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General discussionIs GOG dropping the ball with game updates?(52 posts)(52 posts)
(52 posts)
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This is my favourite topic
Posted March 04, 2017
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Erpy: This is a well-known issue that's happened with several other games as well. The basic difference is that with Steam, there's no middle man involved in patching and updating.

With Steam, the developer fixes stuff, creates a new build, submits the new build to the Steam servers and all users have their game patched the next time they boot up Steam.

With GOG, the developer creates a patch executable and submits it to GOG who then have their own team do an internal quality control session and if that process passes, the patched game and external patch are made available to the user. This is a slower process, so it's fairly common for GOG to be lagging behind Steam in the updates department.

Especially early on, when daily updates are common, it's not unusual for developers to not even bother submitting a patch to GOG since a newer one will be available before the first one made it through GOG's QA and roll out one big GOG-update once everything's stabilized a bit. Occasionally this is a good thing, since early on developers sometimes use the Steam base as Guinea pigs while working out bugs.

Over time, the GOG versions usually catch up.
Except galaxy goes the same route as steam doesn't it?
Sure I've read that games devs/publishers can push updates directly.

Personally, I won't use the beta thing, but gog are getting slowly worse.
Like when I'd read that Shadow Warrior2 got its patch on galaxy, yet when I asked about when we'd get it in gog-downloader/standalone, a blue said (paraphrase) we'd get it the next time there was another patch. Meaning we had to wait until, if ever, a future patch dropped....
Posted March 04, 2017
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Painted_Doll: Just don't instabuy any indie games from Gog . Wait at least a year .
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tfishell: Personally I gotta agree with that, unfortunately. Others don't mind, though.
I own so many games that, by the time I get around to playing one, it's been fully patched and had a few price drops :P
Posted March 04, 2017
I tend to go after games that are done there life cycle of updates. Too many broken games on day one and VERY late updates on GOG's end so I wait till a year or 2 then buy it.

the only time I see these games getting straight day updates along with steam is if those are super popular stuff like shovel knight and witcher 3' stuff like that.

I give credit to the 8-Bit series game devs, Petrogliph whatever you call them as they always update us the same time they do steam for all 3 games they have here. I would buy them a sandwich in a heart beat.
Posted March 04, 2017
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tfishell: Personally I gotta agree with that, unfortunately. Others don't mind, though.
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Ophelium: I own so many games that, by the time I get around to playing one, it's been fully patched and had a few price drops :P
To be honest, I don't really play games that much anymore - I literally have close to probably 3 dozen un-played games in my library - but I like following along with gaming news.

On-topic: part of me is surprised GOG hasn't received more backlash for the lack of updates (whether or not it's their fault); I guess it hasn't made gaming news since GOG generally only makes headlines when a hugely-desired classic is released here. I wonder if there has been enough shaken confidence to affect sales. Also, unless I'm mistaken, many indie titles added the last year or two don't seem to go on sale that often, and they can get forgotten about; devs probably abandon them because they make hardly any money here compared to Steam.
Post edited March 04, 2017 by tfishell
Posted March 04, 2017
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fishbaits: [...] Personally, I won't use the beta thing, but gog are getting slowly worse.
Like when I'd read that Shadow Warrior2 got its patch on galaxy, yet when I asked about when we'd get it in gog-downloader/standalone, a blue said (paraphrase) we'd get it the next time there was another patch. Meaning we had to wait until, if ever, a future patch dropped....
That's outrageous considering GOG is calling Galaxy a fully optional client.

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UnrealQuakie: I tend to go after games that are done there life cycle of updates. Too many broken games on day one and VERY late updates on GOG's end so I wait till a year or 2 then buy it. [...]
I sure cannot find it OK to be expected to wait a long while (with often no communication regarding an update ETA) when other online retailers offer current, more complete versions.

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tfishell: On-topic: part of me is surprised GOG hasn't received more backlash for the lack of updates (whether or not it's their fault); I guess it hasn't made gaming news since GOG generally only makes headlines when a hugely-desired classic is released here. I wonder if there has been enough shaken confidence to affect sales. Also, unless I'm mistaken, many indie titles added the last year or two don't seem to go on sale that often, and they can get forgotten about; devs probably abandon them because they make hardly any money here compared to Steam.
Glad for this thread, really. I keep seeing the lack of updates in this context, and people being frustrated over it. Maybe we'd need to voice our discontent more often/in one place and in a more focused way. But why does it seem so hard to be heard in the first place?
Post edited March 04, 2017 by chevkoch
Posted March 04, 2017
As with most things, I'm guessing they haven't even seen the ball.
Posted March 04, 2017
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Painted_Doll: Just don't instabuy any indie games from Gog . Wait at least a year .
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tfishell: Personally I gotta agree with that, unfortunately. Others don't mind, though.
To me that is not a real problem as I tend to wait that one year (or more) anyway, GOG or Steam. Just in case they release some Gold version that includes some extra stuff etc. And yes, on GOG there's the extra benefit of getting a confirmation that the publisher releases GOG updates too.

