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P1na: But this is this and that is that, because if that was this, this would be that and that (or this) is all kinds of confusing.
If you pass me that blunt, I'll try to wrap my head around this.
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P1na: Again: what's wrong with different storefronts having different policies? I like this one, you like steam's. Must they all be the same? A front page full of new releases may not be a problem for you, but it is for me. Is someone's subjective opinion more correct than someone else's?
Where do you see anyone advocating for identical policies? GOG could not adopt a policy identical to Steam without sacrificing its core value of DRM-free gaming (because Steam accepts publishers' demands for DRM). I advocate less curation in pursuit of that core value, to make more DRM-free games available to those who want them (bettering the industry and hopefully enriching GOG in the process). You seem to value your desire to to be lazy and use the GOG front page as some sort of quality filter (when there are dozens if not hundreds of better sources of information about games) more than DRM-free gaming. (That's not meant as an insult; take it instead as a blunt view of how weak your case seems to me.)
Personally, I think GOG's curated approach is a key factor that has differentiated GOG from sites like Desura, and allowed to succeed where Desura failed.

Desura had shit tonnes of DRM-free games there including many that were on GOG as well. Desura had a gaming client for eons and I actually like gaming clients/launchers. Desura had various other things there also which I didn't mind - but... GOG's catalogue was simply much higher quality than Desura's, and their packaging, support policies and overall service and support quality was far greater than Desura's. While I didn't mind Desura, when I did go to the site I found myself swimming in an endless garden hose of indie shovelware. Now if there's a viable market for that stuff - great! All the power to the people who make those games and those who buy them and enjoy them, no problem with that whatsoever. Games are games. But as a gamer who is not really into the garden hose of endless indie games that I personally perceive to be bottom-barrel minimal-effort creations, I'm not drawn to go somewhere to see nothing but those type of games fill my screen.

I'm not saying that I hate indie games either, not by a far stretch. There are tonnes of amazing indie games out there. I just don't want to see every single one of them ever made end up on my chosen gaming storefront when I log in every day. The stuff I am actually interested in gets diluted down and lost in a sea of noise which are games I have no interest in. Eventually I just stop viewing it. So I almost never visited the Desura website and never launched their client on OS boot etc. Like most people who even cared about Desura, I just had their stuff, was ok with it, but rarely actually used it.

There are many things that attract me to GOG personally which other store fronts just don't put out there. Other gamers may or may not get the same vibe from GOG as I do and that's perfectly ok too, but I'm happy with the game pipeline here overall. I don't even care for half the games they release on GOG as it is now, but there's just enough games that are interesting to me personally to keep me engaged on a regular basis and wanting to log in tomorrow to see if some new AAA game shows up, or some cream of the crop AA or A game (made up those but I think it's understood what I mean).

I wouldn't despise or be angry with GOG if they started filling the store with a garden hose of every random indie shovelware game that people beg and cry for, most of which tend to be oversold games from bundles or Jp0rn, but it would cause me to roll my eyes 10 times more often when visiting the homepage or reading the newsletter, RSS feed, Facebook feed when GOG posts. My mind would start to shift from "oooo, maybe today is the Oblivion drop!" to "Yay, 50 more RPGmaker games with little girl's pink underwear on the game card from the bottom of the compost heap!". My enthusiasm for visiting GOG would wane.

I'm not saying that GOG should do what I want or cater to me personally, or that I'm more right in my views or what I want to see than anyone else here. All I'm saying is that I for one would be counted among the people who spend less time here unconsiously if GOG opened up the fire hydrant of Greenlight fodder in their store, simply because I'd have less enthusiasm to come here because the hit to miss ratio would drop significantly for me.

If GOG, Steam or some other store can figure out a way to add 20000 shit games every 10 minutes to their store and provide a way for me to not actually have to see any of them, then that might provide a solution that makes the wider market happy, but even though Valve has done their best to provide several ways to filter out the storm on Steam, when I log in to Steam I am blasted in the face with Japanese girls dressed for porno, pixelated games that look like they were made for the Atari 2600, platformers and other games that I might have found interesting in 1998 on TurboGrafix 16, etc. but it's 2016 now and I don't want to see any of that stuff blasting me in the face every day. So I use Steam because I have tonnes of games on Steam, but I rarely ever ever _buy_ games on Steam, and almost never interact with Steam communities/forums/etc.

