No idea where $0.25 came from. A bundle means games are only cheaper as a collective if you want all the other games and don't already own any of them. It doesn't mean you arbitrarily divide the price by the number of games and pretend that's the "real" individual price if you only want that one game because you simply can't buy Betrayer for $0.25. Just like GOG's £6.89 Penumbra Collection discounted by 75% means it'll cost me £1.72 to buy, and not "57p" if I only wanted one out of the three.

And whilst the bundling 'explanation' makes sense in general, you could equally apply the "it doesn't make sense for GOG to sell a game that's under $1 / £1 / €1 elsewhere" to an awful lot of stuff they do sell that fits exactly the same description. Eg, the cost of custom packaging and play-testing for $0 "Abandonware" freebies (Beneath A Steel Sky, FOTAQ, TeenAgent, etc). Or 99p Steam sale Thief Gold, Deus Ex, etc / 69p Steam sale Costume Quest, Syberia 1-2, System Shock 2, etc / 58p Steam sale Commandos Enemy Lines + expansion, etc.

^ And none of those are even bundles. Include those and "why bother" selling Outlast, Steamworld Dig, Hammerwatch, Retro City Rampage, Never Alone, Hotline Miami, QUBE, Sir You Are Being Hunted, Goodbye Deponia, The Bard's Tale, Broken Sword Directors Cut, Pixel Piracy, Torchlight, To The Moon, Psychonauts, Amnesia Dark Descent, Mark Of The Ninja, Brutal Legend, Race The Sun, Dust An Elysian Tale, Fez, Bastion, FTL, VVVVVV, Beatbuddy, Samorost 2, Machinarium, World of Goo, Legend of Grimrock, The Swapper, etc, which have all been "bundled" for under $1 (and as little as $0.32 each using your "bundle maths"), yet are still priced on GOG at typically £4-7.

Do we remove all these titles for the sake of consistency, or admit that rejection policy on the grounds of "but it's already less than $1 / €1 / £1 elsewhere" really isn't that consistent?... And the answer why GOG still sell them is the same - a lot of us are quite happy to pay a premium to own DRM-free games (vs merely acquiring an "open ended rental license" (Steam keys in a nutshell)). If GOG acquired Betrayer for say £3.99 (Steam listed price), would I pay say £2-£2.67 in a 33-50% off sale despite it being previously listed for £1 (or "$0.25" using your maths) in a Humble Bundle? Yes I would. And that's no different to dozens of other games GOG sells which are also generally cheaper elsewhere. Eg, "where's the sales potential" in selling Morrowind for £14.99, whilst £9.50 gets you Morrowind and Oblivion and Skyrim combined in a sale elsewhere (or where the retail GOTY can be picked up for less than £5 on EBay))...

The problem for many isn't really holding up any single game as examples of this or that. It's a severe lack of consistency plus the excuses that try to "explain" why some decent games get rejected for purely arbitrary reasons don't really seem to add up, either on sub $1 price sales competition or the old "rejected games must all be shovelware whilst everything GOG sells is all bug-free Golden Oldies" wishful thinking fallacy.

Reasonable people can see that games bundled 11 times in the last 20 months would be a money loser for GoG like Betrayer or One Finger Death Punch.

Most of those titles on GoG you mention were also released here before they were later bundled, (or were part of GoG's Indie experiment 5 games for $1 which apparently failed since GoG did not repeat it) meaning GoG got to take advantage the same deals as were offered on Steam. But hey, be dishonest and make it seem as though GoG is taking in a lot of bundled games when the reality is very few were bundled more than once or twice before they arrived here...

Instead you are arguing for games which already are mostly worthless...

And frankly your argument comparing the best sale prices on Steam to GoG's future full retail price is grossly misleading. GoG is very likely to have a sale for those titles as well. If you are to compare the price of Oblivion bundled, then you have to compare it to the next big sale bundle it will be in with Skyrim if it comes here, not full price. And do this across the catalog, not cherry-picking a recent release and using it as an example that GoG's sale prices are not comparable.

And yes, both of you are guilty of strawmanning to an extreme. You are the ones being idiots claiming that I'm arguing games like Skyrim don't belong here by ridiculously stretching the truth and applying the best sale price available. How about you also compare those sale prices to GoG's sale prices? Or does that knock down your strawman?

