I really want to use this place instead of Steam because of how sick I am of launchers, needing to connect to the internet to play and not actually owning the game, but there are a few things that make it difficult to move away from Steam...

They emphasize reviews more. I use player review score as a main factor when considering games. Steam putting games scores right next to them in searches is awesome.
Searching as a whole. Ability to include multiple genre options at once, to exclude genres, and just more genres in general like Platformer and stuff like that.

Hoping stuff like that is in the works so I can switch over :) <3

You should consider checking out video reviews instead. That way you get to see the gameplay and how awful people are at them. Written reviews don't tell you nearly as much and sometimes they're made by people that don't know what they're talking about. A video review will almost always tell you a lot more about the game and the player reviewing it. If someone is generally bad at games or a particular genre, they aren't going to make good reviews for the games in question. There are also those people who abuse the review system because they disagree with the developer's or publisher's beliefs. They review the company, politics, and everything else except the games.

How about continuing to use Steam to identify the games you're interested in and then just buy them here?

I definitely still do that if I'm on the fence about a game but in general I like how Steam removes that step and there's just a number that tells me roughly how good a game is. Really helps weed out the garbage. Given GOG's game selection is moderated or whatever I doubt there are any big stinkers but I still like to see the opinion of the masses. Not sure what you mean by this? Not having launchers is one of the reasons why I like it here. You might've thought I meant that GOG needed to get rid of launchers? If so, nah, I meant I hate that so many AAA publishers on Steam do it. I don't think sales are the same across both marketplaces, right? I'd much prefer to use one marketplace if possible and the original stuff I said was just what would help make GOG my main one instead of Steam.

I believe the idea was to use Steam, or whatever other service with better information and search and filters, just to decide which games you want to buy here, take it as a review or recommendation site, not a store. I mean, your complaints about reviews and searching have nothing to do with purchasing.

You are definitely completely wrong about that point. In general, yes they are. The sales just rotate at slightly different schedules between the different platforms (in other words, the same game isn't usually on sale on different platforms on the same particular days).

But for the most part, both platforms will get the same discounted rates for the same games when they go on sale.

If you are counting on that, be warned that you need to give up on any such notion. There are a lot of things not done here or not done correctly enough, and the likelihood of them being done, as the past has shown, is practically zilch.

That said, I am not sure why you put so much trust in Reviews. I've learnt to take them with a pinch of salt.

And in any case, many games here do have many reviews, and there are numbers displayed.

Another thing you need to realize, is that Steam has a very much larger userbase, so are always going to have far more reviewers.

Personally, I find Steam a mess, and I don't like DRM in any case.

When I judge a game here, I use a combination of several things - Reviews, Blurb, Screenshots, Videos, File Size, Price and Title ... and if necessary, Wikipedia ... sometimes further clips at YouTube or synopses elsewhere (various gaming sites).

Everything is flexible, and revolves around price for me, and my level of interest. I'm less judgmental when something is very cheap. Sometimes I can buy a game just on the strength of its artwork, because it is cheap enough, and maybe the music sounds promising.

There is an art to buying games correctly, and it isn't Reviews at Steam.

If I had a dollar for every time I came across a game where 50% loved it and 50% hated it, I'd be very rich.

Many reviewers I am sure, just like to hear the sound of their own voice and views in their head. Many review a game way too soon, and then cannot edit their review when they change their mind.

Reviews can often ruin a good game, especially when you get other people's thoughts inside your head. They should only ever be a very loose guide.

No, but what I meant was use Steam to "discover" games that interest you, then add them to your wishlist on GOG. GOG will notify you when any of those games go on sale.

Two things. You won’t get the vast library here. You also won’t get as good prices, steam has the whole key sales where you can get things for next to nothing. The main (only) reason to buy here is for offline installers.

It's not the 'only' reason, but may be the 'main' one for many customers. It's mostly about control.

Aren't there also a good number of games here, that you cannot buy anywhere else?

By control, I mean you have more flexibility.

With Steam for instance, if you have a power outage or web outage and you did not set the Steam Client to offline usage, you may be stuffed for a period, until that issue is fixed. This of course applies only to a laptop in regard to power outage, where you could still play on battery.

There are many GOG customers, who don't download the Offline Installers, and just use Galaxy much like they would the Steam client. However, once a game is downloaded, they are always free to play the Single Player version, whether they have a web connection or not, and no time wasted while waiting for a Steam update and verification check to complete.

Personally for me though, it is mostly about the Offline Installers.

You're not even part of this digital ecosystem and you are already trying to tell us how it should be run.
Back of the line buddy people have been crying out fact grounded realities of business modelling to these mooks for close to a decade now and they apparently haven't been able to get much done about any of it.

Lol... then why the hell are you here? I'm throwing in my 2 cents and you're telling me to give up.

"A part of this digital ecosystem"...? Aiight, homie. Sorry to step on your turf dawgggg. Oh no! Don't get all teh angies on me! Oh geeze!

I don’t know of a single game here not available elsewhere, though I haven’t checked all of them. Does this include physical releases?

Yes, I know most users now treat it just like steam, rely on a client, don’t download offline installers etc. The realisation for them will only occur when gog shuts off the servers and they have nothing just like they would have had on steam.

I'm only going by what I have heard, so cannot tell you any specifics off the top of my head, which is why I posed it as a question to you. And no, they would all be old games, so you would likely be talking unavailable or only secondhand on discs etc.

While we have the likes of Ziggurat Games providing oldies to GOG and Steam etc, isn't there a bunch of games that GOG have worked on themselves and released here?

That may well be, but never-the-less the GOG model is better than the Steam one, so certainly is a motivation for some, perhaps many, and if GOG last another 20 years or so, who's to say those customers were wrong.