I am not trying to dismiss it but merely show that if gog wishlists can be manipulated(and they can of course) then so can steam scores/which you tout.....basically they by themselves don't paint the entire picture and one should have more evidence to make such claims as you are presenting.

What I am also trying to illustrate is that you seem to only use the evidence that supports your argument in this case and seemingly toss or dismiss the rest, and that is not good deductive reasoning/logic.

There are a few threads, not a whole lot, and so what if people vote for games they would buy if they came here? Isn't that the entire point of the wishlists?

Even go on other sites where they talk about such? Obviously not or you'd know how easy most reviews are to manipulate. Just buy a game for cheap & leave the game running for a bit to boost "time played" then add whatever score/words/etc you want.

See? If someone sides with your held beliefs on the matter you praise them and take their words more easily into consideration. I am willing to concede to some minor parts of your points but yet you stubbornly fail to consider that perhaps I might be right on some things?

Not everyone does review, though....look at gog reviews.....do you see one review for even a fraction of all owners of said games?
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ALL that aside: Good or bad, I still think some more(not all or most but some) games should come here regardless of steam reviews. It would boost profits for gog, and if they can let some niche games here that sell little copies then they can sell some more games people actually want a bit more than that.

Again, what are you right on?
You assert the Wishlist is a good metric when it's clearly being manipulated. I see you around posting in virtually every thread so you clearly know about the constant calls in duplicated threads for months asking people to vote for these games as some sort of protest vote to GoG curation.

Then you make blanket allegations that Steam metrics aren't reliable based on thin air. That somehow there is some silent majority who aren't posting reviews that must just love the game.

I highly suggest you look into the statistics of polling. You will find that even a small subsample can reliably give a good gauge of a greater sized pool. And before you talk about elections, realise they have been wrong because the polls are off by usually a handful of percentage points. In short, polling 1 in 60-80 or so (which is done by review) is a very reliable method of assessing interest. It might not tell you if more people really like a 80% rated game than an 82%, but it's going to be pretty reliable when comparing 67% to 81%.

Furthermore you keep repeating this stuff about GoG making money selling these games...
You clearly have no idea of the costs involved. These are games that aren't selling on Steam. On GoG they are likely to garner just 10% of those poor sales and when talking about games already released, GoG gets nothing from Day 1 sales which is often the biggest chunk. I just don't see how games with under 500 reviews can possibly make up the costs. GoG still needs to review them; test them on their various test configurations to make sure they run; support them into the future; and pay lawyers to review or draw up the contracts. All this out of their small cut of the pie where transaction fees are taken out.

It's not as if GoG is swimming in money either. They have had a number of quarters in the red and are merely ending up with small profits each year of late. Marginal titles are not money makers, they are money losers. I'm sure GoG knows about how much a game needs to make to break even. They estimate the sales potential and make a decision if a game is likely to exceed that. I cannot imagine titles that gamers are showing disinterest on Steam are suddenly going to be big money makers here. Gamers on Steam are more like us than some people here wish to give them credit for.

I didn't say that....I said that/inferred that both can be manipulated(steam and gog), and that you cannot tout one(steam ones) and not the other since both can be and are(to varying degrees) manipulated(for good or bad).

(Please try to read a bit more carefully so as to avoid misreading or mistaking what I am trying to say so we can stay on the same page and not mistake what is being said. If you don't get what i'm trying to say also feel free to ask before assuming intent and taking what I say possibly out of context)

This is a bit hyperbolic. My personal habits aside; the calls are not constant(maybe once in awhile), the threads are not duplicated(there is one for games with less than 300 votes, and a few others....one for each specific game that people want), and people are just trying to generate some votes to get their favorite games here.

(Most such calls don't even get that many votes anyways, btw)

Because they aren't reliable on their own, without other supporting evidence, and because they(like gog wishlists) can be manipulated.

I am less trying to outright refute your presented evidence and more trying to show your blatant double standard of touting the steam ratings/reviews to prove your points while dismissing the others(gog wishlists/etc) which don't fit your narrative.

