Neither would I, but that's besides the point. Why not let consumers decide for themselves whether a developer is worth supporting?

Grimoire is a niche game. (Incidentally, the very same niche that GOG has built its entire reputation upon). Only a certain group of people will even consider purchasing it. And we all know that this group of people is very engaged in the games they buy, hence the firestorm happening now.

If GOG wants to curate games based on quality, then curate them based on quality. That's fine. Grimoire is a worthy addition to the 90's style blobber RPGs. Is it the best ever? No. But neither are most of those same kinds of RPGs available through GOG. I'd say Grimoire sits somewhere around the middle, which strikes me as good enough to merit a spot in the store.

Well, there you're dealing with facts and things that can be demonstrated. If you disregard the brigading of the last two days, Grimoire is in the bottom 30% of dungeon crawlers on Steam, which isn't very close to the middle at all. Sounds like the standards may well be applied equally.

It's just not a good game. Aside from the curiously staunch supporters and their sockpuppets, nobody's saying good things about it. It's people who've actually played it pointing out that at best it's overly ambitious and at worst infantile tripe, and then folks yelling that such a terrible game should be given equal time with other, actually good games. And, of course, the "meme" crowd furiously ctrl-v'ing their buzzwords.

Actually, GOG built its reputation on the classics of those genres and niches. The games that were famous, excellent, or both. Grimoire is neither. Infamy is as close as it gets.

To date, 263 positive reviews and 132 negative. Many of the positive reviews are sycophantic, and many of the negative complain about the game being confusing because it doesn't have a manual (no longer an issue) or are outright derisive because of the person who made the game.

Only 32 "recent reviews," so if we assume they are all disingenuously positive -- which is what you appear to be saying -- then that still leaves 99 more positive than negative reviews. And that's without accounting for disingenuously negative reviews. Seems to be in decent shape to me.

Again, it comes down to Cleve. I don't really have much else to add. I think it's a solid game that stands on its own merits and deserves a spot in the store, and that GOG ought to allow this highly engaged niche consumer base determine whether disliking the developer trumps liking the game.

Just watch a lets play, like this one:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yGA350npUzk

---------------------------------------------

60+ hours of content after 20 years of dev, plus lots of bugs and broken features. IF you realy want some of that action just check a lets play and save your money for a better game (nearly all the older games it is inspired by are actually better games).

I personally couldn't care less about his political opinions, this is a classic case of being butt-hurt and then lash-out because it didn't go exactly as he thought. It's not the game everyone hoped for and got so hyped up about, and I wholeheartedly understand that devs used time, sweat and money on something that that they believed in, but everything’s relative; some like like it, and some don't. That's life and we all must accept that.

Of course they were asking because it took a long time and they were hoping for something good, but in the end the game failed to deliver (especially with a price tag like that).

I've skimmed the RPGcodex thread and, honestly, people are rallying behind this guy like he was in the middle of a conspiracy and can't handle the fact that the game isn't as good as he/they thinks. While we can debate all day on GOG's "objective" decisions and their previous curators, their letter is however pretty standard and too many are reading too much into it. And after reading into even more puerile text in GOG's own wishlist for this game - I'm inclined to believe that the dev and his followers are too immature to even be taken seriously.

https://rpgcodex.net/forums/index.php?threads/gog-turns-down-grimoire-for-publishing.126050/page-2#post-6000029

Why is it becoming a common theme where the dev(s) can't handle criticisms, especially the constructive ones? The more they "demonize" the other side the more fanatical they seem, but sadly, they don't see it themselves of course.

"Do you guys not have brainzzzz" Excellent and civil handling of the situation, top notch :P

Well, that's really a bummer. For what its worth, I come here for products like Grimoire, not like Gwent.

To be fair, Dungeon Master had an amazing UI for it's time.

All joke aside, your description doesn't sound that bad to me. I get the game is antiquated and not nearly as good as the games that inspired it, but nobody is making this kind of games anymore, right?

Not holding my breath here, but as was the case with other games being rejected initially in the past Grimoire might get a second (or third) chance some time further down the line too. Provided that Golden Era Games don't hold a grudge and are open for future renegotiations.

Didnt Cleve initially come off as a prick when asked if he considered selling the game on GOG?

1/3 of the non Cleveland Blakemore posters in that RPGCodex thread seem to be die-hard Blakemore fans, another 1/3 seems to be there to taunt Blakemore into posting more insane rants, while the last 1/3 of the non-Blakemore posters are skeptical/asking for proof.

6+ hours? You have no idea what you're talking about mate. It took me two weeks, playing for 2-3 hours almost every day, to complete the free demo released back in 2013. The full game is actually pretty huge, with multiple starts and multiple endings. You're obviously on some butthurt crusade.

Yeah, I just realised I sunk almost an hour into the video you linked, ThorChild, before closing it and re-evaluating my life :D. It took half an hour to get through all the character creation, and then there was another half hour of the first battle (bugs just randomly attacked you apropo of nothing in a meadow), where at the point I left, aside from obtuse UI and weird bugs, the game balance has it so that none of the party is capable of damaging the enemy, but the enemy isn't really capable of damaging anyone in the party, so it was just a loop of "BLARBAR ATTACKS. NO PENETRATION" "BUG ATTACKS. MISS".
I closed the video at this point. Again, I'm not the target audience for this sort of game, but this seems really rubbish. Although I can definitely imagine this taking 100 hours to complete. Just a constant loop of nobody being able to hit anything for most of the time.

quote: "I'm not the target audience for this sort of game"


and this exactly is the reason for Grimoire's mixed reputation.
Grimoire is a love letter to Wizardry 7, a hardcore dungeon crawling RPG. the target audience for Grimoire is the people that love Wiz7. I can't imagine a single reason why fans of Wiz7 would dislike Grimoire.
but the problem is: people see a new game on steam, maybe read that the game is "hardcore" and are drawn to it (since everybody strives to be a "hardcore gamer" nowadays). then they realize that the game just isn't for them and they give it a bad review. and ofc there's also people that straight up dislike Cleve's personality.
but Grimoire is a fantastic game for those who want more of the same (Wiz 6 & 7, Might and Magic 2). it's certainly not a game for the masses.

I don't care about people working on games, their beliefs, opinions and whatever, people should separate creators from their work, otherwise they should, for example, stop buying big AAA titles which not gonna happen. Most people have enough dirt behind their ears anyway...

Would buy the game here again, already got on Steam because it's the only Wizardry-like game these days.
Still no other Wizardry games on GOG...