How hard is this compared to Primordia? Loved the world and its characters but GOD DAMN that game was hard as fuck (and short too). On a side note, I do suck at point&click, but was able to finish Scratches and Dark Fall with only slight need of walkthroughs. Primordia on the other hand, at about halfway through the game I needed one for almost every puzzles and pixel hunting sessions. Needless to say it ended up being quite a frustrating experience.

Nonsense. Dave went on record saying he'd be happy to sell soundtracks for like $3. The reason we don't have the soundtrack for A Golden Wake here is not the completely justified poor reception of preorder exclusives, it's the completely unjustified poor reception of DLC in general. Search the catalog for DLC and see how it's rated. And preorder enticement isn't going to go away, the bundle / trading culture pretty much requires it.

Exactly. I don't care if it's "Oldies", "Indies" or brand new AAA games, as long as GOG keep doing what they can to expand their library of available games. ( And as long as the new additions are preferably "good" -- but of course that's largely a subjective matter anyway. I actually like how they've been adding certain niche genre titles, during the last few weeks and months. They might not be of interest to the majority of GOG users, but I'm sure some people are ecstatic about those releases.) And I probably voted for that wishlist entry myself, but the way some people seem to interpret it is BS.
You know what's silly about this particular situation? If this was, say, ten or twenty years older, people would be celebrating this release, even if it was exactly the same game.

Some people here really need to start judging the quality of a game based on the game itself, rather than its release year. That a game is old is no guarantee for quality, nor are all new games bad for some mysterious reason.

Primordia? I have the game aswell and I am very bad at adventures, i like them but my intellect doesnt seem to match up to be able to play it without some tips and hints :D

Thats why i have so many games like c&c (originals , i never buy 3d games)and RPG,
I can fight, but i cant think (lol)
But i always try and buy them, usually i will end up googling for help :D
So usually i will stay at the games that require a minimum of logical thinking.

That too. It's ridiculous how some of the forum members are frequently trying to tell the GOG staff how they should operate their business. You know, besides having pretty much nothing but assumptions and personal opinions to work with, rather than actual business data. I'm not saying GOG is perfect, and it's fine to offer constructive feedback, but I trust that they generally know what they're doing, and it's plain rude and disrespectful to imply otherwise.

Totally agree, i myself will never post such things, cause they are the ones that run the company, not I.
I am but a user who likes old stuff to work again so i joined this nice community.

You are right. In retrospect, I shouldn't have commented in the first place.

But those two dynamics play off each other.

WadgetEye offered the game with a pre-order bonus, and opportunity to buy the soundtrack.

GOG can either:

* Work with WEG to offer the game with the soundtrack as a pre-order exclusive to keep the bundle at a flat price.
* Work with WEG to offer the game with the same pre-order bonus, and opportunity to buy the soundtrack by itself
* Just offer the game by itself

GOGers who hate preorder exclusives will poo-poo the first option.
GOGers who hate DLC (but we used to get soundtracks bundled with our 10 yr old games for free!) will poo-poo the second option.

So based on the situation GOG ends up in, it's no wonder they opt for the third.

Only problem is... option #3 leaves a bad taste too, for those of us like me who want a choice. I'm getting Hatobul Boyfriend elsewhere, because GOG doesn't even offer the Summer of Dove collector's edition. It just seems like those of us in this category might be the silent group, relatively.

I'm all for a bit of whining and I've done my fair share of it on this very forum. But cases like this one proves that it's gone totally out of control. The fact that devs/GOG are now withholding content out of fear that they get ripped to shreds on this forum for offering seperate bonus content is appalling to say the least. Ether One I think handled the pre-order incentive situation beautifully: Offer the bonus content DLC (including the OST which goes for GBP7 alone on Bandcamp) as a free pre-order bonus. I think there's no reason to complain about that and I hope that we'll keep getting to choose complete packages on GOG again in the future.

Yet looking at the Ether One thread: http://www.gog.com/forum/general/preorder_ether_one/

I see...

* "Da fuq? Is the soundtrack exclusive to the Deluxe Edition? Man, that sucks... I remember the days where GOG including goodies with their games was one of the main selling points. To see them start being walled off in "Deluxe Editions" makes me sad."

* "Putting the soundtrack only in the deluxe edition is a bit against the traditional GOG way..."

* "I am getting pissed off about this deluxe edition bullshit. "

* " wait, soundtrack ONLY for deluxe edition? Oh, my... BOYCOTT THEM! "

* "As for me, while I don't class the freebies GOG.com provides as a "core principle," I feel loathe to support a trend where such freebies (and only such freebies) are assigned such an arbitrarily high value without due merit."

So while you and I want the option of content other storefronts have, apparently it's an uphill battle with this vocal group -_-

Exactly. And there's two downsides to this: not only does it curb the range of selection GOG has to offer, it also - with all due respect to other posters here - diminishes the quality of content of this forum by drowning out legitimate criticism in a tidal wave of whining.

Allow me to bring up this thread as a reminder of just how counter-productive the onslaught of complaints can get. I love the fact that this community will call out bullshit when we see it (and I have immensel of respect for GOG for allowing these discussions), but there is a point where constant criticism does more harm than good. GOG not selling bonus content (especially bonus content that is not free anywhere else) is one such case.

I have an honest quesion: how many people actually listen game soundtracks outside games? I've personally found, that much like many movie soundtracks, game soundtracks tend to not work well outside the medium they were intented for. Without the game they're just not often very engaging.

I have to agree with that for the most part. There are some exceptions though, I've always liked e.g. the Morrowind theme even if I had never played the game. Usually though, I start appreciating some game music only after having played the game in question, goes especially with all those Squaresoft JRPGs that are supposed to have so great music.

There are some games where I have liked to listen to the soundtrack afterwards, but having a separate soundtrack is not really a biggie for me overall. It used to be kinda easier back when the music was Redbook audio CD tracks (ie. you just popped the game CD inside a CD player, if you wanted to listen to the music tracks), or something like Far Cry where I recall the music was on mp3 or ogg files in the game installation.

I'm with you for the most part. I have exactly 2 songs from GOG soundtracks in my 20000 song iTunes library (both from FTL). Though I do download all the extras to an external when I download my games. I assume I'll get *a little* bit more into gaming soundtracks once I've experience a lot more of the games in my library.

A major issue for me is that around the time of college I listened to almost everything: jazz, blues, classic rock, hip hop, classical. For the past 15 years or so I only listen to indie rock and don't even partake all that much these days once it started being so influenced by folk and electronica 5 or 6 years ago.

All that said, I do appreciate the soundtracks being included because, based on what I've seen in the release threads, a number of people really do enjoy them being included. I'm glad the desires of these folks are being met, when possible, by GOG.

Late to the party on this thread (been out of town), but over the past six years of hanging out at GOG, I've developed a real taste for them. I've found many to be perfect when I need a little background music at work. Since they're usually instrumental tracks, they relieve boredom without being too distracting when I'm writing. I even paid for the soundtrack DLC for Divinity:OS because I like Kiril's compositions from the other games so much (which I got for free as bonus content) that I wanted to contribute more for it up front.

I don't skip games for not including the soundtrack, but I enjoy them as bonuses, and for games that are not more than a couple of years old, I don't have any problem with seeing the soundtracks as DLC/special edition content. I also expect that, as a game ages, that content will get bundled in at a cheaper price.

I think some gamers also don't understand that the composers are starting to see that maybe they'd be better off negotating contracts that reserve the rights for separate sale of the soundtracks to themselves via Bandcamp, etc. In that case, the devs themselves don't have the right to sell or include separate music files.