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General discussionDear GOG, we need to talk about your cred in the indie dev community.(267 posts)(267 posts)
(267 posts)
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This is my favourite topic
Posted July 23, 2015
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YaTEdiGo: ...If you mean the three examples someone posted some lines ago, I must disagree, no one of them looks specially good. IMHO, please note that I also I didn't played them, but frankly speaking I will only willing the play the third one.

No, business can grow fast and fail eaten by themselves or grow within their possibilities, we have NO INFO about how much GOG spend on servers, on salaries, how much get from the revenue of the games, and a LONG etc... so IMO GOG is trying to maintain their services in their own good capabilities, STEAM is MUCH BIGGER than GOG, and I will not like GOG start to publish Indie Crap all over, not dedicating time to make Old Games work fine in my system or even eliminating more features. You guys think companies have unlimited resources and personal, let me tell you something, I worked in some of the most bigger publishers in game industry, and you guys are totally wrong thinking the money and resources are infinite. ...
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Trilarion: I totally agree that resources are not infinite. It is a trade off. It may just not be exactly clear where it is.

Basically GOG has to ask itself if its still doing the right thing.

I mean also you said you might want to buy one of these mentioned games. So this is a hint that GOG might lose money but not selling them.

Here is another idea what GOG could do to improve the situation.

Instead of releasing games, they offer to order a game conditional of a certain minimum number of orders and only then they are releasing the game. So what I mean is that one week before release any publisher can tell GOG the game and the price and if GOG is not sure if it will be profitable they take pre-orders and only if a certain number is exceeded (say 100 orders) they actually process them and release the game here on GOG. This way could predict the success of a game much better than their personal selection.
Your idea is good, why not try to make your own platform? XD I am serious, (Well I know is difficult)

I do not think is so simple to get the agreements with the developers or big publishers to bring the games here, and operate so many things at the same time. But if GOG is having so many complaints and new ideas, is because they grown up a lot since their first days, so maybe they are doing something good.

And I repeat, I am pretty unhappy with many things happening here lately, but about the game catalog? Seriously they made me UBERHAPPY most part of the times, and they even pushed other platforms like Steam to re-publish some Good Old Games... I have zero complaints about their catalogue... some games aren't here? Well, I can only talk for myself, but I buy games on Playstation, Xbox, STEAM, mobile... I am completely sure I am not going to miss titles here, but what it makes me come back to GOG is that they have some things no others have in their catalogue.

In my experience, GOG bring me games nobody else before offered me. That is why I started to buy here, even if now, others also copied what GOG is doing, and they are not so exclusive, still they do amazing things like bring STARTREK games recently, at the same time that they offer me non DRM PC great exclusivities like Pillars or Eternitiy or Wasteland 2.

Binding of Isaac isnt here? well yeah, but I got it on PS4, and here I can get Treasure Adventure Island. You know what I am craving for? NO ONE LIVES FOREVER, that would be a f... INSTABUY... like it was when they released LUCASARTS games, or FALLOUT, or BALDURS GATE and PLANESCAPE TORMENT much before the enhanced versions were even announced... that is GOG for me, mixed with a pretty decent and high quality (mostly) indie games I love, and a community so awesome that can transform my FREESPACE games installation, (or BG) in a totally new experience, step by step.

All in the same website, in the same forum. These are the things that bring me here.
Post edited July 23, 2015 by YaTEdiGo
Posted July 23, 2015
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Barry_Woodward: Why aren't they available here after all these years?
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JMich: Most likely reason is that getting them now would be a financial loss for GOG.
In the short term, that may be true - but by refusing to add popular games to the catalog, GOG is encouraging users to go elsewhere for getting them. Money is important, but obtaining and retaining customers is critical for growing GOG.
Posted July 23, 2015
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Trilarion: This way could predict the success of a game much better than their personal selection.
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JMich: Wishlist. Use it.
Wishlist is not exactly the same. It's not the same level of commitment. Not everyone who wished will actually buy.

