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From the creator of Grimoire:
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GOG was just the first on my list of 18 other digital distribution platforms I am taking Grimoire to this month. Because staff there had been begging me for three years to publish it, I thought I'd check them off first. I am just continuing from there but it was sort of a surprise. GOG was originally started to publish games exactly like Grimoire before they became so successful.

Here's the reply I got from them when I felt I had a good enough version to publish it on GOG with the manual :

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DrCat (GOG.com)

Feb 6, 13:41 CET

Hello,

I'm sorry for late reply.

Thanks a lot for your submission and your interest in GOG.

We’ve taken a look at Grimoire, it looks like a rich RPG game, with complex combat, deep lore, fun mechanics and simple, yet eye-catching retro graphics.

Unfortunately, however, we feel that the game would not be a good fit for GOG, as we think that it appears to be too niche and a bit too small in scale in terms of production value for our users, which means that we aren’t confident in its release potential on our site.

For these reasons I’m afraid we will have to pass on Grimoire: Heralds of the Winged Exemplar.

If you have any other games in the future that might be a better fit for GOG, please let us know, and hopefully we’ll be able to work together.

Regards,
DrCat
Post edited February 07, 2019 by Aalda11
high rated
I withheld from buying Grimoire on Steam specifically because I waited until it would be offered on this store. I would have bought it at the drop of the hat. But now, thanks to some special snowflake employee of this site who got upset by Cleve's antics (the "too niche" argument is obviously bullshit), it seems that I have to give my money to Gabe. The game also happens to be at 50% discount on the Steam store so I recommend to everyone who is interested in an old school dungeon crawler like the Wizardries, which by the way are being sold here (guess those aren't niche, eh?), to go and buy it. This money could have went into your bank account but now it's going into Gabe's.
Not my sort of game, but I laughed at this post by the author on steam :D
...I don't believe Grimoire currently has a fair rating on Steam at all and I think it's been deliberately skewed by politically motivated attacks the same as Donald Trump has been in the newspapers the past 3 years...
Yeah the author seems to be a crackpot but development studios are full of crackpots, assholes, BS-ers and frauds. I don't see Randy Pitchford's, David Cage's or Sean Murray's games being punished.

So if we take the author by his word and GOG really rejected the game for being too "niche" it's a complete outrage. It's a direct Wizardry 7 spiritual successor. You know, one of the best RPGs of all times? And besides, hasn't GOG been built on the backs of old and niche games?

I've been fanboying this store for years but this is a really deep disappointment, especially if it proves to be a trend.
I was also one of them who was waiting for GoG release. I asked Cleve several times about possibility of releasing Grimoire here. But honestly didn't expect that it could be rejected. In that case not sure what to do now. As I prefer to buy games here, I'm not too much intend to buy it elsewhere. Pass it for now.
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Aalda11: Yeah the author seems to be a crackpot but development studios are full of crackpots, assholes, BS-ers and frauds. I don't see Randy Pitchford's, David Cage's or Sean Murray's games being punished.

So if we take the author by his word and GOG really rejected the game for being too "niche" it's a complete outrage. It's a direct Wizardry 7 spiritual successor. You know, one of the best RPGs of all times? And besides, hasn't GOG been built on the backs of old and niche games?
Oh, they definitely should be, and I'd say they are.
For an indie studio or an individual dev, I'd give a little more leeway, but when I googled the game to see what it was about after I saw this thread, and that quote was the top update from the dev, it doesn't leave a good impression. Regardless, as I said, it isn't my sort of game anyhow.

I'm pretty sure that the response the dev got from gog is the default cookie-cutter template response. I suspect the actual reason it was rejected was the "Mixed" overall reviews it got on Steam.
Post edited February 07, 2019 by babark
Let's get real. This was never going to happen.

