Wait.....you're serious(on the bolded part)? It is very relevant when gauging user interest or using such data to prove a point. If they aren't reliable then how can they be used to show how/prove how good/bad a game is?

I wasn't talking about the number of reviews being a lie or not...I was talking about those review's being reliable or not. There could be 80 or 800 reviews and they are only as reliable as one can verify the opinions posted by said reviewers...through playing the game one's self, etc.

As I said i'm done with this for the most part.....I see I cannot change anyone's mind and the only other person replying here to me as much doesn't want to even consider my side so why continue?

Because it is such a small number of reviews, that it shows it isn't popular, and didn't sell well. The content of those reviews is irrelevant. I am very confused as to why this is so hard for you to understand.
Lets take a couple of scenarios involving a game with only 80 reviews over a period of 5 years:
1) All the reviews are negative, and they're all true- The game only got 80 reviews over a period of 5 years, so it is not popular, and didn't sell well
2) All the reviews are negative, and they're all false- The game only got 80 reviews over a period of 5 years, so it is not popular, and didn't sell well
3) All the reviews are positive, and they're all true- The game only got 80 reviews over a period of 5 years, so it is not popular, and didn't sell well
4) All the reviews are positive, and they're all false- The game only got 80 reviews over a period of 5 years, so it is not popular, and didn't sell well

I was talking about the number of reviews. Whether they are 80 or 800 makes a very big difference. I'm not taking the reliability of the reviews as a data point. You can't really measure reliability. You can measure the number, though. If there are only 80 reviews over a period of 5 years, whether those reviews are reliable or not is irrelevant, because either way, it leads to the same conclusion: The game was not popular, and likely didn't sell well.

It's less that I don't understand imo and more that we don't see 100% eye to eye on this.

Also number of reviews doesn't mean a game is bad or good....if it is average and people don't feel like reviewing as much it might still be decent but not good enough(or bad enough) to encourage more people to take the time to review.


Again, maybe it wasn't good or bad enough for most to bother reviewing? Also steam sales numbers don't always mean the same numbers(sales/etc) will happen if such games came to gog. Some might only want to buy such here for some reason, etc.

That conclusion is based on your own interpretations of the data and a bit of bias, though.

Number of reviews doesn't always=how good/bad a game is....there are exceptions to the rule.

But who said anything about it being bad or good? I didn't. I said it wasn't popular and didn't sell well. That's way more important to a storefront like gog than whether a game is bad or good.

I provided a game that scored 50%. By your logic, it should have zero or minimal reviews, yet it had over 3000. I also provided a game that scored 28%. By your logic, it should have many more (negative) reviews, but it only had 32. These were all over the same time period. Your hypothesis does not bear out. If you have an example of a wildly popular game that has very few reviews (whether positive or negative or middling), please share.

That the game did not sell well was not an interpretation of the data, it WAS the data. Again, I made no mention of how good or bad a game was, only that it had poor sales. If you have counter examples, please provide them.

If it's so popular, then answer me this: Why does gog accept niche titles that not many will play like simulators and other such games? If gog accepts those games then they obviously don't always take that into account when curating.

Some of that is eye opening but it also goes to show that basing one's opinion solely on number of reviews and their scores is not always the best option.

I'm tire and it had been a long day, so I won't keep you much longer.....thanks for sticking with this and debating me/replying to me as you have been....it is welcome very much so.
=======================================
(Also omg.....gog, fix the rep system and check into the repping in this thread.....if anything is being manipulated it's the score of the posts in here)

Niche titles that not many will play?
I typed "Simulator" into the gog search bar, and got:
Plane Mechanic Simulator, with 660 reviews on steam since Feb of this year
PC Building Simulator, with 9,600 reviews on steam since January of this year
Ultimate Fishing Simulator, with 1660 reviews on steam since August of last year
Cooking Simulator, with 3000 reviews on steam since June of this year

While I agree that an abundance of reviews is more easily manipulatable than a lack of reviews, assuming no foul play without any reason to suspect any, all of this suggests that these games are popular and would sell well. Which niche titles that not many will play are you referring to?

Does it? To me it goes to show that if a game doesn't have a lot of reviews over a long period of time, it was not popular, and will not sell well. So far, none of the data I have found contradicts this, and you have not provided any counter examples, despite engaging me many times since I brought it up (and more recently saying you were leaving this thread, or are tired). Please go to sleep now. I look forward to seeing counter examples from you tomorrow.

Those ones....that sort of game is very niche and those numbers are very slim...even if we assume that 3 times that number for each bought the game.

