Posted January 06, 2018
eiii
#%&@#%
Registered: Dec 2013
From San Marino
ElPrimordial
Ssssshhhhh
Registered: May 2012
From Other
Posted January 06, 2018
Wow! The whole thing looks like the tantrum of a spoiled brat: "I don't like your game so you can't sell it here!"
amok
FREEEEDOOOM!!!!
Registered: Sep 2008
From United Kingdom
JMich
A Horrible Human Person. If you need me, chat.
Registered: Apr 2011
From Greece
Posted January 06, 2018
Indeed. About 20 votes per day. Significant numbers indeed.
RWarehall: And throwing out misleading numbers trying to outright dismiss this thread while implying that forum users are just insignificant and should never be listened to constitutes cherry picking. True. I assumed there were 150 different people that posted in this thread and that 600 different people voted on the wishlist. True numbers are probably way lower than that, tell me if you'd like me to go for the lower number (which would be dismissing this thread).
And I never said that minorities should not be listened to.
By seeing how many people actually buy Zachtronics games? I don't have those numbers though, so I can only guess. If you do have the numbers for the silent majority, please, do post them.
If I see a group of 5 people saying "We are over 1000 people", I would question their numbers. Hopefully, they will be able to prove me wrong. I do enjoy being proven wrong.
Ah, true. Forgot to take that into account. Thank you for correcting me.
So, what would your estimate be for how many copies a Zachtronics game would sell on GOG?
And I never said that minorities should not be listened to.
By seeing how many people actually buy Zachtronics games? I don't have those numbers though, so I can only guess. If you do have the numbers for the silent majority, please, do post them.
If I see a group of 5 people saying "We are over 1000 people", I would question their numbers. Hopefully, they will be able to prove me wrong. I do enjoy being proven wrong.
Ah, true. Forgot to take that into account. Thank you for correcting me.
So, what would your estimate be for how many copies a Zachtronics game would sell on GOG?
Post edited January 06, 2018 by JMich
stevexm
New User
Registered: Sep 2011
From Austria
Posted January 07, 2018
Yes, that's a miss. I've been playing since day one and have more than a day of playtime.
I look forward to every new Zachtronics game and more exposure is a plus.
I look forward to every new Zachtronics game and more exposure is a plus.
RWarehall
Ja'loja!
Registered: Jan 2012
From United States
Posted January 07, 2018
And I never said that minorities should not be listened to.
So, what would your estimate be for how many copies a Zachtronics game would sell on GOG?
"talking about the forum users, we are not the user-base. We are a minority of the user base."
I guess "the great JMich" is just completely special and no one else can possibly disagree with anything he or GoG has to say.
I have, in fact gave estimates of this game on GoG, at 2800 copies in the first week if accepted at launch based on 10% of Steam sales.
Furthermore, you seem to be neglecting the first Tweet implying GoG rejected it because someone there thought it looked like a mobile game. But I guess you know better than Zachtronics in that GoG really meant that their other games didn't sell well enough.
I guess no amount of wishlist votes are good enough for you because the forum doesn't matter to GoG at all...
johnnygoging
I was told there would always be a bigger fish
Registered: Jun 2013
From Canada
Posted January 07, 2018
I don't remember now if it was the first time I heard about gog's curation-constrained indie program, or if it was the first time we had one of these things were a developer comes out that gog rejected them, but whichever case it was, at that time I thought gog'll have to be careful not to have this eventually turn on them.
sure enough, it's building. we see more of these all the time.
I haven't played magnum opus. I know it's done pretty well on steam. I'm glad it's another successful indie game. thing is though, gog isn't just approving based on whether or not a game is good. I think that's a touchy concept. they'd probably sell every game under the sun if they could manage that. I really think gog is very concerned with selling stuff they know they can sell. I think in their mind, it's worse if they don't sell a good game, as opposed to not selling a bad one. so I think they're talking as little chance as they can. and while I'm not weighing in on what the right thing is here, I just wanna say that that seems to me like gog is looking after whether it can sell your game or not. again, I don't know what the right thing to do is here, but I doubt it's because gog is being snobby.
sure enough, it's building. we see more of these all the time.
I haven't played magnum opus. I know it's done pretty well on steam. I'm glad it's another successful indie game. thing is though, gog isn't just approving based on whether or not a game is good. I think that's a touchy concept. they'd probably sell every game under the sun if they could manage that. I really think gog is very concerned with selling stuff they know they can sell. I think in their mind, it's worse if they don't sell a good game, as opposed to not selling a bad one. so I think they're talking as little chance as they can. and while I'm not weighing in on what the right thing is here, I just wanna say that that seems to me like gog is looking after whether it can sell your game or not. again, I don't know what the right thing to do is here, but I doubt it's because gog is being snobby.
Frozen
Snake Eater
Registered: Sep 2008
From Poland
RWarehall
Ja'loja!
