Small businesses such as an indie game studio may have the technical acumen to create and market a game, but they do not often have the experience and expertise with public relations and knowing what or what not to say and when or when not to say it. They may end up in a lot of "open mouth, insert foot" situations as a result.

In a way though they're doing us a favour because if they have bad communications/PR skills when asked one thing, they probably have it as a general trend and one would potentially experience a bad experience seeking customer support or other interactions with them as well. It can be a blessing in disguise even. When people tell us who they really are in such a way, to believe them and shape our interactions around that. In a case like this - probably not buying their products for example. That's pretty crappy, but if anything it would confirm GOG's decision to be a good one IMHO. Much in the same way as someone asking you to borrow money, you politely telling them no and then them calling you an asshole for it. Self-entitlement mentality much! It does make it easier to add them to "the list" to never help again though and hopefully not have to deal with again. :)

You don't need to put any work towards DRM or achievements to have your game on Steam. You'll just end up with a game on Steam which doesn't have DRM or achievements when you don't.

You mean games like Braid, Thomas was alone and such? Yeah. There's just no merit there. Let's face it, the GOG's refusal policy is shaky as hell, and they mostly seem to pick based on wild guesses and personal preferences than on anything else.

If it's preferences based on trying the game rather than guessing based on jargon and the current trends, then they are probably doing better than most of the corporate world on guessing what most of their fans want... Perhaps they daily read over some set of rules & guidelines when going over a game for consideration... Although if they veto some games, i certainly would want to know why they said no. But saying no one month they may change their mind later if there's enough feedback suggesting the minimum investment/sales would cover it's presence...

Although i get the impression they have more games to bring to GoG than they can keep under restraints and want to keep it an even trickling flow and not a flood. Maybe a game which needs more polish they just say 'come back in 6 months' when there's a more likely opening and the game will be better off for it, and the gamers as well.

GOG has accept Slender for fuck's sake.standards for indie games here? lol give me a break.

I think the 'standards' are pretty much dictated by 'popularity'. Mostly. Sometimes they randomly refuse a popular game and accept an unpopular one. And, to be fair, those wildcards do tend to be at least interesting from the looks of them.

Nonetheless, I do believe that this is what stops GOG from being the goto place for indie games. Consumers do like choice. Sadly, Steam took the other extreme and just does no quality control whatsoever. Damned if you do, damned if you don't I guess.

Can you tell us what you said and how the dev replied, and perhaps link to some of those twitter streams? I'd like to judge the level of douchebaggery on both sides myself.

Wow, I just looked through the Braid wishlist comments and I'm shocked that GOG isn't interested in having Braid in their catalog. I do find GOG's selection/rejection process bewildering at times. I can't imagine that sales of Braid could be any worse than some of the other "older" games they've chosen to release over the past year, and having it in the catalog would probably be a big plus to GOG's overall reputation and likely generate a good deal of income over the years.

If a developer/publisher is willing and able to have a game with a reputation like Braid come to GOG, I'm having a hard time imagining why GOG wouldn't jump at the chance. Can anyone think of a potential reason?

Then again, our actual insight into GOG's 'refusal policy' is just as shaky and based on wild guesses, disappointed claims and hearsay. What we learn does seem very odd at times, but do we actually know the truth behind it? Their failure to get agreements with some indie developers might just as well be based on completely different things than the games themselves, and the info we get is very one-sided. And weren't there cases of indie devs who claimed GOG wasn't interested in their games while GOG stated the devs hadn't even tried to talk to them?

That's a good point, in many cases there isn't a lot of transparency about these sorts of rejections or acceptances from either side. After re-reading the tweets in the Braid wishlist comments, they could actually be construed as Braid coming to GOG not being very high priority for him as well as GOG maybe having higher stakes in things like bringing LucasArts/Disney into the fold. It could also be read that he is more focused on development of his new game The Witness, and that bringing the game to GOG might entail extra overhead he'd rather not deal with at this time. /PRfilteroff

I also think this is perfectly understandable, especially considering that the game is already available DRM-free from other outlets and there may be terms and conditions of any deal which we the public is not really privy to.

Exactly, provide some more details than " to start acting like a total douche bag over me asking why they don't have gog as an option for their game ", please.

No, that one only happens when they dont have any talent or any ideas of their own.

This is really the best game I've seen in some time! I can hardly wait to pick it up in a bundle!

Then watch the poor fella explode.

Now I am sad :(

You especially. Just stop kicking your fans, man. Stop kicking your fans. They provide you with cool air and stuff.

Bah! It's snowing here. Their cool air is not welcome!