I gave you two examples:
Betrayer bundled 11 times in the last 20 months and One Finger Death Punch bundled almost as much. Those two games clearly do not belong here because their constant bundling make them essentially worthless at full price. Hence, GoG cannot make their money back on them.

For games bundled once or twice 4 years ago, the jury is still out, but for games like those two and many others where they seem to appear in any bundle that will take them...GoG will and should pass on them...there are plenty of other quality games and GoG can afford to be a little picky.

You are the guy arguing that GOG would sell pong at $15 bucks...
And I think you missed the point of the sale price. Which is funny, as is the same reason why you state the bundles.

And I told you that not necessarily true.
It doesn't matter how many times a game is bundled, nor at what price. What matters is how many people bought it, and if there are still people who would. That's were the example of Skyrim / Fallout / whatever extremely successful game with tons of units sold comes through. The fact that they were cheap on sales comes as a counterpoint to your bundle nonsense. The bottomline of both arguments being that everyone who wanted them already have them. That's the whole point.
The fact that you don't understand it, or refuse to, baffles me.

At the end the question is not whether people have those games. It's whether they would buy them here again at a proper price tag, just for the fact of them being DRM-Free. And that argument applies to Fallout 3 and Skyrim as well as to OFDP.

Obviously I also gave you the examples of bundled games (as you like bundles so much) as the civilization or the total war series. And, of course, you also had the x-com games bundled, the bioshock games bundled, and a myriad of other high profile games that gog will, or would, have here.

What baffles me is how you seem to ignore the idea that GoG might refuse the game on the basis that not enough people will buy a given game because it has been bundled to hell and is thus available too easily for less than they can make a profit.

Any reasonable person would see that as a serious factor. And anyone paying attention would note that GoG has a tendency to pass on games which have been bundled cheaply or games from developers who regularly bundle their games in the $1 tier within months after their releases.

Of course it matters how often a game has been bundled and at what price.

And seriously...Betrayer and One Finger Death Punch are not that great of games. Plenty of good games as good as those which haven't pimped themselves out like a cheap whore.

Betrayer shows up in a new bundle EVERY TWO MONTHS in the 25 to 40 cents a game range. It's crazy that anyone with half a brain would think there is future profit/sales value to this game...especially when the cheapest of sales here (very rarely) are between $.59 and $.99 bundled.

Oh, I don't ignore that idea. I just consider it pretty simplistic. What I have a problem with is you considering you have grasp the makings of GOG with this basic, obvious and simplistic model that you use to discard games you don't like here to begin with. There are a whole lot other reasons that might factor.

And, as I already wrote it's not about bundles. That's why any example with low priced sales works into your model too. That's why the examples about x-com, civilization, total war -that you systematically ignore as they don't fit your narrative- works into your model too. They were bundled cheaply already. And yet they will be here if GOG can make it. Because it's not really about copies already sold. It's about copies to sell. And many people would rebuy all those classics in GOG again. Then there's also the boutique factor, so GOG likes to have good and important games here. Obviously PR is a factor too. As is catering to the different tastes of their customers. And there's also the future relations with developers too. There are some games with the potential to be important that are being developed by established indie studios with a lot more budget. If GOG had their previous games, it would be easier to have the next ones. Inside, from the makers of Limbo, could be one such example.

So the bottom line is that it works differently for each particular game.

It is a reasonable factor. It's just not the only one. And you make it out as if it is. I guess because it's easy and convenient, and it make it look as if you really have actual data to be factual.

It's more about owners of a particular game and potential buyers. That's why your usual talk about how GOG shouldn't feature games that sold poorly on Steam doesn't work for me either. You see that as bad games with no selling value. And that might be true for actual bad games. But for good games with poor marketing or that just got lost in the flood of releases, it could actually be an oportunity for GOG to sell more units.

So, at the end of it all, the thing is that you don't like those games, so you don't want them here. Well, you're not the fist one to act selfishly like that.
OFDP is not a game I'd want on a first glance. But I trust actual reviewers opinions more than yours. And even if it's not a game genre I like, and I would think it's any good to begin with, it does have some good reviews.
WTF is... One Finger Death Punch
You don't think so, but I sill think it could be a viable release with the right price tag. I would buy it, and I'm not all that interested in it.