And no I am not trying to say that a bunch of people not posting reviews all want the games(on steam)....just trying to illustrate a point that review numbers/overall score(for each game based on reviews) aren't reliable as not everyone who likes/dislikes a game reviews every game.

Heck, I hardly ever post reviews on such sites(even for my favorite games) due to laziness/time constraints.....and I am guessing others(for other games, not just the ones being discussed) do the same with regards to not posting steam reviews/gog reviews/etc.

Sometimes it can and sometimes it doesn't....that maxim you mention isn't always the case...there are exceptions.

Your argument doesn't hold up as much when you see some of the sales numbers for some games released over the past few years. If they can keep those games here and release more of the same then they likely can release some of the others they rejected.

Again look at the sales numbers for some of the games released here recently......obviously profits must not be a concern if they release other games that do poorly here.

Either they want to lose money or they are somewhat biased in their selections and using a bit of personal taste to bring some games here instead of actual interest in said games, which is not helping when a business like gog needs to make money to thrive and survive.
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Forgot this bit: All your suppositions on if some games rely on(besides your personal stances on such) the idea that I am talking about the games you mentioned. I am talking about a few of them, yes, but also games which have many more wishlist votes(not all of which were "bridgaded" on the forums) and much more interest that gog turned down for the seemingly "good" reason of "too niche".

For your stance to be correct for those games as well, they'd all/mostly have to be potential duds/loss leaders & I don't think that is the case for every one of them.
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I have to say, I'm a bit annoyed at your "answer" here, GameRager. You quoted me essentially asking "How can you game a lack of reviews?" and you answer with "Steam reviews are not representative!", which doesn't address the point at all. That's important, because in your very next post, you again bring up "Steam scores can be manipulated!".

Nobody here has said "Oh, this game is has only a 20% rating on steam, so it sucks and it won't be bought if put on gog!"

So I ask again: How can you manipulate a lack of reviews?
RWarehall provided an example of a game that got 80 reviews over the period of 5 years. How would that have been gamed? It seems to me to be the perfect example of a game that's not popular (especially counting the additional information provided by SteamSpy that showed it was in the lowest tier of owned games). If the game had 10k reviews and was rated 90% positive, one might become suspicious of manipulation (especially if equal attention wasn't given to the game outside of Steam reviews), but how would you manipulate a lack of reviews?

Determining factor? Who said determining factor? In the very next block of text from me you quoted, I said "those would definitely be points against including it on gog".

Lack of steam reviews is definitely a more concrete point of data than wishlist entries (and way less manipulatable).
Steam reviews, unlike gog ones, mean that that person has already bought the game. Aside from that, it also means that the person who bought the game was moved enough by it to write a review (positive OR negative). If the number of people who did that was really small over a long period of time, it is safe to extrapolate it isn't a very popular game. If we take very generous numbers and say that 10% of people who bought the game would review it, then gog could guess at 800 purchases over a period of 5 years (probably not even half of that, because gog is unfortunately a less popular platform than steam, and also, the game would get outdated within those 5 years, and likely not have the staying power of 20-30 year old classics).

PS: You keep bringing up the gog excuse of 'too niche', as if everyone takes it at face value. Gog uses that phrase because "We feel your game is rubbish, and it won't sell", is too rude.

Look where? Except for some devs who expressed their disappointment of only a handful of sales here on Twitter, there's hardly any hard data on that. And what games did you have in mind?

I haven't read this "perspective" argument since Bethesda acquired Fallout IP, which was more than decade ago.
And more than decade ago it was debunked because it was ridiculous one. Case the point - Fallout New Vegas which proved that perspective does not matter at all if game is good.
Bethesda's Fallouts were not. More like mindless wandering on wasteland map but... you could achieve same result with different IP, Fallout have too much potential for that. Some folks say that "because they are modding paradise" but they - why they sold so well on consoles? Another argument debunked.
People tried to tell that as clear as possible back then in vain.

