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falconeerdev: (...)
Hello,

I appreciate the detailed breakdown and I appreciate you being straightforward about it - I sympathise about the issues you face, and I apologise if I seem harsh about it, but it feels like kind of an erroneous self-feeding loop. You say you barely make enough to care about GOG, and that sucks, and it's understandable you may feel tempted to drop it altogether. But it's a relation that goes both ways.

On top of GOG being a small margin of playerbase, people buying there are just cautious, and for a good reason. It's not just Bulwark, the excel in the first post of this thread counts over 700 games with nearly a thousand issues listed. It honestly poses a big question of - why should you ever even consider buying on GOG. Which then leads to, as you have noticed, why should devs and publishers even bother with GOG, if it's a fraction of their income (or as you say actually a loss) to begin with. But how would you incentivize people to buy on GOG, compared to the elephant in the room, Steam, if they are paying the same money but are getting an inferior product? How can you expect goggers to buy a feature incomplete product - and thus for it to start making money enough for GOG distribution to become a worthwhile time and effort investment?

I want to state, that the moment the missing DLC reaches GOG, I'll happily buy it. And as other said, I'm rather fine with missing patches if I can be sure they will eventually arrive. As things stand now however, between missing patches and missing content, I'm honestly sorry but I can't really in any good conscience recommend getting this game here, compared to Steam, which only further drives the divide and reinforces the issue that's causing it. Though honestly, I am already hard pressed to recommend getting things on GOG as a whole to begin with, and this thread is the big chunk as to why.
Post edited 2 days ago by Andrzejef
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falconeerdev: (...)
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Andrzejef: Hello,

I appreciate the detailed breakdown and I appreciate you being straightforward about it - I sympathise about the issues you face, and I apologise if I seem harsh about it, but it feels like kind of an erroneous self-feeding loop. You say you barely make enough to care about GOG, and that sucks, and it's understandable you may feel tempted to drop it altogether. But it's a relation that goes both ways.

On top of GOG being a small margin of playerbase, people buying there are just cautious, and for a good reason. It's not just Bulwark, the excel in the first post of this thread counts over 700 games with nearly a thousand issues listed. It honestly poses a big question of - why should you ever even consider buying on GOG. Which then leads to, as you have noticed, why should devs and publishers even bother with GOG, if it's a fraction of their income (or as you say actually a loss) to begin with. But how would you incentivize people to buy on GOG, compared to the elephant in the room, Steam, if they are paying the same money but are getting an inferior product? How can you expect goggers to buy a feature incomplete product - and thus for it to start making money enough for GOG distribution to become a worthwhile time and effort investment?

I want to state, that the moment the missing DLC reaches GOG, I'll happily buy it. And as other said, I'm rather fine with missing patches if I can be sure they will eventually arrive. As things stand now however, between missing patches and missing content, I'm honestly sorry but I can't really in any good conscience recommend getting this game here, compared to Steam, which only further drives the divide and reinforces the issue that's causing it. Though honestly, I am already hard pressed to recommend getting things on GOG as a whole to begin with, and this thread is the big chunk as to why.
truly fair enough, and I have acknowledged that.

That said the patches will come, I just started back up, so using Steam as a testbed for the changes and then when the big update hits it will go to the other platforms,, I've always done it that way, and then GOG and other platform users hopefully get a more stable release.

With regards to the DLC, yeh I will bring it up with the pub, but its a financial decision, and it's a seperate product so no guarantees.

WIth regards to feature sets, as a developer, every platform gets different feature sets. this is a given, I mean Sony and Playstation barter to make devs include their latest buzzwords. So they have inherently different feature sets,
Steam has steaminput and SteamVR and whatnot , which are separate feature sets.

I would say GOG's main draw (correct me if I'm wrong), Is a DRM free version you get to keep regardless. Which is not without its downsides for many devs. (not for me I don't give a fuck about piracy, as long as it's a decent version.

