Hasn't this been improved lately? I thought developers could now upload their builds directly to Galaxy, with GOG taking care of the installers. Some of the effort involved in needing to make the game not rely on Steam features has also been taken over by GOG.

For me, the point of departure for any developer is that every customer buying the official product is treated equally. That's how any company operates within a professional capacity. Buying the product at a different store has no bearing on the required support. The expectations of game developers in regards to selling their products can at times strike me as puzzling.

This simply is untrue. If you use the GOG API devs can upload their build same as on Steam. I know this from the dev who made Orphan. He is one guy and he was able to update GOG and Steam AND the changelog on GOG and Steam with bugfixes AND additional features AND he also replied to questions regarding problems with bugs AND gameplay/hints. One person .. so this David Guy really can stop with his crying over nothing.

https://www.gog.com/forum/orphan/patch_notes_1020/post3

(and now go, support him and buy Orphan ;))

The dev from Supraland simply is an ass and the moment he communicated here on GOG at release it was clear that he is. He only cares about the money and that's what he is communicating right now. If he dislikes GOG so much he should remove the game from GOG - others do it as well. But no, he still wants to have this 1% revenue from GOG he is talking and complaining about on Steam. It's a shame that he is German - really dislike the guy.

But at least he noticed that people are upset ...

"The points made by everyone are correct. I have not made a decision yet. I just explained the issue. "

Well, this was just my own speculation, not any dev's words. And maybe with Galaxy it's different. I just noticed that several updates arrived siginificantly later here than on Steam, because GOG was still testing or not uploading the offline installers. The (very pro-GOG) Driftmoon dev, for example, said something along these lines.

What makes you say that? Those are pretty harsh words for someone I assume you don't really know. I didn't get this impression from what I read, but I don't know which comments you are referring to. I don't want to defend releasing games on a store and then neglecting your customers there, but personally I wouldn't really feel inclined to do so either, if people constantly threw insults at me. And I think it's reasonable for an indie dev to care about money for all the time invested. Artists are generally treated quite poorly in this regard, IMO (even from people who'd not consider doing any extra work for free or accepting low salaries; people just tend to see the products, not the work behind it).

The Witcher 2: Assassins of Kings Enhanced Edition
https://www.gog.com/game/the_witcher_2

Missing achievements.

That is true as well. The update the devs are doing is affecting Galaxy first and directly. The offline installers will also be created automatically afterwards when the game has been flagged as being updated. It often takes a bit longer than the actual Galaxy update and sometimes those flag is not set or does not work correctly so GOG will have to do this manually but normally it should be an automatic process as well so that the offline installers should get updated just a few days later.

Okay, let me rephrase this. The dev is an ass (or at least he is really bad) when it comes to customer relationship on GOG. Even before release he said some nasty or at least not well thought out words about GOG and its customers:

https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/594141644203360256/598238043765211173/prejudice.png

He explained this here

https://www.gog.com/forum/general/release_supraland_aec23/post31

(But you simply don't lash out to your customers - no matter if something about it made you angry or not)

And then he started with the missing updates....
https://www.gog.com/forum/general/release_supraland_aec23/post97

Of course I can't tell you if he is a really nice person in private or at work but the way he acted and talked to GOG customers is "money only". And of course money is important when you are an indie dev - no question about it - but it's also important to treat your customer good and not as if they now simply had bad luck when they decided to buy on GOG. Yes, he said on Steam that he expected to get more revenue from GOG and also stated that he would not release on GOG again because it is not worth it ... however he also still sells his game here knowing that he might not keep it supported. That's the difference between worrying about money as a small indie and worrying about money as small indie while still value your customer you already have. I talked to quite a few indie devs that released here on GOG and they are all different.

If people are not sure if they could support GOG then they really should not sell on GOG at all. I strongly believe in this.

