That doesn't necessarily mean it's the worst version just because there’s a small delay. If the GOG version starts up faster than the Steam version, does that make it better? I have a few games that do start up faster on GOG than on Steam, but I wouldn't say that makes them better since they are essentially the same. I’ve double-dipped on a couple of games that had delays, and it's really not a big deal.

If you let small delay that doesn't effect performance or gameplay ruined your gaming fun that's on you. Like I said it's being blown out proportion.

If Steam wasn't the main choice then maybe we get ever game with it's own unique GOG version. But we don't sadly.

By that logic, many Steam games should be considered the worst version because they have Steam DRM that needs to be cracked, while the GOG version has that already.

If there are other different games which start up faster on GOG than Steam all else being equal (ie, none are out of date or anything) then for those games the GOG version is better. No-one said otherwise. On the other hand, if a GOG version (which is little more than a bugged re-wrapped Steam version) is the only one with the "hanging on startup due to Galaxy client timeout" whilst other start straight away, and again everything else (eg, they're all DRM-Free, up to date, etc) is no different, then for those yes it obviously does mean the GOG version is the worst one.

It doesn't "ruin my fun" as I'm buying and playing the same games affected (The Castle, The Cave, Endless Space, etc) from other stores and still getting to play them DRM-Free & client-less without the Galaxy bugs. At the end of the day, it's not my loss it's GOGs...

The GOG versions that use the Ghost Wrapper *are* the Steam versions (with SteamWorks intact) and the Galaxy Wrappers that emulate a Steam client work in exactly the same as Steam Emulator cracks Goldberg, just worse, ie, they're exactly the same thing! See what happens when you delete the steam_api.dll from some GOG games and break GOG's own "crack"...

I would not directly say "main choice" because some games are being thrown into almost every single "big platform", just not on GOG. For example "Star Ocean The Second Story R" was released on PS5, PS4, Switch, Steam and several cloud services including GeForce Now. So, there are actually at least half a dozen platforms involved and not every platform i would consider big, yet apparently still more profitable than GOG.

SquareEnix is not the most hardcore DRM lover... as they got several games on Steam actually DRM free and Denuvo was removed from this game as well. I think, it is mainly a GOG issue because they do not seem to reach out to those companies... most likely GOG thinks "it is just not worth it to them and probably will not even bother". Reason why a true quality JRPG and even other Japanese games are still very rare on GOG.

Indeed, those companies as well may not reach out to GOG a lot because they may think "GOG got a low interest"... it is kinda vice versa.

Regarding DRM... this game, as an example, is already available in several cracked versions... it is almost impossible trying to pretend "it is still protected"... this is just a fairy tale. So, by releasing it on GOG there is no loss... only gain... which counts for many more comparable games.

I got this game on PS5 but if there is ever any GOG version i will even get it a second time.

Regarding the freshly "to be" released PC version of FINAL FANTASY VII REBIRTH, it appears there is not even a Denuvo or another strong DRM attached, nor any third party account; another example of a game with pretty minor protection.

I know they are the same. But your logic doesn't make sense. So you're saying it's the worst version, but ignore the fact that you need to go out of your way to remove Steam DRM yourself, which might also need Steamless to work. Not to mention the fact that they might be third-party DRM where Goldberg or Steamless will not work.

While on the GOG version, it's cracked already or doesn't have any of the junk. not all games have a delay on GOG. So, we are using 15 second delay to call the GOG version worse when we have actually worse versions on GOG for some games.

You sound like people justify DRM on Steam because it can be easy to crack.

If both games are the same, and the versions I need to crack to actually use without a launcher is somehow the better version. Because the other version has a small start up delay? That doesn't seem right to me.

Not to mention you are not getting Offline installers which seem to be big deal for DRM free gamers.

I agree, but perhaps I should have specified PC gaming. Charging topic little. What’s with Final Fantasy games having DRM for some but not others? For instance, Final Fantasy 13 has DRM, while Final Fantasy 10 does not.

Some games you need to, others you don't. If you need to, it's something to be done once (takes 10s) whereas Galaxy startup delay bugs affects every single startup (unless you also 'crack' that in the same way), so for "removing other store's DRM vs fixing GOG's buggy Galaxy wrapper" games, it's actually the same effort for both. For games that are DRM-Free on Epic, Steam, etc, that don't need patching, there's more effort involved then in fixing GOG's bugged client than other stores even when both are DRM-Free.

