I don't care much about achievements myself and i agree it would be nice if GOG called them something different.

Feature bloat is what I'm referring to. Actually your usage of the word (resource usage) is considered to be the wrong interpretation by many. Maybe not on gaming forums, but it is in other places.

The GOG downloader checks the integrity of the installer when it downloads it. You can't do that in a browser. The only other way that I know of using the 2.0 installers is to initiate the installation and then cancel the installation after it's done the check. That's a lousy way to check the integrity of games, or any application for that matter.

Secondly some of the game files are quite large. They need to be downloaded through a dedicated app for a couple of reasons other than just checking the integrity.

Telling me that I don't have to use it isn't good enough.

That's one way to put negative spin on it if that is one's intention - to put negative spin on things just to put negative spin on things.

Consider this situation instead however:

Full Spectrum Warrior and its sequel currently in the GOG catalogue are single-player only. There is absolutely no multiplayer component in the game according to the game card page. Right now, buying this game on GOG DRM-free is great to have that option than to not have the game here at all. These very same games are available on Steam however with full multiplayer functionality.

When the Galaxy multiplayer services are ready and available to be used, it is at least theoretically possible that the Full Spectrum warrior games could be enhanced and updated by their developer to add multiplayer back into the game using GOG Galaxy and hopefully making LAN and/or Direct-IP modes available also (which the Steam game has I believe). If they were to go ahead and do this, and update the game on GOG, this could very well give people who bought the game already or buy the game in the future new features they never had available to them at all before, which could include:

1) Multiplayer matchmaking that is not dependent on Steam, Gamespy, or the publisher's own services through Galaxy.
2) The possibility to have crossplay multiplayer compatibility with people who do own the game on Steam or other services.
3) Possibly also Direct-IP multiplayer.
4) Possibly also LAN multiplayer.

Any of these options take the game that is already here which people are perfectly fine and happy with who are ok with getting a multiplayer only game, and enhances the game with multiplayer functionality of a matchmaking service presumably, but one that is potentially superior to what the original game had, is superior to the service provided by the now defunct Gamespy, and superior to the similar services offered by any other retail channel for this game. It may also add the other forms of multiplayer mentioned so that people who don't even care about the matchmaking part now also have an option they did not have before. None of it requires using the Galaxy client (GOG has stated the client and the multiplayer functionality are independent), and none of it requires that anyone use or care about the Galaxy support at all in order to play their game.

All of this optional functionality could be added to the game and enhance the titles way beyond what the current "acceptable product offering" in the catalog has to offer now, and give people a lot more options than they do now with no obligation to use any of it.

I'm not sure I can see how that is bad, or how anyone is required to use any of the new functionality, or how it would take away anything from someone that they have right now. Even if the Galaxy services were dependent on servers that are ran by GOG themselves in order to function, that is 100 times better than the same servers being owned by Steam, Gamespy, the publisher or some other 3rd party entity, and still nobody would be required to use this optional service.


Just don't use features you aren't interested in, or hide them if there is an option to do so, or request that there be an option to have a simplified user interface or some other method to not have to see things you don't wish to see in the UI if there is a need. I'd call what you are referring to "clutter" but terminology isn't as important as understanding what the issue of concern is about.

If the Galaxy client doesn't meet the needs of people who currently use the GOG downloader, there's no question in my mind that GOG developers will listen to community feedback and be eager to hear what people think about it and what they want, and they'll most likely try to enhance it to meet as many people's needs as possible, or to provide an alternative solution to meet the needs of others if there is enough demand for it. Why wouldn't they? They want to make as many of their customers happy as possible.

People who do not use the GOG Downloader right now should not experience any real material different situation after GOG Galaxy client launches as far as I can tell from what they've said so far though. For those that do use the downloader, I think GOG will be able to provide a superior solution to the existing downloader that uses less resources and gives an even better experience to people. If people are worried about a clutter of icons or pulldown menus on the screen or something like that, then perhaps they can make a Galaxy client option to have a minimal interface just for downloading and not present any of the other features. These are not complex problems to solve really. It's simply a matter of seeing what people's needs are and measuring demand and trying to provide the right mix of options to make as many people happy as possible. I personally just happen to have a lot of faith that they are capable of doing this, and that if there are any problems at the initial launch, they'll be listening to people and making updates, new features, enhancements and trying to make all of us happy. They're our friend in gaming, not our enemy.

