Yeah, probably because the offline installers come with every language.
Around 40GB of 'junk'. :P

Your supposed to delete the installers after you installed the game. Otherwise its just bloat unless you intend to keep it to reinstall the game again.

Its been like this since GOG's inception with these installers.

So, why download 40GB extra when you don't need it? What about those with nerfed internet access? Even my fiber access isn't particularity fast, and GOG seems to limit download bandwidths.

But here's the point - the games are becoming bigger and bigger, and already much bigger than those GOG started with. That argument doesn't hold any longer.

Not always, some games have different installers for different languages, while others have additional languages as separately installed patches or "DLC".

What about those that want to create personal backups of their games? That's one of the main arguments for having downloadable offline installers, imo.

I backup my offline installers as much as possible .... some games that are too large will be skipped, a few games i have have files that are 4 GB ... 4 GB for one file , i downlaoaded 10 games and my HD got 55% fragmented ....:D

I backup my favorite games first, usually the classic games like jagged alliance, Gorky 17 etc etc , the best game imho, and also my first games ( those good old days )

Anyway, the large games with single files ( offline installers) that are up to 4 GB file GB ( :D) will be burned on DVD.
Just in case ... :D you never know what will change in the future:
maybe gaming will be cloud only ?

benefits:

no more slow hardware : you only need fast internet,
will save lots of $,

you don't have to buy the games,
no high end pc required, only a lot of $ to get the fastest internet connection, no more faulty HD / sdd , etc etc etc...
sounds very promising.

It sounds absolutely ghastly. A future where all games are rented and not owned and games are no longer being designed/optimized to run on affordable home PCs ... sorry, but isn't that precisely the sort of thing GOG (and DRM-free in general) were supposed to be standing against?

I agree though that game download sizes are becoming ridiculous. Imo, game developers need to be thinking more seriously about providing alternative download file options for their games, for different languages, those that may not want ultra-high resolution textures, etc. Game storage bloat and whether or not developers manage to provide sensible download options is something that is likely to be a factor for me in future game purchases.

And to add insult to the injury (or a completely troll attempt) from the game, the description of the black unicorn (sword locked item through galaxy) says:

"The Black Unicorn is a Katana with a rapier-like design.

The razor-like blade is as merciless ad death itself, the guard is fashioned from premium materials and the handle is crafted so exquisitely it belongs in a museum. Most importantly, it remains light and nimble to wield because it was forged DRM-free."

Not sure if trolling or just stupid.

LOL. the sword cuts almost as much as the irony ...

(perhaps it is a sword made of irony? ;-) )

You know, this joke would be a wonderful one, if it wasn't ruined by the questionable decision made for this gated content.

The only thing I can hope for is for some kind of mod which force unlock these items for offline users aswell.

I'm kinda torn here. Yeah, a 100GB installer for a 60GB game is positively demented. On the other hand, I'm the kind of sperg that likes to download all the various international versions for my offline archive. And having one 100GB installer with all the language versions ultimately means less bloat on my external hard drive than I'd have with over half a dozen 60GB installers.

Thing is, we are considered a minority of a minority, apparently.

I mean let's face it, those of us who really care for 100% offline content with no restriction whatsover and are lamenting this fact on this thread are so few that the thing will go unnoticed in the long run, after we stop posting here.

People who use galaxy will not even realize that the content is locked behind galaxy, because it works without notice, so it's even harder to detect unless you actively surf the forum: heck, after all this time, it's only "thanks" to CP2077 that I learnt TW3 had another similar content locked behind galaxy, which is kinda sad. :(

What I feel truly saddening is that we are basically GOG's foundation as the drm-free premise was what made GOG what it is today, so it's rather sad to see us loyal customers getting dirt on the face and being outright ignored by GOG/cdpr, as we used to be their customer base at the core.

Their silence on the matter is only further fueling this.

No. You just implied I WILLINGLY misunderstood you (which in turn implies I KNEW I misunderstood).

Reading between lines is an art of itself. And it is not guaranteed to ALWAYS be 100% accurate. Period.

If you didn't mean it then sorry but that's how I interpreted it.
You said "it just added X" and it really sounded right up the alley of my interpretation.

(for lols: PREQUEL MEMES: "you became the very thing you sworn to destroy" :P)

If you gaze into the abyss for too long then the abyss gazes back.

I'm going to paraphrase that and compose my own quote:
If you gaze into the abyss you accept the risk of it gazing back at some point, at which point it's only up to your personal willpower to refrain from ditching your own personal principles and embracing the abyss' ones.
- B1tF1ghter 12.12.2020 :P

It seems GOG is currently in the process of giving in into the said abyss :/
It's been going for quite a while. First they casually touched it with sheer curiousity like a child jumping into a pond in the middle of fog.
But now they are willingly letting it suck them in.

You know what's funny? Steam in all things they did great and all things they did wrong NEVER implied to be DRM-free.
So in a way GOG is more treacherous.

If you are interested in Japanese games then there is also Playism. They are completely transparent whether you get DRM-free build or Steam key (often you get both when purchasing a game).

Correction: You need internet with enough download AND UPLOAD speed to satisfy game streaming needs (with at least 10% overhead) AND internet with low enough LATENCY. And that is something that isn't exactly a thing atm. The connections that have BOTH speed AND low latency are extreme rarity.
And by low latency I mean no more than 10 ms, more like up to 4 ms.
And even on that kind of connection you will still get worse experience than when playing directly on a local computer.

On top of that this planet DOESN'T have universal global network access EVERYWHERE and majority doesn't have even 100 Mbps, let alone higher fiber speeds.
A whole lot of this planet's area consists of people with DSL speeds or lower.
I am a part of that, I have ludicrously unstable 4 Mbps WISP and there is no way on earth I would EVER be able to cloud game on this attrocious network infrastructure.

Then there is also the matter of consumer end network equipment. Almost all people have crap one.
Most people don't even remotely know nor understand how big of a difference that makes.

Sounds very sh*tty. Unless you live in the very server room responsible for the game you will get TOO HIGH latency. Even then you would still get HIGHER latency than when playing directly on a generating computer.

I think ironically it may be correct :P They used FORGED term :P So essentially it may be that they mean it WAS DRM-free on their LCS (local content server) when they were DEVELOPING ("forging") the game code :P

This should be laughable material, but alas it is not, which is incredibly sad, and kinda makes me wonder what will come next.

Btw speaking of playsim, how is their drm-free policy? Never used the platform albeit I've heard about it in the past.

- Are all games drm-free or only a portion of them and if so, is drm disclosed in details?
- Are playsim builds always on par with steam version (aka version paraity)?

Apologies for getting kinda OP.