You are being entirely disingenuous by saying it's a perspective issue, and saying that FNV "proved" anything is a matter of opinion, I personally do not like FNV and never have, it's a mess of a game and needs to be modded out the ass to even be playable. Fallout was originally a turn-based isometric CRPG, that wasn't the "perspective" it was the entire subgenre and style of gameplay, of course people will dissent when the entire gameplay is changed. I personally like traditional CRPGs, I don't like console action shooters with RPG element tacked on.

First off i'm sorry if you thought I came off as trying to intentionally offend. Also thank you for taking the time to write a decent reply. That said:

Rwarehall's replies state just that to some degree(if not in so many words) when he points to review scores on steam & says gog will lose money if some of those games are brought here/says gog was right to not bring some of them here.

But there isn't a lack of reviews(unless your definition of "lack" differs from mine?)...there are 80 reviews for that example, as you said. And even with so few reviews some could've(but not necessarily were, just could've) been manipulated.

I was more trying to point out that if data can be manipulated then it will be from time to time, and that with such in mind one cannot tout such data as more valid than other easily manipulable data(i.e. gog wishlist/etc) just because the set one touts supports their claims and the other set doesn't.

I was LESS trying to outright dismiss his data and more trying to show how he seemingly picked and chose which data to support in some cases, and point out how that line of reasoning is flawed.

I forget the exact thing I was trying to state to you on this, but in general that bit(iirc) is trying to point out how flawed it is to claim gog cannot bring some more games here due to cost/potential low sales when they do that already for some niche games.

As I told rwarehall, anyone can manipulate steam reviews and scores....buy a game for cheap or get it for free in a trade and then run it a bit then add a crap review....it IS a bit easier to do via the gog wishlist but the potential is still there. This is one of the points I was trying to get across here to rwarehall/etc.....that that data(steam reviews/scores) isn't much more reliable than gog wishlist as both can be manipulated, and that to convince me of some things rwarehall would have to bring more evidence to the table.

Many who like a game slightly or will not likely leave reviews, even if they had an average experience.....to most it is too much work. A person who DISLIKES a game, however, will usually be a bit more likely to post a review on it to discourage people from buying such for whatever reason.

Also why shouldn't we have some of those games here? Why are some of the niche games more good for gog(sims and such) financially/etc?

I know that, but tastes are subjective and gog has been wrong on new games releases in the past so sometimes their idea of what will sell well is (pardon my french) crap.

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We DO know the sales numbers(or close to it) on some games and can then extrapolate games on the best selling lists based on that(i.e. lower games sold less than that number at the time the data on the known game's sales was told to us).

As for games...you mean ones I want here? Well my memory is poor(I have to write some stuff down to memorize it or recall it) so i'd need to go through my lists/jog my memory a bit. One such thing is more classic games by ip holders we have on board which gog could likely get running easily, and as for newer games i'd need a bit of time to work on a reply to that.

Perhaps you read what you wanted to read off RWarehall's post, and I read what I wanted to read, but I only ever saw review scores as an additional factor mentioned alongside the much more important factor: poor sales and a general lack of interest in the game.

80 reviews over a period of 5 years is definitely a lack. And again you bring up the score, when I keep saying, the score is irrelevant. I don't care (and I doubt gog cares as the main point of interest) about bad review scores. If gog saw a game with 50k reviews, with only a 50% review score, they'd probably go for that over a game with 90% review scores, but only 20 reviews over 5 years.

Again, I point out, you can't game a LACK of reviews. I am not talking about the scores themselves, I am talking about the total number of reviews (either positive or negative). If a game has a very small number of reviews, then that means in general that the game is likely not very popular. And since that data is backed up by data from SteamSpy, I'd have no problem trusting that data point over something like number of wishlist entries on gog- a data point that has no assurance that even 10% of the people who voted on that list would buy the game, even when it was severely discounted.

