I agree they should be more communicative. I did the same thing with Sam & Max Season 2 Remastered and was annoyed Skunkape ignored me. Then it randomly came here a month or two later. Why? So stupid.

That said, I try not to get tooooo angry about it, because I'm sure launch time is a super hectic and stressful time.

I've written some text walls about that last year, and I've been in a chat with the developer. I eventually understood the developer entirely; the reasons for not publishing here were not exactly great publicity, but they were not surprising either. The Season 1 shitstorm on GOG was off putting while the "review only after purchase" policy on Steam gave the remaster the actually great reviews it deserved. Instant piracy and the fraction of sales were also noted. Eventually, we got the Season 2 remaster because GOG kindly asked the developer whether he would even still release here. So that's thankfully still actively going on in that big bad CDPR company: compassionate fans doing their best to serve compassionate fans. But Season 2 released here, and got a shitstorm, and GOG had to delete the dozens if not hundreds of reviews that uttered factually wrong stuff that wasn't true for the Season one remaster already and even less for Season two. Eventually, I got the "most helpful" review deleted that consisted of a link to a list of silly grievances with Season one (not two), a thread on the Steam forums that was closed a year before Season two released.

When I want to demonstrate why GOG's review system is pathetic shit, I point at Season 2 of Sam & Max. Every single owner of the game, everyone, gave it full five stars, but the game is dragged down to a 2.6 overall rating because of people who never played it. Plus, the negative reviews will always be more visible because there are more downvotes on the positive ones.

This review system will get adjusted to prevent vindictive shitstorms or GOG is going down.

Wait for it ... almost there ...

The Shitstorm was all over the net - including Steam - not just the GOG forum ... and imo it was very well deserved which (not the shitstorm but the fact why it happened) is the reason I still did not purchase this censored game even though I own every Sam and Max game.

Which has absolutely NOTHING to do with the existence of GOG and every dev/publisher who thinks so is completely naive.

I fnd this very hard to believe. It would be the first time I heard that GOG actively asked a dev for a new game (might be different with classics of course) - especially when the first one did not sell very well at all.

People (including myself) clearly said that they would love to buy BOTH if they'd finally correct their mistake with Season 1- Tehy decided not to and people decided not to buy. No shitstorm just valid criticism.

Hundreds of reviews? On GOG? Only a few games even have that many reviews here at all. On the other hand ... so it was a lie that they changed voices and lines without any need to do so? GOG deleting valid reviews is a problem on its own ... but that's another story.

Everyone who still puchased it obviously did not mind the unnecessary censoring which is the main problem with Season 1 - that's not hard to believe. Many however did not even purchased it because of this. So a few positive reviiews of those who purchased the game in the end would still not make the problems of the game go away and it would still not be a success. It was the decision of the devs/publisher to change crucial things in a well beloved Sam and Max game and they simply got what they deserved if you ask me. It was also their decision to not offer an alternative uncensored/unedited version. If a dev/publisher does not care about their customer's wishes their game won't be a succes- that's not unfair, it is how things should be.

Well, he still always took the time to post almost every day on Twitter and answered questions that were not GOG related ... paints a clear picture for me.

Maybe if the devs didn't lie about not changing the script said shit storm wouldn't have happened. While I have always found review bombing to be stupid and useless, in the case of the Sam and Max remaster the devs are very far from innocent either, if you want to censor a game, no matter what dumb reason you might have, at least own it and be upfront about it, don't lie and then act like a victim once you get caught.

Still it should not have happened. To me it doesn't really matter who's fault it is, reviews are meant go be given by people who played the game. And if one doesn't even own the game, he should not be allowed to leave a review.
I agree, the bad thing about these games was how the publisher tried to hide the changes. I want Max to be politically incorrect and uncensored and I hate the changes, but the games are still good.
I hope the guys don't get completely discouraged and also release Season 3.

Another week without the new Monkey Island game. *sad sigh*

It' a lose-lose situation. And it's completely unneccessary.
Devolver lose lots of sales from all of us that don't agree with pointles steam-DRM.
Fans lose by not being able to hang out with Guybrush.

Well that's depressing.

GOG should absolutely make their reviews "owners only" to combat this. Especially since gaming so full of insane political rantings nowadays.

They could add a "warnings" section for the others :)

I am wondering ... if one buys a game, sees that it's shit, leaves a bad review and then asks for a refund ... is he a known owner or not?
My understanding of the homepage is that it evaluates the state not when the review was written, but instead when it is shown. So at least "some" of the non owners reviews would have been written by people who owned it at that time or before leaving the review.

To me it clearly shows that he isn't allowed to talk about this.

OK, so maybe you don't want to support RtMI any more, but I think it wouldn't be right to blame Ron or other members in the development team and suddenly drop support for those (IMHO) great individuals.

I didn't really want to talk about Sam & Max here but I here I go :-)

1. I can understand people wanting unmodified, original versions. But this very original version IS INCLUDED when you buy the remastered version. So at least nothing is lost. (We can't really expect them to maintain multiple versions of the remastered version because this is a lot of work (it multiplies with supported platforms and multiplies with supported languages; testing efforts go through the roof etc.) And that's for something they WANTED to have changed, they don't need/want an alternative version in the first place.)

