It's a question that's been on my mind lately.

Why GOG as a platform is not very attractive for developers? Especially when it comes to indie games?

Ittle Dew 2, Celeste, Monument Valley, Axiom Verge, Blossom Tales. These are just some of the titles that I was really looking forward to. Until I've found out that they have not been released on GOG yet.

So I took the time and send an email to one or multiple devs (or game studio as a whole) asking if they are going to release the game on GOG. The majority of them responded, but their response was always along the lines of "We have no plans to release it on GOG right now".

One could argue that GOG stands for "Good Old Games", but that hasn't been true for a while. Sure, they keep releasing older titles, but the majority of the games released is new, including indie titles.

Why GOG seems so unappealing? What can we, as GOG users do that would make this platform more attractive to indie developers and make it a go to platform for DRM free gaming? Sure, we have our internal wishlist, but what's really the point if we and GOG overlords are the only ones aware of it?

Maybe if you deeply care about a game being released here, you should, in addition to voting for it on a wishlist, also contact the devs asking them politely to release it here too?

What about a hashtag #nogognobuy under comments of every upcoming game that seems appealing to you so maybe the devs would take notice?

I don't use any other platform because I value GOG for their DRM policy and ease of use. I also like to keep all of my games in one place.

Sometimes I wonder how many great games I've never heard of simply because they were never released here.

So, you say GOG is not attracting indie games, but you say GOG is selling indie games. So, you mean not every new indie game is sold at GOG, whatever "indie" means.

I think they're doing fine adding more games to their catalog, seemingly a few every week. That's already too quick for me to keep up. I mean, I couldn't research all the new games, whatever fad genre, let alone play all the new games even if I tried. No good. Sadly, that would just translate to: #no-gog-then-pirate-anyway because of no DRM in games sold at GOG and so intended piracy is sometimes assumed anyway (or at least as a worn out retort of a bad joke).

It already is a go to platform for DRM-free gaming. I fear that's precisely the reason why it's not more attractive to certain publishers (including those who cooperate with indie devs).

As for the indie devs themselves, possible reasons probably include that they don't have time, resources or the will to handle more than one platform when it comes to updates and such; and while GOG does sell a larger amount of indie game copies than other platforms, it's still peanuts compared to Steam, so I guess many think they can live without money from GOG if it means they don't have to deal with the extra work and hassle. Some indie devs who'd actually like to see their game on GOG have it rejected by the curation process, and reports of such rejections probably scare off other devs.

I don't think anything we can do will have enough of an impact to sway the minds of those indie devs or publishers in another direction, as long as GOG remains a DRM-free platform with untransparent curation process that only sells a smaller percentage of game copies compared to Steam.

Doesn't hurt to try though (unless the attempts are so obnoxious that they alienate devs and put them off even more). Some games have been rejected due to curation, but were accepted later on when users convinced GOG, that there was a market for it among the regulars here.

I think that is a mobile game .

At least once a month someone goes nuts in here that GOG sells too many indie games. :P

I give up!

I totally support telling devs #nogognobuy but sadly it is just a crapshoot as to whether it would make any difference. The time for people to be passionate about this was a decade ago or more, when SCHEME had not yet completely infested every inch of gaming. I maintain that Scheme is the worst thing to happen to gaming in the entire history of gaming. Its effects are irreversible, all one can do is try to stay outside of its ever-multiplying tentacles. The influence of Scheme is so vast that us GOG users are a drop in the bucket. Devs in general will not care. Everything is made with clients and online first, old-school gamers who want to own their games and play them 'til the end of days are not viewed favorably by devs or even the gaming community at this point.

To be honest, if recent releases are any indication, I am fine if some of these devs don't release their games here because I rankle at what I perceive to be prissiness on their part. Two examples. Kingdom Come:Deliverance...beautiful game, but unfinished (the incomplete story continued in DLC or even later games) and those of us who (rightly, imo) view a client as DRM have to download the ENTIRE game every time it updates. Ancestor's Legacy...devs thanked us GOG users for our trust while not saying a word about the game for an entire MONTH...still not out here. And while these examples are bad enough in their own right, the saddest part about them is that these are devs/releases that I view as among the better ones in modern gaming.

It is really bad that indie devs see Steam as their only way of publishing their games.
I'm not a developer or anything of the sort, but if I were to make a game, I'd rather sell it through GoG than Steam.
I wouldn't want my fanbase/community be tied up to an intrusive DRM like Steam (I know the ones who probably like Steam will hiss at me, but I'm not far from the truth), and I'd feel okay with knowing people will buy the game if they're not hindered by any crazy DRM hoops to jump.

Those are just my two cents.

e: Fixed grammar issues.

As folks have said, it's a mix of reasons from GOG not wanting to accept the game, to devs not wanting to work on multiple versions of the game, a side-effect of vendor-locked features from Steamworks to GOG Galaxy. What's needed are vendor-agnostic toolsets to integrate with games. Another option is for someone to do read up on the Galaxy docs and offer to port the games to GOG Galaxy:
http://cdn.gog.com/open/galaxy/sdk/1.99/Documentation/index.html
And a sad truth is that indies on GOG don't make as much money as titles do on Steam as is. And now, indie games are making multiple times more money on just Switch than Steam, to say nothing of other consoles.

