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The galaxy is your oyster.

Smugglers V, a turn-based Sci-Fi epic where you fight, trade, and pirate your way to the top of galactic elite, is available on GOG.com, for only $9.99.

There is a whole genre of games dedicated to a single idea: you're a spacecraft pilot climbing the ladder of power and fame through trading, combat, prospecting, freighting, and possibly piracy. The unsurpassed freedom and feeling that your destiny is your own to shape, made this single idea one of the most prolific motifs in PC gaming. Many of space-sims enjoy cult following and games of this genre developed nowadays sometimes reach incredible scale and complexity. Most of them, though, involve a lot of action and put reflexes before tactics and planning. This one is different. It's played in turns.

Smugglers V is what you get when a dedicated creator polishes and improves every aspect of his game for years. Smugglers is not a series in the common understanding of the word. You don't need to play Smugglers 1-4 to enjoy the fifth one to full extent. It's still pretty much the same game, that evolves with each installment, gaining more and more gameplay depth, enriching the dynamic universe presented, and offering new options. In the latest version we offer you here, the phenomenal turn-based space-sim offers 30+ different spacecrafts, 100+ pilot skills and traits, 6 different career choices, and 4 factions to pledge allegiance to at your whim. The turn-based mechanics make this title extremely addictive, as the "one more turn" syndrome can hold you at the helm to the wee hours of the morning.

Pilot, forge your fortune and make your own destiny in a galaxy full of war, unrest, villany, and opportunity in Smugglers V, for only $9.99 on GOG.com.
Anyone ever play Spaceward ho!? Is this anything like that?
Or.. Galactic Conquest?

A mate of mine so loved Galactic Conquest back in the day he went home and wrote his own version on PCP464. Naturally we all considered it vastly superior to the original. ;)
Why is there an Indie release everyday on GoG? What happened to the good old games? I am getting tired of these Indie games to be honest.
This is pretty awesome. Definitely going to take advantage of the significantly lowered price eventually.

Now if only you guys could get the Escape Velocity series...
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doomdoom11: Why is there an Indie release everyday on GoG? What happened to the good old games? I am getting tired of these Indie games to be honest.
Re-volt is an old game. They're still releasing old games, granted, at a bit of a lower pace, but not very much. People's perceptions have changed because there's lots and lots of indie games coming out all the time, which are way easier to distribute than old games, so why wouldn't GOG take the opportunity? Many of us want these games anyway, so stop visiting GOG so often and come back every month or so to get the oldies so you don't have to even look at these oh-so-tiresome indie game releases.
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doomdoom11: Why is there an Indie release everyday on GoG? What happened to the good old games? I am getting tired of these Indie games to be honest.
GOG has released 132 games so far this year. Out of those, 48 (36%) were 10+ years old on release date, 36 (27%) were Day 1 release, 35 (27%) were pre-2k and 48 (36%) were neither classics nor Day 1 releases (Smugglers V is in this category). So 1 out of three games is a classic, and 1 out of three games is neither a classic nor a Day 1 release.
Data can be found here.
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doomdoom11: Why is there an Indie release everyday on GoG? What happened to the good old games? I am getting tired of these Indie games to be honest.
1. An indie game was released yesterday.
2. On the exact same day an old game was also released.
3. You chose to complain about the frequency of indie game releases in the thread of this specific indie game.
4. You have not posted in the thread of the old game to express your opinion.

Did I get it right?
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JMich: GOG has released 132 games so far this year. Out of those, 48 (36%) were 10+ years old on release date, 36 (27%) were Day 1 release, 35 (27%) were pre-2k and 48 (36%) were neither classics nor Day 1 releases (Smugglers V is in this category). So 1 out of three games is a classic, and 1 out of three games is neither a classic nor a Day 1 release.
Data can be found here.
Interesting data. From there we can see a clear trend: classics represent a rapidly decreasing percentage of GOG's releases.

For the year so far, 10+ year old games represent 36% of the total releases (48 out of 132).
For the past three months, 10+ year old games represent 25% of the total releases (12 out of 48).

So it's gone from approx. one out of three releases to exactly one out of four releases.
Post edited October 04, 2013 by Zeewolf
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JMich: GOG has released 132 games so far this year. Out of those, 48 (36%) were 10+ years old on release date, 36 (27%) were Day 1 release, 35 (27%) were pre-2k and 48 (36%) were neither classics nor Day 1 releases (Smugglers V is in this category). So 1 out of three games is a classic, and 1 out of three games is neither a classic nor a Day 1 release.
Data can be found here.
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Zeewolf: Interesting data. From there we can see a clear trend: classics represent a rapidly decreasing percentage of GOG's releases.

