I've read only the 2-3 last pages of the thread, and I agree with so many people.

If I download the offline installer, it's especially because I don't want Galaxy. It's because I just want the installer of my game. Because I just want my game. And nothing else.
And there are a lot of other reasons others described very well.

I don't really appreciate that move at all.
Understand me : I've nothing against Galaxy, as long as it stands far from me. Galaxy must stay optional. Really optional.
You want to help people installing Galaxy ? There are way better options. Like a huge button during installation instead of links to other games to buy for example. A third button at the end of the installation : "quit/install Galaxy/Launch the game" ? Or even at the beginning ? "Install/install with Galaxy" ?

GOG, please hear us.

PS : I only noticed now that you announced that in a "usual forum thread", not even in an official news. This adds even more to the bad move.
Good News™ you said ?

I do not want Galaxy at all.
- I consider it much better if GOG.com website implements all Galaxy features and then GOG provide API access via optional library.
- I already have the browser, why not use it? Its crossplatform and cross-device.
- Offline browser is as useless - as offline Galaxy
- I want version rollback on webpage please
- Plus beta version/preview support
- And no "clients", none, zero, ноль, null

Am I the only one here?

Just to add to earlier post, if (as one rationale claimed) the "need" to force Galaxy on everyone is due to some people having "difficulty understanding" split install files of offline installers (eg, some downloading only the EXE file of games that are made up of 1x EXE + several BIN files), then why aggressively split them at all?

Examples:-

- Crookz: The Big Heist (27MB + 3.3GB). Why not just 1x 3.327GB EXE file?

- Dex (1MB + 1.5GB). Why not just 1x 1.5GB EXE file?

- Medal of Honor: AA (1MB + 1.5GB + 0.9GB). Why not just 1x 2.4GB file?

- NWN Diamond (31MB + 2.4GB). Why not just 1x 2.43GB file?

- Witcher EE (1MB + 5x 1.5GB + 1x 1.2GB). Why not just (2x 4GB + 1x 700MB) or even 1x 8.7GB?

^ Half these "some people are having trouble understanding multiple-file offline installers" problems are already avoidable in most small / med sized games by not unnecessarily splitting them well under 4GB in the first place. And that's assuming 4GB splits are a "limitation" in 2017. Virtually every modern file system from NTFS (Windows) to HFS+ (Mac) to Linux (ext4, Reiser, etc) to ExFAT / FAT64 (USB sticks & Micro-SD cards) to UDF (optical DVD-R / BD-R) have all long overcome the 4GB max file size limit, so for larger games like The Witcher:EE, I'm simply not seeing 1x 8.7GB file as a problem (even if you remained under 4GB there should only be 3 files, not 7).

TL:DR - The multiple sub 4GB file size splits for offline installers that Galaxy is "needed to cure" are mostly unnecessary, can be solved by repacking them into one single file, and the people most likely to benefit from having smaller than 4GB files of large games due to Max File Size constraints of older Operating Systems (eg, Windows 98 + FAT32) are the same ones who can't run Galaxy anyway as a downloader due to "Windows 7 or above" Galaxy requirement...

I like Galaxy I just want it to be optional as GOG has promised numerous times that it "is".

Also Dima Fedotov's last day of war series is amazing.

There is one thing I just don't get (in addition to the all the other problem mentioned here). There is more than enough space (and a GALAXY LINK) on each download page. Why not add a checkbox there to download GALAXY alongside the installer instead of bundling a potentially outdated GALAXY installer with the offline installer if you feel it's necessary to have GALAXY included when one's using the offline installers?

It's an easy solution and that - in my opinion annoying - blue GALAXY button on the download page of every game would be useful. But why make it easy if you can do it the hard way with the bonus of alienating a good fraction of your customer base.

They may be experimenting with more drastic measures to "convince" us stubborn die-hards to use Galaxy: Currently in one of the few newer AAA games, Saints Row 4, the language can only be switched in Galaxy. They offer separate offline installers for different languages, but after the installation it is always English. No way to switch it in-game or with a "LanguageSetup.exe".
Hopefully it was just an oversight. But after the recent "Good News" one could really become paranoid.
https://www.gog.com/forum/saints_row_series/change_language_in_sr4


I always try to be optimistic. But in the past 2 years or so...? We got regional pricing, we got Galaxy, we got DLCs and different versions, soundtracks not as a goodie anymore but separately sold, we got pre-orders, we got in-devs, all under the pretext to bring more publishers and AAA games to GOG. So where is the big flood of AAA games?

Because frankly, they only see customers as money and metrics and its been like that for quite some time now.

This whole thing is not a technical or implemention detail/problem, but instead a business decision.
And even if GOG.com steps back on this one.. the choices in the past have shown does it won't get any better in the future, just worse.

Because the people who pirated the game wouldn't see it.

If GOG had been more transparent with its intents, we wouldn't have pages of pages of suggestions and questions that miss the point of what it's actually trying to do. But I suppose they prefer misdirected outrage, than criticisms that would land too close to home.

This idea is good too.
Why not simply putting the links in our libraries : "Offline installer" & "Galaxy installer" ? With tooltips to explain like "this is the offline installer, it doesn't install glaxy" & "this instals galaxy if it's not already installed & the game" That would be so much better !

But what does this changes for people who pirated the game ? If it's optional to instal Galaxy, what's the point ?

The installers are digitally signed.
The signature and thus the whole file is checked by windows when it is launched before the elevation prompt kicks in.
A gigabyte sized installer may need even minutes until something happens after the doubleclick.

Its called responsiveness...

Oh I know that - but even then it's just a incredibly dumb, overly complicated and unnecessarily work intensive way of implementing that. I'm purely talking from a business perspective. I never romantised GOG in that way - I chose GOG because of the DRM-free not because I believe that they are different form any other company that wants to make money - sure they behaved differently in the past, no doubt about that but in the end they want to a make a profit. But if they want to do that they should stop being that amateurish...

It's funny that you mention that because a number of people (including me) are having a problem with Saints Row IV and Gat Out of Hell where the game will not autosave and will not save rebound keys and other options. According to this post, installing Gat Out of Hell (and I'm assuming Saints Row IV, but I haven't tested) via GOG Galaxy is the only way to make these basic, core functionalities work correctly. That makes GOG Galaxy less than optional.

Of course it's a business decision and yet it's an implementation problem at least in my opinion. It's probably the most complicated and inconvenient way of implementing it because it requires additional updates of all installers on top of the "normal" game updates (and they cannot even keep those up-to-date). I'm looking forward to complaints about broken Galaxy installations thanks to that implementation....
That's true. But I wonder how it'll take for the people who provide the pirated copies to circumvent that - if Denuvo can be circumenvented, something like a bundled Galaxy is a non-issue for them.