Also what about windward? Supposedly the site here ws selling a handful of copies each quarter, and it stuck around for a good long while.

I am tired but my OCD keeps me going...it's a bloody curse sometimes.

Also all this aside, I just want people to be able to buy more games DRM free....that is the core of what I want, and one thing I can think most here can agree on.

I'm not sure we share the meaning of niche. Is a game that only got 80 reviews over a period of 5 years niche? Or a game that got almost 10,000 in less than a year niche? Which do you think is more popular and sold more copies?

I'm not sure I see your point. What about windward? What are you providing it as an example of? The devs left here of their own accord. Gog is not in a habit of dropping games they already agreed to sell simply because they don't move enough copies.

Sure, and devs have many avenues to do so without having to rely on gog.

This is putting me on the spot, so I cannot tell you for certain...I supposed it would depend on store size/other factors, but perhaps any game that gets many times below the middle of the road average(the game that sold the middle amount of copies ever on the site).

It proves that gog will allow games to come here which don't sell well and let them stay despite selling poorly, for starters.

What about those that won't buy anywhere else for whatever reason?

Then perhaps they made mistakes on other rejected games as well & should hire people who can do the job better?

Also it likely shows more that the curators have preferences(some "retro" style new games, VNs, sims, etc)

C'mon man, that's just cold. :\
(True, but cold)

"Poor selling" since
Release date: 12-May-2015
Released on GoG: 30-June-2015

Windward
Steam Purchasers
2,171 reviews
80% positive

All Reviewers
2,898 reviews
79% positive

SteamSpy data
Owners: 200,000 .. 500,000

A good example why I talk about bundling...
Windward started to get bundled in 2017 and has been bundled 4 times...curious how sales of the game on GoG seemed to have died the last year or so...correlation?

$1 tier of Humble Indie Bundle 18 - 1 of 3 titles until 30-May-2017
$4.99 tier of Fanatical Nemesis Bundle 8 - 3 titles in $1 tier and 1 of 8 in $4.99 tier until 3-Aug-2018
$3.99 in Fanatical Lore Bundle - 5 titles until 29-Mar-2019
$4.99 tier of Fanatical Indie Legends Bundle 9 - 4 titles in $1 tier and 1 of 6 in $4.99 tier until 5-Sep-2019

Yet the lowest it was offered on GoG was $4.49...

Here is a better solution to this all, Everybody who is against GOG curation policy stop buying here and just buy from steam and let the delusional stay here and act like they get the better games while GOG library is very limited to indie garbage anyways and they barely making any profit on a yearly basis so they'll go bankrupt eventually with their single-minded releases.

Just show what you want with your wallet and switch to a storefront that gives you the option and just abandon GOG since they themselves care little about their fanbase.

I buy some games on steam due to lower prices(especially if they have no drm like some older games) already mainly due to being poor as hell, but I(as you say) vote for my wallet and try encouraging Gog with sales every so often. I also like the forums/some users and want the site to stay open as long as possible for those reasons and more.

Tbh if they care or not it doesn't matter in general as most stores/businesses get more "out of touch" with their customer base as they get past a certain size....that's sadly just how it is.

All the rejections while we get games that seem(to me) less like classics speaks to me that the team is possibly biased towards certain genres/game types.....and while they are sometimes games I like, that usually isn't the case for a good number of them.....imo Gog should set a code that team has to follow(if they don't do so already) and make the team follow ot when picking games instead of possibly picking more games based on their own tastes.

For me everything is about choice and seeing GOG gives you barely any choice but a Communistic style selection Where a few nobodies behind the scenes select the games you are limited too mostly copy-paste indie games that been done a hundred times. This storefront falls more under the commiefornia style running where Curation is just another word for political correct games library. Seeing their releases I'm almost certain Cleve Blakemore just told the truth on what is going on at GOG right now cause they sure been shown to abandon what they stood for.


Most stores are for-profit but there is a difference between those for instance steam allows everything and you get to chose what you wanna buy you're not limited as with GOG with some indie hipster garbage games. DRM is nice but what's the point when it's the same generic game over and over again at least with STEAM I can stand for a product that tries to be different or politically incorrect. The forum is mostly full of people with childlike behavior you can just tell with all the downvotes on people that just want a game released. not to mention the corporate shills here that need to make excuses for a company that won't explain itself or put clear guidelines for publishers.

The most retarded comments i read here is the fact that they can't do research on what games they buy like some braindead zombies so they need staff to cherry-pick games for them. even when you mention if games are so low scored GOG could remove them they shut up cause then you make a valid point in making a good curation system.