Ganni1987: 2) Metro 2033 / Last Light Redux - The Mac and Linux story.
These 2 games have had the aformentioned versions released on Steam but not here. GOG didn't give a reason why and we later
got a response that there were technical issues, but didn't mention of what kind.
From my knowledge the Mac performance is pretty poor, but Linux? It runs pretty well
Check out for yourselves!, There's even a triple screen video showing the game natively on Linux.
I don't have the GOG version of this game yet, but does it support GOG Galaxy multiplayer? It seems that games that support Galaxy multiplayer are all Windows-only, presumably because they don't have the other OS ports of all the Galaxy stuff out there yet. This is just a hypothesis for this game.
Ganni1987: 3) Too Niche / Refused Games.
In December of last year
this thread came up, it mainly focused about a game called "Fall of the Dungeon Guardians" which GOG refused to sell here, whatever the reason was. It isn't the first game to be refused by GOG either, user Barry Woodward made many threads regarding such refused games and the devs all seemed to get a similar robotic response.
Then at some point GOG
releases a game which doesn't seem much better than the ones they refused not long ago. (I'm not implying Punch Club is a bad game btw).
Realistically, just about every game made has people out there that enthusiastically want to buy it. So you either allow all games like Steam does and end up with a garden hose of endless games, many of which can be rightfully referred to as "shovelware", or you have some manner of curation. When it comes to curation it is practically impossible to specify a detailed list of specific rules that get 100% evenly applied to all games out there, and people would just try to argue around each "rule" how the favourite game they want that rule doesn't apply or shouldn't apply etc. In short, people just want what they want no matter what.
So you either allow all games, or you curate them and some games just aren't going to make it and some people are going to be upset about that. But allowing all games as Steam does will upset an entire other group of customers who don't want Steam to turn into a big gardenhose of Indie games too. So essentially, both possibilities involve some number of people not getting what they want and being unsatisfied and upset about it. In some cases, people would fit into both groups - both wanting some game that has been rejected while simultaneously wanting curation to avoid GOG turning into the Steam indie garden hose.
GOG has explicitly decided to not be a garden hose of endless Indie games like Steam and they don't hide that fact though. Naturally when someone's game doesn't show up here or has been rejected they will feel bad about it, and they may even try to make sense out of how game A, B, or C, got accepted here and their game got rejected. Personally I think the worst thing GOG could do would be to spend a lot of time in the forums trying to explain and justify their choices to us. Rarely are such explanations going to result in everyone saying "Oh, now I see. Yeah, that makes a lot of sense. Thanks for the explanation GOG, you rock." The only thing that would result is for people to now have fresh ammunition to argue with GOG and try to use the new information against them until ultimately they get their own way and wont accept anything less than a turnaround decision on a given game.
It's like when we're children and our parents tell us we can't go to our best friends house tonight and we relentlessly ask "Why mommy?" and are told "because I said so", or they tell us why and we argue with them about it to try to get our own way. The smart parent goes with either an explicit "because I said so" or just an implied one with a glance or "The Look(TM)".
Sometimes mommy and daddy do make mistakes too though, and occasionally they might change their mind if we're good. Likewise, GOG has changed their mind on some titles in the past which they initially rejected because they had more demand than they originally anticipated or other factors. If people want to see a given game here they really need to vote for it on the wishlist. It doesn't guarantee it will show up here, but it's the best thing anyone can do to let GOG know they're interested in it.
Whenever someone does add a wishlist entry for such games though and post it in the forums, I usually go look at the game and if it seems interesting and I'd buy it - I'll go vote for it too. Most of the time I personally end up finding the game uninteresting or even mediocre and don't vote for it, but that's fine - it might be a great game that's just not for me. But then if you look at the votes the game gets over time it seems like almost nobody is interested in it other than a small number of enthusiastic people. A few dozen or few hundred votes on the wishlist is hardly going to be enough to convince GOG that a game will sell though I'm afraid. Even though there aren't any published thresholds beyond which GOG will try to bring a game here, I think it's safe to say that a few hundred or maybe even a few thousand is not enough. And if a game hasn't even been added to the wishlist yet, well that speaks even greater volumes IMHO.
Another factor that weighs in too though, is that sometimes people who eagerly want a game to be here will not only add it to the wishlist, but will beg people to vote for it including people that aren't even interested in it. They'll hold game giveaway contests where they either require people to vote for their favourite game(s) on the wishlist as a part of entry, or even just encourage people to do it without a requirement. While this may bump the number of votes up for a game, it does so disingenuously because the vote count no longer reflects the true amount of interest in the game. GOG sees that happen however and they will end up partly or entirely disregarding the votes for that given game because ultimately the voting is rigged and no longer representative of true interest in the game.
The bottom line though, is that GOG isn't Greenlight and it seems there are more people who don't want it to become Greenlight than not, so we can expect a crapload more rejections from GOG than acceptances by definition practically. Personally, a part of me wishes they'd actually reject even more of the games that actually end up coming to the store here, but then I respect the balance they're trying to achieve with curation and accept that some stuff will make it here that I'm not personally interested in too.
It seems the crux of the contention some people have over this, is that some people want to be able to buy any game they want DRM-free on GOG and thus want GOG to just open the floodgates and let the customer decide. GOG on the other hand has explicitly decided that they do not wish to have that as their business model, and that they consider the fact that they act as a curator to be a conscious business choice that results in a higher quality catalogue and that their customers overall appreciate this. I know I appreciate it at least, can't speak for the entire rest of the community however. GOG has rejected some games that even I'd buy too, but they know more about what meets their business agenda than I do, and quite possibly they know more about those given games than I do. Perhaps they've saved me from wasting my money. :)
