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The Lord of the Rings: Gollum™ – story rich, adventure fantasy title and an official adaptation based on the literary works of J.R.R. Tolkien is now available on GOG!

It’s time for you to play as Gollum on his quest to retrieve his Precious. You will need to climb the mountains of Mordor, sneak around Mirkwood and make difficult choices. Who will gain the upper hand: the cunning Gollum or the innocent Smeagol?

After being corrupted by the Ring over hundreds of years, Gollum has developed exceptional agility and sharp wits. Use his unique skills to explore and infiltrate legendary locations and dizzying heights. Find your way past the Orcs as you climb the Dark Tower of Barad-dûr and give the Elves the slip in the mysterious Mirkwood.

While Gollum is no fighter, he is more than capable of strangling a careless enemy when the opportunity presents itself… or of finding a more creative and less risky way of getting out of trouble.

Additionally, alongside The Lord of the Rings: Gollum™, you grab its DLCs: Original Soundtrack, Emotes Pack, Sindarin VO, Lore Compendium, Art Exhibition, or pick the Precious Edition which contains all of the above besides the Emote Pack.

Grab The Lord of the Rings: Gollum™ now!
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timppu: Does that apply to the Gollum release as well? The developers are from Poland, or have evacuated to Poland?
Well no, but the thread's wandering off into general discussion of curation.
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timppu: Does that apply to the Gollum release as well? The developers are from Poland, or have evacuated to Poland?
Daedalic has been a long time partner for GOG, and usually their games are good. I just did a quick search and was surprised how many of their games I own. That gives them some plus points I guess and rightfully so. I guess GOG will take about everything they offer and that would be a wise decision, despite a failure like Gollum being in their repertoire.
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amok: gOg has a curation system, it has always had one. one of the key things about curation is that it is, and always will be, subjective.
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Time4Tea: I don't agree. I think it is very possible to implement a curation system for quality that is based on objective criteria, if the focus is on functionality, rather than artistic content. For example, things like:

- does the game work? Is it playable?
- is the game complete? Can it be played from start to finish?
- is the performance reasonably well-optimized?
- are there a large number of noticeable bugs? Are any of them game-breaking?

These are basic functional criteria that any game developer should be testing for prior to release. Frankly, if GOG aren't considering basic factors like this, then they shouldn't even be putting up the pretense of being a 'curated store of good games'.
which off course opens up the floodgates to every asset flip and showleware games ever made, if the only criteria is if the game works, it is complete and it is bug free. however, for example most Bethesda games could not be sold here, nor any other AAA games which have some bug or whatnot.

edit - heck, gOg could not even sell the Witcher games or Cyberpunk 2077 with those criteria
Post edited June 04, 2023 by amok
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amok: which off course opens up the floodgates to every asset flip and showleware games ever made, if the only criteria is if the game works, it is complete and it is bug free. however, for example most Bethesda games could not be sold here, nor any other AAA games which have some bug or whatnot.

edit - heck, gOg could not even sell the Witcher games or Cyberpunk 2077 with those criteria
I would not say 'most' Bethesda games, after all we got most of the big names, including the greatest part of the Wolfenstein catalog, The Elder Scorlls series, Quake and Fallout.

Doom 2016 was not even in Bethesda's own shop, only on Steam. I guess it has something to do with the network/DLC technology. I would rather expect Doom Eternal here than Doom 2016.

Death Loop would be nice, but that one is heavily based on multiple player experience, so I don't really get my hopes up. At least I was able to get it on Epic and don't have to play it on Steam.
Post edited June 04, 2023 by neumi5694
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Time4Tea: I don't agree. I think it is very possible to implement a curation system for quality that is based on objective criteria, if the focus is on functionality, rather than artistic content. For example, things like:

- does the game work? Is it playable?
- is the game complete? Can it be played from start to finish?
- is the performance reasonably well-optimized?
- are there a large number of noticeable bugs? Are any of them game-breaking?

These are basic functional criteria that any game developer should be testing for prior to release. Frankly, if GOG aren't considering basic factors like this, then they shouldn't even be putting up the pretense of being a 'curated store of good games'.
So does that mean GOG shouldn't offer e.g. in-dev games, as they certainly have bugs and shit?
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amok: which off course opens up the floodgates to every asset flip and showleware games ever made, if the only criteria is if the game works, it is complete and it is bug free. however, for example most Bethesda games could not be sold here, nor any other AAA games which have some bug or whatnot.

edit - heck, gOg could not even sell the Witcher games or Cyberpunk 2077 with those criteria
Please read what I said and don't project onto me. I listed those criteria as examples of curation criteria that would be objective (which they are). I didn't claim they are a complete/optimal set or suggest they should be the only ones. I also did not suggest that all games should be bug-free - I said "a large number of noticeable bugs", i.e. to a level that would impede enjoyment of the game.

Although, in my opinion, most modern AAA games (including Bethesda games and Cyberpunk) are so sloppy and bug-ridden that they probably shouldn't be released on a curated store like this until they have had several years of patches and community fixes.

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timppu: So does that mean GOG shouldn't offer e.g. in-dev games, as they certainly have bugs and shit?
No. Because they are flagged as 'in development' games, so the expectations and rules surrounding them can be different. There is an expectation there that an ID game may be unpolished and incomplete. I'm talking about criteria for full-release games.

