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Hey all
Just wondering. Many indie games started life through Desura (even though a number of devs ended up abandoning support and running off to Steam :/ ), and in many cases get a decent enough exposure to manage to get onto the evil empire store (and GOG later) . With Desura possible tanking it (and taking purchased games and access with them ..grrr), will indie devs turn to GOG?. If so i am wondering how GOG will deal with this?. Will we finally see GOG offer alpha or games in beta? (totally separate from what we see now - i know some will hate this but this would give people chance to see up coming games/contribute to development & for GOG to land some good games first which otherwise might not come to this platform)
thoughts?

N
I'm willing to bet indie video game development companies and indie video game developers will start selling their video games on gog.com like a flock of seagulls eating some fish or something from the ocean.

Unlike Steam though, be glad gog.com curates the video games approved for sale on gog.com so we do not get broken video games sold on gog.com.

This is also the perfect time after Steam's paid mods for gog.com to finally grow and kick Steam's ass with competition.

The same goes for GoG Galaxy. A competitor to Steam.
I think the problem has more to do with GOG rejection of games. (could be wrong)
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tfishell: I think the problem has more to do with GOG rejection of games. (could be wrong)
You're not.

If anything this will make even MORE indie devs go to Steam.
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tfishell: I think the problem has more to do with GOG rejection of games. (could be wrong)
I think you're right, good games like Braid and the freeware game Heroine's Quest supposedly got rejected for some reason by gog.
Note I think curation is probably a good thing, but I don't get why GOG wouldn't want some good/great games on its site.
Post edited June 07, 2015 by marcusmaximus
I wonder how much of it is simply an issue of manpower.
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tfishell: I think the problem has more to do with GOG rejection of games. (could be wrong)
Which is related to the slow paced releases.
We're talking half-empty glasses here.
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tfishell: I think the problem has more to do with GOG rejection of games. (could be wrong)
I think that is part of the problem albeit in reality a small one, the other being things that look to be corrected with Galaxy(either in it's current state or in the near future) such as making it easier to do a DRM free release on top of a Steamworks ladden one since Galaxy API offers the same features just minus a optional DRM solution(Steamworks.api allows you to use CEG DRM if you wish) and depending on how close it is to Steam's API on a code level it you could theoretically swap one API for another without much hassle where in the past devs would have to strip the parts of their games that used Steamworks such as Spelunky's daily challenges for it's GOG release as well as making pushing out patches easier or at least it should. I know one big complaint about Desura was how backwards and troublesome it was to get patches distributed on their service

Another issue is customer base, you see back in the day Steam was heavily curated not unlike GOG and alot of times games would get rejected for no determinable reason. Space, Pirates and Zombies for example was rejected by Valve for two years before it was accepted, no explanation as to why it was rejected and no explanation as to why it was finally excepted after all that time. But the guys behind SPAZ didn't give up even though the game was sold elsewhere, they kept pushing to get on Steam. Why? because Steam had the largest customer base out of any digital store so they like many indie devs at the time, just kept submitting and submitting because they wanted to have a chance to sell their game to the largest pool of possible customers as possible. Plus since Steam was heavily curated at that time, getting your game there meant you were guaranteed front page exposure for quite a bit of time allowing you a chance to try and entice people to at least click on your store link and give it a look and consider buying it.



Really what I am trying to say is it just falls to what offers a better service for devs to use in terms of customer base, ease of use and exposure since if you have a large customer base and it doesn't matter how many times you reject devs, devs will still want to put their stuff on your store because they want access to your customers, especially if can give them some exposure when the game releases on your store.

So yes, we may not always agree with GOG on their curation but I am glad it's there because take a look at Desura before it goes dark and take a look at Steam now they no longer curate their store and tell me that not being picky and risking rejecting the occasional good title here and there is worse then not having any curtation at all.

While I may not agree with them rejecting a Thomas was Alone or another Cat Lady but if that means I won't have to sift through a mountain of shit to find that one game I maybe intrested in, I will live with that because that is one of the big reasons why I didn't really use Desura and why I all but stopped buying games on Steam all together since I just don't want to bother with scrolling past twenty Day one Garry's Incidents, the Wars Z's, Temper tantrums, Survival Z's, ect. to find a Cat Lady, a TechnoBabylon, a Serpent in the Staglands, a Shovel Knight or even a Sunless sea and Sanctuary RPG. I will deal with it, especially because GOG has shown us that good rejected games can still come here we got Cat Lady, we got Avernum: Escape from the Pit, we got Xenonauts, ect. despite their initial rejections especially since the alternative is something I rather not deal with.
For people just wanting to sell their game somewhere who can't get on Steam, I imagine their first move would be selling the game on their own website using the Humble Widget and/or getting on the Humble Store (if only because Humble only takes 5% of sales from the Widget or 25% on the Store, versus GOG taking 30%).
Maybe. But IndieGameStand and Itch.io are more likely refuge.

I think it's good that GOG has some criteria in what they accept. Even if it keeps people wandering sometimes. It's nice to have a quality control on new titles, so I think it's worth it. Steam has much less control over their indies published via greenlight. Devs often bribe their way to greenlight via game giveaways even when the games are substandard.
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Niggles: will indie devs turn to GOG?. If so i am wondering how GOG will deal with this?. Will we finally see GOG offer alpha or games in beta? (totally separate from what we see now - i know some will hate this but this would give people chance to see up coming games/contribute to development & for GOG to land some good games first which otherwise might not come to this platform)
thoughts?
I like GOG as a user, but as a developer/publisher I can't see why anyone wouldn't be intimidated and uninterested. GOG's reputation is rejecting games, rejecting sequels and games from accepted publishers, hiding information, and being unfriendly at the professional level.

Basically, an unpleasant experience. Desura has been a first chance platform, Steam has been a holy grail platform, and GOG is a second run platform for games that have a proven success track record and want to make some after-cash. With the Galaxy beta going so horribly (even when Desurium is an open source client base that they could have used) GOG is not really attractive to put games.

As a user you think so. You want everything here and in GOG's installers with the extras. But the other side is dark and gloomy.
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GOG doesn't need a flood of crapware like Steam has now. There is nothing wrong with keeping the library on this site curated to keep some standards.
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Indie games have no use. The real money makers come from AAAs. Make GOG more attractive to AAA pubs in order to get more money.
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zeroxxx: Indie games have no use. The real money makers come from AAAs. Make GOG more attractive to AAA pubs in order to get more money.
You are so wrong. Tell me please why did Limbo in the first 2 weeks sold 200k units and in the end went past over 3 mil. units, or why Braid sold 55k units in the first week, or why did Shovel Knight sold in its first week 75k units, or how Amnesia sold over 1mil. units in 2 years? Of course that compared to triple A games it's not much, but it doesn't cost as much to make a indie game. People will always pay for an indie game, while they won't always pay for a full price triple A game and wait for a sale.
To build on the fact that Steam used to be curated more. Valve stated during one of their dev days only a year or so ago that until pretty much that year, they simply weren't capable of releasing as many games as they do now, which is why the curation was absolutely necessary up until then. And that's Steam. No doubt GOG is in the same situation, and for a business it comes down to which games are most likely to create profits.

As for Indie games, it was probably Indie games and early developments games getting accepted on Steam now with it's bigger indie focus, greenlight and early access that was part of the reason Desura lost it's place to begin with. GOG hasn't really dug itself out a place there yet. Though they did say they would be interesting in doing an Early Access program but "done right". Though I imagine they'd probably be more interested in big budget games than indie titles for that.
Post edited June 07, 2015 by Pheace