The one pattern I've noticed regarding many of the games that GOG rejects is that they've been in bundles and/or they've been on Steam for so long that theír commercial value is just dead. With AAA games like Saints Row and Darksiders, there's often some residual commercial value to be gained from a DRM-free rerelrease, but it's unlikely that low-fi indies like Braid or Thomas Was Alone would sell on here after being bled dry elsewhere.

The one outlier I've noticed is Rex Rocket, so I'm guessing the rejection reasons were commercial in nature (the dev couldn't reach an commercial regarding licensing/revenue share with GOG).

As for Desura - I would say that GOG is already attractive to indie devs. Most indie devs have gone one of three routes:

(1) They've created crap games that neither Steam nor GOG want, and the only place that would take them was Desura.
(2) They've created decent games but are Steam fanatics, and once Steam accepted the game, the dev just left the Desura version to rot.
(3) They've created decent games and have been a little more open-minded about publishing, so they've taken it to both GOG and Steam.

GOG's revenue share is the industry standard 70/30 split (same as Steam). Why would the sticking point be over that?

Eh... we mostly don't get broken games on GoG. May I direct you to KotoR II? GoG's version is actually more broken than Steam's. I've even submitted 2 support tickets hoping for a refund and have been ignored.

While I assume that this revenue split is largely correct, (a) it's not confirmed, (b) we can never know if GOG tries to increase their revenue split for individual partners, and (c) we can never know if developers/publishers try to eke out a higher revenue share for themselves with the argument that GOG needs them more than they need GOG.

With Steam, developers have little choice but to take what they're given. And 30% is a lot.

http://www.gog.com/indie

"We want to start our relationship by giving you something no one else will give you. If we decide to work together, we can offer you the option to get an advance on your game's future sales. There are two ways we can handle royalties:

1. A standard 70/30 (Developer/GOG) split with no advance on royalties.
2. You get an advance on the royalties from your game. In this case, 60/40 royalties split will be in effect until the advance is recouped. Afterwards, we'll switch the split to the standard 70/30."

CONFIRMED!!!

So did Steam. Just ask Tinybuild games who had "No time to explain" rejected multiple times with either no real reason being attached or given the most vauge reasons like "not a good fit", Minmax the guys behind Space Pirates and Zombies who were rejected for two years before Valve out of the blue accepted it with no clear explanation as to why and that's two off the top of my head, there were more way more which was why Greenlight was made in the first place as a way for Devs to present their games to the community if they couldn't get accepted and have the community vote them in, until Valve decided that they were going to become more open of a platform but still keep greenlight for reasons.

I also recall Wadjet eye having been rejected by Steam a few times but those did have a reason attached well at least blackwell did, I don't recall if they gave a reason for Primordia initally being rejected and having to go through greenlight, it's possible that given it's Valve and Valve are prone to doing things to "set examples" and then never enforcing them outside of that one example like how they refused Paranautical Activity the ability to get passed Greenlight by getting a publisher and then let a whole crop of games do just that.. it's possible they rejected Primordia to show that just because you have games already on Steam that doesn't automatically mean you have a in but from what I had seen since that it really does..

Blackwell was http://www.wadjeteyegames.com/forum/index.php?topic=881.0

The problem with giving a detailed reasoning on each rejection is that it would inevitably lead to a) some less scrupulous developers trying to game the system by making products that conform to the announced standards but fall short in all other regards, and b) those same developers (and some others, plus fans) complaining in public every time GOG makes an accept/reject decision that runs counter to a previous decision.

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I don't view those as problems. It helps to keep GOG from committing skulduggery themselves. The last thing developers want in a distributor is arbitrary standards. It would be like a college allowing only certain people to learn in their halls, without telling the public what is required to be accepted. No sane person would consider trying to get into such an institution, on the grounds of it being shady. Capricious standards are a blood red flag that something is terribly wrong.

Just as GOG is judged by developers and their customers, the customers will determine if developers are legitimate. Sure, crud is guaranteed to be on the store - but that is already the case. Sturgeon's Law is at work: 90% of everything is crud. Inversely, that means the remaining 10% is decent or better. In order to ensure that GOG has the very best games on tap, it is necessary to ensure a large pool of products to be available. Consider that both Steam and Amazon share this key trait - they sell nearly anything, and are incredibly successful for it.

An exclusive entity like GOG won't be able to influence how the world handles digital distribution, if it doesn't obtain a significant measure of power. That is why GOG should become an inclusive distributor, otherwise it is apt to fade into complete insignificance.

that makes no sense.. plus Devs generally prefer it when they have a easier chance to get their game noticed they deal with Steam's new lack of curation because Steam has such a large customer base they are willing to take those risks, they don't like it but given the choice of taking your chances in a crowded marketplace with 40+ million customers and trying to also get your wares in other stores where the customer base is smaller but you get more exposer hoping to pick up more sales their or selling exclusively to just stores where you will get noticed more but have a smaller customer base your going to go with the former solution. But if presented with either selling on a crowded marketplace with a large customer base and maybe also selling your work on a equally crowded marketplace but with a smaller customer base, most are just not going to bother with the store that is as crowded but has a smaller customer base since what is the point? especially when you have to push updates and mantain multiple versions of your games on diffrent stores that often have diffrent ways of handling updates.

That is one of the things that has been doing Desura in, they were the store that people went to when they couldn't get through Steam's curation process but once Greenlight was introduced and then Steam relaxing on curation over all most devs have abandoned Desura completely. Since it was no longer of any value to them, the customer base was too small, Steam was easier to get on now and why bother maintaing a game on a crowded shop with such a small customer base when you had Steam which was becoming as crowded but you still could sell to a larger customer base?

It's actually better in GOG's intrest to remained curated as a big selling point is what was once a big selling point of steam to indies before Steam opened the floodgates and that was, you release your game here you are selling to X customers and while they aren't as numours as Steams you still get your game on the front page, you get a announcement, you get a trailer on our youtube channel, you get use promoting your game on our Twitch channel, you get us promoting your game on our facebook and Twitter. In short you get a better chance of getting noitced then you will on Steam now. One of the things devs used to loved about Steam was despite being a pain in the ass to get on was when you did you got noticed easier, you got your game in the new release section, you got a big picture of your game splashed on the front page and often your game would stay there for a few days to almost a week or more and so you had a better chance of being noticed and hopefully netting more sales.

So again it's NOT IN GOG'S BEST INTREST TO DO AWAY WITH CURATION. If they did there is one less selling point they have to convince people to sell here as well as on Steam. So sorry that the types of games you want aren't getting on here but those are the breaks. Curation needs to stay.

Although I come from a gaming background that enjoys these kind of titles, I see that the Indie segment has become a very big one and that comes with both advantages and disadvantages. I really tried Desura a little bit but many of the titles didn't have that polish or even "nostalgia" effect done right. It appears that even Indie developers have the necessity to try to excel among them by going to Steam or even consoles (like Sony experimentally allowed a few years back), but the saturation has become evident and that shows as a clear hatred from new gamers and some old-school ones alike. We have to remember that this is, afterall, a business and if you don't sell (or have a partnership or anything of the like), then you are susceptible to disappear. GOG should make a companion site or other kind of related product because, after all, GOG wasn't selling contemporary/modern games from the very start, am I wrong? Anyway. Indies need to continue to exist but trying to retain their "identity".

REDVWIN

It's not a binary question of curation or no curation. There should be a place on the curation spectrum for quality games like , [url=http://www.gog.com/wishlist/games/rex_rocket]Rex Rocket and Thomas Was Alone without opening the floodgates to the worst shovel-ware imaginable.