I got a refund. They wouldn't/couldn't update the game, I asked very nicely, I got it.

Definitely a worrying thread for myself since I was all but content with switching my future purchases to GOG from Steam when given the option between the two.

Perhaps this is a symptom of preventing GOG from turning into a Steam clone where anyone can dump their poorly constructed games (Greenlight/Steam Direct) onto their platform and polluting their market. But I don't see how possibly hampering developers who are attempting to keep their games fully up to date is a smart move for GOG.

I certainly wouldn't want an inferior product even if it was DRM-free.

Yea to be honest I'm starting to get to that point myself and it's a damn shame. I like GOG a lot, and am more than willing to put the blame on shitty devs when they fail to send the patches but this "not being able to get a response from GOG" is straight up bullshit which many devs have pointed out now is all to common with GOG and GOG making life harder for devs by not having the proper tools in place to support them is getting old. It seems like more and more GOG wants to give up zero control to developers and instead micromanage every damn thing comes through here. Which sure has it's advantages but it also comes with many disadvantages too.

It seems like the primary way of communication (based on what devs have said publically) between GOG and Devs is email... in 2018. GOG if you have a dang DevPortal, a dev should be able to do everything directly from this portal including getting support (a chat system, forum board, notifications, etc.).

The way GOG manages game releases and game updates still seems so outdated... even though I know they are trying to improve this it doesn't seem like they have taken it far enough at all. Hopefully with time they will but seeing how long it takes GOG developers to make simple site improvments I don't have any faith that their backend system for developers is "great" let alone good or that is will improve at a rapid rate. It's probally even full of bugs knowing GOG.

There are many ways GOG could automate this entire process from patches to game releases and still have a lot of control over the process and still offer standalone installers, etc. but making it a hell of a lot easier for developers. A mix between what GOG does now (curation, testing, and control) with the simplicity from the type of tools that Steam offers devs.

Gonna speculate a bit...

I think it means that gOg won't simply let a developer provide an update straight to customers via Galaxy. gOg first must tick the "It passes muster" checkbox before it shows up on Galaxy. If that's how it works, then this is likely frustrating for those developers who make a conscientious effort to provide a stable update, and for those who have made just a simple change to the game (fixing some odd dialog, for example). Then we customers wonder why it isn't here yet, so we pester the developer. And we go to them because we don't get answers from the store.

Further speculation:

It comes down to Support. gOg has decided it will offer actual technical support of the games, so they are leery of putting anything out there without at least a basic check of the update. To not do so risks putting a greater load on Support. Having done tech support the last 23 years and 4 days (but who's counting!), I understand why it would be this way. However, these big delays in updates might mean a lesser load on Support as people say 'screw this' and go elsewhere.

Once again, that's what I'm thinking but I don't have any insider info to back that up. I might be completely off the mark, so take it with a block of salt.

I thought that might be the issue as well (in which GOG has possibly never approved the submitted update) but I have not seen anyone say aything about Galaxy updates having to go through testing like standalone installer updates. My understanding is the entire reason GOG added a feature to rollback patches was to allow devs to roll out patches without much risk to the user and to allow GOG to take a more hands off approach.

Crikey, this thread is making me think twice about buying GOG games. https://www.gog.com/forum/general/suggestions_wanted_for_gog_mix_games_that_treat_gog_customers_as_second_class_citizens/ too

Between these update issues and the curation policy, GOG is getting more and more opaque. And that's kinda off-putting. I want to root for them because a reliable DRM-free platform is as necessary as ever, but I'm not getting good vibes right now.

Perhaps gog itself isn't doing well financially, so they are understaffed and overworked. Maybe they only have one or two tech people, and those people are always busy fixing game problems, so gog has zero manpower to test or approve patches, create new dev tools, update their forum....

All wild speculation on my part.

according to CDRed financial reports, gOg is doing well.
Historically, gOg has been the DD store with highest amount of staff. More than double that of Steam about 5 years ago.

After that, don't be surprise if 90% of the gamers don't care about drm-free games and buy on Steam !

Are you surprised? GOG is almost 10. Must have discovered porn and masturbation. Just you wait until GOG gets acne and goes emo.

Note to self: Never realized how difficult it is trying to come up with naturally sounding sentences, while avoiding using he/she/it/they.

That... doesn't sound that bad. How many times do we complain about lack of QA testing for games/patches/DLCs?

However, what happens if GOG rejects the update? The game remains outdated forever?

Really interesting topic. I think I might kinda understand that it's a bit harder to update games on GOG than on Steam, because of testing. I'm ONLY GUESSING that GOG is kinda afraid of developers that "update" their game and put in some kind of DRM, without telling anyone. Then players will get mad at GOG and not at the developers for that.

If that's not the reason for the complains and/or the update pushing over the dev tools is really so hard, GOG has to work on it! If devs start complaining about pushing updates through gog, they might not want to release future games on gog, because of that.


Also: that is laughable! It should never be that hard and take that long to update a few/one file(s) for your game. Players having to contact the gamedevs directly, to get a new audio file seems ridiculous and is neither consumer nor user friendly.

Looks like they sorted it out now: But I'm not sure I understand the part where the dev said they need to pay for testing. Surely there's no need to hire professional betatesters?

So, WTF is GOG doing? Do GOG implement new features for the devs but then just "forget" to tell them about it? Or do GOG tell them about it but the devs don't bother checking it out until someone starts pestering them?