So for me the priority is the base version always, the DLC is just there to try and make some funds post-release to fund further development. To be honest Valve makes their sales algorithm so that DLC and bundles become a survival/sales tool. Myself I would prefer not to have to do any of that and just be survivable of the maingame.

But I fully concede that you get what you put in.. Hence I started of saying it's both an explanation and apology.

I truly wish there better ways to survive making games without making yourself dependent on these corporations and all these marketplaces. But on the other hand there is lots of places to buy games and they all have their down and up sides. GOG has some great user friendly features that also make a difference. But in that it is a niche storefront.

I alone cannot change that. But again I have been taught today that ignoring GOG in such a manor also comes at a price. :) I heard that loud and clear.
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falconeerdev: ooh and thanks everyone for responding, and glad you all read my answers. I can understand it's not ideal and having a conversation is a first step in changing things.
Hi Tomas,

Thank you for your coments. Regardless of the differing opinions about the frequency of updates—whether for or against—would it be possible to include a clear, cautious note about the expected update schedule on your game pages? This would help potential buyers make informed decisions and set their expectations accordingly. Some players will be patient, others less so, and that's perfectly understandable.

Thanks for considering this suggestion. May your creative journey continue to find hope and light!
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falconeerdev: ooh and thanks everyone for responding, and glad you all read my answers. I can understand it's not ideal and having a conversation is a first step in changing things.
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KiliKelvin: Hi Tomas,

Thank you for your coments. Regardless of the differing opinions about the frequency of updates—whether for or against—would it be possible to include a clear, cautious note about the expected update schedule on your game pages? This would help potential buyers make informed decisions and set their expectations accordingly. Some players will be patient, others less so, and that's perfectly understandable.

Thanks for considering this suggestion. May your creative journey continue to find hope and light!
I have in the past given out roadmaps, it might have even be placed on the Gog page, (not sure, I don't manage the GOG page myself), but I stopped doing that on Steam as well. Part of how I work is listening to players and expanding /supporting my games based on their feedback, when possible. I also have a rather odd way of working, I work in burst of extreme activity and then sometimes I need a month or more of just doing something else to recharge.

On the whole my updates are fairly chaotic, and that's also the reason I can no longer work in a studio, If I have to constrain myself it leads to serious mental health consequences.

So generally I try to tease only the next big expansion, cuz those take 3-6 months to prepare and develop. But all the small patches they are very haphazard and responsive, not very planned out.

I get quite stressed about trying to live up to expectations, I have an incredibly ambitious but also damaged brain ;) So If I say I will deliver something, I will deliver it, but at the cost of my health. Hence I've stopped putting out roadmaps and schedules, cuz ultimately it's a form of self protection.

You will find this sort of weird behaviour (and some bad behavior) with true solodevs. Generally there is a reason why someone isn't working in a studio or at the head of a studio. Mental health , burnout and so forth is a reason I've seen in many well known solodevs I've met.

So I 100% agree that would be best, I try, but mostly It leads to unrealistic expectations by myself and thus unhealthy situations.

There is a lot of discourse around the term solodev, some use it to describe their hobbyist dreams, others use it as a marketing term and gather freelancers around them to do large parts of the work. For me it's not a positive, working alone most of the time in relative peace is the only way I can stay healthy and sane ;)

hope this explains a bit. My argument here only applies to myself offcourse.
I'm still shocked that none of the popular JRPGs are here.
Persona, Final Fantasy, Tales series.

Edit: Some are here like Trail and Ys series are here because of Nihon Falcom.
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drxenija: I'm still shocked that none of the popular JRPGs are here.
Persona, Final Fantasy, Tales series.

Edit: Some are here like Trail and Ys series are here because of Nihon Falcom.
Not the correct thread for this, but there seems to be 0 communications between GOG and Square and Namco (other than for Little Nightmares) for some reason, despite some of the older titles being DRM-free on steam, after getting Capcom on board I feel like Square should be the next priority tbh

Persona I can see coming here someday