If you can point out a way that a game's NUMBER of reviews can be manipulated in a way to negatively impact the game (i.e. not by the developer themselves), please show me, because I can't think of any.
In contrast, number of wishlist votes of a game on gog absolutely CAN be manipulated (maliciously or unintentionally), especially with controversial games that are voted for by edgelords or those wishing to push a particular agenda.

So the example RWarehall gave is absolutely valid. a game with a low number of reviews, even after 5 years, and even those not being particularly spectacular reviews, and data from SteamSpy showing low ownership of those games, coupled with a developer known to be difficult to work with, all these factors would absolutely logically point to gog NOT getting the game.

I think gog, being the only one with access to their sales data, is the best (and only, aside from devs) judge of what would sell well on their platform, but the small glimpses we get (like the post from a couple weeks ago about the developer tweet where they were mentioning removing their game from the gog catalogue because they only made 8 sales over the period of a year or something), seem to pan out as well.

So you missed him tossing my arguments aside while blindly promoting his own?

Also poor sales on steam don't necessarily=poor sales on gog(Plus I am not even talking about that one game).

Maybe it's a cultural thing, because here most people usually hear lack and associate that with zero/nothing of what is being discussed.

Also I brought up score because rwarehall was touting a 67% score for some games as "bad" or at least not good enough to bother with some games, where for most people 67% is above average when discussing interest percentages.

Total number of reviews can be manipulated as well...I say this not to discount your points but just to point that out that they aren't as flawless as some seem to think.

Also what if many just thought the game was ok but not the best and didn't want to bother writing a review?

I said it several times in here, but I will say it again so please listen carefully Anyone with an account can buy a game for a buck on a steam sale(steam has many sales), then run it for a bit to make it look like they played it, and then write a fake reviews either praising or dissing the game. It's not hard, and anyone can do it.

This is framed in such a way that i'm beginning to suspect you are cherrypicking as well at this point & just seeing what you want to see.

Steam interest doesn't necessarily correlate with GOG interest.

Gog brings some crap or niche games here every so often that seem to not do well at all...I don't trust their judgement on such as much anymore.

I don't know what culture you are from, then. A highway with 2 cars represents a LACK of traffic. A grain silo with one kilogram of grain is a LACK of grain resources. A commercial airplane with only 20 seats occupied is a LACK of tickets sold. A game that only got 80 reviews over 5 years is a LACK of game reviews.

Steam marks a 67% overall score for a game as "mixed", and I can't say that with my anecdotal evidence, I'd disagree. I may like more than a couple of "mixed" reviewed games, but I can't deny they always have very glaring faults.

You seem to have said it so many times that you didn't look at what I asked. How does your example manipulate the number of reviews a game has? It may manipulate the score, but that's not what I'm asking. You say in your previous paragraph that it can be done, but then provide this as an example?
Again, I point to the example of the game with only 80 reviews over a period of 5 years (whether positive or negative is irrelevant, the point is that that small number of reviews points to the game not being popular). HOW WOULD YOU GAME THAT? You can't game a lack of reviews. How would buying a game for a buck and leaving a positive or negative review make a game have a lack of reviews?

This is the completely ingenuous idiotic and stupid crap you have spouted post after post. Do you have a brain?

You are comparing the GoG wishlist which has been brigaded for months, is an anonymous poll on a platform known to have a serious alt problem...

vs.

A review system that tracks play time, only counts full reviews for ratings, ratings that we can read for signs of manipulation

And you are using the biggest b.s. argument that you need to throw out Steam ratings along with Wishlist ratings because both CAN be manipulated when one CLEARLY IS and you have provided ZERO EVIDENCE that the other was.

Like I've been saying you HAVE NO POINT!

You are making a stupid argument whose only point is to promote your predetermined view. You want your lollipop here, and you are going to just keep crying about it until mommy buys it for you...

How many reviews have you written? What else do you do in order to boost the awareness level of a game? May I guess? I guess: next to nothing. If at all.