I hope you're at least being compensated (instead of foolishly doing it unprompted because you have a mistaken belief that it makes you important) for being such an eager water carrier for GOG, Gunga Din!...

"You Lazarushian-leather Gunga Din!
Though I've belted you and flayed you,
By the living Gawd that made you,
You're a better man than I am, Gunga Din!"
- Rudyard Kipling, 1890

In my case: because the DLer works. For me, Galaxy does not. And before you question the veracity of my statement as well, I've tried Galaxy three times (five, if you want to split hairs):

1) shortly after it was first made available, on my WinXP machine. Didn't work. And by 'didn't work', I mean it literally would not run. Maybe it doesn't work on XP? Can't recall now if that is/was the case back then.
1a) Since it didn't work on XP, I installed it on my Win7 machine. While it actually ran on that one, I was unable to get it to change the location of the DLed game files, no matter what I tried - and I tried all the posted solutions I could find (including reinstalling to a different folder after searching out and removing a couple of the Galaxy services that did not uninstall properly). While it still ran, I still couldn't get it to change the folder for the DLed game files. As well, after running for a while, it would just... disappear. By this I mean if I tried to switch to it (if it was behind the browser or another program window) or bring it up from being minimized in the tray, I got nothing. Had to reboot the computer in order to access the Galaxy client.
2) Months later I tried it again (gave GOG a chance to get some improvements in). Same situation as above in 1a.
3) Months after that, I tried again. See 1a yet again.
3a) Decided on this attempt that since it wasn't running properly on my Win7 rig, I'd try it on my Win10 rig. Guess what? See 1a yet again.

GOG DLer? Worked on XP. Works on my Win7 rig. Works on my Win10 rig.

The DLer is also 'clean' in that it doesn't have all the bells/whistles/features that Galaxy offers that don't interest me.

It's also not a client in the sense that you don't need the DLer running to access the multiplayer features of any of GOG's games.

In my case, that's how it's different.

You need a browser to access the website, so you already have a piece of software on your machine that can DL the offline game installer files if you want them. You don't need Galaxy to access the website. So why should you need to have another piece of software on your PC if you don't want it in order to access the game files on the website? Note: if the software is defaulted to install on every game installer, it's almost inevitable that many people will install it inadvertently. It's easy and convenient to tick on one single installer to install Galaxy. It's inconvenient and somewhat devious on GOG's part to have to untick so Galaxy is not installed every time you install a game.

Granted, currently GOG is going to provide installers that don't have the Galaxy option (the 'classic' installers) for their games. But if you actually believe they're going to maintain this in perpetuity, I've got a bridge you may be interested in.

I don't think most of us would have any issue with GOG having the Galaxy installation included in the installers if it were an opt-in. A mistake in not choosing the opt-in results in the client not being installed, and it's easy enough to just install it after. That's real choice. The 'opt-out' is malware-like behaviour and a mistake results in software you don't want being installed on your machine, and it concerns many of us that GOG is willing to resort to this.

*edit* spelling, grammar

That was already the case before, there was countless complains about it since Gog started accepting newer games, it's linked to the devs not wanting to spend time creating stand alone patches. It was one of the number one complaints between having to re-download full installers or last of patch release and was the cause of tons of drama thread/post about peoples announcing they were leaving Gog because patching was so much better and convenient on Steam. It hasn't really changed since, it depends of the devs, some are pretty good at providing incremental patches while others don't forcing you to re-download the full games.

Again, for better or for worse, as you partially admit it yourself, it has always been the norm for Gog. It's something that happened with major or even minor site updates, they most likely considered the the improvement of the new navigation was more important than the features they hadn't time to finish.

And if it can make you feel better there are also tons of bugs or weird things with Galaxy too, the chat features and notification are spotty at best, it's not like it's in a much better state than the web site.
And yet none of that would make it a DRM to download the offline installer via Galaxy instead of the downloader. That you find the Downloader more convenient than Galaxy that's your choice and prerogative, nothing wrong with that, but it doesn't have anything to do with DRMs.

