If they did as Steam, then they would release the game.

That makes it even worse! :D

well, because then everyone would just buy their games on steam. as drm-free is gog's big distinguishing factor. i don't speak for everyone (obviously) but that's why i buy games here. and of course they want money, but they'd give up their niche if they went all out steam.

GOG wants money, but it wasn't funded solely on the grounds of making money. At least if we believe what they said when they started, it was mostly/also about the love for the games of old. As back then (and even right now), money is not in old games / retro games. Money is in online gaming / microtransactions.
GOG proved a business on old games could be sustainable, but it's not like they were never making huge profits.

So yes, I might be unfair to them, but I hold GOG to a higher standard than other game stores, as per their drm-free revolution and what not, I do consider GOG a stronghold for game preservation. And that's why it bothers me more when they reject games that I consider worthy of preservation.

On another note, GOG should really start automating their systems. It is inconceivable to me that their installers have to be hand tweaked, when it's something pretty straight forward to automate. And the mess that update notifications are, probably mean those aren't automated either. Yes, that a huge amount of unnecesary work that could mean more games could have been accepted.
Everyone sees what they want to see. AHOMD always acknowledged its Sunless Seas roots. But then, it has different graphics, different combat and different writing/story (which seems to be the strongest point of AHOMD, from what I read). I guess I just don't mind the similarities. Which is probably why I must be ok with FPS or point&click adventures, as I case could be made of them being clones of each others. Or any bethesda game. I'm not okay with those, though. Mainly because I didn't like the first one either.

We like to believe that companies, who at one point in time or another, professed to adhere to a higher ideal (like GOG, Pixar/Disney, EA, or Apple) are in it for more than just the money. But at the end of the day, GOG is a business just like any other. Their adherence to their stance on DRM (among other things) is borne more out of a knowledge that there is a valuable enough market to tap with DRM-free games. When market conditions change enough that DRM-free gaming ceases to be a significant market, you can bet that they'll transition to some kind of DRM-based system with Galaxy, whether it be as intrusive as Steam/uPlay/Origin, or as relatively benign as the Mac App Store.

There are many examples of GOG going back on their original principles when the market changed. There was their move to adopt regional pricing, and their move towards selling extra content (like artwork, OSTs) separately -- things they generally said they wouldn't do (the matter of selling extra content vs. offering it free with game purchases is potentially debatable but I digress). There was also their move towards indie games and day-one AAA releases, and selling DLC.

It's important to remember that going forward: for better or for worse, the GOG of 2008-2010 doesn't exist anymore. It's no longer the bastion of old games and gaming morality than everyone held it up to be. The fact that they officially changed their name away from Good Old Games to GOG was a clear sign of this.

And that's the kicker: That I consider worthy. What may be GOTY material for you may be garbage to someone else, and vice-versa. Simply liking a game doesn't mean it absolutely has to be on GOG. For that matter, it doesn't mean that other people have to like it either.

That would mean GOG becoming the same flooded place that Steam has become, though—with the only difference that you would really own the games.

@ thread: go donate to the Internet Archive and stop hating on a random game just because you woke up with a hate boner.

And I'm sure there are people who would actually think GOG would be better that way. I wouldn't ever say that GOG's curation policy is perfect, and I think they've lost out on a lot of games that I personally think would be great (like Arcen Games' Starward Rogue). But all else being equal, GOG's curation system is far, far better than the alternative.

Yes, because you can only have very extreme curation (GOG only releases, what? 5 new games in a lucky week out of the 50+ being released) or opening the floodgates.

And yes, I personally think it's better that way than this way, even though I think that going for an average of 10 new games a week would cover pretty much every professional game. But at the end of the day, I'll rather do my curation myself than have someone else do it for me. Which I think it's only natural if you know about games, you are aware of what's being release and you are not extremely lazy.
I can have a tidy GOG library and harddrive. I can search my way through the store to find what I want, thank you.

I undertand that cynicism. I do. But it doesn't really work everywhere. Obviously, when it didn't happen it could always happen; that's why it's so handy argumentatively. But you could apply it do everything just as well. Music bands, artists, game developers, moviemakers. And yet, there are still lots of them working for something more than money. Thankfully.

