Wouldn't some of you just love to be a fly on the wall, during negotiations GOG do with game providers, or just internal discussions of GOG and those providing games to GOG, and of course those who fail to provide or remove a game from GOG. Just so many things many of us would like to know about what goes on.

Alas we cannot in reality do that, and anything that was likely shared in place of it, would have some agenda behind it, and unless shared by all parties, not a little bias included.

We can however, speculate on what goes on.
And perhaps sometimes some us might even be right on the money.

Amongst all that I speculate about at GOG, games being removed for instance, is right up there, and I certainly have my views and opinions about it, along with whatever is reported as the reason.

Sometimes, it is made clear that a takeover is responsible. A supposed example of that is when Gearbox took over the Duke Nukem IP, and the related games were removed from GOG. There is always some kind of wheeling and dealing going on, and gaming companies being absorbed or split off etc. I do wonder about removals though, when they don't even have that excuse. And I certainly do have strong views on game companies that don't even provide to GOG or do so poorly or with less than desirable commitment.

So what good reason(s) can there be for removing a game from GOG, when there is no change of ownership factor?

I often speculate on that, and think about all the possibilities, from strained relationships, to disappointment and perhaps even the possibility of losses, and then maybe some impending exclusivity deal with the likes of Steam etc, perhaps not even with the game in question, but as part of a broader deal, that the game provider feels is too great to ignore financially. GOG of course, doesn't have a lot to bargain with, especially when up against the behemoth that is Steam.

I do ponder on strained relationships, and do wonder from time to time, because of threads here, and how lenient in all reality GOG are in the forum, whether that causes a problem for GOG with any game provider that might be being attacked or seriously criticized here. Many of us are well aware of how intolerant most other discussion sites and forums and stores can be.

Anyway, please join me in speculation. It is always interesting to see what others think, and perhaps ponder on things I haven't thought of before ... reasonable things that is. I'm sure I am not alone in this.

Without wanting to ruin your theard, I don't overthink things, especially in a matter like gaming, which (to be perfectly honest) isn't a matter of life and death.
And GOG is a company like many others. They try to reach agreements, but if the "other side" (the gaming companies) don't want to, then what's to be done? Just say OK and move on.
I agree though that their forum is very lenient and everyone can criticize freely and severely (and unfairly). They should be more strict at that.

I think GOG should post a full and transparent description, right here on this forum, of exactly how they conduct, and even more importantly, fail to conduct, their negotiations.

Then the community members would be able to point out all the things that GOG is doing wrong, and the things that GOG could be doing but isn't doing, all of which are things which are, consistently, every single year, contributing to why GOG always fails to acquire more than a small handful of premium top tier games in any given year.

But without such transparency from GOG to the community, and without GOG receiving any corrective feedback about their negotiating strategies from the community, then the same old status quo, of very few premium games arriving on GOG, is likely to continue always.

Interesting idea but sadly no company would EVER do this not now not ever.

but I like it, community based corp negotiation.

Oh boy...

That would be a thread of thousands of posts!!!

How about no?

The thing that most perplexes me about this sort of question is publishers that bring random parts of their catalog to GOG. Incomplete series and random years of release are hard to decipher when trying to get a handle on what games will be brought over.

There's speculation and there are wild imaginings. Some people have a hard time distinguishing between the two and I fear this thread will attract most of them.

Whenever we get a glimpse of what is behind the curtains (as we sometimes do), we can speculate on what is missing from the picture, but IMHO speculation must be rooted in some reality or fact.

Alright, for fun. Here's my speculation:
GOG gets paid by the spammers.

Speculation of "strained relations" aside there are plenty of previous observable reasons:-

1. Remasteritus.

2. "Political" reasons (Fez, Devotion, etc).

3. "Update Parity Fatigue", ie, developer initially wants to be on as many stores as possible for maximum visibility, then the novelty of spending 2-3x longer uploading to multiple stores on every update of every game wears off and they want to "simplify their logistics" (reduce the number of stores supported). Supraland developer blamed market share (only 1% of sales) yet part of the problem was zero marketing of the GOG edition + the GOG version was out of date for a while causing people to hold off buying.

Similarly Perception was removed due to "We are having issues with GOG" yet as fronzelneekburm said in post 21 "I actually have this game. Please note that there is A GAME BREAKING BUG in the version sold on gog. Not just some game-breaking bug, but a game-breaking bug that you WILL encounter and that there is no way around. The only way to finish this game is to download a non-corrupted savegame that was provided by the devs at the time."

So sometimes it's self inflicted. They don't update their game / fix a 2nd class citizen GOG issue = game / developer gets a bad rep on GOG = fewer people buy GOG version = "we're removing our game from GOG due to poor sales".

Unless GOG wants to pull a Microsoft and pay for DRM-free versions, I can only assume publishers see GOG as a storefront for legacy games to dump once they rode out the other stores.

This human fly speculates that a great man from the past once said, "I've got 96 tears in 96 eyes".

Low sales are probably the main factor for removal when no ownership change, whether or not it's self-inflicted like AB2012 said.

No it isn't a matter of life & death, but surely you are curious and speculate now and then?

And aren't you the least bit interested in what others might have to say?
I mean, something made you respond to this thread, which could so easily be ignored if you really wanted to.