I guess this is a more relevant problem to people who buy or even preorder games (like No Man's Sky) on release. Oh well, I rather wait a bit anyway, I am not that eagerly waiting for some unreleased game, with my thousands of games of backlog.
Post edited March 04, 2017 by timppu
Posted March 04, 2017
GOG is doing a good job.It isn't as blazing fast as on Steam,but it doesn't need to be.When the developer accumulates a couple of updates,GOG then gets to work and releases a big update which is fine with me ;).Cheers
Post edited March 04, 2017 by deja65
Posted March 04, 2017
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Marioface5: It's no secret that some games on GOG have (or have had) a problem with being outdated compared to their Steam versions. However, I've now seen two recent examples of games not being updated even after GOG has been sent a new version.

Example A: Wuppo

Wuppo's developers sent GOG an update early-mid December, and by late January it still hadn't been released. The devs didn't even seem to know about this until they saw it on the game's GOG forum, calling it "a big unhappy surprise".

Source: https://www.gog.com/forum/wuppo/updates/post6

Example B: Hollow Knight

Hollow Knight's GOG version contains a nasty bug that can prevent players from receiving important rewards from the first two arena trials. This is already fixed in the Steam version, which has been 1.0.0.6 since release day compared to GOG's 1.0.0.5. A forum poster reached out to the developers, who responded with the following message:

That is indeed an earlier version that still has a bug. We sent through the updated build to GOG but it seems like people are still getting the earlier version? I'll speak to the team now and confirm whether GOG now has the updated version. I'm really sorry about the hassle, we'll get it sorted as soon as we can.
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Marioface5: Source: https://www.gog.com/forum/hollow_knight/bug_in_colosseum_of_fools/post6

I have to wonder, how often does this happen? Are there other outdated games on GOG where the latest version has already been sent by the developers, who then assume GOG has properly distributed it? It's bad enough that we have to worry about missing updates because of developer neglect, but it's very concerning to have multiple instances where GOG is to blame.

My question for GOG staff: What's going on? What's causing these updates to not get properly distributed? It's starting to look like there's a problem with how updates are being handled, and I really hope whatever it is gets fixed as soon as possible.
There are many examples of devs/pubs not providing GOG with updates that are available on other platforms.

The issue is not with GOG, rather with the devs/pubs. The only thing that will change this is people complaining to the devs/pubs and not here on GOG.

Personally I think that GOG should be screening devs/pubs that do not provide the fullest and latest availability when it has clearly been available on other platforms.

Also, take a minute to consider that not having the latest patched version, which has been touted by Steam for far too long as quality control feature to devs/pubs who wish to minimise technical support, is also an achilles heel.

You cannot revert to any prior release of a game in steam.

If you are sensible, you can keep separate executables for GOG versions.

So in short my answer is no GOG are not falling behind. Devs/pubs fall behind in providing their chosen distribution methods with the same functionality that they offer elsewhere.
Posted March 04, 2017
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tfishell: To be honest, I don't really play games that much anymore - I literally have close to probably 3 dozen un-played games in my library - but I like following along with gaming news.
You say that like it is a lot. :) How many games total do you have in your GOG library? 50? 55?

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tfishell: On-topic: part of me is surprised GOG hasn't received more backlash for the lack of updates
Is that a positive or negative surprise? Should they get more backlash for it, and if so, why? Maybe it isn't most of the time as big problem that some make it to be.

Of course it sucks if it is a game-breaking bug and the GOG update is delayed for a long time. I personally couldn't normally fret about a GOG update appearing a week after the Steam version. No, I haven't played No Man's Sky yet, in fact I haven't even bought it yet. Not GOG nor on Steam.
Posted March 04, 2017
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timppu: You say that like it is a lot. :) How many games total do you have in your GOG library? 50? 55?
91 in total. Yeah yeah, I know many others have far more in their backlog. ;)

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timppu: Is that a positive or negative surprise? Should they get more backlash for it, and if so, why? Maybe it isn't most of the time as big problem that some make it to be.
I think we'll end up agreeing to disagree on this matter. I suspect we're coming at it from different viewpoints.