How about requesting it being modular and doing a custom install instead?

So what's the reason that we shouldn't have a modular custom installer for the client?

Someone should make a GOG wishlist entry for that and explain why they want it and what benefits they perceive it to have etc. Modular software can have its advantages. I haven't stated any opinion previously about modularity of the software though, nor been asked about it that I'm aware of. If people want that and perceive it as beneficial, definitely provide that feedback to them in the forums and in the wishlst - although people are best to have a single entry on the wishlist with everyone's vote than 100 entries with 5 votes each (as seems all too common there). :)

A GOG rep stated that this thread was started this early to get feedback while the client is under development. So they're paying attention to it, and it's not just an announcement thread for informational purposes. Since it was started, quite a few members expressed their desire for modularity. I think it's a good idea and I am echoing it.

Maybe a requested feature on the wishlist would gain more attention, I don't know, but my understanding is that that is what this thread is for right now, overall feedback from the customers pertaining to the client while it's under development. :)

Sure, both can't hurt. :) In addition to modularity, having a publicly documented module API would be f'ing awesome to allow developers to create their own optional addons to the software. Modularity and extensibility are some of the best features that Mozilla built into the Firefox browser platform which have helped it to become as popular as it has been over the years.

I find myself wishing I could add plugins into Steam client for example, some of which I have installed in Firefox at the moment such as EnhancedSteam for example. Having the ability to extend Galaxy client via addons would be fantastic.

This GOG Galaxy client shouldn't be used to "datamine" the end-users. The temptation will be there, especially by any marketing types, and it makes me sick. STOP. This isn't an opportunity to datamine us, which games we're playing, at what times of the day, for how long do we play each game for, or anything of the sort. I don't authorize GOG or any game publisher to do any of that. At the very least we must be allowed to opt out of any and all of such tracking spyware behaviour with a global setting.

DRM is not about piracy, it's about control and datamining. If you don't want to be seen as DRM, don't use GOG Galaxy to control or to datamine the end-users. Notice how in your promotional video, you didn't mention control or datamining. Because those are bad things. You talk about things like easy installation, and ability to play multiplayer with gamers outside of GOG. Those are good things. So don't do the bad stuff.

No software should secretly datamine users/customers data/habits/etc. without their knowledge and permission. Having said that, there is nothing wrong with companies providing options in their software for users to voluntarily submit various data to them under conditions that the user finds acceptable and using that data for purposes that the user has agreed to, without any coercion being involved. There is a lot of useful data that can be very beneficial for companies to know that does not affect a user's anonymity or in other ways harm a customer's privacy so long as the customer is ok with providing the data.

As a simple example, when one connects to a website, the web browser sends information to the webserver indicating what web browser it is, what operating system it is running on and a few other minor details which are useful to the website in order to know what browsers people are using in order to ensure their website code is written to be compatible with what the majority of their visitors are using, and for various other statistical purposes. It can also be used to customize what web page code gets spit out dynamically to work properly with a given browser.

There are relatively harmless pieces of data like this which are very helpful to companies to have access to if a user is comfortable with providing the information. If I were writing software I would have a first-run popup of some sort to explain briefly this information to the user and ask their permission to have this harmless information, along with a link to click on to get a much more full explanation, but with the default set to "do not provide any information". A lot of users will voluntarily provide the information if a company is honest about what information it wants and how it will use it, and then sticking to that after the fact. A company I worked for before had an option like this in our software which could gather all sorts of information about the hardware in a computer such as the video card, audio devices, and other peripherals, CPU speed, amount of RAM, and other stuff like that. Our company gathered this data only after the user opted into allowing it, and it was a one-time submission after they had a chance to review all of the data and approve it. The data was aggregated and stored as pure statistical data no longer attached or connected to the individual users or computer systems it came from, but rather it just tallied up how many of each type of card was in use, etc.