Imo the problem is not that they broke essential(!) features on the web site. The problem is that you don't have the feeling that they actually plan to fix them. Whenever GOG broke essential things they tried to fix them asap. This time people were waiting for weeks now to get notifications for messages and game updates. Both still working in Galaxy... coincidence?

Given that Galaxy never was fully functional and just left beta state officially that is no wonder. The web site was working regarding the most important features and it is not anymore. GOG however is rather focusing on Galxay.

I just read through his post and he did not even mention the word DRM. The question he was replying to simply was

"That doesn't make any sense, if it's just to download the installer how is it any different than downloading using the downloader, which is.... well... also a client ?"

and he answered that one.

Apologies. I wasn't arguing about Galaxy being DRM in this instance. I was more responding to why the DLer is a better choice for me. Guess I didn't realize that's what your post was referring to.

Does anyone believe that? Management has changed and they want to flip the switch so badly. GOG as it was is gone. E.g. the flat structure. You can't even talk face to face with someone from GOG who really does shit here. All you get is "I'll pass it up" like in the goddamn mafia.

The mere use of the labels [emphasis added] ''Backup & Goodies' and 'Game Backup Copy' proves my point that GOG Galaxy is not meant as a tool to download standalone installers to manually install a game. So, if all I want is to download those installers, not just to back them up but to manually install my games, why not do it using my browser which I have already installed and even requires a step less?

As for the rocket science comment, well, go tell that to GOG who think people are so inept that they can't even find, download and install GOG Galaxy without it being bundled in the standalone installers, and as a default opt-out at that.



My memory, and more importantly my back up logs and folders tell a different story in regards to full installers being the norm in the pre-GOG-Galaxy era. More and more games require re-downloading full installers these days if one wants an up to date game experience. And while it is indeed up to the devs, GOG doesn't really care what sort of experience this translates into for those not using GOG Galaxy, as they themselves treat the standalone installers as mere backup copies since the client was introduced.

The drama threads, as you call them (which, btw demonstrates a subtle condescending tone that has no place in this discussion) were, as you yourself state, about the lack of a similar patching process as the Steam one, and quite often related more to the delay with which games were patched here than anything else. Something expected from users coming from Steam, i.e. used to the experience it offers.


I admitted breaking things when updating the site is the norm, not that purposefully/consciously scrapping essential working functionality without even a plan and/or ETA to restore/replace it. The latter is the case here, and the casual way they commented on this, and what they had to say about the situation, after more than a week of silence and in spite of the many user posts on the matter in the announcement thread, is quite telling of what they think of their customers that don't use GOG Galaxy and their experience, imo.

No offence, but you are misrepresenting the situation, and deflecting from the actual issue in order to downplay it and argue that we're discontented for no valid reason.


[emphasis added]

I don't see a single thing this new navigation system brought/improved that is more important than providing game updates notifications. Or why it was so important to roll out a half baked navigation system at the time they did - yes, scrapping essential functionality with no alternative in place, is doing a half-baked job. I find it interesting, to say the least, that you seem to actually believe this is a valid argument on GOG's part.

More importantly, the part I highlighted is another misrepresentation of the actual situation. By their own admission, at the time this rolled out, they hadn't worked on anything, it was "we decided to work on a new notification system from the grounds up" and the only progress made in the meantime is "we're considering it internally, but can't promise you anything".
I can understand that, as a happy GOG Galaxy user, you don't care about these things, but since you took it upon you to prove us wrong, I'd expect you to at least be informed on the actual facts and situation.


It makes me feel neither better, nor worse. Whether things with GOG Galaxy are not in a much better state than the site is irrelevant to my point, which isn't that GOG Galaxy users should have a bad or worse experience; my point is that us not using GOG Galaxy are having an experience that's getting worse and worse because none of our issues are ever, nor will they ever be, of any priority to GOG, unless it's something directly affecting/hindering our ability to make purchases, when most of them derive from GOG making changes to the site to better suit its use from within GOG Galaxy.

