So, I am sort of on a Borderlands marathon (played from 1 to Pre Sequel) and I'm currently playing Tales from the Borderlands from GOG and having fun with it. Then I realized that the game is no longer available on GOG. It was delisted when Telltale was dying: https://www.gog.com/forum/tales_from_the_borderlands/removing_tales_from_the_borderlands_from_our_catalogue

But the Telltale assets were later acquired by some other company and the games came back to digital storefronts, but Tales from the Borderlands did not return to GOG.

That led me to wonder, how did that game even get here in the first place back then. Yes, it was made by Telltale, but I assume that it wouldn't have come here without the say so/agreement from Gearbox/2K since it's their IP. Did it slip through the cracks? Anyone have any idea as to what exactly happened?

Also, would be nice to get the Borderlands games on here so let me at least post the wishlist links. These 3 are finalized so they could be released here as complete packages.
https://www.gog.com/wishlist/games/borderlands_goty_edition
https://www.gog.com/wishlist/games/borderlands_2
https://www.gog.com/wishlist/games/borderlands_the_presequel

Woah, i didn't know Tales from the Borderlands used to be available here. I wish it would come back.

It's a great game, but you may spoil some of Borderlands 2 for yourself, since Tales is set after that. Unless you played it before already that is. Well, we also don't have Minecraft here, but the Telltale MInecraft game used to be here. So I guess however those licenses used to work, it was really up to Telltale where they released those games.

The game wasn't just made by Telltale, but also published by them. Gearbox/2K just gave them the license. Same case with other games by Telltale such as Minecraft and Batman.

I played all except 3 in order. The only story related thing I didn't play is the latest DLC for Borderlands 2 (The Fight for Sanctuary I think it was?). But that is luckily the very last in the chronology of events so doesn't bother me much.

And yeah, I was really surprised by how much TftB is tied into the events of the main games. It pretty much continues right after the end of 2 and even ties into some events in the Pre Sequel. They are also on point with keeping the voice actors consistent which definitely helps with immersion. Finished chapter 3 out of 5 yesterday and will definitely be finishing it this week.

But I really can't recommend it to people who haven't played all the previous games as they would be lacking vast amounts of context. Then what might be the reason that certain games haven't come back when most of them did? There is a decent amount of them here. Did GOG just not renegotiate with the current owner (quick search reveals it's LCG Entertainment) about releasing them here again? Just find it weird that we have heaps of Telltale games here except a select few...

When Gearbox got involved with Duke they also didn't put Duke Nukem 3D back on here like they did Steam. I don't think Gearbox like DRM free. If someone else controls it, maybe they don't like DRM free either. LOTS of stuff isn't on GOG for this reason, so I never think it's some great mystery.

The answer is licensing. While Telltale handled all those licenses while they were still active, once they shut down, each of them would need to be renegotiated (what with many of those properties belonging to separate companies and all). LCG (under the Telltale Games name) might have gotten back plenty, but they didn't get them all:

- The Walking Dead by Skybound Games (whose CEO is the creator of the comics themselves)
- Sam and Max by Skunkape Games (another studio composed by former Telltale developers)
- Tales from the Borderlands by 2K Games (and it took more than 2 years to rerelease it)

In addition, Back to the Future, Game of Thrones, Guardians of the Galaxy and Minecraft Story Mode have yet to be rereleased in any digital store, which indicates that getting a new license might be quite costly/complicated.

Weirdly enough we somehow got Homeworld from Gearbox here.

I still think the bigger issue (compared to DRM-free) for most publishers is that GOG is so much smaller than Steam so why bother releasing here for just a few extra bucks.

Yeah. Also why try to decouple features like multiplayer from Steamworks.

I can confidently say that knowledge of the main games is not required to enjoy Tales from the Borderlands.

But those 3 are being sold on Steam, so they obviously have the ability to sell them. With what you said previously, there should be nothing preventing them from putting the Borderlands game on GOG again too, no?

It's not absolutely required, but you will be missing a lot of context and knowledge about many of the events and characters that appear during the game. A prime example would be the end of chapter 3 and how it ties into the intro of Borderlands: The Pre-Sequel.

Yes, they do have the ability to sell those three. My point was that they are no longer under one roof as it used to be, which is why some of them haven't been rereleased at all.

As for Tales from the Borderlands, now that it is under full control by 2K Games, they could theoretically rerelease it here. Whether they feel like doing so, that's another story completely.