Tanukitsune

Amanita Design and GOG: This could get ugly.

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GOG is trying to be the place for indie games. First they release Legend of Grimrock, which was on Steam and not exclusive, but hey! They got an exclusive deal with Amanita Design for Botanicula.... Except they decided to release it in the latest Humble Bundle!?

GOG had no idea about this, and totally got screwed over, they got a partial soundtrack while the Humble Bundle has the full thing, not to mention more games!

GOG is scrambling to do something and everybody at the site is furious, while GOG is apparently trying to make amends for what Amanita Design did to them.

And it's also on GamersGate and technically on Steam... What they hell is happening here?

Did the the indies screw over GOG or was GOG lying about the exclusivity deal? :erm:

EDIT: It looks like GOG donated 300$ to Humblebundle and has promised Mahcinarium for free to anybody who pre-ordered the game and an "exclusive" Botanicula art book (which will probably be added to the Humble Bundle).

Frankly, I think Amanita seems to be the "bad guy" here, while there is nothing wrong to have this game in a Humble Bundle and even having it on the day of it's release is O.K., but having a deal with GOG and doing this?

:spiraldy:

Edited by Tanukitsune

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If I were GOG I'd consider taking 0.01$ out of each pre-order, buying a bundle with that cent, then give the pre-order people 2 copies of Botanicula, 2 versions of the soundtrack and a couple bonus games.

Of course the problem would be that the bundle games could not be redeemed on GOG, but it's a funny workaround.

Also, I found this on the GOG forums from user Gremmi:

"From GOG's Facebook - "Hey everyone; we just found out about the Humble Amanita Bundle. We're not sure exactly what yet, but we're going to come up with something for everyone who preordered Botanicula on GOG.com. Stay tuned and we'll try to come up with something tomorrow""

edit: as for the ugliness expected, @gog.com is currently the second highest donor on this bundle.

I like this kind of ugliness, where forests get saved and really fun games are made available!

Edited by Floordje

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Tanu, you've never watched a GOG/CDRed press conference have you? They are absolute train wrecks, the kind you like to get popcorn for and watch in slow motion. I was in the SA GOG IRC a couple weeks ago when they did their last one and it was just constant ridicule.

Don't get me wrong, I really like GOG, have given them a (relative) ton of money to be able to keep my roses tinted glasses well oiled, but they are bad, so very bad at marketing.

If Amanita is the bad guy here, sure, fine, whatever. Shit happens. Wires get crossed. But don't count GOG out as being at fault here just yet.

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Tanu, you've never watched a GOG/CDRed press conference have you? They are absolute train wrecks, the kind you like to get popcorn for and watch in slow motion. I was in the SA GOG IRC a couple weeks ago when they did their last one and it was just constant ridicule.

Don't get me wrong, I really like GOG, have given them a (relative) ton of money to be able to keep my roses tinted glasses well oiled, but they are bad, so very bad at marketing.

If Amanita is the bad guy here, sure, fine, whatever. Shit happens. Wires get crossed. But don't count GOG out as being at fault here just yet.

I can't comment on the press conferences but I always thought the GOG team ran a good marketing scheme in that they were a good company. They rope people into their service with free games, great community interaction, and with sales and giveaways (they gave me a free copy of The Witcher 2 for owning it on a competing service). I have bought far to many games I won't ever play through GOG for the same reasons I do with Steam.

That said when they did the site redesign by telling everyone they were giving up on selling old games and shutting down, that was bad marketing. I guess you have a point.

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I guess it would be more fair to say they have terrible PR rather than marketing.

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I think what you really mean to say is that they have a sense of humor that often doesn't translate to good marketing.

For example, GOG "shutting down". I found it amusing on many levels, but it was by no means a good example of marketing.

But they make up for it by being, well, awesome. So it's all good.

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NO WIZARD HE.

PYba10jV9gU

The whole thing is just awkward and weird, but what really got a reaction from IRC were;

29 minutes: One of their huge announcements is Witcher 1 for Mac. Not a bad thing, but it was a bulletpoint for the conference.

32 minutes: A Witcher iOS interactive comic book. Undress women with your touch screen!