The notification system wasn't perfect on the site either, but it was still better than having none at all because GOG thought it more important to introduce drop-down menus at hover-over and dimming effects with the only plan/ETA as to when the new one will be implemented being "eventually™, except for game updates which will be implement at a later date than that"; imo, it demonstrates a complete lack of sense of prioritising, and a complete disregard for the user experience, if not straight out disrespect and condescension.


You keep returning to this even when people don't comment/argue in the context of DRM. But in all your arguments you leave out the conditional "if the only way they provide" mm324 made in their comment, which is key to their take. If the only way is locking people into GOG Galaxy, when prior to that we had other options, then it can be seen as a form of Digital Rights Management, without it necessarily falling under one of the forms and categories considered as such currently.



No, said essential functionality is still there and working just like it always has, as evident by GOG Galaxy users, as well as Barefoot_Monkey who restored it in a day for BE users. The problem is that they chose to make it inaccessible to the users of the site without thinking of the implications at best, or caring at worse, and without having an actual plan to restore it.

It's not a coincidence, but IMHO (as a software developer) it's simply that the mechanism to get those information is different, Galaxy use its own, newer, API to download games and get notifications information and the web site probably uses another, older, method.

That would make sense given that Galaxy is more recent and that, based on various blue posts on the subject, it seems that the web site is running on older software that nobody really seems to know how it works any more.

Except that my answer was specifically answering to somebody complaining that downloading the offline installer through Galaxy was a "DRM"; I wasn't speaking about whenever or not peoples prefer/hate/don't find convenient using a client to download them.

We disagree on that; I have terabytes of Gog backup and having to re-download full games when patches were released is something I had to do since the very beginning. It wasn't really an issue when the games were 50-200 MB older DOS games, but it became very tedious once newer, multi-GB games, begin being released here.

And I haven't noticed any increase since Galaxy was announced / released, but I guess the only way to know for sure i would be to do before/after statistic on all patches released.

Before you make me say something I haven't; what I call "drama thread/post" it is NOT thread/post of peoples complaining about missing/incomplete/broken features on Gog, nor it is about thread of peoples complaining about changes in policies they don't like. There is absolutely nothing wrong with those.

What I call "drama thread/post" is when peoples goes all "blog-y" / theatrical / over-emotional about it. Like some of the "I am leaving Gog forever" six thousands words essays we get from time to time (less recently).

I don't really see your point here ?

That's the big thing, I never said I did.

Most of my disagreement is on the style rather than on the substance :

I don't think that the new navigation really changed / improved a lot, my biggest issues with Gog website are the forum and the sluggish game library screen and neither were improved by this change.

Also I only uses Galaxy on my "Gog partition" (I have different Windows partitions for Gaming and work) which is not my main partition nor the one I use for the forum. So the lack of working notification mechanism is incredibly annoying for me too and I don't think that the new "navigation banner" was worth breaking it.

But on the other side I find it kind of silly to immediately consider it's some sort of conspiracy from Gog to try to push forward Galaxy, they made plenty of dumb/discutable things with the site/forum before, it's just a new one to add to the list. You know the saying "Never attribute to malice that which..."


The same goes with "bundled Galaxy" installers. I don't like "opt-out" and as somebody who backup his installers I would have hated having each one of them being 100MB+ bigger for no reason. So I am happy they decided to backpedal and keep releasing an "un-bundled" installers version.

But on the other side, even if they decided to only release the Galaxy bundled version, as annoying and inconvenient as that would have been, it still wouldn't have made Galaxy any less optional regardless of whenever or not it's was opt-in or opt-out; and it wouldn't have made it a malware or a form of DRM.


My original answer was to mm324 post which mentioned DRM.

No that was my point; it wouldn't be a DRM.

Would it be stupid ? Yes!

Would it be annoying ? Yes!

Would it be bad to have less option ? Definitely yes!

Would it be a DRM / form of DRM ? no!

Considering it to be a DRM would be the same than when some peoples argue that having to connect to Gog and identify yourself to download the game is in itself also "a form of DRM"

Having download exclusively through Galaxy would only change the way the game is downloaded, not whenever or not the game itself is DRM-free.

