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Mangagamer to bring their visual novels to GOG


sarkasmus

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Thoughts?

With Steam's latest fiasco, which clearly undermines their credibility as a publishing platform for both large studios and indie devs, GOG might have found their potential chance to expand their market share.

In all honesty, this is great news, considering how reluctant so far they have been in regards to vns. I doubt we'll see 18+ games released anytime soon if ever, but if that happens and GOG actually bothers to create a well managed market with decent control over what content gets published, it might as well turn into a new dawn for both western and japanese developers. Not to mention GOG falls under polish jurisdiction, which means a lot more lenient and reasonable laws regarding what can and cannot be published in terms of potential 18+ content.

Edited by Narcosis
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Hey, great news! :sacchan:  I use GOG for games, so it'll be cool to see powerpoints in there too! Regional price never bothered me as I always wait for sales anyway.

And this was in the MG blog, maybe just to spice news up or a tease that 18+ games with patches will be there too in the future.

Quote

Though the initial launch titles are limited to the Higurashi When They Cry series and fan favorite, eden*, we are working closely with GOG on bringing nine other titles to their platform, including the recently threatened Kindred Spirits on the Roof, which will be receiving a recently announced full-voice expansion, as well as A Kiss for the Petals ~Maidens of Michael~, which Valve removed from the Steam storefront in March 2018 without any warning or notice.

Wow, found the answer a minute later on GOG's twitter:

 

Edited by MaggieROBOT
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Considering GOG was created by the Witcher guys, can we assume that they shouldn't have any problems with adult content?! :P

Well seriously, it's a bit surprising since GOG wasn't exactly open minded in regards to visual novels so far. But considering recent events, it could be that they just want to show Steam the finger a bit.

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They might probably want to retain their good public image and avoid the mess associated with 18+ releases, so we probably won't see more than all-ages releases with outside content patches. Stand-alone 18+ releases are strictly something only adult outlets can handle, there's simply too much of a hassle in terms of control management involved, especially when your store hosts both family friendly and adult oriented products.

I also doubt we'll see independent devs on GOG publishing their games, albeit this is where MG might come in handy, as they want to lend them a helping hand by opening their store. This means indie devs will be able to publish their games through MG and MG might then forward those games to GOG. As long as they will comply with GOG's terms, they might actually get approved onto their store.

Honestly, this is a win-win situation, especially for the western industry. Sure, MG and GOG might get a monopoly on vn publishing, but no one's stopping other publishers from talking with GOG. Another good thing is that GOG enforces a strict DRM-free environment and that's a big plus for users.

Edited by Narcosis
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1 minute ago, Narcosis said:

They might probably want to retain their good public image and avoid the mess associated with 18+ releases, so we probably won't see more than all-ages releases with outside content patches. Stand-alone 18+ releases are strictly something only adult outlets can handle, there's simply too much of a hassle in terms of control management involved, especially when your store hosts both family friendly and adult oriented products.

It's probaly also about the payment methods, especially PP. They'd loose a lot of customers if they were to change the store to CC-only.

And making a separate site and using the wallet like a proxy payment method would probably too much effort (at least for now) they can't even make a good forum or a sale without multiple bugs.

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5 minutes ago, Narcosis said:

They might probably want to retain their good public image and avoid the mess associated with 18+ releases, so we probably won't see more than all-ages releases with outside content patches. Stand-alone 18+ releases are strictly something only adult outlets can handle, there's simply too much of a hassle in terms of control management involved, especially when your store hosts both family friendly and adult oriented products.

I wasn't entirely serious about that lol. But I agree with sarkasmus (what a name :blink:) that even if they wanted to, it would raise all kinds of problems with payment portals like PayPal and public reception.

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Hey, I work for Sekai Project. I just wanted to chime in and mention that aside from Sunrider and Fault, we'll be bringing more of our titles to the platform over time. While we probably won't be offering our full catalog on there, we're looking forward to working with them. We actually announced this partnership at AWA last September, so we're excited to finally start selling our games on this platform!

