rjbuffchix: Prove that Scheme reviews and the Scheme audience is representative of GOG user feedback and GOG audience.
RWarehall: Prove it doesn't...I'm sick of you burden shifting fools...
The 1920s called, they want their gaslight back. You're the one making the claim that they ARE representative of GOG audience. Hence, the burden of proof on that is yours, not mine.
RWarehall: 5 games off the top of my head:
Witcher 3 - 4.9 stars 97% positive on Steam
Daikatana - 2.7 stars 64% positive
Vaporum - 4.3 stars 90% positive
Lords of the Fallen - 3.4 stars 61% positive
Hero-U: Rogue to Redemption - 4.5 stars 89% positive
First, thank you for actually posting what resembles a type of evidence for your claim.
From that sample, it looks like GOG users really like RPGs, particularly the ones with a lot of content and a first-person blobber style one like Vaporum. And the infamous game Daikatana (which imo is a flawed gem, showing that quality is not entirely objective) has a MUCH lower score than those games.
Recently, GOG has released numerous retro FPS games. One, Hedon, was relentlessly criticized by a user or two within its own release thread. Is that indicative of overall audience sentiment, no, but it goes to show your "Rotten Tomatoes" system is not necessarily the law of the land.
An audience, even a niche audience, is not a hive mind. There are subsets of GOG users including those of us who even bother to use the forums, versus the broader userbase. The fact that over 1,000 people sought out the wishlist and voted for a game surely indicates strong interest within that set of people.
It is GOG's job as a business to satisfy customers at large, including those specific customers. As I said elsewhere, the constant chatter around Grimoire made it reasonable to have the game alone as a gesture of goodwill even if not profitable. To say nothing of other games potentially as "loss leader," which is a valid business model.
RWarehall: How does one justify not taking an 81% middle of the pack game (over 15,000 on Steam right now) when you are taking a game that far below average.
Why when taking in a "few more" would you take in garbage that no one is buying and virtually no one is truly recommending? As I said, if even half the games won't go DRM-free, that still leaves over 10,000 that would with better user ratings.
"Even" half, as if that is a realistic extreme? Developers and publishers hate DRM-free and will NOT give anything close to half! Have you seen the "DRM-free games on Scheme" list? Since you like numbers, feel free to count the number of games on there. I don't think it is even 1,000, let alone a number like 10,000. And if you don't count games already here, it may well end up being closer to 100, at least for bigger, more content-filled releases. GOG has to choose from what it CAN get, and imo should consider the voice of their audience to a degree.
RWarehall: Rejecting the likes of Grimoire, Wizardry: Labyrinth of Lost Souls is far easier and more accurate and GoG knows better than to just listen to the same handful of GoG users who seem to think hundreds of games (or pretty much every game ever rejected by GoG) deserves to make the catalog. Polling the true "user base" is impossible. These same handful of people would just rile the same people up to vote for every game that would not sell stacking the poll and GoG knows that.
The river called, it wants its red herring back. Surely you don't believe the users who want Grimoire and Wizardry here are demanding GOG accept every game that was rejected. Rather, they are demanding that GOG accepts THESE particular games in question. Full stop. Why is that so controversial?
Here's another example: I posted (honestly) in the unpopular opinion thread that I thought curation is good, but Grimoire should have been accepted while Opus Magnum stayed rejected. I have also said how I don't want the floodgates to open and have this place look like itch where (for me) it is like looking for a needle in a haystack trying to find the type of gaming experiences I truly want.
Why is it SO difficult to understand that not everyone is part of the majority? Take the (very Rotten Tomatoes-esque) Scheme system of "thumbs up, thumbs down" when it comes to rating games. Surely, you must realize that the games you're calling objectively bad, somehow aren't at "0%" i.e. "all thumbs down."
Oh, and one more addition:
Not everyone bothers with reviews. I am a GOG user, have never reviewed or rated a game with the stars. Ever. For me, and not exclusively me, there are other factors as to why a certain game is interesting or not, regardless of the reviews.