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General discussionNEWS: GOG Galaxy to start selling EPIC games(1045 posts)(1045 posts)
(1045 posts)
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This is my favourite topic
Posted October 03, 2020
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Time4Tea: This is terrible (the situation with offline installers, not your willpower). Could you possibly post a link to an existing thread about this, that lists which games have very outdated offline installers? It seems like a very important thing to have in my favorites.
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coffeecup: The situation with the offline installers is in reality worse than you might think.

If you believe you now can just use something other than the installer setup to get to your game files, you are now wrong. GOG ships their installers now with a garbled mess of a cache directory of some sort and a special installer subroutine re-assembles the files, so you HAVE TO RUN THE offline installer. My guess is that GOG did this to make linux users doing repackging with WINE much more painful and forcing them more or less to use GOG Galaxy under Wine.

Oh and the offline installer makes a HTTP request to GOG after installation (for tracking installations), as well as the uninstaller. If you don't believe me, just use WireShark or a firewall which logs connections on the installer.
Jesus, I knew GOG had no respect for Linux users, but I didn't realise they were actively trying to screw them.
Post edited October 03, 2020 by ReynardFox
Posted October 03, 2020
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Dray2k: Can't please everyone regardless of the compromise made.
Absolutely true. It's not hard to understand that things changes, but then again, at what price?

I can understand small studios getting money from Epic to get a foot-hold and I personally would have been somewhat more sympathetic if GOG really was transparent and was in dire need of money, but there are no indication of that here. They even tried to silently announce it like it was something they had to do but still left a bad taste (either way). That's called having a weak back-bone!

GOG's policy was to be pro-consumer and DRM-free, and Epic is known and hated for being anti-consumer, playing unfair and dirty, mistreating it's own developers (to gunpoint and fear), sneaky client, and having ties with 10c (which again has ties to an anti-human regime), besides the whole DRM issue.

And you (and others) still don't see the signals GOG are sending here (including those GOG has already been sending)? All is good as long as you get access to more games and preferably more free games (like drugs) it's all ok?

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Dray2k: Doesn't change the reality of things.
No, especially if people put their fingers in and hum very loudly...
Post edited October 03, 2020 by sanscript
Posted October 03, 2020
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Adding to the Outdated Offline Installers list:

- Starpoint Gemini 2 (DE, FR, PL, RU Offline Installers 1.93 - updated 4 years ago VS. Galaxy 2.0.0.1 - updated 2 months ago)
- Original War - (Offline Installers 3.0 Beta 2 - updated 3 months ago VS. Galaxy v.3.0.1 Beta - updated 2 months ago)
Posted October 03, 2020
Is it ok to start bashing EPIC and their owners?.
Posted October 03, 2020
It's sad to see GOG bending the knee to EPIC.
Posted October 03, 2020
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Niggles: Is it ok to start bashing EPIC and their owners?.
That started ages ago when the epic store opened and games got removed from steam.

Off topic, is anyone running a book on who will buy GOG and possibly CDPr? M$, epic, EA? My money is on M$ due to their desperate attempts to keep GFWDead going.
Posted October 03, 2020
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coffeecup: If you believe you now can just use something other than the installer setup to get to your game files, you are now wrong. GOG ships their installers now with a garbled mess of a cache directory of some sort and a special installer subroutine re-assembles the files, so you HAVE TO RUN THE offline installer. My guess is that GOG did this to make linux users doing repackging with WINE much more painful and forcing them more or less to use GOG Galaxy under Wine.
Or more likely they simply changed/upgraded the way the installers are created without caring about peoples trying to bypass said installers and extract the files manually.

Extracting files manually is not something officially supported, you cannot realistically expect Gog to test that manual extraction works every time they change something in their installer creation.
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mrkgnao: ... I expect a large number of these will ultimately prove to be false positive....
It's important to mention that on top of the versioning being a mess, having the offline installer and the Galaxy version not aligned doesn't necessarily means that the offline version is missing a important patch. It's also possible that the patch on the Galaxy version concert exclusively a feature that requires Galaxy, like for example a fix in the achievements, or in the Galaxy only multiplayer, or anything related to Galaxy integration.

I know MarkoH01 contacted support some times ago about games in this list and the majority of them ended up being false positive. If he is around maybe he can give more details (he made a post in another thread but I don't remember which one).
Post edited October 03, 2020 by Gersen
Posted October 03, 2020
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coffeecup: The situation with the offline installers is in reality worse than you might think.