For the year so far, 10+ year old games represent 36% of the total releases (48 out of 132).
For the past three months, 10+ year old games represent 25% of the total releases (12 out of 36).

So it's gone from approx. one out of three releases to exactly one out of four releases.
How can that be a quarter? out of 36 that should be 9.
So how strategic is this? Turn based sounds good, but how complex is the battle and otherwise part? Can it be compared to well known strategy titles? Or how would you classify this game? It's not clear from the GOG description what the game is.
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lugum: How can that be a quarter? out of 36 that should be 9.
Oh, screwed up. 36 was the amount of non-classics, the total is 48.

Trilarion: I only played IV, but I didn't find the combat very interesting or strategic. In fact, there was very little that I found interesting about that game. It was a very basic, completely menu-driven Elite-ish game, and it got really repetitive really quickly.
Post edited October 04, 2013 by Zeewolf
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Zeewolf: So it's gone from approx. one out of three releases to exactly one out of four releases.
Math is a very interesting thing, isn't it? 35 pre-2K games released in 2010 is 17% more pre-2K releases than the 35 pre-2K released (so far) in 2013.
If you care about the percentage of classic/pre-2K releases, then yes, those are less. If you care about the number of classic/pre-2K releases, those are the same if not more than previous years.

Let's add a few more years to the data, shall we?

Between June 1st 2009 and October 1st 2009, we had 14 pre-2K releases.
Between June 1st 2010 and October 1st 2010, we had 11 pre-2K/Classic releases.
Between June 1st 2011 and October 1st 2011, we had 27 classic releases.
Between June 1st 2012 and October 1st 2012, we had 23 classic releases.
Between June 1st 2013 and October 1st 2013, we had 14 classic releases.

The most old releases GOG did during summertime was the year it signed up EA. The second most was the year it decided to sell indies. The number of old releases it has this year was the same as it had during its period in Beta, and more than the "Year of PR disaster".

So this shows us that other than signing a new publisher, the biggest influx of classics (during summertime) came from allowing Indies on GOG.

In all seriousness though, GOG has been releasing more classics as the years progress. It broke the 1 classic/week in 2011 (EA), and had 67 classics in the "Year of the Indie". It still has 12 more weeks for 2012, and is 4 classics away from the 1 classic/week, or 19 from its current record. I wouldn't say it has stopped releasing classics, nor in numbers nor in frequency. It is though also releasing non-classics, like NWN2, Jade Empire, Etherlords 2, Children of the Nile, Total Overdose, Settlers 2: 10th Anniversary Edition and many others.
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JMich: Let's add a few more years to the data, shall we?

Between June 1st 2009 and October 1st 2009, we had 14 pre-2K releases.
Between June 1st 2010 and October 1st 2010, we had 11 pre-2K/Classic releases.
Between June 1st 2011 and October 1st 2011, we had 27 classic releases.
Between June 1st 2012 and October 1st 2012, we had 23 classic releases.
Between June 1st 2013 and October 1st 2013, we had 14 classic releases.

The most old releases GOG did during summertime was the year it signed up EA. The second most was the year it decided to sell indies. The number of old releases it has this year was the same as it had during its period in Beta, and more than the "Year of PR disaster".

So this shows us that other than signing a new publisher, the biggest influx of classics (during summertime) came from allowing Indies on GOG.
A few points about your comparisons. Let's not forget that there were plenty of complaints about the low amount of releases in the summer/autumn of 2009 and 2010 too. GOG has had some really bad periods, there's no hiding from that. I don't think it is wrong to expect more of GOG this year, considering the amount of different publishers they have deals with now compared to then. And your comparison still shows summer 2013 to be the worst for classics in the last three years, which isn't what one would usually expect from a successful and expanding business.