Grimoire wouldn't be accepted by any store with curation, and nobody in their right mind would want to work with Cleve or want to be associated with him.
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babark: ...
I'm pretty sure that the response the dev got from gog is the default cookie-cutter template response. I suspect the actual reason it was rejected was the "Mixed" overall reviews it got on Steam.
Unfortunately, I also noticed this. Most of the games rejected by GOG end up having an overall mixed recommendation rating on steam. There are some exceptions, of course, but for the most part this holds true.
How did Opus Magnum eventually get accepted despite being initially rejected again?
Maybe the same could be applied to Grimoire to still get it on here in the future?
OMG, GOG actually uses the phrase 'too niche' in their rejection letters? I had assumed that was just a forum joke.

That aside, I strongly suspect that babark is right and the real reason for rejecting it is the 'Mixed' review score on Steam. Though they've released other games with far worse scores before now, so...
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DebbieL: OMG, GOG actually uses the phrase 'too niche' in their rejection letters? I had assumed that was just a forum joke.

That aside, I strongly suspect that babark is right and the real reason for rejecting it is the 'Mixed' review score on Steam. Though they've released other games with far worse scores before now, so...
It's not likely they actually consider Steam score as a factor. These things are famously unreliable, just as Metacritic and all the other "public review" outlets. People are upvoting and especially downvoting games for all sorts of reasons.

Plus, as you say, GOG publishes games with good scores, average scores, bad scores or no scores at all. So I think we can safely disregard that theory.
low rated
Sniff...

"Something is rotten in the state of Denmark"... I mean, GOG.

Lots of game rejections, lately. I am not one to judge, but i really don't like the direction things are going.

Oh, and if people assume that mixed -> negative Steam reviews is an issue (for GOG bringing a game here), think again. Agony Unrated got quite favorable score, for example.

Besides, "niche" is one of those "trigger-words"/"flake-arguments"; or something.
Post edited February 07, 2019 by KiNgBrAdLeY7
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DebbieL: OMG, GOG actually uses the phrase 'too niche' in their rejection letters? I had assumed that was just a forum joke.
That forum joke actually originated from GOG using this exact argument in many ridiculous rejections. They were criticized or ridiculed for that statement each time, but apparently they refuse to learn. Whenever a game is rejected out of personal preference of the someone writing the reply (or because some random number generator said 'NO'), this is one of the 'reasons' they like to use.

Or in other words, 'too niche' means: "We don't have any good reason for rejecting this game, so we just make something up."


That being said, the dev sounds like an asshole. So I'm not exactly eager to give him my money. So, I'm not particularly sad about this rejection. But it is annoying for those who would have liked to play the game DRM-free.
The Grimoire dev is a toxic asshole anyway. Good if he stays away.
Post edited February 07, 2019 by omega64
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Aalda11: Plus, as you say, GOG publishes games with good scores, average scores, bad scores or no scores at all. So I think we can safely disregard that theory.
Can we? I haven't done an academic study on it or anything, but I'd venture a guess that almost every "indie" (non-classic or non-oldschool) game gog releases either:
* has a lot of press (especially if it is released simultaneously on gog and steam)
* has a good score on steam (if it is released after being released on steam)/other platforms
* is very popular (lots of downloads, or lots of reviews on steam, even if many are negative)

So something like "We Happy Few" would be released here, having had a lot of press (a lot of it bad), and bad ratings (but being very popular, for example having 3500 reviews on steam).

Something like "Richard & Alice" would be released here, having very average ratings ("Mostly Positive" again, with 75% of the 255 reviews being positive), and not a lot of downloads (Only 255 reviews on steam), but having got a lot of press (RPS and PC Gamer gave positive reviews of the game) and good-will.

Something that isn't very popular (this Grimoire game only has about 370 ratings on steam), and isn't rated very well (only 65% of those 370 ratings are positive), and doesn't really have a lot of press (and what little there is is controversial and negative).

As another example:
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KiNgBrAdLeY7: Oh, and if people assume that mixed -> negative Steam reviews is an issue (for GOG bringing a game here), think again. Agony Unrated got quite favorable score, for example.
Agony UNRATED has a "Mostly Positive" overall review score on steam (As in, less than "Overwhelmingly Positive", less than "Very Positive", less than "Positive", but more than "Mixed"), and "Mixed" recent review score on steam.
I'm not sure it disproves my argument either.
Post edited February 07, 2019 by babark