Some gaming sites reports RIOT - Civil Unrest was out of early access. I remembered that the version for GOG has not been updated for a long time. The last update of the game dates back to June 7. On the questions "when the game is updated for the GOG" the developers either do not answer Steam or GOG. Why does the GOG not follow the relevance of the games that it sells?

And by the way 2K promised to add the original version of Bioshock "later." So where are they?

"Why are many devs happy to sell their stuff here but don't care about keeping peer quality with thet other storefront"?
This seems the correct question to ask.

It's easy to solve, kick the devs and the game of the platform without any second chances. do it right the first time or get out because GOG has been far too lenient on these kind of developers.

I rather have a store with fewer games of quality and complete packages than thousands after thousands games left broken and unfinished forever, thankfully we aren't at this point yet.

Do any digital stores do that? Does Valve track the status of all Steam games, whether they are up to date and possibly missing some updates?

How would such tracking work in practice anyway? GOG (or Steam, or whatever) has several employees whose task is to daily, or weekly, go through all the games in the store, and try to find out if some other store has a more recent version?

Nah, I think GOG mainly expects the developers themselves to make sure their GOG games are up to date, just as they should. If you think it is GOG's job to track it (while other stores like Steam are not doing it), are you willing to pay more for GOG games for such an extra service? After all, GOG has to pay salary for the assigned "game version trackers", don't they?

Sales/size I'd guess. Indie games are great and all, but there's also the risk of elements that wouldn't be too much hassle for a big team being a major hindrance for a small team.

The game left early access yesterday. There's no need to start yelling about the end of the world, just yet. I'm certain that the game will be updated on GOG or removed, like it has happened previously.

One of the many, often unseen downsides to small indie teams. Imagine being part of a 2 or 3 man dev team, working 'round the clock to provide not only new content, but constant update/install builds across numerous platforms. Oh, and also barely having enough money to buy mac and cheese or pay the electric bill. And yet people wonder why indie studios are always going bust.

Sometimes being big and powerful can be an advantage. More employees, more content delivered, more QA testing, more polish and shine.

I think the 'having your cake and eat it too' line is applicable here.

It does seem like if games are abandoned GOG has been willing to allow refunds in the past. I feel confident enough in GOG purchases even if the developers go AWOL.

GOG shouldn't even be ALLOWING games on this platform unless the devs sign a legal contract stating that they will give the GOG version any updates that the Steam version receives.

On one hand I understand this, on the other... why not making the same build for both platforms? Is client integration that extensive work? (I honestly don't know anything about programming, it may be, but I'd like to hear some reasoning behind the lagging updates from time to time)

Tends to be how it is, 2 years ago I was working with an indie team who had to delay their launch day 24 hours out due to one of them (in a team of 6) being struck down with bad food poisoning from their launch celebration meal the night before.

Whilst I agree with you.

The blame doesnt just lay with GOG though also with the developer. As a developer they should know they will most likely have to support two versions. They know the userbase on GOG compared to Steam, and they should know that releasing on GOG and Steam needs different builds.

They should be taking all that into account when deciding to start up and release here. Also GOG needs to be taking a more public active approach as it just looks like they are letting them sit on the store and putting up with it.

Time, priorities, capability. I'm sure if you asked 10 different grass root indie teams you'd get 25 different answers

A properly designed product doesn't need to have multiple builds.

And yes, I include "properly designed" to include "doesn't bother implementing external 'achievements' APIs". But even then, properly designed, if you want to implement those things, minimizes the footprint of differences. If maintaining differences, they should design the OPEN version first. Any other hooks (like that Steam crap) are extras they willfully include to junk up the product and are making it harder on themselves.

Of course yes if you dont need achievevements that saves time. Unless your not willing to make Steam a requirement then two arnt needed. But most developers want to put Steamworks in their games now days otherwise they get messages on Steam asking where is it and stuff.

I disagree. End of the say Steam is where the user base is, unless they are able to maintain a DRM free version then developers should go to Steam first build up that experiance of dealing with users and sort out any issues then come here eventually when they have matured.

I'll add i'll all for DRM free titles and would love them to come here but as a new developer I feel that Steam is a better option as they have a bigger userbase. (I'm not a developer, i'm just saying thats what I would do.)