Another thought:

It could have worked if the deal was as follows:

A game is launched on Epic as an exclusive for a year, or six months. If you buy it through GOG you essentially pre-order a 100% DRM free version which gets added to your GOG account once Epic exclusivity ends. In the meantime, you can download and play the DRM'd Epic version.

Of course there would have to be some kind of guarantee, in case the dev goes belly-up or is bought before the DRM-free version comes out.

I can see how this could be a thing - although I personally would never use offers like this. No DRM'd games on my PC, even if it's "timed".

Would you say this about any other type of website/software that uses this style of directing people to click on one download link over the other? This is what some folks here are referring to as a malware-like tactic.
Getting more users on Galaxy does NOT solve this and I will explain why. GOG is the company we are talking about. GOG the company has a webstore GOG.com, as well as Galaxy 2.0 (the "optional" client). Through the new store app on Galaxy 2.0, customers are going to be able to purchase EFS games including DRMed games per Chandra's post in the reddit that has been linked by multiple users in this topic. Of course, GOG.com and Galaxy 2.0 are still both part of "GOG, the company".

Expanding market share of "GOG the company" via "Galaxy 2.0" does nothing visibly positive (and a lot most likely negative) to helping "GOG.com the DRM-free offline installer storefront".

Please consider for years we have been hearing that the offline installer users are an insignificant minority, and that people who care about DRM-free are a minority. Thus if companies are accessing (most of...supposedly) the GOG userbase via selling a DRM game released on Epic via Galaxy 2.0, there is very little incentive for them to put in any work making a DRM-free version to be released on the GOG.com website storefront. Why would a developer ignore these few remaining sales? The same reasons they ignore GOG.com now and don't put their games here.

Yet they didn't bother to post important GOG news on the GOG website, for all their users to see?
Where's the sense in that? I don't go to 3rd party sites to get news about GOG. I go to GOG to get news about GOG!

It's like, going to ebay to see news about Amazon. It makes no sense!


EDIT: I come to GOG to buy DRM-free games. Why would I want DRM'd games through galaxy?
If GOG staff put half as much work into the GOG site (which was downgraded about 2 years ago) as they do into pushing galaxy... a properly functioning site would attract more people.

i guess it would be a great idea now for a cyberpunked 2077 pc epic exclusive launch

Good post. This is what I'm mostly interested in when posting in this thread. I would like to see the general perception on what people think of GOG even considering positive coverage.

It could mean that GOGs general image could be tainted but there is a huge chance that nothing will actually happen, at least considering how people usually percieve GOG.com when they hear about it.

Yes it does because all things being equal GOG can evenly compete with Steam, Epic, etc. if more users are already tied to GOG/ Galaxy ecosystem. They have to level the playing field. Let me explain, if a publisher, for example releases a game at EGS and at GOG.com DRM Free, if GOG has a large enough user base via Galaxy they can target those users in Galaxy to get users to buy the GOG version generating more GOG sales, because those users are already deeply tied into buying things via Galaxy meaning GOG looks more viable as a platform to publishers.

The entire point of Galaxy is to care less about where your games are coming from and but instead to tie them all together so that it is a seamless experience. If GOG can do that and do it well enough they can target Galaxy users to promote buying on GOG vs other stores. But without the ability to manage and buy games from other platforms, there isn't an incentive to use Galaxy. It's a catch 22. You got to do one before you can do the other.

Then the question becomes less about where you are buying games from and more about who offers more incentives and better sales... and GOG can win in that fight. They can't win though if people are still primarily steam users for example and refuse to buy from other stores.

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Disclaimer: I do not work for GOG.com, nor am I paid by GOG.com. All views expressed in this post are my own, and do not represent the views of GOG.com or it's employees. My views are expressed as a fan, gamer, and fellow GOG user... that is all. Thank you.

Very well said, nail well and truly on the head.
I would agree with this assessment. It certainly seems like we're now more of a hindrance to GOG than valued customers.

If they do this, they will instantly lose a big chunk of their userbase and there will be a massive refund wave.

Regarding GOG Galaxy per se, this was meant as "the Witcher 3 distribution and patching system" originally.

It is also striking that one of the main selling points of GOG Galaxy 2.0 is the Steam integration, but this is "just" a "unsupported community plugin", unlike some other integrations.

No.

The point of Galaxy was - at first - to make day one releases - most notably Witcher 3 - stress-free, with all the updates coming in. I was there, part of the team even, somehow.

The point of Galaxy 2 is - yes - a unified client for people with many account, so they can manage their games, regardless of where they come from. That's the user's perspective.
In offering this, Galaxy can make users learn what GOG is, what DRM-free is, and why it's important. We had quite a few posts to this effect. For GOG the point of Galaxy is to bring users to GOG. It's not to bring Galaxy users to Epic (or other stores). Unless GOG wants to be a reseller - but then they should simply say so, and then I'm out.
They can either promote their own store - and Galaxy 2 does that already - or they can promote other stores. It's really mutually exclusive, because each user dollar can be spent only once.

This smells like testing the waters of an acquisition.

Indeed, If Cyberpunk was suddenly revealed to be Galaxy exclusive I would immediately move to get a refund.

As much as I didn't like that, I would have cared a lot less about it if it had been opt-in instead of opt-out. Drive space isn't an issue for me, though.

Yes, I remember. But there's a big difference between merely promoting it and going as far as to hide the alternatives, trying to deceive users into installing it, neglecting the traditional installers & providing inferior support for them/telling users to just use Galaxy if they have problems.

Many people don't even realise the standalone installers are an option! And with people being so used to the likes of Steam the possibility likely doesn't even cross the mind of many users now so it's doubtful they'll go looking for them...

A big button combined with hiding the actual game installer files away behind a menu. They backtracked eventually after mass complaints, but that's how it was for quite a while.

In addition to that for a while they were also bundling an installer for the Galaxy client with every game and installing it by default - so if the user wasn't carefully scrutinising the advanced install options they'd end up with an unwanted Galaxy install. Fortunately they eventually backtracked on that too, but even then they made things confusing for unsuspecting users for a while by providing two versions of each installer - one with Galaxy, one without - and offering the Galaxy version by default (and not storing the user's previous choice like they do for other options, so you *always* had to explicitly select the non-Galaxy version).

Anyway, this adds to my point: GOG Galaxy *is* GOG, there is no such clear distinction between GOG vs GOG Galaxy as GOG are trying to make as an excuse for their newfound support of DRM. Many people don't even realise the standalone installers exist, and I've often seen people simply refer to the Galaxy client itself as "GOG".

Previously you could request older versions of the installers from support if there was a problem, or they'd take the new version down and put the old versions back up if there was a widespread issue. However according to other posts I've read here, support now refuses to do that and just tells people to use Galaxy's rollback feature.

At the time I started using GOG I was a Windows-only user. I didn't start using Linux until 2013, and many of the same things that brought me to GOG are the same reasons why I started using Linux. There are a lot of similarities in the philosophies behind old GOG and the Linux community, and GOG could have done a lot better if they had really tried.

Yes. They overreacted.

If that is the case then they're even more stupid to be promoting a competing platform essentially for free, but I think it's more likely that things will work like it does for other key resellers & they'll be getting the typical cut key sellers do. And even then it won't be as good a deal for them since they'll be providing support themselves so their costs will be higher.
It's clear that GOG are focusing on the "Don't ask questions, just consume product and then get excited for next products" audience now.

Oh good grief. How do you do, fellow kids? :D