The problem is the "client" gaming doesn't exist in some separate dimension where it doesn't influence people who simply don't use clients. The "don't like it - don't use it" argument doesn't hold water when gaming industry is being shaped for everyone by clients and all crappy "features" that come with them and the helpless "client mentality" it bred among gamers who can't now even imagine installing a game on their own. When people who love clients say "don't like it don't use it" what they really mean is "shut up and let us steamroll all over your hobby".

DRM, loot-boxes, tv ads in games, pointless achievements over real replay value - all that crap stems from the "client mentality" of being so used to playing everything with an online connection and a pointless program tracking and transmitting your private activity to the whole world that the alternative starts to seem bizarre or downright unacceptable to the masses.

But... if they abandoned funding of Galaxy as well, what are they actually funding?
The site has been a wreck for years, features have been cut nearly everywhere... is the money all being syphoned for CP2077 refunds? :P (Only this las bit was a joke, the others are -imo- concerning)

Unfortunately, yes, you are right. In itself a client needn't be a bad thing, but considering the state of the industry today it will most likely also include some of the following: telemetry, advertising, in-app purchases, DRM, some form of gambling etc. Which is why I don't use clients, of course. Still, some people only play for the multiplayer experiences - you'd be surprised how many, especially from the younger generations - and in this case they just want something that works. Imagine yourself trying to explain to a kid these days he has to setup some form of VPN and play his games via LAN "emulation" in order to avoid the domination of the industry by greedy corporate overlords. I guarantee he'd laugh in your face :P.

This (what I mentioned above) is also a reality that very much exists on top of our DRM-free "I just want the offline installers" countermovement.

Duh, that's just how gaming is these days. Get with the times, grandad! :P

(/sarcasm)

Indeed. I'm no Linux fanatic but I have started to dual-boot with Mint this past year, and after e-mailing one or two developers directly for games that have a Linux build for Steam but not GOG, it's definitely turning out to be Galaxy that's holding things back due to "GOG keep asking us to put GOG achievements in games. But we can't do that for Linux. So the "expectation" that Modern GOG Games = Galaxy integration means no Linux build for anyone"...

On top of that, many game devs who are happy to spend 20mins taking a clean "Pre-Steamed" version of their game and uploading to GOG (as they do with itch.io) are not happy to have to go back and recode all the Steam-specific achievements into GOG-Specific ones (that's required just for Galaxy users). Some do this, but almost 1,000 games have instead ended up on this list (highlighting what developers themselves think Galaxy integration is 'worth'), but there are also some other devs who have been discouraged from releasing on GOG altogether due to the increased workload Galaxy requires. Although a lot of the blame can be placed on Valve for locking achievements to the store as some coercive client dependency in the first place (that should have been done in-game Stardew Valley / Dragon Age Origins style all along), it doesn't help when GOG doubles down on it. What should have been "Hey devs, you know what the big advantage of DRM-Free is? Ease of support. You only need to create one build and it will work on GOG, Humble, itch.io, etc without needing to reinvent the wheel each time" has ended up "DRM-Free stores with clients and their own store-specific API's & Achievements = ended up just as much work to code integration for as the DRM'd ones"...

It’s negative because of things like this. Why do all my offline installers need to be updated to include dlls which the game does not need but are now hard linked, it’s because GOG wants to push galaxy. Why are games now released as online only, online in majority, or online in part, or require an online connection to access certain content, it’s because they want to push us to galaxy. Why is galaxy so important, because online only multiplayer, microtransactions markets are where the money is at and that is what they want. There is so much negativity here, because GOg have created it, and continue to not only ignore it, but actively antagonise it, as seen by the recent “galaxy day”. If you like galaxy good for you, some us do not and since it was a free country last time I looked (although that may have changed), I will continue to rail against galaxy. There is nothing “purist” about that, and “doing so much good” is just plain wrong nowadays. They wrap a few games up and then sell them on as a business, they are not feeding the poor in somewhereville for crying out loud.

Sadly that was always going to be the case. Having to rewrite Steam achievements for Galaxy requires the same effort as writing them for Steam (as does having a back-end Galaxy server to handle cloud saves & achievements) but GOG sales are 8-10x lower making it literally the most expensive client to support per sale / hour of development time. So Galaxy cost GOG a lot of to make (much more than setting up an InnoSetup template for offline installers or that older simple downloader), and it cost developers several times more per user to support, and in the end I don't think the "If we can get Galaxy to list all your games from every store as a meta-client, then the No Steam No Buy crowd will stop caring where they buy them from and buy more from GOG" gamble has paid off. I'm fairly sure the No Steam, No Buy crowd don't think like that at all, and if these forums are anything to go by, most Galaxy users today seem to be existing GOG customers that were already shopping here anyway for the offline installers, so it's entirely possible they've lost money on high-spending Galaxy overall vs had they spent the same amount of money elsewhere (or simply saved it).

I vehemently disagree with all of that.

The Galaxy 2.0 interface and visual layout is abysmally horrible.

By "continuing development" on Galaxy and by replacing the excellent Galaxy 1.2 with the atrociously terrible Galaxy 2.0, GOG absolutely ruined Galaxy and hence made the user experience of using it become an unenjoyable chore.

The very best thing GOG could possibly do would be to outright cancel Galaxy 2.0, and revert all GOG customers back to the excellent 1.2 version...and then don't ever touch the 1.2 version unless something about it stops working, in which case they can fix it.

I hadn't realized this. If true, then this is terrible for anyone who games on Linux. My previous stance had been that I didn't object to the existence of Galaxy, as long as it wasn't adversely affecting me, as a customer and DRM-free supporter.

However, if it is sucking away resources that GOG could/should be spending on fixing the website; delaying the updating of offline installers; preventing Linux native releases; and discouraging developers from releasing their games on GOG in the first place, then it certainly is adversely affecting me. In that case, if GOG can't both support Galaxy and native gaming on Linux, then Galaxy needs to die. And the sooner, the better.

I have to say that I have no particular "need" of achievements or social functions, but I do enjoy achievements when done well and generally find social functions unobtrusive as long as I'm not compelled to use them. Generally, if a game has "mandatory" social functions, then the overall structure of the game as a whole will be one that I have zero interest in (stuff like Anthem, Destiny, et al.)

What I do find cancerous are the people on the one hand who seem to be comlpetely unable to function as gamers without these functions, and the people on the other hand who seem to throw toxic hissy fits EVERY SINGLE TIME such features are included.

Agreed. I think they would be able to do wonders around DRM FREE Offline copies marketing VS their competition.

+1 very good info

Don't listen to these fools GOG, here's what you do:

* Stop working on Galaxy
* Start working on Schmalacky

There is already another thread in which people asked about Galaxy and why there are so few updates. Only one reply that announced one big update. Will see if I will find the post and link it here.

Those who think Galaxy will be the end of the world will never say anything else and they just don't want to understand that it was never meant to be a replacement but rather an addition - just like you said. Imo Galaxy is still far from being perfect and imo GOG should never have Gaalxy as a requirement for anything - at least requiring SP stuff ... but I am still pretty sure that they don't plan to abandon DRM-free or Offline installers. Well, that'S all I will say to this since a very bright GOGer figured out (to my surprise) that I am a GOG apologist anyway, so why should I have said anything bad here? ;)