I don't always agree with GOG's selection of titles, but as long as they drop me a bone here and there with good enough frequency, they keep my interest. For those who are here for different reasons or would like there to be things here that aren't, I can respect that too. There's no right or wrong really, just different desires of the customer base. GOG's job is to find their niche amongst us, which certainly means they'll appeal to some people highly and others not as much. Personally, I'm ok with that though but being fond of the place as it is, I hope to see it retain the things that keep me coming back for more without changing into something that makes me forget why I come here.
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SeduceMePlz: Where do you see anyone advocating for identical policies? GOG could not adopt a policy identical to Steam without sacrificing its core value of DRM-free gaming (because Steam accepts publishers' demands for DRM). I advocate less curation in pursuit of that core value, to make more DRM-free games available to those who want them (bettering the industry and hopefully enriching GOG in the process). You seem to value your desire to to be lazy and use the GOG front page as some sort of quality filter (when there are dozens if not hundreds of better sources of information about games) more than DRM-free gaming. (That's not meant as an insult; take it instead as a blunt view of how weak your case seems to me.)
And you seem to treat GOG as the only source for DRM-free gaming, which equally shows how weak your case seems to me. If you want a DRM-free game, you can buy it on humble bundle or desura. Why does it need to be available in GOG too?

As for the identical policies, I mean the whole opening the floodgates approach, no quality control and let the buyer beware. That's the steam approach, and the approach you advocate for, is it not? The DRM-free-ness of the releases is not the key point of this thread, as others have mentioned umineko for instance is available DRM-free elsewhere, it's not as if GOG is required to have DRM free availability.
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P1na: ... you can buy it on humble bundle or desura. Why does it need to be available in GOG too?
Just a note... Desura went out of business earlier this year and no longer exists. :) Your comment still stands, just need to substitute another store for Desura though. Just don't pick Shinyloot though, they're out of business now too. :)
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P1na: And you seem to treat GOG as the only source for DRM-free gaming, which equally shows how weak your case seems to me. If you want a DRM-free game, you can buy it on humble bundle or desura. Why does it need to be available in GOG too?

As for the identical policies, I mean the whole opening the floodgates approach, no quality control and let the buyer beware. That's the steam approach, and the approach you advocate for, is it not? The DRM-free-ness of the releases is not the key point of this thread, as others have mentioned umineko for instance is available DRM-free elsewhere, it's not as if GOG is required to have DRM free availability.
Sure, GOG isn't the only source of DRM-free games. But GOG is a rational preference for those who want not just particular DRM-free games but to support and advance the cause of DRM-free gaming in the industry: Humble is little more than a clearinghouse for Steam codes these days, and other sites more-or-less irrelevant in their market influence. Also, GOG arguably provides a better service.

Your preference to use GOG as some sort of quality indicator does not seem reasonable to me: There are far better alternatives for evaluating games, and besides that, the self-evidently varying preferences of gamers assure dissatisfaction with curation (whereas with less curation, everyone has a greater chance of being able to buy the games they want from GOG and can choose who to trust to inform their purchases).

Also, less curation (even much less) does not necessarily mean a complete lack of quality control. Keeping the broken stuff out is a much better goal than some sort of ill-defined, highly subjective "good game" standard.
Post edited July 09, 2016 by SeduceMePlz
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skeletonbow: Just a note... Desura went out of business earlier this year and no longer exists. :) Your comment still stands, just need to substitute another store for Desura though. Just don't pick Shinyloot though, they're out of business now too. :)
I thought so too, but when I tried to go to the site to confirm I saw it loading so I figured I was mistaken. It did seem different though, maybe someone trying to cash in on an old name?
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P1na: I thought so too, but when I tried to go to the site to confirm I saw it loading so I figured I was mistaken. It did seem different though, maybe someone trying to cash in on an old name?
They tanked back in Feb/March. I haven't seen nor heard any news about them since however I just opened the domain and it took like 3 minutes to start up, but I am in fact logged into my account there apparently, with my nick, so it must be the actual site as some 3rd party wouldn't have their customer database presumably.