Registered: Jan 2012
From United States
Posted January 07, 2018
Let's throw some more data out there:
Gog's Bestselling order (note: different from Popularity)
As has been discussed in the past, the consensus seemed to be that this is based on dollars spent and covers all sales from a specific point years ago. So should be a good measure of actual GoG profit from a particular game:
There are 2184 distinct titles for sale and I looked up where every Zachtronics game ranks:
SpaceChem = #393 (82nd percentile)
TIS-100 = #791 (63rd percentile)
Infinifactory = #1267 (41st percentile)
Ironclad Tactics = #1296 (40th percentile)
Shenzhen I/O = #1379 (36th percentile)
All the games within the top 2/3 of games sold and while Shenzhen I/O is "merely" in the 36th percentile, it has yet to even see a sale larger than 25% off and has only been on sale for the last 14 months. So it's clear from the "Bestselling" metric which is based strictly on GoG sales, that Zachtronics games are all doing rather well here. At the very least, none of them are complete stinkers.
Gog's Bestselling order (note: different from Popularity)
As has been discussed in the past, the consensus seemed to be that this is based on dollars spent and covers all sales from a specific point years ago. So should be a good measure of actual GoG profit from a particular game:
There are 2184 distinct titles for sale and I looked up where every Zachtronics game ranks:
SpaceChem = #393 (82nd percentile)
TIS-100 = #791 (63rd percentile)
Infinifactory = #1267 (41st percentile)
Ironclad Tactics = #1296 (40th percentile)
Shenzhen I/O = #1379 (36th percentile)
All the games within the top 2/3 of games sold and while Shenzhen I/O is "merely" in the 36th percentile, it has yet to even see a sale larger than 25% off and has only been on sale for the last 14 months. So it's clear from the "Bestselling" metric which is based strictly on GoG sales, that Zachtronics games are all doing rather well here. At the very least, none of them are complete stinkers.
Post edited January 07, 2018 by RWarehall
OdanUrr
Time Lord
Registered: Apr 2012
From Uruguay
Posted January 07, 2018
I'm not a fan of black box curation, but I'm even less of a fan of Steam's non-existent one. Hopefully, this incident will encourage GOG to be more transparent about their criteria.
HereForTheBeer
Positive Patty
Registered: Oct 2009
From United States
Posted January 07, 2018
As for the official statement - the only thing we would be ok with sharing, is that Opus Magnum did not pass our internal curation system - we rarely ever want to share any details on the actual system and how it looks like and what it means, because it's just too individual; we take into consideration many other factors than just the actual game itself - the reviews we provide for example do not review the game in general; so like an objective game review like on PC Gamer or what not - but we do it from the angle of our entire user-base.
"We do it from the angle of our entire user-base"?
WTF?!
XD
my name is catte
i touch your foods
Registered: Mar 2010
From United Kingdom
Posted January 07, 2018
There are 2184 distinct titles for sale and I looked up where every Zachtronics game ranks:
SpaceChem = #393 (82nd percentile)
TIS-100 = #791 (63rd percentile)
Infinifactory = #1267 (41st percentile)
Ironclad Tactics = #1296 (40th percentile)
Shenzhen I/O = #1379 (36th percentile)
I wonder whether they dislike the fact that it's been on early access on Steam? They might feel that Steam has gobbled up too many of the potential sales already for it to be worth their time. =/
fronzelneekburm
I'm back!
Registered: Apr 2012
From China, People's Republic of
Posted January 07, 2018
Quote fromhttps://www.polygon.com/2018/1/6/16858740/opus-magnum-gog-rejected: "curation means crap doesn’t get on the site"
Funny they should say that. Just this week I got a refund from gog for a game called Perception. I got said refund because this game passed "curation" despite being completely broken. But I guess the "curators" couldn't know that from looking at the screenshots. Same as they couldn't tell that Clustertruck is missing half its content by looking at the screenshots. I honestly believe this is the problem: They have one guy doing "curation", he's flooded with submissions, so he doesn't have time to check each game in great detail. So instead, he checks the screenshots. Looking good? Ok, let's check the youtube video they sent. Looking good? Ok, it's a pass!
Either hire more curators (ones without quotation marks around their job titles) or gog Greenlight now!
I'd still buy it. It's a good old game by now. Include Galaxy implementation and you got a reason to sell it right there. Previous DRM-free builds were lacking online features.
Funny they should say that. Just this week I got a refund from gog for a game called Perception. I got said refund because this game passed "curation" despite being completely broken. But I guess the "curators" couldn't know that from looking at the screenshots. Same as they couldn't tell that Clustertruck is missing half its content by looking at the screenshots. I honestly believe this is the problem: They have one guy doing "curation", he's flooded with submissions, so he doesn't have time to check each game in great detail. So instead, he checks the screenshots. Looking good? Ok, let's check the youtube video they sent. Looking good? Ok, it's a pass!
Either hire more curators (ones without quotation marks around their job titles) or gog Greenlight now!
I'd still buy it. It's a good old game by now. Include Galaxy implementation and you got a reason to sell it right there. Previous DRM-free builds were lacking online features.
RWarehall
Ja'loja!
Registered: Jan 2012
From United States
Posted January 07, 2018
That's possible. Maybe the whole EA thing throws off their metrics and they didn't expect more sales at release.
Fakum12
New User
Registered: Nov 2008
From Germany
Posted January 07, 2018
I would like to point out that GOG rejected another (really good) game: Unexplored
https://www.gog.com/forum/general/unexplored_a_realtime_roguelike
https://www.gog.com/forum/general/unexplored_a_realtime_roguelike