Hello,
why are we stuck with exe installers for dos games? I wanted to run Heroes of Might and Magic 2, but despite being a dos game It's only "supported" on windows, why cannot gog just provide an archive with the dos game instead of forcing me on a platform that I don't usually use?

Most likely answer: it's a matter of licensing and providing support for products they sell.

My guess is that if you'd be capable of making a "generic package" work with your system, you can handle tinkering with windows version to work on your system as well.

Just use innoextract to get the files from the installer.

Because GOG is in the business of offering games that are simple to use and would require minimal amount of tinkering from the end-user on the supported platforms. (I say "minimal" because many GOG games may still require some tinkering, depending on your Windows version etc.)

That also reduces the amount of unnecessary support messages towards GOG when newbies can't figure out what to do with such "archives".

so they provide mac installers that just works, but are to lazy to add others?

People are right stupid and often can't even figure out how to pirate GOG games right. I can't imagine removing the DOSbox package would be worth the four megabytes of savings, even if I wouldn't mind a raw option.

why provide some so? I mean MacOs is a supported platform, I expect to get all games that run on that platform to be available, not only some, I mean, why Eye of the Beholder and not Heroes of Might and magic or Quest for Glory? they all run on dosbox

Like I wrote, the most likely cause is licensing. GOG simply doesn't have rights to sell those games for that operating system. Sometimes a game may not work well or at all, so that's another reason for not releasing it for a particular system family.

Gog goes for "1 click install convenience for the masses", just like steam, but with its main focus on windows. Everything else is a bonus. Original dos exe and anything they see as redundancy within the og install is removed where possible, replaced by win executable tweaked for w10 compatibility. I don't think that they have the negotiation power required to change that with publishers, even if they wanted to, which I doubt that they even care about... but whatever, it's just my 2 cents anyway. Remember that gog is not about archiving nor preserving the gaming history.

[Modded - piracy.]

(Link removed)

and no it's not piracy.

The game you're linking is available for sale on GOG. And it's not even the game OP mentioned.

Basically this. Then feel free to create your own dosbox.conf file for any game, based on the pre-existing templates (that's what I do at least)... and to use any DOSBox version or fork you like, especially if you want save state support (not included in vanilla DOSBox). ... or the publisher that GOG has a contract with never had the rights to publish the game outside of Windows in the first place.

Yes it is piracy, if the game is still on sale somewhere.
And the game you linked to, is available here on GOG:

https://www.gog.com/game/might_and_magic_6_limited_edition

Quote:
"The pack includes the first six games from the Might and Magic series:
Might and Magic: Book 1,
Might and Magic 2: Gates to Another World,
Might and Magic 3: Isles of Terra,
Might and Magic 4&5: World of Xeen, bonus adventure Swords of Xeen and
Might and Magic VI: The Mandate of Heaven"

it's a complicated matter i did some digging on this "Abandonware " topic

that's why i removed the link (above)

it was owned by New World Computing (filed a backruptcy in 2003)
it's unclear if the licence are being bought by a other company but i guess it is (if GOG selling the game in store)

if they don't then gog is doing some shaddy works here.