"I don't mind people having subjective opinions, I just hate it when they disagree with me."

I presume "niche" is the codeword for GOG not believing the game would sell well enough on GOG, to justify the time and money spent on it (offline installers, Galaxy integration, ads, support etc.).

Then again, from time to time GOG seems to change their decision if they see the game is selling briskly on e.g. Steam, and/or getting quite good reviews. Then they are like "oh, the game is doing well after all, maybe some GOG users would like to have it too?".

Either way, it is GOG's job to make those decisions, as they have to live with them. We customers can also affect it. Let's all make a solemn promise that we will boycott all those games on GOG that GOG isn't selling in their store! That'll show them, suddenly they see a severe drop in people's buying habits as people refuse to buy games that are not sold.

If that's the reason they actually gave (and they have used it before for other rejected games, IIRC), it looks like a generic thing they tell developers. I doubt they send a detailed analysis of the reasons for the rejection.

Oh ok, I have a hunch now. I saw the trailer for the game, and it mentions "Play an absorbing card game". Ah-ha! GOG clearly fears it would compete too closely with G.W.E.N.T.!

On a more serious note, some of the Steam reviews make a big deal about its Steam Workshop integration, how people can make and share content for the game on Steam. So my dear goglodytites (or "gog-tits" for short), how would you feel then if GOG did sell this game, without the ability to make and play the extra content? Would this game end up straight to this list:

https://www.gog.com/mix/games_that_treat_gog_customers_as_second_class_citizens

Think of all the wailing and mourning and bitching and itching, IF the game came here. Damned if you do, damned if you don't, damned... well, damned anyway.

Difference that GOG's curators decide which games come here and which don't, so you'd expect them to maintain a modicum of objectivity and actually to research said games in-depth before coming to a decision.

Not sure how that's a defense to what I said. Also, you're assuming they don't do research or look at the game... why exactly?

Any curated store is going to have things missing that someone will complain about. Open up the doors to anything and you have tons of people complaining there's too much crap (i.e. Steam right now). There's literally no way to win, no tactic to use to not have people complaining on the forum. That's just how it goes. GOG do what they think is best and you have the option to purchase elsewhere if desired.

Because many of the games they reject have high production values and solid gameplay, many of their decisions bare the hallmark of "Oh we took a quick look at it and it looked like a cheap/mobile game, REJECTED!" without looking into the game further, thus the "too niche" meme you read around these forums.

This is your S-U-B-J-E-C-T-I-V-E opinion.

Or both.

Seriously though, from what the community's visitors to the gog HQ have said, they're swamped with applications and refuse A LOT (emphasis theirs). They should IMHO hire more people with more diverse interests in gaming. If nothing else, a bigger curation team should hopefully decrease the chance of stupid decisions being made.

Let's take a game called One Finger Death Punch, which was rejected by the "curators". If I have the S-U-B-J-E-C-T-I-V-E opinion that this game is good and it should be here, that's cool, but it doesn't really have any impact on the decision of the curators.

However, if that same game has some 10000 S-U-B-J-E-C-T-I-V-E reviews on Steam and those 10000 S-U-B-J-E-C-T-I-V-E opinions are overwhelmingly positive, then i can O-B-J-E-C-T-I-V-E-L-Y surmise that this is probably a pretty good game and the "curators" have O-B-J-E-C-T-I-V-E-L-Y made the wrong call.

Instant buy from me even without any workshop add ons. This is a game i would enjoy just as it is.

I voted for it on the wishlist a while ago. Looks interesting imo. Reminds me of something i played years ago.

Is the bottleneck really the number of curators? I would have thought it is what happens to the game AFTER the positive decision has been made, all the work related to releasing the game on GOG (offline installers, Galaxy integration, advertisements, support etc.; I presume lots of those are also done by GOG staff).

I presume GOG has some kind of rule how many games max per week or month will pass through the process, so they have to weed out the rest somehow, or at least postpone their release. And when they say "too niche", I still think it means they don't believe it would sell well enough on GOG. Sometimes they might be wrong with that, and yes they have later included games that they originally rejected (or postponed), e.g. if they see lots of people are buying it elsewhere.

Also, since you maintain the "second class citizens" gogmix: if this Quest game was released on GOG without Steam Workshop mod support, would you add it to your Hall of Shame? After all, there are games like Shadwen, Deathtrap etc. in the list for the same reason.

Well, am a bit torn here. Personally I don't see mobile games as anything more than a simple method of extracing large amounts of money from people, and ports to the PC are generally just copies, and then treble the price. Hence we have such utter rubbish as Tempest actually being sold here. So I am really not in favour of any mobile port appearing here. Add in to that the seemingly endless dlc that has, and steam mod workshop, its going t be hard to get it. That being said I don't mind EoB type games, and Ember recently released is a mobile game, and for a reasonable (£2) amount of money is not bad. So if they brought in the full game + dlcs at that price point, then maybe it would be ok. I find it very unlikely though as on steam its £11 with a discount, and only includes a couple of the dlc. No way would I pay that for a mobile port.

Oh, and I can see several niches in those screenshots.

This whole "too niche" thing is part of the reason Sokobond was pulled from gog. Not only is it keeping new games from coming to gog, it's driving some away.

https://twitter.com/Draknek/status/970359120757862400

It implies the person pulled it because he wanted gog to sell more of their other games.

Sokobond is a simple game that sells for £7 on steam. That pricing might work on the smartphone generation who happily bought up games like angry birds despite many similar mini games being on flash sites for free or in bundled software packages prior to that.