Perhaps they scrambled money to keep the servers online longer for people to download their game libraries. I'll have to go over my library to see what I may have missed previously if it is even possible. Kind of surprised the website still responds though. Very very slow so perhaps people are downloading a lot of games or something.

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skeletonbow: They tanked back in Feb/March. I haven't seen nor heard any news about them since however I just opened the domain and it took like 3 minutes to start up, but I am in fact logged into my account there apparently, with my nick, so it must be the actual site as some 3rd party wouldn't have their customer database presumably.

Perhaps they scrambled money to keep the servers online longer for people to download their game libraries. I'll have to go over my library to see what I may have missed previously if it is even possible. Kind of surprised the website still responds though. Very very slow so perhaps people are downloading a lot of games or something.
Yeah shit, it looks like they managed to hold the fort open for people to get their games longer than announced. I'm going to see what all I can download. Appears you may be able to redeem DESURA keys still also, and I had some keys that I presumed died in Feb. Will report back with my findings later today.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Desura#Ownership_changes

"It was announced on November 5, 2014 that Linden Lab had sold the Desura service to Bad Juju Games.[19][20] Bad Juju later filed for bankruptcy in June 2015.[21][22] The Desura service went offline on March 19, 2016, but came back on March 29.[23]"

Interesting, news to me.
http://www.gamesear.com/news/desura-is-now-back-up-after-being-unavailable-for-over-a-week
Post edited July 09, 2016 by skeletonbow
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SeduceMePlz: snip
Look, I've said my piece, I'm not going to change your mind nor are you going to change mine, but I'll stay my points one more time.

I like the idea that when one day I feel like getting an strategy game, I can simply filter the available GOG games and each result is worth a look. I like the idea that when a sale happens, each featured game is interesting. Sure, some may not be appealing to me personally, but it's still a decent game. And sure, some games I like (say the dominion series, one finger death punch, or hell even the higurashi&umineko series from the OP) aren't available here when I'd like them to be. It's all very subjective, and that's fine. For more "niche" games, I can buy them somewhere else, no big deal.

There are better alternatives for evaluating games, yes. But, there are not that many that have a shovelware filter. You can get highlights for this or that game from youtubers or gaming press, you don't get a catalogue to browse from. Even if there were, I would have to make sure the taste of the one doing the selection meets my own and that it doesn't change, because if I let a random person do it without supervision, might as well let GOG do it like they do now. And that keeping up takes time, a time I much rather spend actually playing the games I have. Plus, I'm a GOGlodyte through and through: GOG is basically the only gaming site I visit. I don't want to have one site to discover games and then come to GOG to buy it; it's much simpler to do it all at once.

I also believe that GOG's curated approach let them take their time with each game, which directly impacts the high level of support and service. I seriously doubt we would have that if GOG released so many more games.

Finally, I don't want monopolies, I hope there are many sites to get your games. Some with DRM, some without; some curated, some not. I'm all for a storefront that sells anything, with tons of trash yet also some unknown gems; I however don't have the time to wade through the trash to find the gems. I'll do my normal shopping on GOG, and when a hidden gem shows up, I'll head up to a different site or the devs own page to get it (like I did with unepic), and eventually it may be big enough to show up on GOG. It does however seem to be a trend that any store with low barrier of entry goes bankrupt, probably because people like myself don't enjoy being surrounded by shovelware and walk away. It really gets annoying to be seeing bad games all around a site.

Oh, and to clarify one point: I like and defend this kind of curation, but I'm not saying that GOG does this perfectly, because they don't. Specially lately I have less and less interest on their releases; even though this has allowed for some real gems (like the aforementioned Aquaria) to show up as well. I don't completely agree with GOG's selection, and I do think that they're dropping the ball lately, but GOG not doing curation very well doesn't make me not want the curated approach. This is this and that is that.
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P1na: ...
I also believe that GOG's curated approach let them take their time with each game, which directly impacts the high level of support and service. I seriously doubt we would have that if GOG released so many more games.
^ This!