Imo though, there should be some quality criteria being applied to in-dev games on a curated store. There should be some evidence that the game is being worked on and progressing, and ID games that are found to be stagnating for a long period of time should be booted (i.e. if they have effectively been abandoned).
Post edited June 04, 2023 by Time4Tea
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amok: which off course opens up the floodgates to every asset flip and showleware games ever made, if the only criteria is if the game works, it is complete and it is bug free. however, for example most Bethesda games could not be sold here, nor any other AAA games which have some bug or whatnot.

edit - heck, gOg could not even sell the Witcher games or Cyberpunk 2077 with those criteria
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Time4Tea: Please read what I said and don't project onto me. I listed those criteria as examples of curation criteria that would be objective (which they are). I didn't claim they are a complete/optimal set or suggest they should be the only ones. I also did not suggest that all games should be bug-free - I said "a large number of noticeable bugs", i.e. to a level that would impede enjoyment of the game.

Although, in my opinion, most modern AAA games (including Bethesda games and Cyberpunk) are so sloppy and bug-ridden that they probably shouldn't be released on a curated store like this until they have had several years of patches and community fixes.
i read what you wrote, and i replied to what the problems with your criterais are. as they are completely tehcnical, then there is no room for quality. which means that if we follow a set of objective criteria, we will have no curation on quality, only on thecnical aspects. that is the problem with curation on purely objective metrics. i should say - "please read what I wrote and don't project on me". (and if you think I said anything, you need to have your ears checked :))
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amok: i read what you wrote, and i replied to what the problems with your criterais are. as they are completely tehcnical, then there is no room for quality. which means that if we follow a set of objective criteria, we will have no curation on quality, only on thecnical aspects. that is the problem with curation on purely objective metrics. i should say - "please read what I wrote and don't project on me". (and if you think I said anything, you need to have your ears checked :))
If you think purely technical/functional issues like bugs, performance, stability don't have an impact on a game's quality, then you are working to a very different definition of the word 'quality' than I am.
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amok: i read what you wrote, and i replied to what the problems with your criterais are. as they are completely tehcnical, then there is no room for quality. which means that if we follow a set of objective criteria, we will have no curation on quality, only on thecnical aspects. that is the problem with curation on purely objective metrics. i should say - "please read what I wrote and don't project on me". (and if you think I said anything, you need to have your ears checked :))
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Time4Tea: If you think purely technical/functional issues like bugs, performance, stability don't have an impact on a game's quality, then you are working to a very different definition of the word 'quality' than I am.
I likw how you completely ignore my main point. but then, I should perhaps not expect anything else. enjoy your diluge of crap showelware games, but at least - they do not have bugs! QUALITY, AHOY!
Post edited June 04, 2023 by amok
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amok: I likw how you completely ignore my main point. but then, I should perhaps not expect anything else. enjoy your diluge of crap showelware games, but at least - they do not have bugs! QUALITY, AHOY!
You haven't presented any point worth addressing. I can only assume you are trolling, as usual.
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SargonAelther: Once again, it is not GOG that releases games. Each individual publisher decides what to release on what platform. GOG does not get to dictate to publishers what to release where.
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neumi5694: That's almost true. GOG can reject games.
Well obviously GOG can reject games, hence their inconsistent and undefined "Curation".

My point was that GOG did not release Gollum instead of Doom 2016. Daedalic/Nacon released Gollum on GOG. Period. Id/Bethesda did not release Doom 2016 on GOG. Period. These two facts are completely unrelated and it's not like GOG was sitting there, trying to choose one over the other. If Bethesda was willing, GOG would not have blocked either game. The Publisher still has to be willing though. GOG may ask, but it is for the publisher to say yes in the end.

So while GOG may have the final say when it comes to denials (to release here), publishers have the final say when it comes to willingness (to release here). Nacon and especially Daedalic are already willing, they probably don't even need to be asked. Bethesda is very selective on the other hand.
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SargonAelther: My point was that GOG did not release Gollum instead of Doom 2016. Daedalic/Nacon released Gollum on GOG. Period. Id/Bethesda did not release Doom 2016 on GOG. Period. These two facts are completely unrelated and it's not like GOG was sitting there, trying to choose one over the other.
Of course not, but they did act as sales platform for Gollum.
Did someone seriously claim that they had to chose between the two games and chose Gollum? Maybe I missed that.
Post edited June 05, 2023 by neumi5694
Releasing a game on an online store requires the mutual agreement of both the publisher and the store. If one of those two says no, then it doesn't happen. GOG markets itself as a store that is 'hand-picking the best in gaming' and 'a curated selection of games'. To me that implies that GOG has some control over choosing what games are released and therefore should bear some portion of responsibility for bad games that end up here.
Post edited June 05, 2023 by Time4Tea
It is interesting to read what people associated with a different store think what GOG should do or not. It becomes hilarious when you realize what the other store is selling. Maximal trash like The Fortress of Dr. Radiaki or Postal 3.

GOG can do whatever they want here. If they haven't accepted Gollum then people would complain about it. GOG should have given the game a chance. Now they have accepted Gollum and people are complaining about it.

Whatever GOG is doing here, GOG is wrong.
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foad01: It is interesting to read what people associated with a different store think what GOG should do or not. It becomes hilarious when you realize what the other store is selling. Maximal trash like The Fortress of Dr. Radiaki or Postal 3.
No-one's talking about any other store here - you're trying to do that.

I assume your sudden appearance will act as the usual pretext for locking the thread (since it has become 'inconvenient')?