Their value depends on the game. If you need to "crack" GOG games to fix the Galaxy startup bug, the offline installer doesn't store that, you need to store that separately, same effort vs backing up a NoCD for an old CD-ROM. Likewise, need an older offline installer version? Several years ago GOG support = "No problem, here you go". Today = You can't even get "last good version" offline GOG installers from GOG, you must download it "The Galaxy Rollback Way" (which also doesn't give you an older offline installer of that version, it just installs the files on your disk like Steam. Want to keep that version? Guess what, you have to zip up the folder and create your own installer also no different to backing up a game from other stores...)

You seem intent on belittling people complaining about (multiple) valid offline installer problems, but at the end of the day GOG have had 6 years to fix the 'offline installers hang on startup due to Galaxy wrapper' bugs (that people have been reporting since at least 2018) but for a lot of affected games released during that time, absolutely nothing has been done. Wake me up when that "Say nothing, do nothing, fix nothing, just let it fester" attitude to anything which isn't Galaxy related changes, they start fixing their broken offline installer Galaxy stubs, and then we'll continue the discussion over the "betterness"...

Voting with one's wallet on games will never be viable enough as long as most peoples buy whatever.
It doesn't ruin my fun either, but my time is precious and if I can saving some I will.

No it works, on two levels.

It works on a personal level for the customer who comes to expect certain standards and quality and maybe is smarter about their shopping.

And it works on the economic level too: for any company who survives on tight margins, it makes those margins tighter and that will be immediately visible to someone. For those companies who don't rely on tight margins, maybe it makes those margins a bit tighter and maybe deprives someone of bonuses which they didn't work hard enough for. Yes it's not hurting the CEO in the short term, but long term the effects are there.

You can't force everyone in the world to comply to your vision just based on your own personal shopping habits, but you can absolutely have an effect.

It feels like our discussion is going in circles, and you seem to be ignoring my points.

I understand that you may not want to admit when you're wrong; I've seen you arguing with others for days. I pointed out that the issue we're discussing involves only minor delays, which don't significantly affect the game. There's really no reason to be overly upset about it. I have the BioShock remaster on Steam, and I haven't noticed any delays on GOG. I wonder why that is, given that the delay does exist.

I get it—you dislike GOG and often come here to complain. I've seen you on the forums many times. Do you even purchase games from GOG anymore? You claim that the delays don’t ruin your fun, yet you argue with me for hours to prove that the GOG version is the worst. Saying you buy the games elsewhere. I know you're being sarcastic, but the delay was ruining you're fun enough to buy the game elsewhere. Which is fine because why buy from place you dislike.

That part depends on whether or not the company is willing to ignore the smaller profit margins in exchange for using them as evidence of "piracy." I.e. "We sold less copies because our DRM / government crackdowns / ISP disconnects / Some other finger pointing wasn't good enough!" In that case the lower sales don't mean anything in the grand scheme of things and could actually be harmful. See also the PR spins made for bad AAA games in general.

As for the goldberg stuff, it's hit or miss, but there's two things I see in common when others complain about it:

1) The games that don't work are typically AAA titles that most would assume come laden with Denuvo until proven otherwise.

2) The games that fail to work with goldberg aren't actually named by those complaining about them. Or the complainers will only name one or two games (see also #1) while implying they have so many more just like the one or two they mention.

For 1, if it's such a new high value title that people would assume Denuvo by default, you're probably going to need a crack of some kind to make it work with goldberg. Remember, goldberg only reimplements steam's API. Goldberg doesn't actually crack the games. Not even the simple kind Steamless will remove. Further, there's other checks being employed by newer games that's harder to defeat without cracking DRM. (Such as checking for Valve's digital signature on the DLLs.) These games also won't ever work properly under goldberg without a crack, because it's against goldberg's policy of not implementing DRM cracks.

As for 2, not much to say until you provide all of the reciepts. Talk is cheap. Give us some hard data to verify and then we can move the discussion forward.

For galaxy, well there's not much to say that hasn't already been said millions of times over on this fourm. But I will say that it mainly exists as the result of people wanting some interface to buy games, enable cloud saving, and earn achivements that wasn't steam or a generic web browser. Granted those people may be in the minority on GOG, but they clearly exist in high enough numbers for GOG to justify galaxy's continued support. (Even if that support is more or less limited to UI tweaks and updating the embedded chromium every now and then. Still waiting on them to implement a Windows Service to handle updates / installations so I don't have to type in my password for every individual DLC / Visual C / DirectX / .Net / etc redistribuitable that gets installed on each update....)

I'm not trying to creating a wall of attacks or baseless assumptions. I’m simply pointing out things that have been true, and this isn’t a personal attack on your character or appearance. It’s based on my observations of you in the past. I'm not one hanging around a place I dislike..

As I mentioned, this conversation isn’t leading anywhere and has just turned into a lengthy exchange between us. I’m okay with ending it now..

