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Ready to play dirty?

<span class="bold">Gremlins, Inc.</span>, a fierce digital board game where you must outmanoeuvre other gremlin businessmen at every turn, is now available on GOG.com with a 50% launch discount.

This is a gremlin eat gremlin world of ruthless capitalism, political power struggles, and opportunistic moves. Use cunning, subterfuge, and your conveniently maladjusted moral compass to navigate a steampunk universe of cut-throat profiteering, both in single-player and multiplayer.

Expand your experience further with the <span class="bold">Digital Artbook</span> or <span class="bold">Soundtrack</span>, plus the <span class="bold">Uninvited Guests</span>, <span class="bold">Astral Gamblers</span>, and <span class="bold">Automated Competitors</span> DLC.

The 50% discount will last until May 18, 13:00 PM UTC.

NOTE: The game supports Galaxy/Steam crossplay, GOG Galaxy achievements, and a fully functional mod Workshop, among other things.

When you buy this game, you get 2 products in your GOG Library: Gremlins, Inc. – playable online in single-player and multiplayer modes, with item drops; and Gremlins vs Automatons – playable offline in single-player mode.

Tinker with the trailer.
Post edited May 12, 2017 by maladr0Id
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SergeiKlimov: 1. You bought Gremlins, Inc. on Steam.

2. You bought three character DLCs for Gremlins, Inc. on Steam.

3. In March 2017 we released the offline companion product Gremlins vs Automatons, which you received on Steam for free.

4. The DLCs for Gremlins, Inc. were not intended to work with Gremlins vs Automatons. You had 60 days to play the offline edition on Steam, but you did not do it. You also did not check whether the character DLCs that you own, work with Gremlins vs Automatons – and you did not post any questions about this on Steam forums.

5. Earlier this week, you went ahead and bought the same game, Gremlins, Inc., on GOG, as well as all DLCs, which you already owned on Steam, without running Gremlins vs Automatons even once on Steam.

6. You now want a refund on the Steam version, which you ask here on GOG.

I'm sorry but I find this pretty confusing.
Hey chief, word of advice. The forums here have gotten to be rather toxic. I appreciate your willingness to read and respond, but be careful about what you say and how you say it. You don't need me to tell you that if someone gets you wound up by making angry claims and you say something less than professional in return, the person who wound you up doesn't lose anything. They win. You'll get tons of bad PR and a stigma that won't go away. Some of the people you're arguing with, it's shocking a few of them are even on the internet because of the level of tin foil hat they don in the morning. They are a vocal minority. Just let it go. Respond with your company's reasons, and if they're not good enough, offer condolences and tell them their input will be considered when making future releases. It sounds empty and hollow, and it is empty and hollow, but is better for you than getting dragged into a discussion with many people that want you to slip up so that you'll say something stupid.

I don't agree with your decision to include central server only DRM with your game. As someone who doesn't agree, I will not buy your game. Your argument that only those who buy your game have a valid opinion is a false dichotomy. I'm voicing my completely valid opinion by not buying your game. Whether the game should be on GOG or not is GOG's choice, and it is not meant as an insult to you when they say it should not. They mean that their vision for GOG's principles say it should never have been allowed. I agree with them in that regard. GOG should not start taking games with online server registration DRM as it goes against their last real core policy of DRM-Free. I have no personal vendetta against you or your dev team for doing what you think is best for your community, and I'm sorry that your community here won't defend you because they don't care about the forums mostly.

I am glad for you about the good sales here, and sad that so few people care that GOG, (with Gremlins, Inc and GWENT) are slipping away from optional clients and DRM-Free. A large portion of us care, and PASSIONATELY. Most of the customers alas probably do not. And when the almighty dollar (pound, denar, ruple, mark, Euro, etc) speaks, no one talks louder than it. It's just hard for us to watch our once-bastion of good faith and hope in the world against anti-consumer practices (like DRM and regional pricing) go down.

