What's up the the interview saying the biz-dev asks our community for help on specific titles? I know I and others have volunteered in the past but I don't recall any of biz-dev really coming to us for help, even Turnipslayerr? (which is fine but it seems pretty close to a lie) Am I misinterpreting? Something lost in translation/culture? :P

I got the sense it was failure unfortunately. The Kohan games are still on Steam published under TimeGate's name so I assume somebody's getting that money. I always assumed the one or both of the Chaveleh bros. kept the rights but obviously that's not the case; I guess they got sucked up by "There Will Be Blood" man when TimeGate was liquidated in 2013. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TimeGate_Studios#Bankruptcy

Your guess is as good as mine, i cannot tell you much than what most of us already know - TimeGate Studios went bankrupt in 2013. and some "oil baron" has the rights now.
What is weird is that all 3 Kohan games are on Steam, still selling 6 years after TimeGate filed for bankruptcy and still being listed as a publisher there (even though they don't exist anymore).

If the "oil baron" doesn't complain about Steam, i don't know why he should complain about GOG selling the games here... GOG should use that as an argument. And GOG team should approach someone close to "oil baron", not him directly (if that is what they did), i believe they would have more chances for signing Kohan series. Just my 2 cents.

The third part of GameStar's video-documentary of GOG is available:
https://www.gamestar.de/videos/fuer-kurze-zeit-kostenlos-hinter-den-kulissen-von-gogcom-teil-3-wie-gog-gegen-steam-epic-store-co-bestehen-will,98666.html

Very interesting. Well FPP... RIP. That part is pretty outdated. Interesting info about the curation process though.

"And we then always write very extensive feedback explaining why we said no."

Utter hogwash.
Why are certain devs then palmed off with a two-liner at best, which is also written so vague and meaningless that they could have replied with "No." instead just as well.

Yeah, I stumbled across that as well. I guess they do give feedback to at least some devs - who then don't complain about the standard "too niche" reply. But all? That seems bullshit.

Seems like there's a series of such media appearances of GOG recently that speak of the past GOG as if it still reflects what it is and what they do now, when if they still do those things at all it's a minor part of their current operations.

Except the truth is these devs aren't just given a "two-liner", that's just the part they happen to mention on Twitter. When pressed, many devs have posted the full reply which seems to have more feedback that first mentioned..

Here's an example...

"Thanks a lot for your submission and your interest in GOG.

We’ve taken a look at ********, it looks like a rich RPG game, with complex combat, deep lore, fun mechanics and simple, yet eye-catching retro graphics.

Unfortunately, however, we feel that the game would not be a good fit for GOG, as we think that it appears to be too niche and a bit too small in scale in terms of production value for our users, which means that we aren’t confident in its release potential on our site.

For these reasons I’m afraid we will have to pass on ********.

If you have any other games in the future that might be a better fit for GOG, please let us know, and hopefully we’ll be able to work together."

Maybe you can explain how GoG is supposed to nicely say your retro game looks and plays very retro and is no real improvement on games from 20-30 years ago which were greatly more popular than your current title? How about bringing something new to the table instead of copy and pasting concepts from old games?

Do you think the devs would accept that sort of feedback better? The truth is that these games were not up to the job and no one likes rejection. And you'll get certain people here complaining every single time a game is rejected no matter how average or "meh" it is because they would rather GoG become a flea market.

That's a two-liner though, lol. Everything else is just filler and formalities.

I think GOG should just straight-up say to devs that they don't think the games they reject are good enough for GOG. That would be way more honest than is instead spouting PR-speak fluff talk like "it is too niche."

ROFL @ the GOG woman's comment that all games that end up on GOG are good games.

She must be also talking about the visual novels,which are great and complex games ... must be, else they weren‘t here on GOG.

I think curating is a good thing if it's done the right way. The way it's implemented on the other hand leaves room for improvement to put it mildly.

lol, this "letter" contradicts EVERYTHING the bizdev girl just said in the video.

