I did a double take when I saw that this was a separate item requiring purchase for $9.99. GOG is known for including all of those 'goodies' for free in the purchase. Now, I'm sure this is not GOG's decision as much as the creator's. With that said...

I think he's starting to push the line here. It's bad enough that he's basically re-releasing his older games with some tweaks as separate products for...what...the third time? On the website, it says he's doing this because the game is getting shaky in newer operating systems. The GOG versions work just fine in Win7 and 10 for me. But, whatever...I mean, no one is forcing me to buy the new ones at twice the price of the older ones.

Look, I love Vogel and his small team have done. And stopping to remake old series doesn't hurt me one bit. However, I feel that separating the 'goodies' and hintbook into a separate, $10 purchase is a cash grab that moves both him and GOG in a direction I don't like to see. It turns me off to his current and future games, certainly.

And, if you haven't played these games before...they can be deep. They also do not always do the best jobs explaining all of the game mechanics and their relationships. Now, a lot of games suffer from this, and given the small team, I give it a pass. But now there's a hintbook, well, that work has been done, eh? And here's a thought... if you had a business model, where you sold a game for $X, and you sold the hintbook for 50% of $X, then why *wouldn't* you make the game poorly explained and/or bloody difficult...pushing people to really need to buy said hintbook after they invested some time and hit those walls? We've seen this done for years by larger companies in the past. And, while Vogel's works are meant to evoke the spirit of older CRPGs, this is definitely one of those elements that most people agree need to stay in the 20th century. :/

I don't think it's unreasonable. Lots of games used to charge this sort of cash for hint books in the 90s. Back then the internet wasn't quite as big a thing though, so it wasn't as easy to find the answers on a walkthrough site.

Sure... back in the day. When PC games were mostly sold from stores, and used code words and the such as DRM.

in the 21st century, we have GOG, which has shown us that DRM-free *can* work. Power to the player! And, as part of that culture, they usually include 'goodies' such as wallpapers, hint books, artwork, etc. for free.

My two points of concern with this are... this really violates the culture of GOG, and, honestly, rewards the creator for making his game more difficult and/or simply not explaining mechanics thoroughly within the game (or normal free documentation).

Now, to be fair, some game developers still sell 'hint books' through third party creators such as Prima. However, since they know that this information is pretty much out there, these books have changed to collector editions, art books, etc. (For example, I just pulled up Persona 5, a recent JRPG, and it immediately pulls up Prima's art book).

I feel that this whole thing is a bit of a bad direction for Spiderweb and GOG.

True, but I feel like most people who buy Avernum are older 90's RPG players hearkening back to the days where games were actually difficult. So they probably don't mind reminiscing about the hint books of those times :)

I want to respond to a few specific points here. First, having played Avernum 1-4 and Geneforge 1-3 before they were avialable on GOG, I never felt the need for a hintbook. So I don't think, in this particular case, the developer is intentionally increasing difficulty / obtuseness in his games to sell hintbooks. I've also seen some of his writing about hintbooks (on his personal blog) and he's said that he has a loyal group of fans who like them and purchase them, so he continues to make them.

The second thing is that this particular developer has been slower to adapt to digital distribution platforms. He started out selling shareware titles through his own site, with older style unlock-key DRM and a semi-high price point (~$30 per game, if I remember correctly?), surviving off of a small but devoted customer base. He resisted selling in places like Steam or GOG for a long time, because he felt he had found a business model that worked for him and he was reluctant to lower his price. Later, once he had his newer titles on Steam, he realized that the newer business model with digital distribution on major platforms at lower price points does in fact work better, but he still retains some of the old-school business mindset. I think the hintbooks are an example: something that has typically sold separately to a small customer base, and he probably feels that making them free goodies will lose sales overall and upset those customers who used to buy them.

Now I understand your argument, and it's true that many other games on GOG provide extras like this for free. But I would point out that newer indie games on GOG typically do not; there are many examples of sountracks sold separately, for example, whereas for older classics they are often included for free as extras. Many Spiderweb games are older but they also have newer titles where they don't want to add so much free stuff (Avernum 3: Escape From the Pit was only just released, for example). And many new titles are remakes of older titles, so older hintbooks would still have some relevance. Mostly, however, I think he's just afraid of cannibalizing sales from his own site, which still has a small customer base.

In conclusion, I wouldn't put too much blame on GOG here, I think the decision is coming from the developer, and he's just adapting slowly to modern digital distribution platforms. He's also known to be pretty stubborn. But I don't think his behavior is intentionally malicious.

I agree with this to a large degree. I believe the decision is driven by the developer, but GoG *does* allow it to happen. I don't believe Mr. Vogel is 'malicious,' par se, but my opinion is that this is a poor business decision not in keeping with the times. And, as a fan and customer of the previous games, and the work Mr. Vogel does, I find it disappointing. Their decision does not personally 'hurt' me... I can decide not to buy it. However, I worry that this tarnishes both reputations to various degrees. I would not take the time to bring it up if I did not care about both Spiderweb and GoG.

Understood. Personally I don't feel it's that much of a tarnish of reputation, however. From the Spiderweb standpoint, having their games here at all is a lot better than when they stubbornly refused to sell anywhere other than their own site. From the GOG standpoint, it's one thing to include free hintbooks and other extras for older games that are generally "out of print" otherwise, but another to do it for games from active developers who are still relying on those sales to make a living. As I mentioned above, many more recent releases on GOG have no extras at all, or include them as paid DLC (e.g. soundtracks). And the recent games themselves often sell at higher price points.

I hear you about extras being a great thing about GOG though. I particularly love the pleasant surprise of getting a free soundtrack along with a great game.