Agreed 1000%. Except for your point about Steam not offering a subpar product. A DRM infected product is subpar IMO.

Also, if the achievements were initially implemented using a Steam API, moving them to the Galaxy API might actually be a significant amount of development time. That time is not free, nor are development resources unlimited.

This is apart from the fact that I don't even use Galaxy. And I wouldn't have even known that the product was different in the first place since I don't use Steam at all.

Just in case you are interested they have two sound tracks here Headlander and Massive Chalice. Though the Headlander one has to be bought with the game rather than as a separate purchase.

Shop specific online features ... what?
Like I said, integrating already existing Steam achievements into an optional client has basically no downside for the devs or those who dislike achievements or Galaxy - it's also a win for those who enjoy them.
And who said that it is an actual "barrier" to add already existing optional online features? As long as GOG does not DEMAND achievements it still is up to the devs to implement them or not. It is up to the user to use them or not. It also is up to the user to buy a game or not. Nothing of that will change - no matter if a certain game has achievements or not.

"And no problem, it wasn't too difficult to get the achievements working, thankfully GOG made it quite straightforward for us developers to add. "

https://www.gog.com/forum/deaths_door/achievements/post14
Yes, sometimes this might happen as well - the same way as several games on GOG don't like to work with the Galaxy overlay ... it happens. But the general process of trying imo is a different thing.

Yeah, that's definitely your right. Just keep in mind, you're in the 7% vocal minority or so that won't buy a game because it doesn't have achievements.

Why then do 1/3 of GOG games released after 2015 have no achievements?

Listen, I have no problem with people asking for achievements politely or whatever. But if you're going to take a regressive stance like ARD does and bombard his selfish all-in achievement propaganda to give the wrong impression that games must come here with achievements and suggest those without be removed from the store (WTF is wrong with you?), I'm not going to be happy with that.

I never said that I won't buy a game if it does not have achievements. I just stated the facts. Speaking of ... how did you do the 7% math?

Lazy devs and in some cases incompatibility issues.

Understood and agreed. I don't share the opinion that games should not be allowed here if they don't offer achievements. I am only saying that it is nice if devs add them and that it is a valid thing to ask for. Of course I agree that missing achievements should never be the reason for a game to NOT come here DRM-free but I also think that people could be a bit more empathic and tolerant when it comes to the pure question or complaint of missimg achievements.

Let me give you an example: I might complain about missing German language in a certain game and those who aren't German or prefer to play the game in English would say that it is completely useless because it is to them ... so does this mean that I should not voice my opinion just because I am not in the majority? I think it is the same with achievements. I completely understand those who say that they don't understand why they even exist (in fact, when I experienced my first achievement popup years ago I just thought WTF is the use of this) but we all have different opinions and as long as those different opinions don't hurt anybody I think they are valid as well.

^ That's actually not true. We've already seen +10 year old games that worked with XP stop working and suddenly "need" W7-10 due to including galaxy.dll (whose dev kit / compiler needed W7). Fast forward 10-15 years and it'll end up absurd for GOG versions of 20-30 year old games "need" Windows 11-12 due to .NET 6.0-7.0 / VCRedist 2030 (or whatever that future galaxy.dll is compiled to use) whilst Galaxy-less abandonware site's versions continue to work on anything. The usual excuse for this stuff "But GOG is all about old games on NEW OS's, not on OLD OS's", completely misses the point that it has the potential to screw up compatibility layer development later on. Eg, imagine how much harder DOSBox development would be if DOS games suddenly "needed" Windows due to being compiled to include Win32 galaxy.dll's as some people here are actually demanding (see the wishlist for achievements in ALL games).

People who demand this stuff ("I want you to hard-code x feature to a specific Internet store's server and a specific OS version that both might not be around in 20 years time") never stop to think about introducing future unintended compatibility consequences...

"Elderly users". LOL. I'm in my early 30's and I don't like how the constant demands for GOG to be "Exactly like Steam but not Steam" keeps screwing sh*t up in offline installers. I don't want to hear about more Galaxy in games until this cr*p gets sorted out first (that's caused by Galaxy...)

That bug is due to developers who have been so heavily influenced by Steam that they don't even consider the subversive idea of offline installers. I agree that it absolutely needs to be rectified, but it's a problem that doesn't really have to do with GOG but with the always online mentality that pervades everything.

If I am not mistaken (please correct me if I am wrong) only very few games actually NEED the DLL and won't run at all without it. Also I am wondering if those DLLs really are just for achievements because if not, the problem aren't the achievements but the way GOG is handling Galaxy integration ... which is a problem they also could fix.

The problem is also heavily influenced by GOG pushing for exactly the same "every game must contain online client features". ie, it's caused by the unnecessary over-extension of forcing galaxy.dll integration in offline installers that don't use or need the features. If people want Achievements, etc, then keep it in Galaxy builds only and keep the offline installers clean. Best of both worlds, right? But that's not what GOG wants, nor how they distribute them, so we end up with an increase in broken installers because of demands for more Galaxy in GOG games in general, shattering the myth that "calls for Galaxy features don't affect anyone who doesn't want them"...

Completely agreed. If GOG really wants Galaxy to stay optional they should also make sure that offline installers still work no matter what they change regarding Galaxy specific features - so having to download those needed DLLs only when playing in Galaxy would be a perfect alternative making both sides happy.

Most recent games need the dll's and will crash without it (excluding 16-bit DOS games which can't have them because they can't call 32-64 bit Windows API's). The reason for this is because the games .exe's have been hard-coded to make Galaxy API calls in-game when "unlocking" an achievement, etc, and the galaxy.dll's essentially mimic the same API responses that the Galaxy client would make to handle this (if it were running), to prevent the offline installer games from crashing (if Galaxy isn't running). This includes remasters of games whose original versions didn't need it (eg, The 7th Guest for ScummVM = works fine, The 7th Guest 25th Anniversary = "The program can't start because Galaxy.dll is missing from your computer").

It's not a case of simply "downloading galaxy.dll only if you need it" because the offline installer's .exe's have been hard-coded en-masse to "need" it by design no different to Galaxy at GOG's request (as they've laid out in the documentation for developers). The only way it would work to really separate them is if the developer were to compile the game before adding them (offline installers), upload that, then compile it again after (Galaxy version), then upload that, which would certainly work and please everyone, but is also an admission that the process of adding Galaxy features without introducing unwanted dependencies into offline installers, essentially doubles developer workload for the whole upload (and patching process...)

So GOG's choice is 1. Share the same build between Galaxy & Offline installers (making things easier for developers whilst degrading the latter by introducing dependency 'issues'), or 2. Force 2x separate versions to be uploaded, two versions need patching, etc, (retaining the integrity of the offline installers but doubling developer workload). Guess which one they went with?... This is why many offline installers users are growing more hostile to Galaxy, it's not dislike of the features themselves, it's how its been done and the fact that it's always been a myth that adding Galaxy features has been "without strings attached"...

I already have them, but thank you anyway.
Unfortunately for me, the ones that interest me the most, like the Grim Fandango soundtrack, or Psychonauts', are not on GOG.