GOG wants you here. Lots of fans want you here. Some of the fans have unreasonable expectations when it comes to GOG. They want GOG to stick to core principles that many publishers and developers want gone, and expect GOG to get MORE GAMES without playing ball with the people providing them. Those people don't want you here. I, while being far less fringe also don't want you here, but not because of you, because of GOG's principles eroding slowly away. Like watching the Hindenburg or a recreation of the Titanic sinking in slow motion. It's happening, we can't stop it (though we try) and it is VERY hard to watch.
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SergeiKlimov: If someone wants to be angry at us for not spending dev time to create compatibility between the DLC system of Gremlins, Inc. and Gremlins vs Automatons, it's up to them. Some people are angry at anything.
Maybe some people got angry because the 2 versions are confusing and they probably realized the situation only after purchase.

After some research, I previously understood that:
- Gremlins = Gremlins Online (SP+MP)
- Gremlins vs Automatons = Gremlins Offline (SP)

But from what you're saying, it seems that the latter is just a bonus product (like a fork project?) that will remain outdated (without DLC and such).
(or am I still wrong?)
Post edited May 14, 2017 by phaolo
Thanks for all the advice.

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paladin181: Your argument that only those who buy your game have a valid opinion is a false dichotomy.
I'm not sure you got my point right. My point is that we have sales, we have refunds, and we have people who just walked by (because of X features or, say, lack of localisation, or, say, wrong pricing). All of these are valid expressions of opinion.

What I don't get is how only one category can count over the others. For example, if I don't like X, and I'm saying "X does not belong to this community", even though thousands of people paid money to play X in this community.

Expression of opinion is totally fine by me. Being "the voice of people" is the slippery slope, though, as whenever we step away from the data and imagine that we actually know what's best for others... we end up not in a good place.
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SergeiKlimov: Thanks for all the advice.

I'm not sure you got my point right. My point is that we have sales, we have refunds, and we have people who just walked by (because of X features or, say, lack of localisation, or, say, wrong pricing). All of these are valid expressions of opinion.

What I don't get is how only one category can count over the others. For example, if I don't like X, and I'm saying "X does not belong to this community", even though thousands of people paid money to play X in this community.

Expression of opinion is totally fine by me. Being "the voice of people" is the slippery slope, though, as whenever we step away from the data and imagine that we actually know what's best for others... we end up not in a good place.
Well, then I retract that part of my statement, I may have misread your earlier statement. You're absolutely right about "voice of the people". However it's also fair to say there is a group that feels you shouldn't be here (for the reasons stated above, specifically that the game doesn't fit GOG's core principles in their opinion) and that view should be noted. They are trying to get GOG's attention as well because they are somewhat correct. The idea that I can't play a game with all my purchases 1) without the "optional" client (that will NEVER be mandatory, no sir), 2) without being online (from a DRM-Free store), and 3) can not enjoy all my purchases in offline singleplayer (even though such a mode technically exists) is COMPLETELY ludicrous. If you don't agree, I'm fine with that, but it does go against EVERYTHING GOG has been telling us about their mission to remain DRM-free and about Galaxy as a client.
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SergeiKlimov: I'm not sure you got my point right. My point is that we have sales, we have refunds, and we have people who just walked by (because of X features or, say, lack of localisation, or, say, wrong pricing). All of these are valid expressions of opinion.

What I don't get is how only one category can count over the others. For example, if I don't like X, and I'm saying "X does not belong to this community", even though thousands of people paid money to play X in this community.

Expression of opinion is totally fine by me. Being "the voice of people" is the slippery slope, though, as whenever we step away from the data and imagine that we actually know what's best for others... we end up not in a good place.
To quote GOG's frontpage once again:
DRM-free means no copy protection, on-line checks, or any other annoyances. It’s all about just you and your games and movies. You should feel you own the products that you buy - just like a book, or a DVD.

On GOG.com, no matter if you are online or offline, you will never be locked away from your purchases.
It's about false advertising, nothing more and nothing less.
You'd get even worse reactions if you'd sell meat in a vegetarian restaurant or on a vegetarian expo/market.
It's a valid comparison since you're selling DRMed software in a DRM-free store.
Post edited May 14, 2017 by Klumpen0815
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paladin181: (...) sad that so few people care that GOG, (with Gremlins, Inc and GWENT) are slipping away from optional clients and DRM-Free. A large portion of us care, and PASSIONATELY. Most of the customers alas probably do not. And when the almighty dollar (pound, denar, ruple, mark, Euro, etc) speaks, no one talks louder than it. It's just hard for us to watch our once-bastion of good faith and hope in the world against anti-consumer practices (like DRM and regional pricing) go down.(...)
The power of GOG to impact change is proportionate to the power of GOG to sell games.