~35 minutes: The huge announcement for people who love the Witcher 2? A free GOG backup copy! Already got it on GOG (like 50% of the purchases of Witcher 2)? Tough shit.

39 minutes on: The jauntiest motherfucker.

39:40: We're not Good Old Games anymore, just GOG!

~43 minutes: Indie games! Not a bad thing, but questionable considering their original mission statements.

~45 minutes: "Premium Editions" for 20 bucks. Now, however you feel about GOG, this is pretty bullshit. Yeah, the extra goodies are cool, but you can get these two games on Steam fairly regularly for 5 bucks. And again, their original mission statement (6/10 buck old games) completely gone.

And of course, the ultimate GOG announcement of this press conference, Fallout 1 free for 48 hours. :blink:

Don't get me wrong, please, I really like GOG, but they make some really stupid decisions/announcements.

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Wow, I didn't expect everything to be solved when I woke up!

I don't remember seeing Botanicula on GamersGate though, and this is the most "expensive" Humble Bundle yet, since you have to pay almost as much as the normal game on GOG to get the full deal and it comes with games that have been in other bundles, how many people are fans of Amanita and don't own the rest of their games yet?:erm:

GOG is still releasing old games, they just released Theme Hospital and Ultima 8, but the premium edition thing does seems stupid even with the added content, which is the same added content you get with all GOG games. If the game has an artwork or a soundtrack they always add it for free, so why pay a premium on these games?

But I'm glad it seems to be over, GOG acted like a champ and Amanita did the best they could by giving GOG some exclusive content for those who made pre-orders.:tup:

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blah

I guess yeah they also overestimate their own importance, to a degree. Shrug.

I just beat Botanicula. It's a neat li'l thing.

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Steam says I played it for three hours.

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I think I'll buy it via Humble Bundle and give Amanita a 0% share.

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Is the stop motion movie in the bundle worth watching? I haven't heard anyone talking about it.

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I bought the bundle pretty much just for the film (it's the only way the English version has been released as far as I know), looks gorgeous. Will watch it later.

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Is the stop motion movie in the bundle worth watching? I haven't heard anyone talking about it.

I watched the trailer for it a while back and it looked pretty great, if you're into that sort of thing. I definitely intend to watch it sooner than later.

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I'm pretty sure Amanita didn't go, "hey, how do we best screw over our customers who pre-ordered?" and then did this.

I'm preeeeetty sure they put the pre-order thing up because they needed the damn money at the time, and then this Humble Bundle thing came up well after that.

So what could Amanita have done? To pass up on the HIB would have been an incredibly foolish thing to do. To refund all the pre-orders would screw GOG over.

By doing nothing, everyone comes out alright: the pre-order customers got their game at a price they felt was fair. The HIB customers get some awesome games. And the pre-order folks really want the whole bundle, they can just buy it at a very reasonable price. But best of all, Amanita make a tonne of cash, which means we get more awesome games from them.

The only real fault I see is that Amanita definitely should have given GOG a heads up the day before. Other than that I think they did The Right Thing given what must have been a pretty complicated situation.

I'm going to buy the bundle over the weekend for $20 and split the cash 70/30 between Amanita and Vectorpark.

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I'm preeeeetty sure they put the pre-order thing up because they needed the damn money

maybe they should have done a kickstarter

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maybe they should have done a kickstarter

what is a kickstarter? i've never heard of this thing.

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Is the stop motion movie in the bundle worth watching? I haven't heard anyone talking about it.

It's a film aimed at children; a lovely, beautifully made one.

Because of the audience, Amanita favour the dub over Czech subtitles. One of the voice actors delivered his lines phonetically, with no understanding of English, and it kind of suits the character he was voicing.

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One of the voice actors delivered his lines phonetically, with no understanding of English, and it kind of suits the character he was voicing.

Which character was this?

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If I recall rightly, it's the one who asks the bottle dudes to move some rocks for him at about 17m50s into the film.

Another thing from the Q&A I saw with Jakub Dvorsky last year: They wanted to hire some big names to do voices, but couldn't afford them without a few hundred thousand dollars extra on the budget. Going for Czech voice actors was a cost saving thing, but I think it actually works much better than a bunch of American and British accents would have.

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