If you believe you now can just use something other than the installer setup to get to your game files, you are now wrong. GOG ships their installers now with a garbled mess of a cache directory of some sort and a special installer subroutine re-assembles the files, so you HAVE TO RUN THE offline installer. My guess is that GOG did this to make linux users doing repackging with WINE much more painful and forcing them more or less to use GOG Galaxy under Wine.

Oh and the offline installer makes a HTTP request to GOG after installation (for tracking installations), as well as the uninstaller. If you don't believe me, just use WireShark or a firewall which logs connections on the installer.
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ReynardFox: Jesus, I knew GOG had no respect for Linux users, but I didn't realise they were actively trying to screw them.
The installers are packed with Inno Setup, just like executables from many other sources, and there exists a lot of ways to easily unpack them on Linux.
Perhaps we could be a little less paranoid here.
Posted October 03, 2020
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Dray2k: Again, as long as the core principles that make GOG thrive (providing DRM free games) most people won't bother about any of the possible shortcomings
Despite the protestations that "it won't affect GOG's own DRM-Free releases", I think GOG are being spectacularly naive in not seeing what many have pointed out for long-term changes. The only reason we've seen a surge of AAA games that were former Epic-exclusives is because after that one year was up, the publishers want more "presence" on other stores (Steam / GOG). If Epic already have their GOG presence during that year selling Epic versions, then it significantly lessens the probability of a proper DRM-Free release "because we're already selling it via GOG". And it's even in developers interest to not release if it further saves them money having one fewer store to code achievements / release patches for if the Epic and "GOG" versions can be "shared". I'm definitely willing to bet we won't see a proper GOG release of Metro 4 or Control 2 if such future games are already sold here as Epic versions ("and that's our GOG release right there, sort of"...)

Far from "not undermining the core principles", it's basically one huge "bait & switch" that very much both undermines them and reduces the probability of seeing proper DRM-Free versions for both Galaxy & offline installers alike. We've even seen this already with removed games like Supraland with (paraphrased) comments by the developers of "Well our Steam version is DRM-Free so if it's that the only real thing separating GOG from Steam then I don't see the reluctance in just buying the Steam version..." Think it through where the natural extension to this lies when not even DRM-Free matters and there's zero difference between GOG vs Steam other than Steam has all the features, users, and 10x larger catalogue size...

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coffeecup: The situation with the offline installers is in reality worse than you might think. If you believe you now can just use something other than the installer setup to get to your game files, you are now wrong. GOG ships their installers now with a garbled mess of a cache directory of some sort and a special installer subroutine re-assembles the files, so you HAVE TO RUN THE offline installer.
Indeed, even the offline installer structure is "Galaxified". It's still possible to use newer versions of InnoExtract. More detail on that stuff here:-
https://www.gog.com/forum/general/dosbox_linux_support_dropped/post20
https://www.gog.com/forum/general/adamhms_linux_wine_wrappers_news_faq_discussion/post127
Post edited October 03, 2020 by AB2012
Posted October 03, 2020
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Indeed, InnoExtract has added special GOG support at 1.7.

The offline extractors now contain alongside the cache blob files a special compiled InnoScript which does the extraction. My guess is that IE executes this script for proper reconstruction ... what a relief.

Regarding the ongoing relation of GOG and Epic, I bet this will be sit out again and proceed, as any other things they did successfully.

The best bet for really waking GOG up and giving it a run for its money would be another DRM free store which would do aggressive marketing, alongside implementing the old customer-friendly business practices of old GOG. I mean no experiments like GOG Galaxy, but a no-frills offline downloader alongside an optional delta update system, proper clean API access (which includes OPT-IN achievement system with wrapper libraries for Steam API compatibility). Provide a plugin for easier downloading / managing games with Playnite and you are set.

A niche would also be actively pursuing old licenses / abandonware titles, re-license them and / or actively buy the rights and provide them exclusively on their store.

Stop doing this integration deal with Epic and stop chasing every newest title. Yes, they are also an incentive for attracting customers, but if you actively hunt for old abandonware titles to sell them again and don't let Piko Interactive gobble up all these games which are now being republished on Steam.
Post edited October 03, 2020 by coffeecup
Posted October 03, 2020
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Im thinking about canceling my order for Cyberpunk 2077 and getting it again on steam, I don't think i can support GOG if its backing Epic
Posted October 03, 2020
It seems to me that the people at GOG have established the current status quo is not enough to keep things going. Not enough people purchasing, not enough people participating, and certainly not enough people caring about things like DRM-free.

Maybe it's just time to move on.