As an off-topic to this thread, I've seen developers walk away from various platforms when these platforms stopped being more than 5% of the market, because creative people rarely have time to do anything but the most critical for their products. Whenever a platform falls below 10%, it's already hard going. Whenever a platform falls below 5%, consider it a major feat.

Games like Machinarium from Amanita took years to come out on different platforms. Would customers be happier if that happened at the same time? For sure. But at that time, console platforms were very passionate (to use your term) about enforcing their own set of rules, among them – paid patches. Enter the era of digital distribution and cases like ours, where we made 50+ updates to the game after its release, and that console model effectively cuts off good content.

Now, we're a small fish, but if you look at the bigger products that move millions of copies and account for millions of hours of happy playtime, you'll see the same thread, and thank god the console platforms are now getting more open. As the result, a good game has higher chance to reach new audiences, and everyone wins.

As to the regional pricing, I have no idea how this could be "unfair". We and pretty much every other dev that I know of, use US/EU as the base, and then discount China, Russia, Latam, and all the other regions where players have smaller purchasing power. Ukraine, for example, is struggling a lot right now. How can we ask for $15 there, when they make /3 of what people make in, say, Germany? So we ask for $5 there.

On Steam, Poland is included in the EU region, since Steam does not support PLN (local currency). Our sales to Poland at €15 via Steam were pretty modest, even though we invest in full Polish localisation. One thing I see form GOG sales already, is that when we were able to set the locally adjusted price in PLN for Poland here, our sales to Poland jumped into top3 regions. Regional pricing in this case makes us able to meet the expectations of more players in Poland, how could this be bad for anyone?

And to get back to the opening statement.

Games like GWENT and ours and similar, bring new audience to GOG. GOG needs new audience to survive and grow in the modern world. For sure, GOG has certain values, which are core to its mission. But it's like going to the church. Some churches focus on what's in the heart, and will open arms to anyone who shares their belief. And some churches focus on whether you have your headscarf, how long is your t-shirts, and whether there are any tattoos visible. These churches recently tend to decline.

To us as a developer, having GOG grow is great, since this keeps the landscape diverse, and provides different feedback; and feedback is the best thing out there. In the same way, Humble Store is great: they sell Steam keys, but hey, their monthly bundle is offering something which Steam does not offer, and that niche makes more people happy at the expense of no one's.

What is bad to me, if this were to happen to GOG, is for GOG to become less and less relevant to the industry, so that fewer good products launch here, up to the point where the platform is simply an unaffordable investment for indie teams. Case in hand – Battle Brothers. An amazing, superb game. They could not afford the time to support any language other than English. They created a Windows-only game. They are a very small team and their game is fantastic. Do you guys want these games to come to GOG, too, or do you want to miss these new titles?

GOG can remain a platform with its own set of values while embracing the new developments in the industry. But it is much less likely that GOG will grow, if it remains focused on the "not" and "never" parts of the description, as more and more smaller teams struggle to manage their time and end up focusing just on the most crucial channels.
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Klumpen0815: It's about false advertising, nothing more and nothing less.
You'd get even worse reactions if you'd sell meat in a vegetarian restaurant or on a vegetarian expo/market.
It's a valid comparison since you're selling DRMed software in a DRM-free store.
Does this mean that any game that contains any parts (multiplayer) that rely on a server connection, cannot be sold on GOG? So that we should, for example, remove Gremlins, Inc. – while keeping Gremlins vs Automatons?

Then Steam customers will get Gremlins, Inc. and Gremlins vs Automatons at $15. And GOG customers will pay the same $15 but will not receive Gremlins, Inc. because the rule that you quote above, prohibits adding such content (even when it's included with the offline edition)?
Post edited May 14, 2017 by SergeiKlimov
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SergeiKlimov: As to the regional pricing, I have no idea how this could be "unfair". We and pretty much every other dev that I know of, use US/EU as the base, and then discount China, Russia, Latam, and all the other regions where players have smaller purchasing power. Ukraine, for example, is struggling a lot right now. How can we ask for $15 there, when they make /3 of what people make in, say, Germany? So we ask for $5 there.
The average income in western Germany is far higher than in eastern Germany.
Most of my eastern European and Russian buddies earn more than me.
How you can expect east Germans to pay the say as the others?
This reasoning is bollocks, it's about trying to maximize profit by guessing how much people are willing to pay, regional pricing has never been about fairness and using Germany as an example for "good earners" always was a hoot considering that it was the last European country that got a minimal wage law and that happened quite recently.