Yes, I agree. But as a dev you probably can't win this either way. If you don't bring your game on GOG, you're an ass. If you give in and do it, but you regret it later on, you're an ass, too. If you remove the game from GOG again, you're the biggest ass of all. And all the while you have to be humble, endure the insults, but refrain from uttering any personal opinions that could be seen as biased. Not communicating at all though is bad, too. etc. Many of these indie devs are just regular guys who like gaming, they're not always good at PR, sadly, but gamers are pretty hard on them, too, at least with the tone and personal attacks. Constructive criticism where it's due, but why should they listen, how are they to overcome any prejudices, if people act so antagonistic towards them?

I do agree that it is not an easy life and that it's extremely hard to manage to do this dance on a rope - especially in times of social media and forums ... but that's part of the business as well. Like I posted above - at least he noticed that people are upset and stated (and that was a good thing to do) that he did not make any decision yet. The moment he should decide to not update GOG any further he should speak out AND remove his game. Again, it is a different job and this dev apparently have some troubles in communication - other devs have the same problem though and they manage it. Unfortunately that's the harsh reality, some are good in their jobs and some not. I give it to the dev: Supraland is an amazing game given the fact that it's basically one person - so he is a good dev - but when it comes to customer relationships he still has to learn. Well, let#s see how he decides and acts before making our final judgement.

It's about high time Thimbleweed Park gets added over the missing Delores freebie.
It's been a couple of weeks since they said they'd bring it here, how hard can it possibly be?

Niffelheim - also missing 1.0.11 update (02-03-2020)
Craft the World - missing 6 secret achievements, Steam Workshop Mods
Graveyard Keeper - missing Galaxy achievements (misleading GOG patch notes regarding fixed achievement)
The Banner Saga - missing Level Editor (ZenoSaga1) and 'Mod Content' DLC

Then again, if GOG had rejected Supraland (e.g. because GOG wasn't sure the developer was committed to supporting the GOG version), everyone and the developer too would have also shouted bloody murder.

To me this sounds like a good approach for developers considering releasing their game on GOG:

1. Only release your game on GOG if you are committed to support the GOG version as well (within reason; I personally don't demand GOG version to have Steamworks mod integration or achievements or even multiplayer support (if the single-player is good), as long as it is made clear these are not included in the GOG version). So be committed to release also DLCs and updates on GOG too.

2. If, however, you start having second thoughts because the GOG version is selling poorly or you have some other issue with GOG or its customers, you should do two things, in this order:

a) Pull your game out of GOG. Since you have not willing to support the GOG version anymore, you shouldn't be selling it anymore to unsuspecting GOG customers who are not aware of buying an unsupported version of the game.

b) Offer one of the following to any GOG customer that wants it:
- a free Steam key (to those who still want to keep their GOG version; Supraland developer has offered this)
- a refund to those who don't feel like having the Steam version (the game will be removed from these people's GOG accounts)

I wanted to buy the collector's edition of X4: Foundations, but it's listed at $89.99 on GoG, yet $79.99 on HumbleBundle. The current 30% sale on GoG brings it to the regular price I can get it for on HumbleBundle with the 20% member discount due to the $10 listing difference.

Anyone know why it's a $10 difference?

So the problem is that sales were far lower than he expected on GOG? Unfortunate but not surprising. There's nothing we can really do (except crawl in our skin ;), GOG of course has a far smaller marketshare than Steam, that's nothing new.

He obviously was aware of that, because he said he expected sales on GOG to be only about 10% of the sales he gets on Steam. But it turned out to be more like 1%, and that *is* rather low, even for GOG.

On the other hand, I think the Steam version got somewhat better discounts.

Mostly agree, with one caveat: Contracts are signed for a certain period, so if the dev agreed to support the game on GOG, they should continue to do so for the duration of the contract. When it comes up for renegotiation, they can say they don't want to deal with it anymore and not continue, but just deciding you don't want to fulfil the obligations you signed for whenever shouldn't be allowed.

And then put a disclaimer on the store page, reading: "Contract may run out before the game is fully patched or all DLCs have been released"? ;)