The precious edition is the same game but has some extra stuff. If I DIDN'T buy the game and still wanted to rate it, it would be for the standard edition, because the extra stuff in the precious edition I could only rate if I actually bought it.

I always filter out ratings that are not from confirmed owners btw. From owners Gollum still gets a 3.1 rating, which really isn't good, but it's not as bad as the ratings from those who just repeat what they heared on the internet without actually having played the game.

Yeah I wish those publishers would let GOG release those games. We do have Silent Hill 4 :) Maybe Bethesda will let GOG release Doom 2016 and maybe Eternal within the next few years.

Because that's all it is. The game itself is fine, the main issue is that it runs like crap. Maybe selling an in-game codex as a DLC is a bit predatory, but that's about it.

As if these titles are somehow related or mutually exclusive. Both Daedalic and Nacon publish to GOG. This has nothing to do with Bethesda or Konami's unwillingness to publish their titles here.
It is a DRM-Free game on a DRM-Free store. That's all you need to know. Everything else is irrelevant.

Not saying they're related, the point is that out of all the games GOG could have released on their platform, they chose Gollum.

It's the other way around. Publishers offer their games up, and GOG can take Hobson's choice.

I believe recently a GOG staff member wrote that publishers rarely approach GOG regarding their games, it's usually GOG that has to come to them. So either they aren't interested in having games like Resident Evil and whatnot for sale, or they asked and were declined. I just wish we could get an answer.

Hope Daedalic makes it out of this debacle.

They have some wargames -- Destroyer: The U-Boat Hunter and Sherman Commander -- that I hope will make it to GOG.

Come to mention it, there was an article published here during one of the previous sales about how they employ a team of about six people who liaise with publishers to try to get stuff released here.

Don't get me wrong, some DRM-free Resident Evil would be fantastic, but in the near-term, it seems more likely we'll be seeing more releases from Squenix, Bethsoft, Sega...

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.

It's not GOG that chose to release Gollum here instead of Doom 2016 or whatever. Daedalic and Nacon chose to release it here, while Bethesda chose NOT to release Doom 2016 here. These are modern games, not some ancient DOS game that GOG modded, packaged and released themselves.

If game releases were entirely up to GOG, we'd have Elden Ring, GTA 5 and Halo MCC here lol. GOG can try to convince some unwilling publishers to come here, but that's about it. Daedalic and Nacon do not need convincing, they already publish pretty much everything here.

That's almost true. GOG can reject games.
You are right, GOG never had the choice to get Doom2016 and I am quite sure that they would release it if they got it. But they do have a saying in what gets released here.

It's a bit of both. There is that one shooter where the devs apparently applied on GOG and got rejected and quite some people are quite pissed about that.

Also other games got rejected. In some cases I can see why and in other cases I don't understand it at all.

And then there is Whale Rock games, that is allowed to release one junk title after the other, we have plenty of Kagura games (no, I am not complaining about adult games), where I tried one for the sake of it but would reject them altogether. They are mediocre at best.

On the other side I talked to kickstarter devs with great point & click adventures and they said that they applies on GOG but never got an answer.

So the question is how this curation of GOG actually works.

The position's vacant - GOG is trying to hire a new director for the Product Ownership team (which I'm guessing is the curation team), with the job description saying that director will then be expected to hire underlings. https://www.gog.com/de/work/product-ownership-product-director

The reason I was looking at the job listings was to see whether English or Polish would be a requirement. Looking at the games that have appeared recently, there seems to be a pattern of favoring developers either from Poland, or who might have evacuated to Poland. So my guess is that curation is either favoring applications written in Polish, or applicants who go to the gamedev meetups in Warsaw.

Does that apply to the Gollum release as well? The developers are from Poland, or have evacuated to Poland?

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'.

I agree. They seem like a good developer and I have enjoyed several of their point-and-click games. Unfortunately, this one seems to have been really badly managed. :-(