Yepoleb: I have no way to track sales volumes or trending games. If I was, that would be very bad for GOG's business.

Cavalary: Of course you can't if GOG doesn't provide that info, but why do you say it'd be very bad for GOG if you did?

Yepoleb: Because it could put publishers in a bad light if their games aren't selling well. They want to stay in control of the numbers and only give out the ones they like.

from https://www.gog.com/forum/general/gog_database_a_website_that_collects_data_on_gog_games/post87

Thanks .
To bad that 99 people from 100 automatically choose Steam as the first store if they want to purchase a game .

Not me, I look for GOG first all the time (and then i'm usually disappointed). i must be the 1%. Do i get a prize lol?

So where do these keys originally come from? He makes it sound as if distribution of those keys is totally out of his hands.

If it caused key trading problems because you (the game publisher) are spreading lots of extra keys to people on Humble Bundles or whatever... then just don't do that, okay? Spreading the keys like free candy is what is feeding the key trading and key reselling sites.

Some are obsessed with getting their games on steam only.
Then there are some of us, that are sick of months/years (aka never) late patches, updates, never released DLC that steam users get instantly that never make it here & realise why steam is getting the mass share of sales, even in spite of its "support".

actually...
the reason, at all, why a have a Steam account is something like this

I pirated Gunpoint, and after finishing it, I was so impressed, had enjoyed it so much and felt so much love and effort was put to it that I felt compelled to give my money to it's creator

so, I ended up opening a Steam account and asking a friend for his credit card...

the rest is history...

so, yes, it may actually work and even bring more buyers ♥

I wish I had friends like that.

Or, well, friends.

I remember a similar story about a band who made their new album available for free and it also made sells skyrocket. I think it's a good PR stunt because it's very rare and clients like to feel they are respected and trusted, and it makes companies look better than the rest of "evil" developers/musicians/authors/etc.

But let's face it, I don't think total sales would increase if most distributors did this.

From PC Gamer:

"Steam lets you refund a game if you haven't played it for more than 2 hours, and as a developer we can see the reason why people refunded it. When we read the explanation from someone who wrote that he needed the refund because he didn't want his parents to be stressed out when seeing the bill at the end of the month... well, it made us feel quite bad," the studio explained on Imgur.

"So we decided to do something about it! If you don't have the money and want to play the game, we have a safe torrent on the Pirate Bay of the latest version of Darkwood (1.0 hotfix 3), completely DRM-free. There's no catch, no added pirate hats for characters or anything like that. We have just one request: if you like Darkwood and want us to continue making games, consider buying it in the future, maybe on a sale, through Steam, GOG or Humble Store."

Such a great move!

If I weren't low on cash right now I'd instabuy their game :)

Wishlisted!

Although in the music business this only tends to work out for artists or bands that are already established and have a fairly large following.
Radiohead, Nine Inch Nails, Aphex Twin or Death Grips come to mind.

so true

$1,800/month on doctors bills here. Sorry but I wouldn't do a refund like that. I know what it costs the platform and the developer in credit cards fees. There's been a couple:

https://www.technobuffalo.com/2016/06/29/this-developer-would-rather-you-pirate-his-game-than-buy-it-from-g2a/

http://www.gamerevolution.com/features/13995-indie-dev-asks-you-to-pirate-his-game-rather-than-buy-it-on-g2a

Two differences: (1) artists can play live (2) hardcopies of music are collectable. Game developers don't have premium services to sell, and hardcopies of games are strictly worse than downloads unless most of the price is in the packaging.

Awesome move from the Darkwood developers! :D

Bah, filthy commies. They should be thrown in jail or everyone starts to do that and we will all live in the hell of socialism in no time...


;)