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P1na: Finally, I don't want monopolies, I hope there are many sites to get your games. Some with DRM, some without; some curated, some not. I'm all for a storefront that sells anything, with tons of trash yet also some unknown gems; I however don't have the time to wade through the trash to find the gems. I'll do my normal shopping on GOG, and when a hidden gem shows up, I'll head up to a different site or the devs own page to get it (like I did with unepic), and eventually it may be big enough to show up on GOG. It does however seem to be a trend that any store with low barrier of entry goes bankrupt, probably because people like myself don't enjoy being surrounded by shovelware and walk away. It really gets annoying to be seeing bad games all around a site.

Oh, and to clarify one point: I like and defend this kind of curation, but I'm not saying that GOG does this perfectly, because they don't. Specially lately I have less and less interest on their releases; even though this has allowed for some real gems (like the aforementioned Aquaria) to show up as well. I don't completely agree with GOG's selection, and I do think that they're dropping the ball lately, but GOG not doing curation very well doesn't make me not want the curated approach. This is this and that is that.
This is rather well put also. I'm not fond of a lot of the games GOG releases, but as they grow they have an increasing rate of game releases naturally, so on a given week there will be more total games released than a year before etc. So even if I like the same percentage of games in theory, I'll still see more raw count of games I'm not interested in. The difference on GOG versus Steam, is there are a relatively small number of new releases here compared to Steam where it quite literally is a garden hose. Steam seems to add something like 1000 or more games per month every month, or it sure seems like that, and they all end up cycling through the various doodads on the front page, showering me with stuff I don't want to see even though I have carefully configured every nook and cranny in the Store UI to filter out and reduce the crap I see. They just added the ability to filter out games that match tags from your customizeable queue which is nice, but dropped the ball in only letting you filter up to 10 tags maximum, which is trivial to max out quickly.

Even though I use Steam daily, I almost never peruse the store catalogue nor spend much time on the front page, and zero time in their forums or other interactions. I basically use it to install and launch pre-owned games, most of which were bought from other stores (GMG, GG, Amazon, Bundlestars, Humble, etc.)

Reminds me of the first time I ever went to the World's Biggest Book Store. I wanted a book on Javascript, so we went there and holy crap... talk about being overwhelmed. The "Javascript" *section* of the store was bigger than the entire computer section of a local book store, and the computer section there was bigger than the entire bookstore here (2-3 times bigger). I ended up wondering which one of the 4500 books on Javascript I should get. Had a great time rummaging through the store for hours but I left without buying a Javascript book as I had no idea which one to get.

I too favour GOG's curated approach, knowing that that means they may allow some things in the store that I don't like and they may reject some things I want also. Ok, not really, they'd probably never reject a game that I actually want because both GOG and I have good taste in games. :)
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SeduceMePlz: Steam sucks, but one of the few things I actually like about it is that if I'm interested in a game, Steam almost always has it. GOG doesn't even come close in that regard (partly because of publishers who won't release their games DRM-free, but partly because of overly restrictive curation).

We have dozens if not hundreds of sources for information about games (better sources than a GOG blurb); a front page full of new releases is not a problem.
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P1na: Again: what's wrong with different storefronts having different policies? I like this one, you like steam's. Must they all be the same? A front page full of new releases may not be a problem for you, but it is for me. Is someone's subjective opinion more correct than someone else's?
Heres a case of being lost in translation.
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P1na: Again: what's wrong with different storefronts having different policies? I like this one, you like steam's. Must they all be the same? A front page full of new releases may not be a problem for you, but it is for me. Is someone's subjective opinion more correct than someone else's?
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Smarcey: Heres a case of being lost in translation.
Let me get this straight: you just quoted me on a year and a half thread to say that I misunderstood something, but you won't tell me what it was.

Ok then.