From this letter I can conclude

- they probably haven't played the game in question at all

- rejections happen completely arbitrarily, with no transparency as to WHY a game was rejected (2 niche... ok, oldskool RPGs are precisely the kind of niche that gog grew big with, but we'll have to take their word on that. "A bit too small in scale in terms of production value." What does that even mean? Details, pls! Do they think the graphics suck? Is the sound not quite up to scratch? There's nothing to go on here. That's not how constructive criticism works. For constructive criticism to work, you'll have to point out specific flaws. Take Underworld Ascendant for example: A rejection letter could read "The game keeps crashing, there's a ton of bugs and I can't even save my game" Then the developer can go: "Hmmm, ok. Better fix that." But the way the way the Grimoire rejection reads really is no more helpful than writing "lol, UR gaem sux!"

- To add insult to injury, they will list some positive points at the beginning of the letter to lessen the blow of the rejection and make it seem like they gave the game a fair trial. This, again, is completely, transparently hogwash and not helpful at all. How could it be? Again, they never played the game, so they have to rely on what amounts to little more than copypasting ad blurb from the Steam page.

- they can't even copywrite convincingly. "it looks like a rich RPG game, with bla bla bla" IT LOOKS LIKE?!? Really?!??!? I thought you guys were there playing the thing extensively and having company meetings where you discuss the pros and cons of a particular game in minute detail, so you should be able to tell whether it IS a rich RPG game or it isn't. But they're so grossly incompetent and so lacking in basic copywriting skills that they can't even PRETEND to have actually played the game. Then we have rhetorical gaffes like spending a line detailing how a game would be a PERFECT fit for gog, then writing in the next paragraph how it's not a good fit at all and they'll have to pass. lulwut?!?

- now for the most infuriating bit: The part where the dumbass curators can't even have the decency to stand up to their own peabrained decisions and deflect blame to the users instead: "a bit too small in scale in terms of production value for our users" I sure as shit didn't consent to these cretins speaking on my behalf. You don't want to release a game here, fine. Have the spine to stand up for that decision, maybe even have a valid reason at hand other than "Hurr durr, 2 neech!"

This rejection letter pretty much confirmed every single concern people voiced over gog's "curation" process.


PS: The head of bizdev also says this about their internal review team: "they're all about games, they're also in contact with our community" How so? How are they in contact with the community? When was the last time a blue was in contact with the community about anything other than "No off-topic, pls! Imma have to lock dis thread!"?

You guys can say whatever you want, but if GoG were to just straight up tell devs their games isn't good enough for the store, these same devs publicizing the rejections are still going to try to rally their fanbase over the rejection. It will be no different than now.

Seriously, how about one of you write up a rejection letter for Grimoire that you think Cleve will "accept"?

"Thanks a lot for your submission and your interest in GOG.

We’ve taken a look at Grimoire, it looks like a rich RPG game in that you have thousands of character options, having so many doesn't seem to make sense at all, seems like overkill and just confuses the player. While it's great that combat is complex with magic options and the taking into account armor, it's pretty silly to be battling "worms and bugs" for half an hour with most attacks that hit doing no damage because they don't penetrate the armor. That was half an hour for ONE battle! It's also a bit disheartening to have the party get wiped out by the second combat with bugs and worms because the first battle left us out of mana, damaged and with no resources. It's as if there is no play balancing and you require people to reroll their characters for 2 hours apiece until they have mostly 18s in order to play.
We see the deep lore and "fun mechanics", but all this lore doesn't seem to make a lot of sense. An inexplicable mishmash of mostly medieval weaponry mixed with laser guns and blasters. The eye-catching retro graphics are probably the best part, although they give the game the look like it came out 20 years ago.

Unfortunately, however, we feel that the game would not be a good fit for GOG, it's poorly designed, might only appeal to the most masochistic retro gamers. It doesn't live up to the 20 year hype and we think a $30 price tag for a game selling poorly on Steam would be a clear loss of money for us. And no, reducing it to $10 is still a clear "pass".

For these reasons I’m afraid we will have to pass on Grimoire.

If you have any other games in the future that might be a better fit for GOG, please let us know, and hopefully we’ll be able to work together."

Is this better? Do you really think this would go over better with devs and their games that get rejected?
The real problem is that every dev thinks their game is a Mona Lisa. And certain people here claim every game rejected is the next best thing since sliced bread regardless of the true quality of the games themselves. They'd rather just hear themselves complain about GoG.