I find it very hard to believe that GOG reacted simply on "community whining". Companies go where the money is - GOG being no exception - and I suspect the sales figures told the ex-bundle story well enough. Most of the ex-bundle games have been in heavy discounts or special charity offers fairly quickly after release on here, and as noted, GOG has suddenly drastically cut back on releasing the number of older indie games.

Personally I don't really have a problem with them releasing ex-bundle games, especially as many of them hadn't been released DRM-free again outside of the bundle, but the whole thing never really made much business sense in my eyes. I suspect it all took a turning point with the Botanicula affair.

Or they were merely providing GOG with valuable feedback, by telling them why they personally would not be buying this release, just as they didn't buy the previous 5 releases which they had also already gotten from a previous indie bundle.

When a release thread contains posts from 4 people saying "great release" and 38 posts from people saying "I already got this in Indie Bundle X", GOG has an explanation for why said game doesn't sell as well as they thought it would. When this happens for the 10th time, it's maybe not so far-fetched to believe that GOG might consider adjusting their release strategy slightly.
Humble Bundle. It was a nasty business. Amanita Design (makers of Botanicula) did not look like nice guys afterwards.

The shitstorm here was rather amusing, though.

You are right---this Botanicula affair was very hard.
For everybody who doesn´t know what jamyskis is speaking about:
http://www.gog.com/forum/general/humble_botanicula_debut/page1
http://www.gog.com/forum/general/remove_botanicula_from_the_gog_frontpage/?search=botanicula

http://www.gog.com/forum/general/gogcom_gift_to_botanicula_owners/page1

GOG reacted quite superb at that point, so I´ve never thought that this one could negativly influence their policies...
So, in general, it would be VERY nice if some offical guy could comment on the status:

Do we have to worry about GOG-teams opinion on what defines a good game?
Or are we supposed to look more critical at todays indie-devs behaviour? That GOG gots problems not to be "betrayed" by indie-devs?
Or was it just something about misunderstanding between different parties?


And one big question: How could selling a game at, maybe 9.99$ standard pricing, actually hurt you?
Even if you´d only sell round 1000 copies (that would be maximum credible accident) at all, you wouldn´t loose money!

I was being a little sarcastic (just to express how much I despise all the whining) but who knows. As you say, companies go where the money is and as far as I can tell GOG seriously takes community feedback into account to determine where the money is, certainly compared to the competition. I can actually imagine that the regular "already have this from bundle xxx" posts have got the GOG staff thinking or at least influenced their decision to keep "old" indie games out (if such a decision has indeed been made).

I feel the same way, especially since I don't really follow all those bundles (I've even missed a few HBs "by accident", plus I prefer to have all my games on GOG) so I've missed quite a few of those deals and it's good to know that I can always get those games from GOG if I missed my chance to get them dirt cheap from a bundle.

Of course I understand that GOG prefers indie releases that have not been bundled yet, it just makes sense that they prefer to release games that appear more promising fiscally. However, I have a few worries:
For one: these games eventually become old, eventually the bundle rage for an individual game ends, then what? Two or three years later the games may only be available on Steam or maybe not even there as not all bundled games necessarily get green-lit on Steam. I think that in the long run skipping games because they aren't worth much at the present may be a huge missed opportunity. Of course GOG might try to add those games later on when they kinda become a rarity *but* will developers whose games have been turned down before agree to GOG's offer then? And generally, if the information spreads GOG may end up with the reputation of being "that distributor that doesn't want me to release my game in a bundle" and thus have trouble signing deals with many good developers, if GOG will keep rejecting games for such reason one of their biggest strengths, their "good guy" image, may get seriously harmed.

Not to mention that I as a GOG customer may suffer due to their skipped releases. As I said before, I'm not much of a bundle person and it sucks a lot that I may never be able to get those games from the distributor that I'm actually most loyal to. GOG is basically forcing me into other distributors whenever they skip a game that I'm genuinely interested in.

Well, it's business and those are tough calls.

How do you know? Do you think it is free for GOG to add another game to the catalog? There's negotiations to be done, legal documents to be drafted, installers to be made, product entries to be created, game cards to be designed, and the whole thing has to be supported afterwards. All of these things are done by people, and they are not doing it in their spare time out of the goodness of their hearts. They are doing it because it's their job, and because it is their job they are getting paid for it.

1,000 copies of a $10 game makes $10,000. If GOG gets 30% of that, that's $3,000. How many man-hours does that buy, do you think? I'll give you a hint, it's not a lot.

Its been mentioned a few times GOG is a bit more picky with games they want to sell , otherwise u would be seeing plethora of indies being sold on here all the time.
$9.99 for a game that has been bundled a few times is a bit expensive imho

3000$. What costs will publishing a game like Qube proberbly cost GOG?
Trailers are already ready, download traffic won´t hit that much, legal documents seems always be nearly the same.
The only two really hitting aspects are the gamecard (lots of good design here) and the "this week on GOG.com"-Videos.

But I do not even think that those two aspects will consume more than five hours, maybe the other factors will consume the same.
So there´d still be some profit; not that much in comparision to a monster-seller, but it would be quite O.K.

Oh, and the game can be bundled afterwards ;)
That can create some more profit too... ;)


Of course there are many shitty indie-games out there. But I think that >90% of the Q.U.B.E.-players would tell you that it´s a good game.
And reviews are, as stated earlier, also quite fine!

Oh, and I don´t think that 9.99$ would be too much; game got a recently released DLC that was not part of those bundles...

Couple comments:

Someone already posted a list of older Indies that have been added to GOG, I'll add SpaceChem (2011) which is an excellent Indie game that has been in Bundles before coming to GOG.

Not sure if the reply in the OP was complete, but seeing this:

You can find a DRM version of QUBE on many other sites though, such as Gamersgate and Greenman Gaming.

. . . leads me to believe they aren't willing to release a DRM Free version, which is one reason I haven't picked up a copy of Q.U.B.E.


I'm thinking DRM may be the bigger issue here than anything else.

Strange... The description at GamersGate states that the game is DRM free:

http://www.gamersgate.com/DD-QUBE/qube

Your marked part was only a typo in this mail; the word "free" is missing:
It´s definitvly DRM-free on Gamersgate, Desura and also on their own homepage:
http://www.gamersgate.com/DD-QUBE/qube
http://www.desura.com/games/qube
http://qube-game.com/buy-now/

And: GOG should hurry up to get in contact with them, as they are planning a directors cut release in 2014:

Well, you´ve ninja´d me...
;)

Interesting.

When it first came out it was DRM only, I wonder when/if they've changed this.

Thanks for the update, I just may have to pick this up now :)


Wait a minute, what's this? :

"Features:Single-player
Control Support
Auto-patching
DRM Free"

That sounds suspiciously like DRM . . . I'm at a loss on this now.

Dude, even The Witcher 2 has an auto patcher (and I think so does Rise of the Tread and maybe a few other games on GOG). "Auto patching" does not imply that there's some check from the server side whether you have a legitimate copy or that you won't be able to play the game if you are unable to connect at any point. Auto patching normally really only means that the the game or its launch program (from where you can also set the graphics and stuff) will check whether there's a newer version available online and spare you the hassle of re-downloading and manually reinstalling the whole game.

Oh right, I forgot about that. So they could release it as a Complete/<something>-Edition version then. :D