my installation of witcher 1 started the game
also my installation of simcity 2000 started the game
dunno about witcher 3

downloaded witcher 2 via downloader and it plays just fine

all of you are arguing with a child

Decent design 101: Never make your users navigate the file system unless absolutely necessary.

Now, in this case while it isn't absolutely necessary to navigate the file system to get the game to run, it does unnecessarily make you do it to get the game to run as other GOG games allegedly do (starting the game itself and not the client).

Shortsighted design. If there is an option it should be presented at the time of initial installation. Also, since this particular game went against GOG's usual method of installation (seeing as others have said other games launch the game, not the client) there should be a notification of some kind that this particular installation differs.

Either way the lesson is always check what gaming site is required by your purchase. Getting the game and season pass for 30 bucks pre-order was nice, but I was so excited about the price I failed to notice it wasn't for Steam. Lesson learned I guess.
I want to personally thank you for your input. Jut kidding! I don't. Really.

and It's interesting, what you say. And what do the doctors say?

Because they're not the same game?

Well, yeah, you're kinda onto something there. There have been some real head-scratchers in the past when it comes to their marketing efforts.


And if this episode has bothered you then I advise avoiding any thread - started by gOg staff - that has "Good News!" in the title. ; )

Oh, I'm not knocking DRM. I was knocking GOG's grand claim of DRM free when they had a game that started their own client before I could play the game. That's not very DRM free-like now is it? As it turn out The Witcher 3 was a special case so I made an error. Still, this particular special case became a serious inconvenience to me.

Me either!!

(I don't really think we're alone in that regard....)

Neither have I

(I think it's for people that want a more "Steam-ish" experience than the downloader)

People keep forgetting that Galaxy is nothing more but a multiplayer service. Something like GameSpy, but with crossplay and achievements. Nothing DRM here. If it was, then you'd be forced to run a single player game through Galaxy, but you don't.

You keep using that word. I don't think it means what you think it means.

So I guess your extensive research into this problem didn't include trying to start a Galaxy installed game from it's icon without Galaxy running then?

This is just a suggestion but next time before bitching about something you might want to just see if it is a real problem or not by trying it first.

Now guys, I'm not knocking new users, nor am I shaming anyone, but this is what I'm talking about when I say that the GoG forums aren't a place I would go for serious conversation, simply because of what it has turned into.

I see these kinds of topics quite frequently, and I don't even post here that often (though I'm around occasionally).

I feel like instead of the main forum, for problems and discussions like these, there should definitely be a separate section (or even one sticky topic) for this stuff. Just saying it's getting out of hand.

This will be my only post in this topic.

Galaxy was not running. Clicking on the game icon opened up the Galaxy client and took me to the game's library page where I had to click on play from there to get the game to start up. Upon looking at the data in shortcut the client installed for the game the target for the shortcut was directed at the Galaxy client and not the game executable.

This is the only game I have installed with Galaxy. Up until I upgraded to Windows 10 Galaxy wouldn't even work on my computer (Something about missing files, I had Win 7 before).

Also, just because this one game is my only experience with using Galaxy it is not unreasonable to expect that this would be the way it is for all games the Galaxy client installs.