Tere is a big difference between "obtaining the game" and "playing the game":

If you can play the game (i.e. a digitally downloaded one) on any offline PC on which the game never was installed before without having to ever connect online then the game is for all intend and purposes DRM-free even if you had to have three DNA check and a couple of iris scans before being able to download it.

You are still forgetting that it was working before. It's not that they broke it just because they did not know what they are doing (and if they did not know what they were doing they probably should keep their hands of functioning systems). Also as it was said multiple times: it still is not fixed and it's not clear if it ever will.

Edit: Just read what HypersomniacLive said - if the functionality still is active like he said and they chose to disable it imo this is even worse.

No, you did not. That is why I quoted the question you was replying using the quote function. In the complete post the user you replied to has not even mentioned the word DRM at all. The post mentioning it being DRM was from mm324 and not from GR00T. Maybe recheck your quote.

Whilst i've only skimmed this thread (as theres alot of text here.) But the issue I have with Galaxy is that I cant not tell it to scan my PC.

I asked this and was told I can delete a file. But I dont want to have to do this each time I install a game. There should be an option for Galaxy to only use the folder we tell it to monitor. As I want some games to use it and not all.

For an optional thing that "feature" alone makes it not very optional.

As for the whole setup thing. I know they said they were going to have a legacy installer, but why not make the Galaxy one the non-updated/lowers one (as Galaxy can update installers). As we all know how these legacy installers will most likely work.

But still you use it as an argument saying

"they most likely considered the the improvement of the new navigation was more important than the features they hadn't time to finish"

So why on earth did they decide to focus everything on Galaxy and leaving people not using Galaxy completely in the dark. Of course it's not a conspiracy - it's simply (imo bad) marketing. They want to get the steam customers as well and if GOG really tries to compete with steam for (maybe) the cost of losing one of their last principles - being completely DRM free - they will lose and that is for sure.

It would have made the installers bigger leading to another disadvantage for not using Galaxy.

As long as you still would be able to play the game without using the client at all I tend to agree here (I know that many don't though). Still it clearly would not be optional anymore

It was mentioned several times by blues, even Fable, that the forum/site runs on older software and that apparently the person(s) who knew how it worked no longer works for Gog; so I wouldn't be surprised (pure supposition here) that by trying to "modernize" / "improve" then ended up breaking parts of it.

What I think (it's a 200% pure supposition on my part again) is that they are probably working on "upgrading" the website but to avoid breaking everything at once or not having anything ready before a couple of years, they do it part by part, and that the navigation was the first "upgrade"; hopefully soon they will release other parts and the notifications will be back in one of them.


You need to follow the whole discussion; if you want the abridged version ;) :

mm324 : using a third party tools to download game is DRM
me : no it's not, it's not any more a DRM than using a browser or the downloader
GR00T : I don't like Galaxy it doesn't work for me, I prefer the downloader.
me : maybe, but that was not my point.


"...they most likely considered the improvement of the new navigation..."

They being the keyword, as in "them, not necessarily me", as I said earlier I don't really consider the new navigation as being really a huge improvement.

The creation of Galaxy was not some weird marketing decision, there was a demand for it, and I don't mean by potential ex-Steam customer but by Gog ones, peoples wanting a more convenient way to keep installed games updated, have access to MP for games that used Steamwork and even for achievements (because even if I don't care about achievement myself there are peoples who actually enjoy that). IMO what they are trying to compete with Steam is trying to have a DRM-free solution but with the "advantages" of Steam (i.e. auto-update, achievements, cloud saves, etc...).

Well technically IIRC they said that Galaxy would be optional to "play" the game, so even if it was mandatory to "download" the game it would still be optional to "play" it.

But I agree that it would be pushing it I would understand why some peoples would be angry about it ;). (but we are not there yet.)

Actually that is not the way quoting works. You reply to the part you quote not one several posts earlier from a different person.

They (subjective) considered the improvements (not subjective) ....

Where? Do you have links for this extreme GOG demand? Also it does not have to do with the fact that GOG is neglecting the non Galaxy part.