Occasionally when i find a game i have on GOG is not up to date with it's Steam counterpart, i will message or contact the developers in some way. More then 1 developer has said that updating their games on GOG is harder then Steam.

Here are a few:

"Actually that's not fair. GOG is not really friendly towards updates for the game. It's the really huge and costly process to update the game on GOG. :/ Sorry. We are still working on GOG update though."

Is this true, or are these just greedy developers who want to have their cake and eat it too? They put their games on GOG knowing fully well that the customer base here is much smaller then Steam's, then once they've raked in a few extra sales they abandon it because it doesn't generate as much money here as on Steam so they don't bother updating it?

Seems to me like every developer that puts their game on GOG should be aware of the smaller customer base. If they put their game on here then abandon it once they make some money on top of their steam sales using whatever excuse for not updating their game, then fuck those developers. Then some of them have the nerve to come back and release their newest titles. The ones that annoy me most are the ones that leave their game without updates for months or longer, then only update them a month or 2 before they plan to release a new game to generate some good PR for themselves on the site, or at least to keep away potential negative PR once their new game releases.

According to the second citizens GOG mix some of Telltales older games have DRM free versions of their games with fixes that they don't have on GOG for example. Apparently the second episode of Tales of Monkey Island on GOG has bad sound quality, and Telltale fixed this issue on Steam. On GOG it seems you have to contact support and ask them to send you the audio files so you can replace them yourself. Really Telltale/GOG?

There's also RWS stringing us along with the promise that they made almost 4years ago -_- to update Postal 2 to match the Steam version.

I understand GOG might not have the clout that Steam does when it comes to asking things of developers, like actually keeping their games up to date, but isn't there something they can do to improve this problem? It's the biggest issue with this site for me.


Sorry if this post is hard to read or all over the place, i haven't gotten much sleep.

None of us could really tell you the inner workings of GOG, and if any of us could tell you we would be under a NDA. Having said that, we do get bits of information now and then. From what we do know GOG's patching process has been more complicated and less dev friendly compared to Steam in the past. More recently GOG has done a lot of work behind the scenes and now has DevPortal were devs can roll out updates similar to how they can on Steam directly to Galaxy users. It appears though that not every dev has access to the DevPortal yet.

As for as the BlackHole devs that you quoted... BlackHole supports Galaxy, so it's possible GOG simply hasn't given them access to the DevPortal which means that can't as easily push out the patch. As far it being a "huge and costly process", I would very much doubt that. While consoles have a certification process in which devs are charged to release a patch, I have not heard of any store front on PC doing that. So assuming GOG doesn't charge to release a patch (which would be stupid) then it should cost no more than a developers time to ready the patch for a GOG build.

Since they claim updating games in GOG is REEEEALLY HJUUUUGE AND COSTS AN ARM AND A LEG!!!, it would be nice to hear directly from them (the developers), what are the exact steps they have to do to release an update on GOG. Then we would have a clearer view if it is really as huge and costly as they claim, and/or if part of the issues are due to them having so many Steam-specific things in their development that they have to rethink how to convert it to a non-Steam verison (in which case it isn't really GOG's fault, but the developer's fault). Especially we do see some other games getting constant updates on GOG, even for the offline installers.

But I guess NDA prevents that probably.

I personally don't give a crap how arduous or costly it is for devs to update their game on GOG. If they sell it here, they need to support it. If they don't, then they should not sell further games here.

After figuring out how 'time-consuming' and 'costly' it is to update their games when they've listed the first one here, IMO, it shows very little integrity to sell others if they know they won't bother keeping them updated. I guess we, the consumers, need to speak with our wallets with regards to these developers even if it means GOG also takes a hit.

Nice. Glad to see my reservation to pick up a DRM-Free copy wasn't in vain. Christ.

Here, here. Well said. +1 (Would +more if it would let me)

NOTE: This is how CONSUMERS should act. There's an awful lot of gamers that could use a lesson or ten in consumer behavior and here's one.

GOG used to be a beacon of transparency and openness. Now they're quiet and weird. But we're not here for them, we're here for games.

Now the dev responded saying this: Jesus Christ will somebody from GOG reach out to them and get this shit sorted...

It looks like not replying is becoming a common practice for GOG. Last time I contacted GOG's support, I had to e-mail the Legal team to get an answer.

--

A lot of people like to blame the developers for everything and defend GOG, but it seems like GOG isn't helping either. After the issue with H:DoK, I'm quite disappointed with GOG and I haven't purchased a single game here since then. On the last winter sale, all my money went for Steam, unfortunately.

deleted

I don't really know what to make of that answer... Does the highlighted part mean that they aren't willing to send any update to GOG if it is going to be tested?

I know that part of the whole meaning of the Galaxy client is to enable devs to push quick updates, and I understand they're frustrated if they aren't able to do so, but that doesn't excuse them at all for not providing updated offline installers.

Has anyone here actually asked for a refund on a game that GOG, for whatever reason, was not updating?

I know a lot of us have made inquiries about it, but I mean actually filled out the refund request?

Yea I don't fully understand what they mean by that either... I tried my best to point them to perhaps somebody who can better help them since I only have a general idea about how the DevPortal works. If you have to do QA testing then why not do it?

My understanding though is GOG provides the updated offline installers (meaning GOG packages them from the builds sent by the devs). Why this dev can't send the patches another means if they can't figure out the DevPortal I do not know. For one, I don't know how devs were sending patches to GOG before Galaxy (I assume they were sending the files manually via FTP which would have limited the amount of direct control they had over patching).

Maybe GOG told them to only send patches via the DevPortal since they have access... not sure.

For what it is worth, I tried to contact GOG support and ask them to update Caravan to Steam's version. The silence speaks volumes, far as I am concerned.

These days, I have to give serious thought whether or not to support GOG with my money. GOG often loses when I have to ask myself whether they can be trusted.

And here I thought GOG is a stable platform to take into account for now and in the foreseeable future. Please, tell me it's just a little hiccup.