Wrong.

Nobody forced GOG to accept Cooking Simulator. They could reject it as they did with many other games (such as the A.I.M. series - never forgive, never forget).

As I said above, publishers can't add every game they want to the GOG catalog. Otherwise, there would be a lot more games here.

The publisher offered this game to GOG, and the curators accepted it, ignoring the fact that the community's interest in this game is extremely low, and here's the result.

Sorry but you're mistaking cause for effect. GOG can only make estimates and the wishlist is just one of their parameters. They might consider a niche game worthy, or decide to try to expand into genres not often found on the store.

If the publisher released the game on GOG he also had to sign a contract in which he committed to update the game, and the state it is in now is solely and exclusively his fault.

I respect your opinion, but I still think that the best way to avoid such situations is not to create them at all.

GOG could wait a little longer and see if there is enough demand for this game, instead of accepting it when almost no one here even asked for it.

There have already been situations like this. At least Supraland and Windward (and probably Space Rogue from Red Beat) were delisted for the same reason. I think it's time to start learning from mistakes.

Cooking Simulator is currently #3072 on the all-time bestsellers list (out of over 4500 items in the catalog)--probably not good sales but probably not abysmal either. Sales could have been drying up due to the lack of support from the developers, though. And maybe the develop/publisher revenue split was a factor in that.

If what i've heard of GOG's treatment of some partners** is correct, some of the delistings/"2nd class treatment" could be more GOG's fault than the pub/dev.

(** i.e. some things like the updates some partners provide being processed faster by GOG than those of other partners)

Also GOG charges a fee to just list games for sale here....if a partner is losing money than I can sort of see why they might pull them(though I often don't like/want to see such things).

- As said above: if the partner bias that i've heard of(gog giving better treatment to some partners over others...including things like processing submitted updates faster) is true, then it could be that the company might've(key word, as I don't know for sure with each partner) submitted updates awhile back & GOG sat on them.



-Well said

From what i've heard, making the games work with galaxy and adding gog specific things like galaxy achievements is actually quite a bit of work.

They do charge a hosting fee to partners here, and (from what i've heard) also show favoritism to some devs/pubs over others(which I listed in my above replies).

-

Should a store that barely makes much profit really be making such risky decisions? One would think they'd want to bring in mostly games that will sell like hotcakes.

Could indeed be. But I don't think so.
Given the colossal disproportion between the sales of GOG and steam, if it was a case of publishers losing money then at least 50% of GOG's games would have disappeared from the store by now.

It's likely just a case of a lazy dev who didn't want to bother updating the builds for a place which would gather only a couple of sales per month (if any). In fact the game had been on my wishlist. I was waiting for it to get a nice discount so that I could grab it. Now the devs won't see my money anyway.

It's also a matter of professionalism. Some people stated in the game's specific forum that they tried to contact the dev about game issues and never received a reply. I think things like these say a lot. Unfortunately it's a fact that small indie devs and publishers can be greedy assholes just like their AAA "cousins". There are obscure games here, like Low Magic Age that despite probably getting poor sales are still updated every month.

But , it's their game, so the devs have every right to pull it from the store if they so wish. There are plenty of folks who have no problem in renting it on steam.
And again I write: good riddance.

They might make enough money from their other games on GOG and/or be big enough to take the loss. Also some might be locked into a contract for a set period.

Regardless, I feel it is shortsighted to attribute malice/ill intent to such things and/or to lay the blame fully on the partners without knowing the full details...but of course I can sort of see why you and others might chose to do otherwise.

Me too. Iirc Sally Face had single-digit or close to it wishlist votes. Meanwhile stuff like Agony Unrated gets rejected. This isn't to disparage any games or say a smaller wished game can't end up being better but at face value it is a headscratcher.

Well, I guess there goes my mild interest in the title.

I was thinking about this one, but it seems it really was a flash in the pan streamerbait game.