Glad I got this on Steam then.

That's great! Thank you very much. I don't know if this was already going to happen or if something has changed, but either way this is good news.

I feel that they should either commit to the release and keep the GOG version equally updated regardless of the game's success here, or they shouldn't sell it here until they can make that commitment. You can't be a second-class customer if you aren't a customer. This is only an issue for a tiny handful of games on GOG. The vast majority of developers here, small or not, treat all of their customers equally. There's no excuse for the handful of developers that don't do that, and I would much rather see their games be Steam-exclusive than have them dumped here to take advantage of GOG's users.

Every time a game on GOG gets abandoned, buying from here becomes riskier. These games hurt GOG's users, they hurt GOG, and they hurt other game developers. If people start to see buying a game on GOG as taking a chance, then they'll be less likely to do it. I myself bought The Escapists and Hand of Fate near release, and though I'm glad that we now have confirmation that both games will get their DLC here eventually, the lack of equal treatment has made me question buying new games here on release in the future.

As for the idea that "every small-to-medium release" could "go Steam only", I don't think that would ever be a concern. Like I said, this is only an issue for a tiny handful of games here, like maybe 5 or 6 to my knowledge at the time of writing, so clearly this is no problem for the vast majority of developers. For the few that it is an issue for, well, not every game should or will be on GOG. There are great games out there that aren't sold here, and that's something that has to be accepted. If we can miss out on those games, in some cases for no reason other than GOG rejecting them, then I think we can definitely miss out on the games that would end up having GOG users treated as second-class customers. It is far worse to have such games here than to not have them.

Is there really much of a financial risk though? I get the impression that it doesn't cost much to keep the GOG version of a game properly supported, especially because again there's not even 10 games that I know of where it's an issue. Let's look at the games I do know of, and maybe that will give us a clearer picture:

1. Slender: The Arrival - This game, according to GOG users, is over a year out of date and is missing free DLC on here. There is no paid DLC for the game, just free updates which aren't here.

2. Luftrausers - This game apparently can't be completed due to a bug that the game had on release. The Steam version was fixed just days after release, but the GOG version wasn't. No paid DLC involved, just one free update to fix a major bug.

3. Sam & Max Save the World - This game has a near game-breaking bug that the developer won't give GOG a patch for despite having the bug fixed elsewhere. Again, no DLC, just a free update to fix a major bug.

4. Hammerwatch - This game is missing its latest update, though I'm not sure why since until then it was properly supported. It's missing one free update, no DLC involved, and that free update makes some nice gameplay improvements. Additionally, because of the version difference it is currently impossible for GOG and Steam users to play online together.

5. The Escapists - The DLC is out on Steam but not here. However, it is confirmed that we will be getting it.

6. Hand of Fate - The DLC is out on Steam but not here. However, it is confirmed that we will be getting it.

Notice anything weird about these six games? Four are missing free updates with no DLC involved. Updates that should cost little, if anything, to get to GOG. Meanwhile, the two games that are missing DLC are now confirmed to be releasing it here in the future. I don't think this has anything to do with financial issues or financial risk. I think these examples make it clear that it's just about whether or not the developers care about their GOG customers. They could update their games if they wanted to, but they don't care, so those games are abandoned. Developers who are okay with abandoning their GOG users don't deserve to sell their games here.

Don't give up, my octofriend. It works, if done right. Be persuasive, but not invasive.

Everytime I see an interesting game -an indie one most of the time- getting released on steam/xbla/elsewhere I immediatelly say "hi, why don't you put your game on GOG.com, they're awesome and the community there is superb" and, to not-so-much surprise they all seem to know GOG pretty well.
Lots of 'em, due to GOG's supreme curator process or something say "well I tried, but they say my game wasn't par to their demands or expectations". I dig that, yep, and I understand. We don't want GOG filled with tons of indies who just can't simply, uh, shine :P

That's why we see some new/better games from some of these devs and, sometimes, even the old ones get here, due to popular demand.
My humble opinion? GOG should (I politely say) use the same "method of approval/pricing" they did with Super Hexagon :)
Period!

So the developer noticed that despite of the sale no one buys the game .

Man, I hope we get the Shovel Knight Plague of Shadows DLC tomorrow!

Indeed, by convention in English we do assume that it's possible. So, as you stated it does imply that at some point in the future the DLC will be here.

If you knew it to be impossible or that it was possibly impossible, that would be a terrible way of putting it though.

Did you just buy team 17 too ? ;-)

Don't worry, it was perfectly clear!
Sometimes they don't pay attention to their customers... they might pay more attention to official correspondence from a company they have a contract with though. Of course, it could be that GOG already pesters these developers, but if you're getting ignored or fobbed off with excuses is there anything in the contract that would allow you to exercise a bit of leverage? I don't expect you to give us any info about the contracts, but it would be good if GOG could do *something*.

Err, why? Paid or not, work hours are work hours. They are money spent (with nothing gained apart from goodwill and potential future sales in the case of unpaid patches). If there are not enough customers that bought your game on a webstore, and you are already in the red there, it can be difficult to justify spending more money on that particular version.

The main work on the update is already done for the Steam version, and I can't imagine that GOG would charge developers to release free updates to their games here. So the only cost would be, what, disabling Steamworks for the GOG build again? Maybe copying and pasting some files? I would have a hard time believing that it would take more than an hour, if that long, to do whatever work is required to get an existing update ready for the GOG version of a game.

How about a discount (anything!) on the base game to celebrate?