I mean if you anyway want to release a game or are shortly before you don't need to wishlist - you can actually order. It could be a meaningful usage of pre-orders.
Posted July 23, 2015
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Trilarion: This way could predict the success of a game much better than their personal selection.
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JMich: Wishlist. Use it.
The wishlist isn't the same as a pre-order list though. There's no guarantee that everyone voting for a game would also buy it, letalone for the full release price.
Posted July 23, 2015
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Trilarion: Instead of releasing games, they offer to order a game conditional of a certain minimum number of orders and only then they are releasing the game. So what I mean is that one week before release any publisher can tell GOG the game and the price and if GOG is not sure if it will be profitable they take pre-orders and only if a certain number is exceeded (say 100 orders) they actually process them and release the game here on GOG. This way could predict the success of a game much better than their personal selection.
Pre-orders isn't a good way to judge such things and is far from being reliable way of buying/selling something, especially when there is no warranty that actual product will be bought/sold in future. And GOG already has wishlist feature, which serves almost the same purpose just without pre-ordering.
Posted July 23, 2015
Didn't indie darlings VVVVVV and World Of Goo sell pretty well here after going through years of the bundle/discount gauntlet? What do you make of that? It kind of disproves the "everyone that would ever want them already owns them" argument. No doubt GOG lost out on sales by not having the games here sooner, but there's still a sizable demand for these titles.
Post edited July 23, 2015 by Barry_Woodward
Posted July 23, 2015
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JMich: ...
Monetary losses. That is the most likely reason. Selling those indie games would cause GOG to lose money, unless they can be sure of the volume they will move. So what ills could befell us if GOG did sell those? Losing GOG due to monetary problems. ...
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Trilarion: Surely that's what GOG thinks, that releasing them here would not make them more money (at least I hope they go for the money and aren't just lazy), but are they right with it? Maybe they just miscalculated? Maybe the criteria they use to decide if a game will be profitable or not are faulty? After all looking into the future is one of the most difficult professions on earth. (I hope their marketing gurus have a decent crystal ball.)

The success of Steam (with a larger user base) even with Indie games that were rejected here could be a hint that the calculation that GOG makes might be wrong. They actually might be losing money when they were thinking they were saving it.

Also in a way the fixed costs aren't that big. Almost nothing I can think of is cheaper than adding some more items to a digital product web shop (if it is programmed well and many things are automatized). They could introduce a lower quality segment at almost no costs and then let the market decide what goes up into the premium segment. It might be the better approach.

In the end the customer decides what is good and what is not. GOG is only there to help. As a lazy customer who only wants to use GOG I have a personal interest that GOG makes actually the right decisions.
Working on JMich number of sales to break even the cost, it may take 6000 copies.

If everyone honor their Wishlist and purchase the game, the wishlist need 6000 votes. If half of the people honor their wishlist, then 12000 votes.

Of course the numbers may be wrong, feel free to correct me.
Posted July 23, 2015
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Trilarion: Wishlist is not exactly the same. It's not the same level of commitment. Not everyone who wished will actually buy.
I'm talking about a better way for GOG to guess how many will buy it, instead of guessing. Vote in the wishlist instead of posting in forum.

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Leroux: The wishlist isn't the same as a pre-order list though. There's no guarantee that everyone voting for a game would also buy it, letalone for the full release price.
See above.
Post edited July 23, 2015 by JMich
Posted July 23, 2015
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YaTEdiGo: ... In my experience, GOG bring me games nobody else before offered me. That is why I started to buy here, even if now, others also copied what GOG is doing, and they are not so exclusive, still they do amazing things like bring STARTREK games recently, at the same time that they offer me non DRM PC great exclusivities like Pillars or Eternitiy or Wasteland 2. ...
Well, that's absolutely true. GOG makes many things right and they bring many good games here. I love them for it.