For many games the criticism is absolutely justified and proportional to the problem. Example - I own above mentioned The Castle here too. Starting it up takes +15.5s (for a very small 70MB simple lightweight AGS Engine game) because of that bugged Galaxy stub. Renaming Galaxy.dll throws up this error message then the game awkwardly starts almost instantly (with the error message still overlaid on top). Renaming Steam.dll or both throws up this error message then the game also awkwardly starts almost instantly. Replacing that steam_api.dll with Goldberg Steam crack starts instantly with no error message (as clean DRM-Free versions should do in the first place). What's happening is GOG are literally selling the Steam version of the game that GOG have bundled with TWO client emulators running simultaneously - a Steam Emulator to handle Steam achievements calls made by the Steam game, and a Galaxy emulator ("Ghost Wrapper") to translate those into Galaxy achievements.

Whether it bothers you personally or not (and I honestly doubt anyone's claim of "not noticing" 0.5s vs 15.5s startup time disparities), I've been here +10 years now and would regularly buy +150 games on average per year here and barely 4-5 on itch.io. Last year's purchases here dropped down to just 28 games here and over 50x on itch.io - an 80% drop and a lot of those were overlapping titles where I bought the itch.io version instead because of the above stuff where it turns out the bugged offline installer GOG versions genuinely aren't the "best versions" anymore (vs other stores "not just DRM-Free but also client-free" versions) when they're severely bogged down to the tune of +3000% longer startup times / throw up "This GOG game doesn't work properly because Steam isn't running" error messages by trying to fix Galaxy's bad Steam crack. It's also rather awkward to recommend GOG to others when newcomers to the site first impression of the above ends up with them questioning whether GOG are selling bad cracked versions of games on par with what a 2nd rate "scene group" website would put out... This bugged wrapper crap is absolutely costing GOG sales and needs fixing, not ignoring or downplaying for yet another 6 years.

I still disagree and believe that it's being blown out of proportion. I have played almost 2,000 games and have never felt effect my experience or even noticed the delay most of time. Anyway, BrianSim and I have already discussed this topic. No offense, but you're mostly just repeating what he said.

Who cares what any company thinks? The complaints about DRM and ill-treatment of gamers are there to see - nobody is keeping these opinions to themselves. If said company chooses to ignore the complaints and blames piracy instead, that is on them. It is frustrating, but less frustrating than continuing to tolerate bad practices and posting complaint after complaint which gets ignored.

The way to inner peace is to just be responsible for yourself, and be smart when shopping for games.

(I wasn't thinking of Steam in particular here, more of some of the larger publishers...)

Achievements were done by Microsoft/Xbox in 2005 2 years before Steam implemented Achievements in 2007, and Steam achievements are the least rewarding as you don't get points like Xbox or shiny trophies like Playstation, meanwhile Nintendo consoles never had a achievement system implemented into the hardware... and yet the Nintendo Switch consoles sold more than Playstation 4 and Xbox One consoles...

For example if you play NFS Most Wanted 2005 on PS2 or PC, you never got achievements while if you play it on Xbox 360, you got achievements, and if you play any game on a Nintendo console, you don't get achievements while the Xbox/Playstation/Steam version has achievements.

As for achievements as a "anti-copy" method, the people with "a eyepatch" already found a way to get Steam achievements working on Steam games without the client running...

I have the Steam version of some games you own on GOG you noticed have the long startup problem. and I have noticed that the Steam version of Deus Ex Mankind Divided actually starts faster than the "DRM-free" GOG version of Deus Ex Human Revolution even though the Steam version of DX:MD still has Denuvo DRM and it's a more demanding game than DX:HR... And this Denuvo DRM is infamous for long startup/loading times and stuttering performance problems...

Denuvo DRMed Steam version of Deus Ex Mankind Divided with -benchmark command line applied skipping launch]er and intro videos: 19.3 seconds (9.0 seconds for Steam client to start, then 10.3 seconds for the time until the triangle loading screen shows up for the game to start)

GOG version of Deus Ex Human Revolution: Time to first logo screen. 19.7s - GOG "Ghost Wrapper" (offline installer DRM-Free version as supplied by GOG)

Steam version of Deus Ex Human Revolution: 11.5 seconds (8.9 seconds for Steam client to start, then 2.6 seconds for the game to start)

Deus Ex Mankind Divided is also DRM-free on Epic Store as well... Does that version startup faster and has less problems than the GOG version of DX:MD? Since this is the game many people noticed problems with the Ghost Wrapper and it's the first "fixed" GOG game by "other groups" because of broken DLC problems caused by the wrapper it would be interesting to see a video comparison... :)

Also, does this slow startup time problem caused by the ghost wrapper still affects GOG games released in 2025?