I'll try to be fair to GOG: I'd consider it negative only if they aren't working behind the scenes to correct the current course, or it could be a positive if indeed it's not actually a big issue.

GOG has more leverage over devs and pubs than we do. The Slender dev hasn't updated their game in two years yet it's still being sold; should we let the potential for more instances of this? What about GOG's reputation (like I questioned below)? I don't personally care since I don't own the game, but I want to see GOG get better at what they do, so I think constructive criticism is a good thing.

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KiNgBrAdLeY7: If the price to pay for owning a game DRM free is getting updates later, or in some rare, extreme cases, never at all, i would gladly pay it. Not having a client-hound to go through, connections and stuff like that, is worth almost any sacrifice. Besides, some updates break things and make games more unstable, instead of fixing/repairing things, or creating new issues. Or even worse, like those updates in Steam that an increasing number of games get lately, which cause removal of content...
Something else to think about: what happens when word of this problem gets around to enough people, and GOG starts losing more and more indie sales? GOG sales are already below Steam sales (I'd suggest by a lot), and losing more means devs won't want to bother releasing here at all. I think we can agree GOG has shown they want to become a true competitor to Steam (I'm not saying whether or not that's a good thing), but that simply is NOT going to happen until issues like this are fixed.

Also, Galaxy is supposed to let people roll back game-breaking patches, though similar to Cross-Play, I suspect it isn't as simple as GOG's trailer made it out to be.
Post edited March 04, 2017 by tfishell
Posted March 04, 2017
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KiNgBrAdLeY7: If the price to pay for owning a game DRM free is getting updates later, or in some rare, extreme cases, never at all, i would gladly pay it. Not having a client-hound to go through, connections and stuff like that, is worth almost any sacrifice.

Besides, some updates break things and make games more unstable, instead of fixing/repairing things, or creating new issues. Or even worse, like those updates in Steam that an increasing number of games get lately, which cause removal of content...

A coin has two sides, maybe three. We got to inspect them all and thoroughly.
well, considering a DRM isnt something that magically blossom by itself as a natural state, like lets say mushrooms after rain, i dont understand:

if an update for bugfixing occurs for DRM version, said update should work for DRM-free version as well.
Afterall, i REALLY HOPE devs do keep the clean source code of their game and do updates/fixes they do compile and test WITHOUT systematically adding the DRM back (and so the drm-free version should be easier to patch as the DRM ain't injected in it)

but i may be dumb and naive
Posted March 05, 2017
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tfishell: To be honest, I don't really play games that much anymore - I literally have close to probably 3 dozen un-played games in my library - but I like following along with gaming news.

On-topic: part of me is surprised GOG hasn't received more backlash for the lack of updates (whether or not it's their fault); I guess it hasn't made gaming news since GOG generally only makes headlines when a hugely-desired classic is released here. I wonder if there has been enough shaken confidence to affect sales. Also, unless I'm mistaken, many indie titles added the last year or two don't seem to go on sale that often, and they can get forgotten about; devs probably abandon them because they make hardly any money here compared to Steam.
I really think classics (which don't require updating beyond making them run on modern machines) are GOGs bread and butter aside from the Witcher games. If the lack of updates were screwing up business, I think more would be said and done about it. As far as indies are concerned, I think there are three scenarios at play here:

1. Like you said, some devs have forgotten about their GOG versions or completely forsaken them (i.e. those Armello folks).

2. Some devs have a difficult time divorcing DRM and/or Steam features from their games, requiring more time to put out a GOG update.

3. Incremental and frequent updates are a burden on GOG users and also require frequent testing since GOG rarely pushes out a brick (unlike Steam) nor does it want to. Given that most games are tied to Steam's client, frequent updating is an option there. Galaxy remains optional (despite what many people say). So GOGs best option is the least desirable among some folk: put out a singular update which incorporates a lot of smaller patches.

Of course, there are some exceptions to this as there are some devs who see GOG as equal to other services and put out updates as soon as possible, but those are the minority, I think.
Posted March 05, 2017
Naw GOG isn't dropping the ball in an update, it's still for sale here: https://www.gog.com/game/the_ball
Posted March 05, 2017
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skeletonbow: Naw GOG isn't dropping the ball in an update, it's still for sale here: https://www.gog.com/game/the_ball
It is? That's a ballsy move.
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This is my favourite topic
Community
General discussionIs GOG dropping the ball with game updates?(52 posts)(52 posts)
(52 posts)