Made another post on this topic, regarding a very underrated indie title, "Donut Dodo". The dev told me that GOG isn't interested in hosting his game on the platform, and I can't for the life of me understand why. I received a similar response from DYA Games, a small developer who has published quite a number of quality games on Steam.

Indies are the bread and butter of modern gaming, the AAA industry is dying out and there is very little chance of ever seeing a new AAA release on GOG. They are far too in love with DRM like Denuvo, and wouldn't give this platform a second glance. So why is GOG burning bridges with smaller publishers and developers, who are more than willing to sell their products on here?.

I looked for the PC version of Donut Dodo on itch.io, THE place for indies. No such luck. Gamejolt? Nope.
I only found him on Steam.
He doesn't seem too interested in releasing on multiple platforms in the first place.

At least he went to Evercade, I got the game as game of the month on the VS.

Perception appears to be everything ... at least to some folk.

Of course what they perceive and what others perceive often doesn't match.

I for instance, don't see a shortfall of Indie games at GOG. I see regular waves of them turning up here, just like other game types.

What I do see and for the most part are glad about, is curation.

I'd hate to see the rubbish that constantly turns up at Steam and Itch.io for instance, turning up here at GOG.

In any case, if you are keen on Indie games that are DRM-Free, then Itch.io is the best place to go if you want them in huge numbers. Failing that you could go to Steam, where they will be a mix of DRM-Free Lite and DRM.

As I wrote in the OP, the problem is not with first-time indies, who benefit from being on GOG for greater exposure, and who now account for 80% of the releases on GOG, but with successful indies and mid-sized publishers who are systematically abandoning GOG, leaving us with dozens of incomplete sagas and without some undoubtedly quality games.

Well one could be cynical and say GOG served their purpose, as an advertising medium, and that those indie games were never a genuine release at GOG anyway. Or sales rocketed at Steam, and they never really wanted the game on GOG, but felt the need initially, then removed it.

I don't see how it would be GOG's fault, other than they are vulnerable to such behavior or abuse.

No, he's definitely open to a GOG release, here's what he told me.

"Sure, I won't rule any platform out, but will say that every further format comes at a cost, requiring more support, testing and managing different builds and updates, so viability is important.

That being said, I do believe Donut Dodo would be a good fit for the GOG library and user base."

However, he didn't write that he had sent a request to GOG. As far as we know, he then did nothing.

Have you done click on the hole banner? Only to see a bunch of indie titles with no discount, what a strange marketing campaign. But the curiosity kill me and jump :)

This is a step in the right direction and a very original and intelligent marketing, let's hope they keep it up, shaking off the "good old games" nickname seems to be the main problem preventing people from taking GOG seriously when it comes to indie titles.

To be fair, GOG will never tell us :)
Only if the game gets released here, we know, that he told the truth, in any other case it's just specilation.

Empire of Sin never came to GOG.

Dark Quest 3 seems to have foregone GOG.

The new Microprose removed B-17 from GOG (still on Steam) and looks like aren't planning on releasing the remake here.

For the King left GOG and For the King II doesn't seem to be coming here. *sigh*

GOG's inability to attract -- and retain -- indie and AA devs and publishers is the best argument for keeping Steam.

For now at least, confirm Redhook to the list of those jumping ship with the release of Darkest Dungeon II only on other stores (I know this was mentioned at the start of the thread, but now the official release date has passed with no sign of it coming here).

Also include Yacht Club, once they completed Treasure Trove, they left GOG and have no apparent interest in returning with Pocket Dungeons, DIG, or other pending titles.

On the way out may include Goblinz Studio with Legend of Keepers getting free add-on monsters elsewhere but seemingly not here.

This is very disappointing because the combination of classic/old games here and newer indie ones is what really drew me in to this store, but with so many leaving (or skipping in the first place), the DRM-free appeal is starting to no longer be enough. Modern AAA type games hold almost no interest for me (spending almost your entire budget on graphics and offering weak gameplay is not a good formula in my opinion, and no I am not arguing all AAA games are bad; there are obviously good ones out there) so the lack of them was never an issue, but losing out on content or follow-up games from a developer because they have left is a big problem.

With such tough competition out there now as has been well-covered here, it's difficult to find a competitive answer that will satisfy both developers and GOG. Maybe allow developers to run a 1 day or flash sale once in a while where GOG minimizes their cut, or GOG drops their cut on a largely marked down first game in a series while a sale price is issued on the DLC or sequel with normal cuts in place? It would be nice to see a good solution come about.


Edit: Maybe something similar to the old movie theater release model where theaters took a very small percentage the first 2 weeks I think, then reverted to normal splits. Probably not feasible, hopefully they try something.

Yeah, its a shame Gog cant keep them, but there is never a lack of new releases.
Kley also kinda silently left, no griftlands, and specially no Oxygen not Included a game i really wanted on gog, since i didnt find a drm free release anywhere for the full package (game+dlc).

I'm just running out of games that interest me, "indie" or not. Most newer things I buy have one or two features that I like but the games are overall a maybe. Very few classics that show up here are worth an instant buy. When GOG acquires some of the bigger classics, I buy them even when I'm not really interested, just to show support for the store. Arena is the only Elder Scrolls game I've tried. Didn't like it very much but I acknowledge that the series has some really popular titles in it. That's why I bought them all. Tomb Raider games are similar. No interest in playing a game where you only play a female but some of those games seem to be pretty popular. Bought those, too.

That's pretty much what it comes down to for me, as far as GOG goes. None of this is GOG's fault, as far as I'm concerned. They aren't going to get every single thing I want. No store will. There are plenty of games I'd want that aren't available *anywhere*. Only so much can be done.

Even if GOG or any other company did everything right, it could still come up short in one way or another.

Regarding Dark Quest 3, I remember the developer saying that there's a possibility to publish this game on GOG when the game reach its full release, which is planned to be on May 24th this year.