2. I have the impression that many of those complaining about censorship here and censorship there don't know what this word means. It's not even self-censorship. The development team creating this remastered version just decided they want to change some things because they wanted to.

3. Changing something when saying we haven't changed anything is a dick move. Btw.: That would be a reason why a publisher wants to control all communication and don't want to let dev members talk freely (I'm back to RtMI at last!).

I think they would make themselves a great favour by first showing the verified-owners rating as normal rating.
Second they should mark reviews by non-owners clearly (currently only the verified ones are marked, and also not very obviously).
Third I want to note that beside the normal rating showing a score combined with non-owners is still fine. And also showing those reviews is fine since they can be filtered already (but should be marked more clearly!).

A shitstorm that naturally extended to Season 2 in which not a single line was changed. Well I guess if you don't beat up the developers in your very special care for every new game of theirs, they start making the same "mistakes" again. Better to always slap them silly while they're young, all the grown up ones are assholes anyway. And a little extortion can't hurt. It's a nice game you have there, it would be so sad if something really bad happened to it. You better put that white dude back in who's trying to sound black, or ... whoooops, lookie, your game fell down. So sorry.

What's not to believe? The developer was pondering the release here and eventually decided to delay it. Which was a great idea actually, because they released Season 2 on Steam to 97% positive reviews (much better reviews than Return to Monkey Island by the way). They released here two months later after GOG personnel kindly asked and got shitstormed AF immediately.

The developer learned his lesson, and that certainly wasn't to "correct" his "mistake" so that some people wouldn't be holding the big fat 0.5% additional sales on GOG ransom and would not shitstorm his game if it ever released here. In fact, the developer hasn't just learned that releasing on GOG isn't worth his time, he has also learned that gripes that weren't present in Season 2's Remaster would still be criticised the fuck out of in the review bombing. He has learned that people in non purchaser reviews would in part knowingly lie about the contents of his game. That's literally unheard of in Steam reviews!

Four altered lines among 30.000 and a switched out voice actor for Season 1, if somebody gives me that as the reason not to buy an in many respects incredible remaster, I laugh, I shrug, and I say "you do you".

But if that somebody goes on GOG and writes three iterations of the same slanderous review for the sequel without ever having touched the game, all of which get deleted by GOG, that dude is trying to exercise a bonkers revenge after a perceived personal insult. He's trying to tell the developer that his game is not welcome here. Which of course is a decision the dude can only make for himself by not buying it, but not for everybody else as he's actively preventing games to release here.

We'll have to face the reality of the situation: review bombing does play a part in many developers' decision to delay or not even attempt a GOG release. Return to Monkey Island, possibly, included. The Devil's Playhouse Remaster, definitely included. As long as GOG is Boycott Central, it shouldn't be surprising that customers get none of the newer games and are always treated as an absolute afterthought.

I have nothing against people who boycott themselves into second class citizenship - I've done the same for over a decade by never using Steam. But I'm not dragging anybody down with me.

The system always seemed a little strange to me. If the customers love a game, why would the opinions of non customers even interest me in the slightest?

The unprovoked pre-release shitstorm for Return to Monkey Island however could have had an influence on the decision though. I imagine that if the Steam forum community was allowed to write reviews or rate a game, Return to Monkey Island would not have hit 60% let alone 93%. The system definitely works out for Valve here, and it doesn't on GOG.

... anyway. Monday release PLZ?!? ??!

Censorship is unacceptable and Skunkape got what they deserve. I find it funny that you are angry about customers voicing their opinion. Not everyone wants to just consume the product and get excited for the next product like you guys.

That might actually be true. They got great sales on Steam that funded the entire remaster project with Season 1 alone, then the Nintendo and Limited Run sales went through the roof, and they also got the definitive hint that releasing on GOG is a bad idea. The shitstormers may think they're fucking the shitstormed, but here they're always just fucking GOG and their customers after all. GOG is way too small a sales platform for these anger outlet valves to be recognized, unless of course the developer is silly enough to continue releasing on GOG. At some point the developer will refuse to contribute to his own humiliation and withdraw from GOG.

If you have an opinion about a game you bought and played for a good while, man I'm interested! If you think it's shit, I want to hear why. I want to truly take your perspective for a bit, because it's the only way that I might find out whether I'd also hate or love the game. That's what reviews are for. If you play through a Remaster and are actually missing some lines that you found great in the original (e.g. the line about white slavers Lucasfilm removed from the Special Edition of LeChuck's Revenge), I want to hear that in your review. If you base your entire review on just that, I will of course know that both our views on the game will likely not overlap, but at least you are honestly describing your own impressions as best you can.

If you have an opinion about a game you didn't even play, because you watched a youtube video about a reddit thread that compiled some stuff from the Steam forums which they got from an online article some celebrity provocateur retweeted, you're not even writing a "review", you're not "reviewing" anything in fact. Best case scenario, you're parroting second hand info, and I could not be less interested.

Non reviews by non customers = no go.

The word shitstorm should be discontinued forever, it only takes substance away from what is said. By the way – I'm fed up with these random insults thrown around at the slightest notice.