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Klumpen0815: It's about false advertising, nothing more and nothing less.
You'd get even worse reactions if you'd sell meat in a vegetarian restaurant or on a vegetarian expo/market.
It's a valid comparison since you're selling DRMed software in a DRM-free store.
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SergeiKlimov: Does this mean that any game that contains any parts (multiplayer) that rely on a server connection, cannot be sold on GOG? So that we should, for example, remove Gremlins, Inc. – while keeping Gremlins vs Automatons?

Then Steam customers will get Gremlins, Inc. and Gremlins vs Automatons at $15. And GOG customers will pay the same $15 but will not receive Gremlins, Inc. because the rule that you quote above, prohibits adding such content (even when it's included with the offline edition)?
It means you could offer the part that has no DRM here for a price that is fair (not $15 obviously).
This way it would not be false advertising.
What you SHOULD do is adding a DRM-free multiplayer way as mentioned before (player made servers, LAN) but since you say that it's not worth the effort, a cheaper version with only the DRM-free content would at least be consistent.
Post edited May 14, 2017 by Klumpen0815
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phaolo: After some research, I previously understood that:
- Gremlins = Gremlins Online (SP+MP)
- Gremlins vs Automatons = Gremlins Offline (SP)

But from what you're saying, it seems that the latter is just a bonus product (like a fork project?) that will remain outdated (without DLC and such).
(or am I still wrong?)
* No DLCs were developed for the offline edition, and we have no such plans. Our three character DLCs are multiplayer-focused to begin with.

* We keep updating Gremlins vs Automatons whenever we introduce major changes to the single-player mode of Gremlins, Inc. – i.e. any changes in game mechanics (balancing) or new content (new cards).

E.g. there will be new cards in the Summer Season update in June, and these are added to both online and offline products.
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Klumpen0815: You'd get even worse reactions if you'd sell meat in a vegetarian restaurant or on a vegetarian expo/market.
It's a valid comparison since you're selling DRMed software in a DRM-free store.
I hope devs have capacity to understand this :salty
Post edited May 14, 2017 by cemacar
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SergeiKlimov: What I don't get is how only one category can count over the others. For example, if I don't like X, and I'm saying "X does not belong to this community", even though thousands of people paid money to play X in this community.
I bet you could sell beer at an Alcoholics Anonymous meeting, too, but that wouldn't magically make it okay. At a certain point you're going so far against the very nature of a thing that you're basically making a mockery of it.
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phaolo: After some research, I previously understood that:
- Gremlins = Gremlins Online (SP+MP)
- Gremlins vs Automatons = Gremlins Offline (SP)

But from what you're saying, it seems that the latter is just a bonus product (like a fork project?) that will remain outdated (without DLC and such).
(or am I still wrong?)
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SergeiKlimov: * No DLCs were developed for the offline edition, and we have no such plans. Our three character DLCs are multiplayer-focused to begin with.

* We keep updating Gremlins vs Automatons whenever we introduce major changes to the single-player mode of Gremlins, Inc. – i.e. any changes in game mechanics (balancing) or new content (new cards).

E.g. there will be new cards in the Summer Season update in June, and these are added to both online and offline products.
Wow, then you are planning abandon your offline game too. Oh my god. Luckily I didn't buy your product. Nearly I was buying it for playing couple of games with my friends but thanks god you saved me again. This piece of software don't have any place on GOG. Please remove it from store !!!
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SergeiKlimov: * No DLCs were developed for the offline edition, and we have no such plans. Our three character DLCs are multiplayer-focused to begin with.

* We keep updating Gremlins vs Automatons whenever we introduce major changes to the single-player mode of Gremlins, Inc. – i.e. any changes in game mechanics (balancing) or new content (new cards).

