I was amazed, I would have thought this was the classic of the classics. But then again, this was my childhood. Just astonished Romance of the Three Kingdoms 1, 2, 3, etc are not on GOG yet... :(

It's really not surprising, considering that the games belong to Tecmo-Koei, a big Japanese publisher. Some of the reasons could be:

1) Tecmo-Koei isn't interested in DRM-Free gaming.
2) Tecmo-Koei doesn't believe that such old games are particularly profitable.
3) Tecmo-Koei doesn't believe that GOG is a particularly profitable digital store.

Needless to say, acquisition of old games is never an easy task.

I believe its number 2... Same reason "Musou Orochi Z" was never released overseas, staying forever a Japanese exclusive Pc-game...

Thank god japan-bros use piratebay. First game ever i strained myself that hard to play, navigating it in full japanese language, without understanding jack of it.

4) Another Japanese company ;)

I can't really say with any certainty for Tecmo-Koei. While other Japanese companies region lock their games without even blinking (Bandai Namco, Sega), Tecmo Koei has been flip-flopping a bit on that matter, having some of their games regionally-locked (like Dynasty Warriors 8), others not at all, and in some cases, offering games that only support the Japanese language worldwide because they don't want to restrict access to Japanese users, regardless of their location.

For 1) and 2), I wouldn't say that historically would be the case for Koei at least.
When other publishers made copy protections (like wheels and so on), Koei proudly had "NO COPY PROTECTED" on their boxes. Even in Japan, in late 90s - early 2000s, they still had that on japanese boxes. Only a CD check was required, mainly for movies and music.

Can't say for games released after 2005 though.

And for old games, they ported almost every one from the pre-windows era to later OSes, proving they cared about their old catalogue.

I don't really know Tecmo history though, could be them who had different practices.

Or... Gog don't want them ("niche" you said?)

It's been 20 years ever since then. Things can and will change. Romance of the Three Kingdoms 11 uses SecuROM, while Toukiden: Kiwami requires a constant online connection for its single player mode. Despite selling their stuff on the Humble Store, it only comes in the form of Steam keys. Even if they were once interested in DRM-Free gaming, they don't seem to be any more. They haven't released any of their old games, aside from an expensive remake (?) of one of the early Nobunaga's Ambition games (which is untranslated on top of that) on Steam. If they don't even want to release them on a platform that they sell plenty of their new games, I don't see how they would be interested in releasing them on a platform with a significantly lower user base. Yes, I'm fairly certain GOG would say no to Tecmo-Koei and the chance to get games like Dead or Alive, Dynasty Warriors, Nobunaga's Ambition and Samurai Warriors.

No, I'm not buying it.

Not really 20 years, "only" 10 ;-)

I was talking about the Teiban series released in Japan.

After 2005 and the beginning of the -online to everything (after Nobunaga no Yabou online/internet edition, Romance of Three Kingdoms online, Uncharted Waters online and so on), there seems to be a radical shift regarding PC gaming.

There are two Nobunaga's Ambition currently sold on Steam one isn't a remake (actually the 14th one) and a remake of one previous very popular in Japan, the 6th one (I believe that this one was mainly ported to PSVita, and then Koei-Tecmo thought about Steam: "why not?"). The Romance of Three Kingdoms which will come in english is the 13th one.

Koei's prices were usually high for new games: take ¥12,800 for a strategy game, ¥13,800 if it comes with a Power Up Kit - aka a addon - or a Soundwave version - with music CD for pre-windows games. Other kind of games (adventure, RPGs or minor series) were usually ¥9,800 on PC. On consoles, when a regular console game cost ¥5,600, Koei's games were from ¥6,500 to even ¥9,800.
Think about the Matrix/Siltherine business model against the Paradox one.

The Teiban series was very interesting back then since there were windows ports (and sometimes real remasters) and for slighter price (¥1,980). But now, since there aren't produced anymore, they cost a lot more on japanese shops...

Mea culpa.

I recently noticed that later Koei Teiban series games (released in 2005) actually had Safedisc inside, and there is no installer, it is basically an in-house PC98 emulator packed with the game in the CD. You only can have saves in hdd.

Not as bad as Sega collections with SecuROM, but it's pretty bad for Koei, which never had a DRM or copy protection until 2000s. Pretty ridiculous especially when you know that it concerned PC98 emulated games (which originally had obviously no DRM).

My apologies, Koei seemed to have rejoigned the dark side of publishers/developers since early 2000s (maybe that is the Y2K bug...).

Shame.

I'm a diehard ROTK fanboy. I'm more than grateful it's coming to PC. That's all.

And nothing's wrong with ROTK 11 and/or 13's DRM. One only has SecuROM, been many years installed on my laptop without any single issue. Can launch just fine.

ROTK 13 is even more easier as it uses Steamworks.

If you can't deal with simple DRM for a game like that, you're not even remotely interested.

I can understand the merit of DRM free, but for some people it's taking too far - as if DRM is the most evil thing in the world and thus they're entitled to whine non stop, endlessly.

What? All Romance Of The Three Kingdoms 1-13 is on PC.

I was referring to English version, my apologies. Although I can play Japanese version just fine (or Chinese for that matter), I prefer English.

When RotK13 was announced, there wasn't even a confirmation of English version coming, despite the strong rumor it would. I literally breathed relief when KOEI finally confirmed it's coming.

Most Japanese publishers don't understand PC gaming in general, much less what GOG is doing. Let's remember that, before more Japanese games started getting published on Steam, Gabe Newell went personally to Japan to attend a series of events and meetings to "spread the word" about Valve and Steam. It sounds insane that a thing like that would be necessary in this day and age (with the internet and all), but that's actually something that happened.

I imagine that, for GOG to dream of the same level of support from Japanese publishers Steam is getting, Mr. Kiciński and Mr. Iwiński would have to fly down there themselves and really explain to the Japanese people what GOG is and why it makes sense for them. Actually building an audience in Japan wouldn't hurt either.

EDIT: words

A Japanese field office for GOG wouldn't hurt actually. GOG should be out more in the world, on exhibitions and events. To show the world that they exist.

Sure it would, but I wonder... do they even have an office in the US? Would Japan really be a top priority for them at this point?