Basically, I think that significant games should be here if possible, as it works well for GOG's boutique approach image. You think OFDP is not one of those games. I think it should be. At the end it's not yours or my call, it's GOGs.

You don't like Betrayer, I get it.
But, "The creative forces behind Shogo: Mobile Armor Division, the No One Lives Forever series, and the original F.E.A.R. have formed an independent studio". And they want to get Betrayer here. As you can see, there's more than just projected sales. You should also factor whether you want to burn bridges with a company with an important track record. If you accept Betrayer, you lay the ground for a 0-day release of a potential future hit game from them.

Betrayed has its problems, (it is a rock steady 70%ish game), but OFDP is absolutely brilliant and pure gaming bliss. Which is also reflected in very high reviews across the board,. Not ure where you got the "not great game" from, as it is becoming regarded as a modern classic...

You just don't get it. Both games are currently being constantly bundled in the "cheap" tiers. You are the one using the sales "strawman". Of course almost every game goes on sale, but most games do not go on sale for 20 cents a game. So when you use examples of X-Com, or Civilization you are being disingenuous comparing these sales at $5 a game to 20 cents a game. The former is not so extreme as there is potential profit left for GoG. But 20 cents a game? That doesn't fit GoG's business model at all.

You are the one being silly here. It's not "simplistic" to see that by bundling it so cheaply, so often, makes these games an easy rejection for GoG (which apparently they did reject - no surprise).

And the main reason I brought this up were quotes in this thread...
"sold over 200k copies on Steam" - you mean sold in bundles for next to nothing...
"That one boggles me more than a fair bit." - nothing boggling about it. They have been giving the games away for pennies, no profit in it for GoG.

You mean 55% game
Score rank: 55% Userscore: 82%

And if you check the percent for recent reviews on Steam it's only 80% thumbs up.

It just goes to show how many uncultural barbarians with no sense of taste that are out there!

Seriously, though, why did you not like OFDP? I had a ball with that game, and I think everyone else I know who tried it also did so. I know some objects to the simplistic graphics, but I actually found them quite charming. And the animations are spot on and very fluid. Many few humorous touches also.

It's not a bad game at all, it's fun enough, but for me it fails into the category of PopCap games like Gold Miner or Tradewinds, games like the Zuma series, Bejeweled, Luxor, Beep, 12 Labours of Hercules. They are entertaining games, but there are so many relatively simplistic, some would say "casual" games. I'd lump in any decent Indie game which cashes itself out by finding every bundle which will take it, like OFDP or Betrayer or Thomas Was Alone. As soon as you start mass distributing your game for pennies, you are now like a PopCap game.

These are games which belong on a service like Big Fish. They just are not GoG material and there are other marketplaces like Big Fish which do the casual games thing better than GoG.

GoG tried to see if there was a market that worked for them. They had that one 5 games for $1 charity bundle which brought some bundled games here like VVVVVV Ben There, Dan That. They have games like Puddle or World of Goo, but notice how they stopped that? My guess is those attempts didn't bring the sales necessary to bring more of the same. It wasn't working, wasn't profitable. Too many people cherrypick the one example of GoG's marketing test, but only GoG knows if the experiment was really successful. What we can do is look for signs. And when GoG tries something that looks different and doesn't repeat it? Probably means they were not satisfied with the results.

And what I see from looking through all the posts about GoG rejections, I notice two things. They now generally don't take games which have been bundled in the $1 tier (games like Bastion have never been in that tier, mostly BTA and one time buy the game for $1 sold as a bundle but really just a steep sale) and for games already released, they are looking for games with a minimum equivalent of say 20,000 to 40,000 Steam owners (without being bundled).

There is something you can do that might really work, other than throwing numbers on a wishlist and making multiple threads pushing those numbers up. Vote with your wallet. Buy similar games if they come here. Buy Braid. If you want Freddie Fish or the Putt Putt games, buy the Pajama Sams. But if GoG doesn't like the sales numbers they see, you can't expect them to bring more of the same.