E.g. there will be new cards in the Summer Season update in June, and these are added to both online and offline products.
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SSder: Wow, then you are planning abandon your offline game too. Oh my god. Luckily I didn't buy your product. Nearly I was buying it for playing couple of games with my friends but thanks god you saved me again. This piece of software don't have any place on GOG. Please remove it from store !!!
+1 It should be removed from GoG
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227: I bet you could sell beer at an Alcoholics Anonymous meeting, too, but that wouldn't magically make it okay. At a certain point you're going so far against the very nature of a thing that you're basically making a mockery of it.
If GOG is Alcoholics Anonymous, i.e. a self-help group for people working to overcome a major problem, then I don't have much to add at this point. My own perception of GOG as a distribution platform is that of a happy place that defines itself by what it wants to promote, not what it wants to prevent.
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SSder: Wow, then you are planning abandon your offline game too.
Oh, my.

Would you mind sharing a specific quote where we say that we plan to "abandon" the offline edition?
Post edited May 14, 2017 by SergeiKlimov
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SergeiKlimov: If GOG is Alcoholics Anonymous, i.e. a self-help group for people working to overcome a major problem, then I don't have much to add at this point. My own perception of GOG as a distribution platform is that of a happy place that defines itself by what it wants to promote, not what it wants to prevent.
Yes, yes, very condescending and disingenuous. Promoting versus preventing is a meaningless distinction since DRM-free acts as both a ward against DRM and its own little cause many of us promote, but I fully recognize that you already know this and are merely muddying the waters until DRM-free can be defined as just, like, a feeling, man.

You're selling DLC that only works on the online, outside server-reliant version of the game and has no offline variant, so the DLC is itself DRMed. Even if this release technically qualifies as DRM-free in the loosest and laziest sense imaginable—something everyone involved should already feel bad about—the DLC at the very least should be removed from the store until it works with Vs. Automatons. And since it'd be a shame to sell something incomplete, it might not be a bad idea to remove the game entirely until that happens.
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SergeiKlimov: What is bad to me, if this were to happen to GOG, is for GOG to become less and less relevant to the industry, so that fewer good products launch here, up to the point where the platform is simply an unaffordable investment for indie teams. Case in hand – Battle Brothers. An amazing, superb game. They could not afford the time to support any language other than English. They created a Windows-only game. They are a very small team and their game is fantastic. Do you guys want these games to come to GOG, too, or do you want to miss these new titles?

GOG can remain a platform with its own set of values while embracing the new developments in the industry. But it is much less likely that GOG will grow, if it remains focused on the "not" and "never" parts of the description, as more and more smaller teams struggle to manage their time and end up focusing just on the most crucial channels.
Does this mean that any game that contains any parts (multiplayer) that rely on a server connection, cannot be sold on GOG? So that we should, for example, remove Gremlins, Inc. – while keeping Gremlins vs Automatons?

Then Steam customers will get Gremlins, Inc. and Gremlins vs Automatons at $15. And GOG customers will pay the same $15 but will not receive Gremlins, Inc. because the rule that you quote above, prohibits adding such content (even when it's included with the offline edition)?
Hey, I am only explaining the hate to you. I don't have a dog in this fight with you specifically. My problem is with GOG. Not that they are willing to do this or the other (I happily own over 300 games on Steam and 500 here), but that they are not honest about it. Transparency goes a long way in the world. If you're (not you, but GOG in this case) going to start rolling back on your original core principles, then be up front about it. Don't tell me about optional clients that won't be optional for all games, or DRM-free store that sells some DRMed games. That was my point.

As far as I'm concerned, you're doing right by you (I do mean you, this time), and that's great. It's all you can do. I wouldn't expect you and yours to turn away from an opportunity to make more money and sell more product when it's there for you. My issue is looking at someone with the DRM-Free and optional client claims thinking it's OK to continue verbally toeing that line whilst taking a game that violates BOTH of those notions.

I understand about growth, as I said. It's hard to watch for a lot of us who felt like GOG cared about not turning to anti-consumer methods like DRM and required online clients. Dress it up however you like, but those notions are both anti-consumer. And they are at least somewhat necessary, I'm not claiming that they are not. But here, they're not supposed to exist. But it is still hard to accept that GOG, who claimed (and still claims) to stand against these practices are turning to them, and that is also a very slippery slope.

Also, thank you for the discussion. I really enjoy talking to people who understand things.