamed the game that left did very little beyond addressing a few quest bugs and fill in missing voiceovers. They failed to address mobs getting stuck behind terrain, the bad plot and weird dialog. The developers have had 4 years to fix the game if they wanted but chose not to. Likely because it would cost far more to fix than they could possibly get back in sales since the whole game as serious issues.

And as we've talked about before, your Pre-order idea is unworkable. GoG isn't going to conditionally take money from people until it reaches some critical mass and I think you are severely overestimating the number of people here who would be willing to throw $29.99 at the game. And if it never reaches that critical mass, what does GoG do, refund it at their own transaction expense? If they don't collect any money in advance, what stops the usual people from signing up for such a preorder and pulling out right before they would get charged? As it is in the current preorder system, I believe one can cancel their preorder up until its release.

What are the total sales, though(units sold for each and not refunded)? Because that's what gog counts or should count....i.e. total sales and dollars/euro in it's pocket.

(Even if a game is well liked in it's n*che if the n*che is very small a less well received game in a bigger n*che could likely overwhelm it in total sales)

Unless they have degrees in marketing or related fields I don't think they are much less or more prone to error than any one of us(give or take a small margin of difference).

And none of that matters if it sells well enough for that to not matter/matter so much.

Bad plot and weird dialog don't stop someone from finishing the game, correct? Also do those mobs getting stuck happen all times and to all who play it(or most times to most), and does it prevent the game from being played or finished? If not then it's not that big a deal overall.

Those issues you listed don't sound game breaking though, and the rest could likely be fixed with a bit of work(don't quote me on that of course).

They do pre orders(though not conditional ones) with other games, and kickstarter shows their model can work, so gog could employ it as well.

Also who said I think they should sell it at 29.99?

They don't charge unless a certain threshold is met, and the game is certain to come here, and if not they charge no one and cancel all pre orders.

You'd need to give CC or debit/etc details and I doubt a bunch of people are going to pull out and risk getting tagged if they abuse that system by gog/etc.

Yes but how many do that for most games? It is still a better system than what we have and would likely allow gog to gauge interest better than picking based on personal whims and whatever other metric they currently employ.

========================

Thank you....I am tired now but I will look through all those later.

Compare those numbers. You don't need exact sales figures to see those games are FAR more successful than this title in far less time and you just called them niche? GoG also has access to their own sales numbers. They have contacts with the developers and have been doing this for their business full-time. I'm certainly not going to compare my own cursory investigation to the knowledge they have direct access to...

The game crashes every 5 minutes for some people. Pretty much every mob can be made to get snagged on terrain if you want it to be. They seem to have no AI logic implemented to avoid that. They didn't even try.

And with GDPR, no way GoG is going to keep your credit card information like that waiting to see if a preorder quota has been met. But the biggest probably with your system is you want them to do this every single time, for every single game that anyone WANTS here. 1000s of games on conditional preorder would be likely and unmanageable...

I call them n*che because they are compared to the total player base for all games worldwide....and those ratings mean little if the n*che is too small.....take the following example: Which is larger? 90% of 100 people or 50% of 10000 people?

And you are assuming they are much smarter than everyone else based on what exactly? Them working for gog? Or what then?

So then they fix it and they bring it here then(or they don't and they don't bring it here)....sounds like it'd work, if there are no other game breaking problems.

They don't keep your info anyways here...they use a token stored on one's system, iirc.

I meant the hard to gauge cases only, obviously, so magnitudes less need to use such a system.

There is one important point in your comparisons that you always miss: GOG and Steam users are not exactly the same audience.

I mean, if the game has a lot of sales and reviews on Steam, it doesn't mean that it will have the same results on GOG. Another store, another audience with another tastes, and so on. Don't you remember that Windward case, for example?

So the amount of reviews on Steam is not the ultimate truth. Some "abstract" game may have thousands and thousands of positive reviews on Steam, but how can it help if GOG customers don't want to buy this "abstract" game?

There has been quite a few data points where publishers on both platforms have released sales comparisons. GoG sales for those individual games have run from 5% to 20% of Steam sales. Steam sales are a strong predictor of GoG sales. Certainly there may be certain genres which do somewhat better or worse on GoG, but that isn't going to make a game that absolutely no one cares about or is not buying on Steam a smash success here.

So no, I'm not missing that. Your claims just aren't as true as you think they are.

And Windward, I explained fully. From the day that developer bundled their game in 2017, the sales here completely dried up. That's it. That was that story. Game went into bundles as low as multiple games for $1. Same game doesn't go on sale for less than $4.49 = recipe for no sales. And that's a perfect example why a game that has had 100,000s of copies given away and has Steam keys available on 3rd party sites for under a dollar and as low as $0.16 at times will not have good sales here.

Meanwhile, we reached 60 votes!

https://www.gog.com/wishlist/games/vendetta_curse_of_ravens_cry