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5 minutes ago, Plk_Lesiak said:

Wow, so there's a chance I'll be able to grab that all-ages version of Maidens of Michael after all! :Chocola:

 

 

I know I'm weird... :vinty:

I look forward to when you get to the point where you want an all ages Euphoria and an all ages Maggot Baits :)

Btw I am not saying that Maidens of Michael is compareable to those titles, just wanted to make a joke out of you wanting all ages versions of VNs.

Edited by bakauchuujin
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2 hours ago, bakauchuujin said:

I look forward to when you get to the point where you want an all ages Euphoria and an all ages Maggot Baits :)

Btw I am not saying that Maidens of Michael is compareable to those titles, just wanted to make a joke out of you wanting all ages versions of VNs.

Ashkay already teased me with all-ages Euphoria and Starless in the Maidens of Michael thread, but I will not change my ways. :nico:

I do want to play Maggot Baits and Euphoria though. I wonder if I'll regret it...

Edited by Plk_Lesiak
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4 hours ago, sarkasmus said:

Anyone planning to switch from Steam to GOG if they release more in the future (especially after the recent mess)?

I have had accounts in both places for quite a while. I generally prefer GOG if a game is available in both for the same price. Steam DRM is an issue and steam workshop can be used to remove mods, which then deletes it from the HD of everybody who downloaded it through steam workshop. That's not a good setup and it's getting worse over time.

3 hours ago, MaggieROBOT said:

 

 

They don't want 18+ titles :huh:. They have Leisure Suit Larry (+love for sail and that campus game), which are all about getting laid. There are boobs, nudity and sex references everywhere (genitals are usually Easter eggs), not to mention on screen sexual activity, though with convenient censoring of the actual act. It's likely something related to legal issues in verifying that the customer is 18 more than it's an issue about how they feel about it. Them being open about external patches fits their DRM free approach.

4 hours ago, Hetzer123 said:

Not great for me because there are no regional pricing for my country.

You keep mentioning this, but is it such a big issue? I have regional pricing with GOG, but not Steam, but I can use both without issues. You can look up the exchange rate online if you aren't sure and usually you just have to multiply with a specific number to get something, which is roughly correct.

 

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6 minutes ago, tymmur said:

They don't want 18+ titles :huh:. They have Leisure Suit Larry (+love for sail and that campus game), which are all about getting laid. There are boobs, nudity and sex references everywhere (genitals are usually Easter eggs), not to mention on screen sexual activity, though with convenient censoring of the actual act. It's likely something related to legal issues in verifying that the customer is 18 more than it's an issue about how they feel about it. Them being open about external patches fits their DRM free approach.

MG mentioned that they will be bringing over kindred spirits and maidens of michael, the "all-ages" versions of which have nudity and sexual activity. GOG probably just doesn't want full uncut h-scenes, which are pretty different from LSL's sex comedy stuff.

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32 minutes ago, Hetzer123 said:

Not sure how they handle discussion about adult patch on gog forum(whether devs are allowed to talk about it or not).

So far nobody complained about users posting links to the patches all over the release announcement.

From my experience GOG doesn't care much about what's linked in their Forums as long as it doesn't get them into legal trouble.

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8 minutes ago, finiteHP said:

A better comparison than Leisure Suit Larry is Lula.  I haven’t played it, but it’s rated Adults Only to Larry’s Mature.

I forgot they are selling that one too. Yeah it's pretty explicit. Just do a google image search and you will get explicit images way too 18+ like for youtube. Rather than a comedy game, it's a management game with the sole purpose of earning as much as possible, be it porn, stripping, blackmail you name it. It's significantly more explicit than the Larry games and approaches 18+ VN kind of explicit. However I'm not sure you see the actual point of penetration, but otherwise it leaves little to the imagination. One major difference is that unlike VNs, what you see is what you get. There is no text based description of the act.

Most likely GOG picked the all age approach purely based on business. All age versions will not require the costs of verifying the age of the customer and there is no risk of a fine for failing to verify. They don't care about 3rd party patches because they can't be made responsible for them. It's also better for the customer this way. You don't have to verify your age to GOG. People attracted to the no DRM tend to be the same people who are attracted to not having to send personal information. You don't have to attend linux conventions to think like that.

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