RWarehall: Pick one...which one might belong on GoG of these "borderline titles"
Again, please explain what the Steam stats have to do with GOG. Could just as easily reframe it this way: Game A in many ways resembles a mobile game (not talking bad about the game, just saying) and Game B resembles an old-school dungeon crawler. Which is a better fit for a dedicated part of GOG's audience? One could actually argue both belong under that criteria. However, imo one couldn't convincingly argue that the better fit is "the one resembling a mobile game, but not the old-school dungeon crawler".
babark: I didn't mean to claim you wanted it here for political reasons, I wasn't referring to you. You haven't really been "raising a ruckus" either, and you definitely aren't a troll (at least as far as I've noticed :D), which is why I was engaging with you.
Games don't have to rocket up in the sales charts, but they should make some amount of money to be worth it. And when the dev is known to be unpredictable and prone to problematic behaviour that could affect sales, you'd probably want an even bigger buffer just in case.
All good, I've enjoyed the exchange. I do think Grimoire would make money. The rebuttal is that Steam sales show it may not (not "that it won't"). I say it would likely make money at this point given the continued interest and demand here, particularly given there is a DRM-free version available elsewhere (along similar lines, consider that Bioshock 1 was available DRM-free on Humble Bundle prior to it coming here, yet people still wanted it here). A neutral observer could point out that neither of the positions can be proven.
babark: RWarehall gives a good reply to that. As sad as it may be for consumers, in this case, this is purely a numbers game.
I must have missed the good reply because all I've seen so far is a singleminded insistence that GOG users = Steam users. Anyway, even if GOG accepted Grimoire and only sold 2 copies, no business should be looking solely at numbers since there are other factors that determine customer satisfaction and trust. In other words, it is often a prudent business move to accept a short-term loss for a longer-term gain. I posted earlier about how it can be argued to accept Grimoire as a goodwill gesture to fans, even if it is not profitable in the short term. Look at this topic and many others, and you will find vast numbers of complaints about GOG's curation system.
Many, many, many of these complaints were spawned from the rejection of this particular game. Many, many, many others were spawned from the rejection of new Wizardry. GOG users, even some more casual ones, are baffled why GOG won't accept these blobber games. To accept them is to relieve a lot of anxiety and confusion over curation, which, incidentally, continues to be touted as an advantageous feature of this store. It makes sense to relieve customers' anxiety and confusion by not bizarrely rejecting games that are in line with customers' tastes and which pair nicely with existing old-school games already on the store (accepted pre-current curation).
Crosmando: It's interesting that many gamers profess to like "hard" games and cite Dark Souls as an example (even though DS actually isn't particularly challenging), but when you give them true cruelty in game design they spit the dummy, Age of Decadence got the same treatment too.
Well-put, and I've noticed this too (I loveeeee me some Age of Decadence, one of the best pure role-playing games I've ever experienced). I do think that the issue is mitigated a bit with the games designed for the old-school audience...like, we were used to difficult dungeon-crawlers, re-rolling characters, etc, so less likely to complain about that stuff in new releases.