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coffeecup: My guess is that GOG did this to make linux users doing repackging with WINE much more painful and forcing them more or less to use GOG Galaxy under Wine.
It does seem that way to me too.

Shame that using Galaxy under wine is such an excruciating experience...

I thought DRM-free GOG would make linux gaming easier for me. How wrong I was.
Posted October 03, 2020
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coffeecup: Stop doing this integration deal with Epic and stop chasing every newest title.
It's not chasing for newest titles. It's chasing for new users and their money.

In my honest opinion the decision to invest in GOG Galaxy – with the whole additional layer requiring deep development of client-game integration, cross-play multiplayer, achievements etc. – it just created huge workload and GOG simply cannot handle it. That's the reason they lack resources in support, they delay with delivering offline installers and they use archaic webpage and forum software. Today every new edition of Windows creates enormous effort on GOG side and it's only their choice to handle it this way – because their "ambitious" project of Galaxy as meta-client for all clients.

GOG sells more and more, their catalogue grows, but profits aren't impressive. Galaxy consumes a lot of resources and old userbase cannot provide enough cashflow. If you have a big library here, you may bring a lot of costs to be managed, you're no longer source of profit, they'll never focus on your opinion, preferences and experience. That's the reason GOG is desperately fighting for new users and that Epic deal seems to be another way to do that. Nobody thinks about principles. There's just a lot of work to do with Galaxy, a lot of resources needed to keep the business running, so they need money that Epic brings.
Posted October 03, 2020
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AB2012: Far from "not undermining the core principles", it's basically one huge "bait & switch" that very much both undermines them and reduces the probability of seeing proper DRM-Free versions for both Galaxy & offline installers alike. We've even seen this already with removed games like Supraland with (paraphrased) comments by the developers of "Well our Steam version is DRM-Free so if it's that the only real thing separating GOG from Steam then I don't see the reluctance in just buying the Steam version..." Think it through where the natural extension to this lies when not even DRM-Free matters and there's zero difference between GOG vs Steam other than Steam has all the features, users, and 10x larger catalogue size...
In a way, I actually hope this whole thing ends up hurting GOG. The only way they are going to see sense is if they see a mass exodus of their core customer base over the next 12 months that hurts them financially. A sharp kick in the revenue stream is probably what it would take for them to realize they are going down a completely misguided path here. In that scenario, hopefully GOG would get sold by CDPR to someone that actually cares about the values of DRM-free and what GOG originally stood for.

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coffeecup: The best bet for really waking GOG up and giving it a run for its money would be another DRM free store which would do aggressive marketing, alongside implementing the old customer-friendly business practices of old GOG. I mean no experiments like GOG Galaxy, but a no-frills offline downloader alongside an optional delta update system, proper clean API access (which includes OPT-IN achievement system with wrapper libraries for Steam API compatibility). Provide a plugin for easier downloading / managing games with Playnite and you are set.
I would love to see a DRM-free game store that caters only for Linux. If anyone knows of one, please let me know. I'll be on the lookout for alternative options ...
Posted October 03, 2020
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rojimboo: It seems to me that the people at GOG have established the current status quo is not enough to keep things going. Not enough people purchasing, not enough people participating, and certainly not enough people caring about things like DRM-free.

Maybe it's just time to move on.
I can only speak for myself as to why I don't buy as much from GOG.

But my reasons are mostly down to the way we as customers are treated. We get no communication from them a lot of the time, each website re-design gets more user unfriendly each time they do it. When the current one (which I still hate) first got introduced they added auto playing videos on it and every game page. Despite everyone wanting it removed, GOG were very adamant that they wanted them and where here to stay. Eventually they were removed, but it threw a lot of trust with me.

Then you have them putting Galaxy files in offline installers, support saying use Galaxy when you contact them, them hiding offline installers on the site and really pushing Galaxy.

You also have the broken forums, which we were told would be fixed and updated many years ago and nothing has been done. Plus there are other issues with the site on a technical level that have not been fixed.

There are loads more issues with GOG which I'll not go into put its enough to turn people off. If they went back to doing what they did originally and make it about the games, and pushing DRM free and doing their own thing, listening to the odd feedback (as not everything is doable, but some things like scrapping the rep system are) and being what they say they are on their site 'Built with gamers in mind' rather than trying to be like Steam (which seems to be turning more and more into social media) then people would use them more.
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This is my favourite topic
Community
General discussionNEWS: GOG Galaxy to start selling EPIC games(1045 posts)(1045 posts)
(1045 posts)