So all these complaints you have to put them into perspective. GOG definitely doesn't suck. The question is more if it will be an Olympic gold medal in the end or just silver or just participation (which isn't that bad either).
Posted July 23, 2015
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Trilarion: If GOG asks for a higher cut because costs are higher and the devs refuse this reasonable request - it's the fault of the devs.
How do we know this isn't already the case for many rejected games? Not the higher cut, but a dev refusing to sell the game under GOG's conditions? E.g. an earlier post here suggested that Thomas Was Alone might have been rejected by GOG (or another store) because the dev didn't agree to half the price. So according to your logic, it was his fault then, that the game was rejected, not GOG's (or that other store's).
Posted July 23, 2015
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Gnostic: ...If everyone honor their Wishlist and purchase the game, the wishlist need 6000 votes. If half of the people honor their wishlist, then 12000 votes....
There is a flaw. Some people might not use the wishlist but might buy. So the threshold could even be as low as 600 votes.
Post edited July 23, 2015 by Trilarion
Posted July 23, 2015
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YaTEdiGo: ... In my experience, GOG bring me games nobody else before offered me. That is why I started to buy here, even if now, others also copied what GOG is doing, and they are not so exclusive, still they do amazing things like bring STARTREK games recently, at the same time that they offer me non DRM PC great exclusivities like Pillars or Eternitiy or Wasteland 2. ...
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Trilarion: Well, that's absolutely true. GOG makes many things right and they bring many good games here. I love them for it.

So all these complaints you have to put them into perspective. GOG definitely doesn't suck. The question is more if it will be an Olympic gold medal in the end or just silver or just participation (which isn't that bad either).
Well is a pleasure to talk with someone so open minded to different opinions, so I definitively need to respect your suggestions. Also because you understand that is not easy for a company to implement or answer all we want, I am usually more pissed off always for things that DISAPPEAR and they been there before, like the Library LOL... yeah I am always back to it... that for things still to come.

Coming back to your ideas, I really think GOG already got the tool, the Wishlist, but I got the feeling that they are not paying enough attention to it recently as they are focus in other things. And the feeling is not because they do not bring the games we ask for, but because is a very small feature, long time forgotten in the bottom of the page, almost hidden for new users...
Post edited July 23, 2015 by YaTEdiGo
Posted July 23, 2015
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JMich: ...I'm talking about a better way for GOG to guess how many will buy it, instead of guessing. Vote in the wishlist instead of posting in forum. ...
I would still prefer direct orders much more because they would be a direct financial commitment but we as neutral customers could make the fun and compare wishlist votes of games GOG accepted and games GOG did not accept and learn about their threshold and their inconsistencies.
Posted July 23, 2015
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Gnostic: ...If everyone honor their Wishlist and purchase the game, the wishlist need 6000 votes. If half of the people honor their wishlist, then 12000 votes....
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Trilarion: There is a flaw. Some people might not use the wishlist but might buy. So the threshold could even be as low as 600 votes.
You mean there are much more people that does not bother to vote on the wishlist will actually buy the game?

Sure, some of them will, but going down from 6000 to 600 is too much of a stretch. That is easily offset by people who does not honor their wishlist.
Post edited July 23, 2015 by Gnostic
Posted July 23, 2015
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Trilarion: If GOG asks for a higher cut because costs are higher and the devs refuse this reasonable request - it's the fault of the devs.
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Leroux: How do we know this isn't already the case for many rejected games? Not the higher cut, but a dev refusing to sell the game under GOG's conditions? E.g. an earlier post here suggested that Thomas Was Alone might have been rejected by GOG (or another store) because the dev didn't agree to half the price. So according to your logic, it was his fault then, that the game was rejected, not GOG's (or that other store's).
I would say that the dev has a right to set the price. GOG should follow them (maybe make suggestions) but adjust their cut dependent on volume (e.g. higher for the first X units sold).

So if the dev overprices his game and it doesn't sell as good as expected, GOG gets a higher cut and leaves the game unharmed.
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This is my favourite topic
Community
General discussionDear GOG, we need to talk about your cred in the indie dev community.(267 posts)(267 posts)
(267 posts)