As an employee, I was able to query this database and find out how many of our customers were using a given piece of hardware, or what video or sound card was the most popular. In most cases the results I got back were incredibly different than what I would have guessed myself without having access to such a powerful set of data. For example, I would have guessed the most popular video hardware out there was either AMD/ATI, or nVidia. Boy was I wrong. The most common video hardware out there is Intel onboard video which accounted for more video than both AMD and nVidia combined. I could never have guessed that. But knowing this made me be able to prioritize certain work better. There was no way to know that for example Joe Blow has card XYZ however, that information was never stored or known.

There are many pieces of data like this which can be useful to companies to provide better products and services and give customers a better overall experience without negatively exploiting or tracking people or otherwise being "up to no good" so to speak. The important thing is that any end user side information of this nature is only ever provided with the user's explicit permission.

Likewise, if there are any server side "cloud" data that a company has access to by the very nature of the data being stored on their own servers, a company IMHO should be on the level and provide users with a way to opt into or out of any data collection/use and only use data in anonymous and aggregate form and honour and respect customer privacy.

Valve does a survey about once a year to collect some of the types of data that I mentioned above, and it is optional opt-in when it happens. I went ahead and let it collect all of the data, then looked through the data they collected which they show you before you give the final ok to submit it to them. I was perfectly ok with the majority of the data they collected except for one thing. They scanned my computer to get a complete list of all of the software installed on my system. Not just video games, but every application installed on my computer and that was a part of the data to be submitted. They didn't hide this in any way so it wasn't dishonest of them, but they did not provide a way to opt-out of individual items in the data collection. It was everything or nothing. I was not ok with Valve having a list of all of my software applications as I felt that was not necessary regardless of what or how they might use the information, but I couldn't avoid sending that information to them without cancelling the whole thing so - I cancelled the whole thing and opted out of the survey.

That's important, being able to control what data you're willing to provide to a 3rd party asking for it, and they did at least give me that control although not as fine grained as I'd have preferred. :)

Having said that, I haven't seen anything mentioned to suggest that Galaxy client or services are planning on data mining customers with or without their consent, and if there is any type of data collection that GOG might find useful I'm pretty confident that they'd do it in a lawful and trustworthy manner as I describe above, allowing people to opt into it and be completely aware that it is happening. I'd gladly let them know my CPU/RAM/GPU/etc. details, just as long as they don't want a complete list of all the programs installed on my computer and other stuff that's none of their business. :)

The regions restrictions is something that is becoming an annoyance on “STEAM”, a lot of games have those restrictions, some you can only buy if you live in a determined country, others will only be available in your library depending in which country you are when you bought that particular game. I agreed with the quote in the video “These days you might not always fell like you actually OWN the games you buy” that is absolutely true.

If in the future GOG galaxy achieves and got the “BALLS” to keep all the FREEDOM that they are promising, I will turn to Vavle and say: “Fuck you STEAM, we had a good time in the past. I will remember it with joy in my heart, but you got too greedy” then I will turn to EA and say “I hope ORIGIN burn in hell”....what hell…..I can say it to EA anytime. I was forced to use Origin only because of Mass Effect 3.

when it's going to be released?

any news tomorrow?

End of August

There is no official announcement yet of when the GOG Galaxy platform will be officially launched, however the Galaxy multiplayer component will be available for Divinity Original Sin on Aug 31, 2014 according to GOG and Larian. GOG has previously mentioned that the multiplayer component would be partly available for the beta of The Witcher Adventure Game coming soon also this fall.

They've mentioned recently that they'll be making more announcements about Galaxy, The Witcher, and Linux platform support really soon now, and hopefully they will be able to give us a date for the official full blown GOG Galaxy launch or even just a close timeframe estimate. Whether the whole service platform launches on Aug 31 also or not isn't known but from what they've hinted at previously it shouldn't be too long from now either way. I suspect they might give us a better idea real soon though.

Fingers crossed!

That's what the devs for Divinity: Original Sin said. The game is already released on Steam, but was supposed to be delayed till August 31st on GOG, to coincide with the release of GOG Galaxy, because the multiplayer features in GOG Galaxy are necessary for matchmaking in that game. After criticism from fans, the game will now be released this week without matchmaking features.