Another trend I see in the future is that more big companies will move away from Steam. EA is never coming back, Activision is already moving away with Destiny 2 and Black Ops 4, Ubisoft is ready with Uplay, there are rumors that Fallout 76 will either be a Bethesda.net permanent or timed exclusive, and Take Two is rumored to be moving away as well thanks to Rockstar Social Club or whatever it's called. Valve knows this, that's why they did the "Hooray, we're going to make games again". Without major publishers, they're just gonna become another indie dumping ground. The success of League of Legends, Minecraft, Fortnite, and Blizzard's library all prove that good PC games never needed Steam to be successful. The big companies are well aware of how much money they left on the table by giving Steam such a big cut. And the consequence of all of this, is that these games likely won't come to GOG either. At least, never on day-one, but GOG could be like a 'preserver' of games, so that a certain amount of time after a title's release and support is more or less over, GOG could get a DRM-free, content complete edition.

[List of games here.]

Let's see: is independent among indies, [url=https://www.gog.com/wishlist/games/celeste]don't seem responsive, the Axiom Dev appears exceptional, and Blossom Tales just seems so new that it isn't on many radars.

It boils down to money. Indie devs already have a small niche product which only people from a very specific market are ever going to buy. GOG has a small player/customer base, so when those two factors are combined together, the chances are most devs won't sell that many copies of their games on GOG.

The only way GOG customers can change this situation is to tell everyone they know to boycott Steam and to use GOG exclusively instead. If the GOG customer base increases to high numbers, then it would start to get every game that Steam has. Although that would also take alot more than just GOG customers spreading the word. GOG itself would also have to make their service as good as Steam in every way.

It also needs GoG to have games people want, otherwise even if they don't want to use it they'll use Steam.

Catch 22

It really is, but that's begun to change after the Steam floodgates were irredeemably opened (plus Valve recently confirming they've got no intention to close them not even an inch) and worthy indie titles got swallowed in the deluge of shitty asset flips and shovelware the "New and Trending" section of the Steam store turned into.

Unfortunately, the only alternative that some of those indie devs have found is not another PC store like GOG but the console market, particularly the Nintendo Switch.

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Publishing a game on GOG has become a bigger hassle now that you have to deal with Galaxy features, or so I heard.

Maybe it's the lack of DRM that scares the developers, especially the indie developers. I was also surprised that Axiom Verge was unavailable here. You could argue that but they have changed now. The old website was indeed called goodoldgames but they got rid of the name, still sell many of the old titles here and also sell newer titles that might look like older titles.

I thought this was a good move because at least for me, being interested in a lot of the newer titles, at least initially, got me to discover some "old" ones that made me stay. They do have to attract customers and that is the best way. I'm pretty sure they hang on to the older titles for as long as they can and usually when they get rid of them, it's for a good reason. To developers, it's about reaching customers. It's unfortunate, especially for us but Steam has what? A million users, maybe more. No idea exactly what GOG has compared to that but probably a lot less. To a developer it seems to be a great business move and GOG seems to come second to that, assuming they decide to do a GOG release at all and GOG accepts it. On the other hand, I do sometimes feel like indie games will get more visibility here than trying to stand out in the dump site of Steam.
So short answer. Business.

Secondly, it goes back to many developers being scared of going DRM-Free.

You're guess is as good as mine on what they do with the wishlist but it is more complicated. Finding the rights, untangling the rights and finding the types of games that would sell well to the audience here. The behind the scenes is a whole other subject and has its own complicated process on getting a game here.

With audience comes power. I think this has corrupted others but I'd like to think that it's nice to and unfortunate to a degree that GOG has its own little corner. A bold corner no less. I would love to see GOG with a better following and to grow but I have to ask: What would too much of that do to them? Would the power be good for them? Will it change them into something apathetic? We definitely should but getting rejected is no good, especially when you go through the process of reading "We currently have no plans for a GOG release" It feels upsetting. So maybe a lot of us are taking a break from that right now. I find hashtags to be ineffective and many times, even seeming to be accusing someone, so many times it hurts more than it benefits. That's good that you keep to here mainly but there are other platforms that are lesser known but I'm sure you heard of itch.to, Humble Bundle and Gamersgate. Those are great as well and have many DRM-Free titles. There's the lesser known ZoomPlatform. This thread has more companies that sell games DRM-Free. I get that it's easier to have it all in one place but in case there's a game you really want, you could search far and wide. Maybe even get it DRM-Free somewhere else and a lot of times from the publisher's or developer's website.

Keeping up with games in general is hard but there are news outlets, reddit and even here where you could know about games that might interest you. Isolating yourself to one place will keep you out of the loop, which has its costs and benefits.

Overall, I think GOG is the best. I've seen no other company like it. It and Steam could very well be polar opposites and the only thing that ties them together is games but having a certain stance does make you an outlier, especially in this industry.