I recall reading on this forum before that a high level GOG employee told GOG's shareholders that GOG's contract with SEGA is extensive and thus implying that GOG will be getting most or all of SEGA's good stuff.

However, the reality that we are actually experiencing seems not to be living up to that premise.

For example, Personal 4 Golden has been on S**** for years, and Persona 5 Royal was just released on S**** recently.

Both are published by SEGA, but yet there is zero sign that either game will be coming to GOG.

So, my question is: what's up with that contradiction between GOG & SEGA supposedly being great pals now, and SEGA supposedly being willing to give GOG its good stuff...yet it seems contrary to that premise, SEGA is actually still holding back its good stuff from receiving any GOG release?

These things take time.

But publishers like THQ Nordic and Larian release their new games on GOG on the same day one release date as they do on S****.

I'm sure SEGA could do likewise if they deeply cared about giving GOG their good stuff. No reason for why Persona 5 Royal could not have had a simultaneous release on GOG and S****, for example.

The fact that they didn't do that, and that they also didn't even announce any future GOG release of that game, seems to be a clear indication that SEGA does not want to give GOG all of its good stuff.

I'm partly convinced that companies like Sega and EA only release games on GOG to make up shortfalls in their release schedules/revenues.

I think that is probably accurate, sadly.

Although SEGA would make a lot of money by releasing all of their good stuff here. It is in their own best interest to do so, and there is no downside to them for doing so.

Yet apparently they still don't want to anyway.

It's mind-boggling (and also very frustrating for those of us who want the good stuff in DRM-free format).

Someone got their hopes crashed again. People need to remember the store they are in. It's not called Steam.

You can say Steam, good god.

When you encounter these things you have to remember that these companies have asian and western divisions. Western divisions don't care. Asian ones do.

GOG is probably saving some up for a grand debut. The start of bigger sales and such. There might be online features they want to retain, also.

For the Atlus games it may not even be SEGA's call. I have a feeling that Atlus very much still controls their own properties, they just partner with SEGA to help publish on PC where Atlus historically have little experience. It could be Atlus that prevent GOG releases and not SEGA.

It's also quite likely that not enough time has passed. When making contracts with new partners it's not uncommon to write in performance clauses. SEGA may release a handful of lesser games with GOG guaranteeing they will sell a certain amount and make a certain profit over a period of time. If that happens then the company will release their better stuff. So, the performance may not be met, or simply not enough time has passed yet. We will never know the contracts unless they get leaked.

Atlus does operate mostly independently, though obviously, Sega's biz dev team has a fair amount of sway over them. I wouldn't expect the Atlus titles to be among the first to launch, but it would be nice.

Either way, it's not like Sega JP doesn't have enough output on their own for now. Sooo much good stuff no matter which group you look at.

The bigger issue isn't even the Atlus stuff not here on GOG.

If GOG's contact with SEGA is extensive, why isn't Shining in the Darkness here on GOG? It's on Steam. The issue clearly isn't that there's no PC port of this game. There's a lot of other old games that were published by SEGA themselves and on Steam yet not here on GOG.

Those companies develop games with the intention of releasing on GoG day 1, and that intention started day 1 of development. All the quirks of the Galaxy API are considered even before main() is written.

The whole process most likely has early dev builds going to GoG to hasten GoG's QA sign off.

I guessing it's likely the reason their games have a COMING SOON announcement

Most Pubs don't do that

Even ones that intend to release on GoG, they drop the finished product on GOG a couple of weeks before release and hope it gets a sign off. Hence no COMING SOON and often a few days delay between Steam and GoG release.

But these SEGA games, these were NEVER coming to GOG. So there was never any considerations or pre-planning to make them work with GOG. Yes, the code would be modular and designed to be ported to multiple platforms but that only goes 99% of the way and that last 1% isn't always smooth.

Untangling a game from Steam takes time, more so if the tools it was originally created in are over a decade old.

Don't forget that some of Sega's games are tangled up with Denuvo too.

If I were to be really getting a Sega game first it would be "Condemned" and possibly #2. I'm betting those could be first. In regards to Atlus just offer ports of the PS2 and before titles and include the ISO's, Japanese and Western versions. I mean even Japan only games, I don't need them translated and show me ONE GOG place for old Japanese console and PC stuff. GOG could clean up. The closest there is is PSN store but nowhere else. Gotta be honest that's depressing.

Just as big a win as Sega would be Namco Bandai as EVERY version, at least on console if you don't own physical, makes you sign a EULA agreeing to let them scrape your gameplay data from your PSN, Switch, etc, profile. This is likely to give to their marketing division or to predatory SCUM elsewhere.

edit: Welcome to GOG, Chac.

I just assumed GOG is getting the Square-Enix treatment from Sega in that Sega is happy to release Western-developed games here but the homegrown Japanese games will remain off limits. I would be happy to be wrong on that, though.

In the same boat that I feel Sega is going to treat GOG just like other Japanese publishers and only release western and other games that were not developed in Japan here.