Posted September 02, 2016
Gilozard: Because it's a legal promise and they can be sued if something goes wrong. Businesses are very, very wary of signing enforceable promises, especially vague ones. Also, it's not standard in the industry and anything out of the ordinary means extra paperwork and lawyer cost, again a barrier to releasing on GOG.
What happens if a certain feature depends on client functionality GOG doesn't have? What if the major developer breaks a leg and can't get to a GOG patch for 6 months after the Steam patch? What if the studio goes under but years later someone is able to start working on the game again, and can only support one version so they choose Steam (true story, happened to one of my favorite games)?
There are all of these unknowns which make businesses not want to sign open-ended promises. Specific deliverables on specific dates are good, but 'we will keep the game updated' is not specific at all, and anything that boils down to that will turn responsible people off. Irresponsible people will sign anything and not follow through. So even if GOG were to try and add a clause demanding patches, I don't think it would help.
The best way to get people to release on GOG is to lower barriers. This is true of software adoption and system use in general. I hope that GOG is building ways for devs to submit patches quickly, easily, and as similar to Steam as possible while keeping it DRM-free because that means we will get more patches.
mm324: Your hypotheticals could happen. What is happening is that people are telling their friends not to buy new(er) games here because it may or may not be patched/updated. If you don't believe me look through the threads. What happens if a certain feature depends on client functionality GOG doesn't have? What if the major developer breaks a leg and can't get to a GOG patch for 6 months after the Steam patch? What if the studio goes under but years later someone is able to start working on the game again, and can only support one version so they choose Steam (true story, happened to one of my favorite games)?
There are all of these unknowns which make businesses not want to sign open-ended promises. Specific deliverables on specific dates are good, but 'we will keep the game updated' is not specific at all, and anything that boils down to that will turn responsible people off. Irresponsible people will sign anything and not follow through. So even if GOG were to try and add a clause demanding patches, I don't think it would help.
The best way to get people to release on GOG is to lower barriers. This is true of software adoption and system use in general. I hope that GOG is building ways for devs to submit patches quickly, easily, and as similar to Steam as possible while keeping it DRM-free because that means we will get more patches.
This issue is hurting their potential sales.
And as I said before, it's only going to get worse if GOG doesn't do something soon. And I don't mean GOG's definition of soon.
If you care so much about this, go complain to the DEVELOPERS. Make the point that their reputations are the ones suffering, and they are the ones who can fix this. Complaining on GOG forums is worse than useless if you actually want the situation to change.