That's not correct. It has been DRM-free on Desura for ages and it also was DRM-free in several bundles (e.g. I got it DRM-free from a Groupees bundle).

Why has no one mentioned Mushihimesama in this thread? Or Deathsmiles?

Every day GOG refuses to sell Cave's games the less I think of the service.

Also Taito's Dariusburst... again from Degica. GOG's ignorance about shooters sickens me.

That's interesting. Why do you feel OFDP is a casual game?

To me it was quite hard core, and not very casual at all. Granted you use only two buttons, but it gets very serious indeed after a few levels, and actually adds several levels of complexity and a lot of variations within its simple concept. This is just one of the reasons I think it is a great game, it takes something that looks very simple and runs with it

Actually, giving that you didn't want to address the fact that what really matters are the number of copies sold, I threw important games bundled also as an example. Bioshock, Civilization III and IV, Shogun: Total War Collection, Medieval 2: Total War Collection, XCOM: Enemy Unknown have all been bundled already at the lower tier. That's the pay what you want or $1 tier.
As you have probably read already, many people wants those games here anyway. And GOG will probably bring them if the can. (If I remember right, XCOM: Enemy Unknown was in one of those unofficial leaked lists).

That is, in fact, a very simple concept that doesn't take any other subjective factors into considerations. Which is why it's simplistic. I already wrote other possible factor that might come into play.
And anyway, you're talking about two games that were already DRM-Free in other stores and not on GOG from the get go. So they might have been rejected to begin with, without any of your bundles "in the way".

Unfortunatelly I don't know if there's historical data to know how many copies were sold before the bundles. Not that it matters, though. Once GOG plays the late release game, they shouldn't expect a lot of sales at full release price anyway. That's why most of those game that are featured here have a release discount.

I didn't play it, but I wouldn't put all that much trust into metacritic scores. Both critics and users. Critics are too tied to doritos, so they can only be harsh and unleash themselves on indies. And many times they use that oportunity. And user scores are usually a mixture mess of fanboysm and petiness.


Yeah. I didn't know any DRM-Free version. That's why the "that I know of" part.
Unfortunately we don't have Desura anymore. Can we still buy from them? Because I was interested in Captain Morgaine, that I didn't know they had drm-free either, until someone told me they had it. Any other place to buy those games from?

Desura still works and you can buy from them. Unfortunately the developers won't see any of your money. You have to decide for yourself if you really want to do that.
Don't know any other place to buy One Finger Death Punch and Captain Morgane DRM-free (and without a client). It was on ShinyLoot as well, but unfortunately that store went down as well.

Two things...

1) What really matters is the number of copies GoG expects can be sold. All indications are that they do pay attention to how and which games are bundled in their selection process. For all I know that might play a role in which, if any, of those games release here. Although it should be added that most of the games you have mentioned have appeared just once or twice in those bundles and did so to encourage paying the bigger bucks for the most recent games in the series. They did not get bundled 11 times in 20 months like Betrayer.

2) Those unofficial future release lists are crap. Any reasonable person should already see from some of the games on the lists they were made up and are certainly not "leaked".

As to the rest of it, you are now making excuses...

My point has always been, that if people quit crying about rejections and take a real look at the situations, 9 out of 10 times, the reasons are pretty obvious but all the rejections boil down to one root factor...

GoG doesn't think the games will be profitable enough.

Betrayer, One Finger Death Punch and Thomas Was Alone have been bundled too often to be expected to sell. And the vast majority of "too niche" rejections are frankly because those games are "too niche" and aren't selling very well on Steam either.

I gave my advice above.

Just looking at this last page of suggestions, there are only 2 games which I think GoG might have seriously considered:
Dex
Release date: May 7, 2015 Price: $19.99
Score rank: 55% Userscore: 82% Metascore: 62%
Owners: 25,773 ± 4,720
The number of owners is borderline acceptable. Did the middling Userscore or a GoG playtest lead to the rejection?

Mushihimesama
Release date: Nov 12, 2015 Price: $19.99
Score rank: 93% Userscore: 95% Metascore: 86%
Owners: 21,508 ± 3,525
The closest thing to a head-scratcher. Still borderline ownership, but a solid user score.

Most everything else has been overbundled or can barely sell 10,000 copies on Steam...