As for the rest, I think that the year-on-year-analysis tends to be not that interesting. The reason people have been complaining isn't necessarily that GOG has released fewer classics this year than some other year. It's that, as your statistics shows pretty well, there is a trend here that they are not comfortable with. Besides, I think the height of the complaints came back in august, and if you look at your statistics for the period between 23. july and 22. august I think it's pretty hard not to understand perfectly well why people were unhappy.
Post edited October 04, 2013 by Zeewolf
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Zeewolf: As for the rest, I think that the year-on-year-analysis tends to be not that interesting. The reason people have been complaining isn't necessarily that GOG has released fewer classics this year than some other year. It's that, as your statistics shows pretty well, there is a trend here that they are not comfortable with.
My year to year analysis was mostly an example of how an analysis can provide any result you wish to show. Numbers clearly show that moving to indies increased the classics released by GOG, so the next move to have more classics released is to move to AAA distribution :P

As for the trend you are saying, let me ask for a clarification.
Are you saying that GOG is releasing fewer classics (false, or at least possibly false atm) or are you complaining because GOG is releasing more games (thus a lesser percentage of classics)? Yes, it is a loaded question, though again one math supports ;)

As for gloom predictions, my threshold for classics is the 1/week, which GOG so far has kept (at least as long as I've been a member). If on the other hand you are predicting Doom, allow me to jump and glee with joy ;)

So, let me ask again, what is this worrying trend you speak of?
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JMich: So, let me ask again, what is this worrying trend you speak of?
Let's ignore the other years, and focus on this year. As I said:

In the first quarter, 10+ year old games represent 58% of the total releases (25 out of 43)
For the entire year so far, 10+ year old games represent 36% of the total releases (48 out of 132).
In the last three months (quarter), 10+ year old games represent 25% of the total releases (12 out of 48).

See? Almost all the things that makes this year fairly decent for classics - and let's not forget, GOG is bigger than ever and this SHOULD be their best year yet - happened before the summer. In the first three months of this year we had more than twice the amount of classic releases than in the last three months. Scroll up on your spreadsheet, and you'll see a majority of green stuff in the classic-column. Scroll down, and the majority is red. Do you not see the trend?

And even if we ignore the percentages and go back to a year-on-year comparison, in the numbers you brought up we got this:

Between June 1st 2011 and October 1st 2011, we had 27 classic releases.
Between June 1st 2012 and October 1st 2012, we had 23 classic releases.
Between June 1st 2013 and October 1st 2013, we had 14 classic releases.

Are these really the numbers we should be expecting for GOG's anniversary year?

Edit: Added first quarter numbers.

Another few edits later: As an aside, I think you've gotten the Bioforge-date wrong (for 2012). It was released in 1995, not 2005.
Post edited October 04, 2013 by Zeewolf
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JMich: So, let me ask again, what is this worrying trend you speak of?
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Zeewolf: Let's ignore the other years, and focus on this year. As I said:

For the year so far, 10+ year old games represent 36% of the total releases (48 out of 132).
In the last quarter, 10+ year old games represent 25% of the total releases (12 out of 48).

See? Almost all the things that makes this year fairly decent for classics - and let's not forget, GOG is bigger than ever and this SHOULD be their best year yet - happened before the summer. Scroll up on your spreadsheet, and you'll see a majority of green stuff in the classic-column. Scroll down, and the majority is red. Do you not see the trend?

And even if we ignore the percentages, in the numbers you brought up we got this:

Between June 1st 2011 and October 1st 2011, we had 27 classic releases.
Between June 1st 2012 and October 1st 2012, we had 23 classic releases.
Between June 1st 2013 and October 1st 2013, we had 14 classic releases.

Are these really the numbers we should be expecting for GOG's anniversary year?
Ah, fun math again.

So, in the last quarter, we had less classic releases than the average (or is it median) for this year. Which also means that for another quarter, we have more than the average/median of the year. Can you run the numbers for those? Or would that show that GOG is releasing more than previous years, thus prevent the gloom and doom predictions?

That is the main reason to not analyse a small sample. If I take as a sample the period between January 10th 2013 and January 22nd 2013, GOG had a 100% classic release rate. If we take the same period in 2012, we also have 100% classic release rate. Same period in 2011 we have a 66% classic release rate (2 out of 3 were classics). For 2010, the release rate was 25% (1 in 4). So that shows us that GOG is releasing more classic games, and it peaked after indies.

So, as I said before, math can be used to help you prove anything you like. Biased samples, percentages and numbers, as well as subjective analysis can help with "proof". Thus why I prefer to do full years, which show that GOG has at worse remained steady with last year's releases, or has increased as the years go by, depending on the years compared and data compared.

Also, you can't have an anniversary year. All years are anniversary years ;)


Edit: Ah, first quarter numbers added. So GOG has released 25 out of 43 classics in Q1 2013 (58%), compared to the 16 out of 62 for Q1 2012 (26%) and 14 out of 57 for Q1 2011 (25%). So GOG is releasing more classics than the 2 previous years, both in numbers and in percentages. Math is fun! :)
Post edited October 04, 2013 by JMich