Chiming in to second that adding Pipe Dreams as a free bonus to either game would motivate me more to get the Simulacra 2 too.
I'm not saying I'll never buy S2, but it'll be a lot less likely.

Yeah me too. Since redeeming the free "Pipe Dreams" elsewhere (in this case Steam) does not require one to own or buy any other Simulacra game on Steam, I have no reason to even consider it as a deal breaker.

It is not the first time not all (earlier) parts of a GOG release have appeared on GOG. Off the top of my head, e.g. Star Ruler 2 seems to be such a case, where the first Star Ruler is available only on Steam. Or, I recall there were games where the first part of the game was playable only online on some web page (free, maybe it was a java or flash game), and the sequel appears as a separate game on GOG (and Steam).

While it would be nice to have the earlier games on GOG too for completion's sake, I hardly see it as a deal-breaker and feel the publisher is treating me badly, especially if it can be redeemed (or played) free elsewhere.

Having said that, naturally it would be nice if Star Ruler 1 and Simulacra: Pipe Dreams appeared on GOG. :)
EDIT: And Samorost 1! We definitely need Samorost 1 to GOG! There are far too few Flash games on GOG.

You might be referring to Samorost.

Possibly, i don't recall for sure. It is a similar case that you can't get the free earlier version from GOG, but have to obtain (or play) it elsewhere.

There people who simply don't use Steam at all for whatever reasons (like me), and won't start breaking with their principles for this game (hell I waited for Bioshock 2 and Inifinite, and DX:HR).

With games like Star Ruler 2 it's often the case that the sequel makes the earlier version obsolete - it's just the same bigger and better (I would wish Civ 1+2 came here though, for memories' sake).

But if I understood right, Pipe Dreams is actually an important part of the story, so the prospect of having to miss this, just because the only place available is a DRM'd service which I won't use, lessens my inclinations of following the franchise.

I mean, it doesn't have to be GOG - the devs could upload a DRM-free version of Pipe Dreams to their own site, or itch.io or Humble for all I care - as long as there is a legit way to get it DRM-free. I would probably even buy it if that was to only way to make it available.

Just to add my voice, for what little it may be worth, but I second the recommendation of uploading Pipe Dreams as a freebie that you're not going to provide support to, in whatever way you want among those suggested in post #13

You've got to understand that a large portion of peeps around these parts have an aversion to Steam. If they hadn't, they would probably be shopping games there since it is the store with the bigger catalogue. So if you say it's already available in another platform a fairly large portion of Gog's userbase won't be satisfied.

Also, people usually want all (or at least most of) their games in one place. For those of us who elected Gog as their store of choice it's somewhat annoying to be forced to install the steam client for your freebie.

Anyway, good luck for you. I hope sales go well.

BTW, did anyone see Chrissie's email in the screenshots and thought "Well that is definitely Fairfox"?

I do agree with you but no one takes any account of the resources needed to move software to another platform. These are companies paying peoples salaries and if you aren't getting any revenue from a piece of software then what incentive is there to move it to GOG? Withholding sales from this company seems counter productive to me, as you're denying resources to them making it less likely they can spare any for this. Principles cost money and cause wars. Only fight for the worthwhile ones. This really isn't one of them.

Hi everyone, thank you for posting some strong opinions and ideas here.

As a developer, we are passionate about making games but the passion is tempered by cost and budget. If we don't put that limit on our ideas, things just get blown out of proportion, and games don't get finished.

BUT, seeing that there is strong interest here we will try our best to bring Pipedreams to GOG in the near future. So no promises when we will get it done, we will discuss internally and figure out what timeline makes sense. Cheers!

Is it even available anywhere? It's playable for free on the Samorost website and from there you can download the files needed without much problems but afaik there's no digital installer version available anywhere. Please correct me if I am wrong.
Imo that is subjective. For me it is a fight worth fighting. I explicitely told the devs that they will make money the moment they decide to do just a little bit of additional work (really, we are talking about an hour max and this won't bring any business down) and upload the game for everybody (not just thhose that don't care about DRM) they would make money because then I will immediately buy S2 as well. Now I am refusing to buy so not bringing Pipe Dreams here effectively costs them money from missing sales. As it has been pointed out in this thread I am also not alone with this opinion. So it is up to them now.

Just read this after I posted my recent post . Thank you very much that you really listened to our feedback and finally reconsidered. This was all I needed to hear from you. I know that things on GOG often takes time and I also completely understand that you have to figure out the best way to do this so I completely understand that this might take some time. However your word is enogh fore me so I will keep my promise as well and buy S2 today. Thank you once again - it is really appreciated!

Thanks a lot - I do get that it means extra effort for you, and I do hope it'll pay off - I for one will probably get Simulacra 2 as soon as Pipe Dreams makes it here, to have the series complete. :-)

Well, that's where it is, so the argument is that you can't get free Samorost 1 from GOG (like you can for its sequels), but you have to go to get it from some other site, in this case the author's web site.

Wasn't that the crux of the problem with Simulacra, that you can't get Pipe Dreams (free) from GOG, but you have to go elsewhere to get it or play it, even though it doesn't cost any money there?

To me that is still like saying to the publishers of e.g. Star Ruler 2 or Samorost 2-3 that "sorry, since you don't release the whole series on GOG, I will not buy any of your games here.".

That is like communicating to potential new GOG publishers: "If you are not going to release also all your older games (in a series) on GOG, don't bother at all, we will boycott you.". At that point many of them will probably raise their hands and say "Ok, you know what, fuck this shit. Imma staya Steama."

A more sensible approach would be to be joyful of the release of Simulacra 1-2 on GOG, and on top of that communicate to the publisher: "You know what would be the icing on the cake? That you'd release also the freebie on GOG, even if one can redeem it also from elsewhere with no strings attached."

Note: this is a different discussion from those cases where a Steam version of some game gets e.g. some extra DLC (free or not) that will be missing from the GOG version. That is a different case because there the prerequisite for a GOG version owner is to buy the same game also on Steam, before they can get that extra content. In this case, there is no such requirement as "Pipe Dreams" is a standalone, free, game.

EDIT: Now I saw that the publisher is at least considering bringing Pipe Dreams to GOG, kudos to them for that.

Samorost you can simply play here (if you still have flashplayer): https://amanita-design.net/samorost-1/
Sadly there is no "local" version to download.

For Pipe Dreams one would have to make a Steam account and use the Steam client, which some of us simply don't want to do. That is the crux. As I wrote above, I wouldn't mind if they put up Pipe Dreams for download on their own website or itch.io - IMO it doesn't have to be GOG. A DRM-free installer or even Zip-File would be enough.