The GOG of 2008-2010 is the same GOG of today. They have the same owners, and it wasn't bought by any faceless corporation. And it is still a small company.
In fact, GOG doesn't even have to exist, as it's not the main business of the owners, nor the one that makes them money, really. So they'll probably close the doors if drm-free stops being possible.
And regional princing was the only change that went against their principles. Everything else is moot. They sold old games, but never positioned themselves against new games. Why would they? It was mainly that when this started, indie games where not a thing, and new games where heavyly into drm. Which is why this started.
And GOG still provides extra content for old games most of the time, just like before.

Indeed. That's the most important thing everyone should be aware of. Which is why, it's better to release more games than less. Everyone always have the option of not buying games they don't want if they are released. Noone has the option of buying them if they are not.

Bottom line, it's always more harmful not releasing games than releasing them.

So yes, liking a game means that it should be here. At least as far as I'm concerned, as it's the only measure important to me as a customer. And probably also to you.

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There probably are, indeed. I’m not one of them, though. I’d rather miss out on a few games than GOG releasing Digital Homicide–type stuff, for example.

Then again, I don’t follow any gaming media, so my game knowledge is very poor; therefore, I don’t even know if I’m missing out on anything that I would be interested in, so that’s probably a reason why I prefer this way. The only games I know of that I wish were here were great and successful indie games from a few years ago and that I had on Steam.

So who should get to decide what games make it in, then? You? Me? TinyE? To use skeletonbow's arguments from before, if one person's pet game should be on just because they want it to be on, then everyone's pet game should be included. That includes games like Xenus II: White Gold. That includes every game on Greenlight just because someone says they "like it". When that happens, GOG basically just becomes another dumping ground for asset flips and shovelware, and we actually would get games like The Slaughtering Grounds on GOG. In fact, with the problems facing Steam (and now also apparently the PlayStation Store) the last thing we need is GOG becoming Steam Greenlight 2.0.

Sure, in an ideal world, yeah, all of the games that I want would be on sale here. But I accept the fact that that likely won't happen because chances are, you and everyone else here would disagree on what constitutes a "good" game. And it's not like I couldn't get the games that I want that aren't on GOG anyway, since most of them are available DRM-free on Humble, or from the developers' own website.

In the meantime, the wishlist is there for you.
Yup. Because if GOG really did open the floodgates, I'd guarantee it would turn into a wasteland, like Steam, or IndieGameStand, or GamersGate. And as I said earlier, if there's a game I genuinely want that for some reason or another isn't/won't be on GOG, I can get it off of Humble or from the devs themselves.

Does that mean that one has to masturbate furiously to get rid of it?
=D

I'm not afraid of greenlight 2.0 nor the slaughtering grounds. I told you before, even though you didn't quote it. I rather have Steam's approach than GOG's. I could buy any game I wanted on Steam, so I don't see the harm. And I can find those games quite easily. I don't need a front page picture for a day to know if I wan't a game or not. There are lots of websites and information to do the research.
No one has to decide for me, and everyone should be able to buy what the want.

So, let me get this straight. You don't mind GOG curating the games you can buy here, because you can buy them anyway drm-free on humble. Another store. That, apparently the games rejected by GOG. So you are buying and using a dumping ground like Steam to buy your games anyway, or they have a better curation system than GOG and it is even possible to have enough good games.

On the other hand, you don't want the mess that Steam is where you can't find anything but you know what gets released and can buy it in each developer's individual store? Honestly, Steam's dumping ground is easier than that.

And you are very lucky, which may be why you are so cool with GOG's policy. Of the 89 games I have on my humblebundle wishlist, 67 are not drm-free (obviously, I already bought many that were, but there are still lots of steam only games there).

No, thanks. The wishlist doesn't work for me, I don't think it'll never work as a means to get good games here. You just have to peak 2016 best selling albums (adele, drake, bieber, beyonce, rihanna) or movies (rogue one, finding dory, civil war, the secret life of pets, the jungle book) to see where that will lead us to. Unfortunately best selling stuff is most of the time very far away from what I like.