I have just as hard of a time finding games at GOG as I do at other game shops. This isn't only a GOG issue. It is a general issue to do with the gaming industry.

When my occasional interest to play games comes on, I find myself endlessly searching to find which games to play among what seems like an endless list of choices, instead of spending that time gaming. What should be a much easier process of finding games turns into a time-eater and something of a hobby that I don't want to take on. The problem stems from lack of adequate search filtering according to personal relevance and the many ways in which that search process is gamed by the gaming industry.

Inadequate filtering is a big issue for me. GOG's default filtering for example provides nothing in terms of finding games of personal relevance. When I go to the GOG store, I see these filters: Price, System, Features, Language. Of course, these are good filters to have, but they are technical filters, not filters to do with personal interest relevance and subjective quality aspects. These filters tell me nothing about the content of the games. As part of the search box there is an additional filter for genre. But given that many games today are not slotted neatly within hard-line genres, this filter is much less useful than it could be. In other words, it may well be that I want to find games according to a mixed genre filter.

Going from there, I may want to find games with certain filters for game content. For example, I may want to avoid over-used themes. I may want to target games which have strong storylines and characters. I maybe want to avoid turn-based mechanics. And so on.

It also may be the case that I have purchased a game of a particular genre, theme, etc., but what I actually found compelling about the game has nothing to do with these aspects. But the typical case of relevance searching seems to be for the dumb algorithms to make suggestions based on these aspects, which I care nothing about, or even don't want to revisit. For example, maybe I played a game which has a theme of post-apocalypse, but I would like to find a game with some same admirable quality as that game but without another post-apocalypse theme.

And what if I want to find a game that is different altogether, taking a fresh approach to what a game can be? How do I find that within such simple filtering systems? I don't. I spend alot of time searching, reading, asking questions, watching videos, etc.

On the aspect of the industry in general gaming gamers, I feel that the big review sites don't have the interests of gamers in mind. Whatever the case may be, that reviewers are constrained by agreements with game developer companies, that reviewers have vested interests in pushing certain new games, etc., it acts as another obstacle for gamers to have an easier time of finding relevant and subjectively high quality games. It's part and parcel of today's hype culture that is driving profit over people. And an irony here is that finding good game reviewers (who may have my relevant interests in mind) is hard to find.

Searching within shoehorning systems is tiring. And I know that it has been brought up here before, but I would like to see much better search filtering from GOG that takes into consideration gamers' interests. I would like to see a system for GOG members to easier communicate subjective game experiences, aspects of games, and qualities of games, without the possibility of a star system being used to game the perceived quality of reviews.

I would like to just get down to the enjoyment of playing games without all the hassle and irrelevant influence of over-simplistic searching, filters that aren't within my primary concerns (sale price, for example), gamed reviews, and lack of meaningful communication between players on experiences of playing games. And I would like to share my experiences with other like-minded gamers and benefit from the sharing of their experiences, casting aside review systems, agendas of review companies, what games are on sale, industry hype, and shoehorning of superficial game aspects.

What kinds of things would be helpful here? Of course, better search filtering is one aspect. What else?

Take your time, browse through the WHOLE catalog once, and put every game you like on your wishlist.

That pretty much sums up what I am trying to get away from. Brute-force searching of games that I might like to play within an environment that is trying to convince me to buy games that I probably won't enjoy playing. It's time-consuming, tiring, not what I want to be doing instead of playing games that I enjoy, and it still results in a crapshoot (albeit a smaller one).

Yes, it is time-consuming. But you only have to do it once. From then on you just have to check back regularly for new interesting releases.

This seems like wishful thinking, to be honest.
Steam has something like that - "Similar to games you've played" on the store pages of games. Usually it only goes by tags, though, so you end up with really weird, unrelated recommendations.
I'm not sure how a store would implement your subjective preferences, especially because even if you like one game with certain features in a category/genre, you might hate another that is similar but just not similar enough.

Personal preference in all things is very hard to gauge, especially for an algorithm. Even personal recommendations by actual people can be very hit and miss; however, that's one thing you could try. Make a list of games you love, post it on this (or any) forum, and get recommendations. While people do have their own preferences, some are smart enough to draw conclusions based on your preferences.
It's still a workaround, but like I said, I'm not sure what you're asking for is really possible. (Of course I'd be happy to be proven wrong here, since I often face the same issue.)

Wishful thinking? A wish that GOGmixes would be brought back, perhaps.

Alright, you got me there.
They weren't perfect, but I'm sure everyone had their favourites among them.

Actually, some of GOGmixes were really useful.

One possibility here is a dedicated space for user reviews, rather than the equivalent of tweets below games along with the courseness of a star system (which is mucher easier to game than discussion). If a person reviews game A and expresses a shared opinion (with the reader) on specific aspects of the game (which the reader finds to be relevant), then there is a much better chance that the person's review of game B will have relevance to the same reader.

How it is now, the reviews tweets on a page for a game exist in isolation from a greater context of a specific reviewer's opinions across other games, and the short and undefined format doesn't encourage depth of review, discussion, and substantive meaning in forming groups of like-minded gamers. In other words, the current player review system is a driveby system by it's design, not a system which encourages bringing out meaningfulness among players.

Are you suggesting some sort of "follow this reviewer" option or am I misunderstanding you entirely? I think that might be a nice option, and actually quite similar to the GOG Mixes - R.I.P. those. (Not sure whether you know about them, I don't remember when exactly they disappeared.)

I don't really mind the reviews being at the bottom of games' pages, personally, but it would be nice if they could be accessed quicker, and maybe if our shiny new profiles actually listed reviews of games we've written.

He would have the problem of searching through the wishlist to find what he wants then he would still have the problem of searching through his game library.

I suppose I am suggesting something along those lines of "follow this reviewer", but with the ability to search across reviews in the first place to find those reviewers which I find relevant to what I like.

I don't know anything about Gog Mixes.

Ultimately what I would like to be able to do (at any game store) is to search games according to more granular attributes that are relevant to me and search for reviews in the same way or included in my game search. Say for example I could search for a game with all of the atrributes of rpg, action, and adventure without the attributes of turn-based and jrpg, which have been reviewed by any of some specified persons.

And further, review attributes aren't included in searches, which causes me to search other sites for reviews. And often those reviews end up being by reviewers of big companies, rather than players who I have found agreement with on other games, which I feel are often reviews that include heavy influence of industry, seem to have gamed ratings, or are irrelevant in fundamental ways to me such as yapping about graphics quality where I am most interested in things such as story, dialogue, lack of fetching and hacking for their own sake, and good pacing.

The way things are now, searchable attributes are very course, and I end up sifting through tons of games which aren't relevant to me and reviews which aren't relevant to me. This causes me to spend significantly more time searching for games to play than getting relevant information from the start and just buying games and playing them.

Occasionally checking the news for new titles does not work as some news disappear after a mere two days. The website NEEDS A NEWS ARCHIVE. It is VERY basic website design. Did the website developers only play games in school?

Finding interesting games is not easy, I agree. But it is not a simple problem to solve.

As was said, users usually don't know what they want. They do know only what they don't know.

Creating a system that addresses each possibility (e.g "more like this", "something of this theme", "centred on this mechanic" and so on) would swamp and intimidate the user, in my opinion. That is not to say that GOG could not advance their filtering and recommendation system.

I wonder if GOGWiki could help there.

If there were an option to filter out the games I already own (592) from the search, I believe it would help a lot.