Well we're getting into two different promises here. I just meant the "no DRM" promise. That does not preclude some kind of required downloader as long as you can make a backup that can be installed totally offline. Promising the client will always be optional is a little trickier. At what point does a downloader become a client? I bought some DRM free stuff from Amazon and Direct2Drive back in the day that required I use a program to download them, but after that they were DRM free files I could backup. To me that's not a "required client" but I'm sure there are many here who disagree.

I could have sworn it was Gremlings—I hardly ever get those mixed up... Wait a sec, "lumberjocks.com"? You surf in mysterious ways. :p

Nope, never used it. Never been interested, and should they force it at some point then I will take a long, hard look and decide from there where to go (or stay). Achievements, for instance, are utterly pointless in my personal gaming world.

how the eff do you not install it? Witcher:Wild Hunt introduced it on my machine and now, apparently, another game mysteriously need Galaxy to properly launch. W.T.F.

I do believe you downloaded the GOG Galaxy bundled installer instead of the "Classic installer". Here's a related post:

Awesome (not). Guess I'm too old for this BS and will "buy" one more game in my life. GOG used to be an alternative. Now I am forced thru another money-grubbers beta. NTY. Guess it's back to STEAM where I know what I'm getting into and they've got a system - however poor, it is what it is. Now they are two.

Just FYI, I think you quoted someone else, not me. I don't think I've written that quoted text, heck I don't even have Darkest Dungeon. Is it any good, should I have it?

Plus, I'd definitely never say that Steam looks less onerous! I don't even know what "onerous" means! EDIT: Now I know, apparently something like "burdensome" or "laborious"?

My personal solution to the classic/Galaxy-embedded installer dilemma is to use gogrepo to download (all) my GOG games, as by default it downloads only the classic installers. :)

Can't you just uninstall Galaxy?

What was the "other game" that required Galaxy? Gwent? Or are you referring to the multiplayer support in some games (where some games nowadays apparently do require Galaxy client for the multiplayer; I personally am fine with that requirement)).

Are you dun?
No I can't just uninstall galaxy - the game folder has no .exe, I have to launch galaxy to play. and there is no 'classic' install option. and gwent is a f--ing game in the game, wth? Just the base Witcher3 GOTY installed it and TToN installed thru it, no questions asked or options offered. btw, I hate MultiPlayer.

I just installed it to see what you're talking about, using the Classic installer available under the More tab (in the website Account Library entry for the game), and I see what you mean: in the root folder of the game there is no .exe. And the installer created a shortcut that pointed only to a folder and not to a file. I dug around a bit and found "witcher3.exe" here:

\The Witcher 3 Wild Hunt GOTY\bin\x64

I successfully launched the game with witcher3.exe. If that works for you then you can make a shortcut to the game and then uninstall Galaxy.

Hopefully that works for you.

I installed a version of it when it first released in its alpha form, when GOG was giving Alien vs Predator away to help stress test it. It didn't last very long on my hard drive and I'll probably never reinstall it. I'll keep necromancing the remains of the GOG Downloader as long as possible and then switch to browser downloads when necessary.

I am using Galaxy with no problems, as I like to use it as a glorified launcher in daily basis.
As long as I have the option to download classic installers, its absolutely fine with me.
When I buy a game, I download the installer separately via Galaxy and store it on my external HDD.
Tested these installers (without Galaxy dependencies) in my second PC (without internet connection) and work like a charm.

Long story short, I don't see any DRM-free violation from GOG's side.

It didn't screw anything up for me when I installed it. It detected most of the games I had installed and when I told it to scan for other games it found those. When I install a new game (I install via the standalone non-Galaxy installers), it picks it up right away.

Yeah, you just need to go into Galaxy's settings and point it to wherever you want to DL the installers.

Yep. Again, just tell it in Settings.

If you go to MORE and choose to download backups and goodies, yes.

It's not perfect, but it's reasonably robust. I tried it three separate times over several months when it was first released and it didn't work for me at all (on Win7 64 bit). Now it seems to work fine for me (Win10 64 bit). There's certainly no compelling need to use it, but I wanted to test it out to get a feel for how it's coming along and I've just continued to use it for the nonce and don't have too many complaints about it. YMMV.
Same here and tried it a couple more times over the next several months. It was woeful. But I tried it again this past fall and it's much, much better. If you're inclined, I'd say give it another shot. If it's anathema to you, then there's certainly no need for you to use it.

Funny that Witcher is not the problem app, ] Torment: Tides is. And it still won't but thank you! I still am not seeing a classic install option for Torment:ToN - but thAt's for the other thread

The disk you spent $150 to get, because it was a disk and having a disk used to mean something. no more. because you thought GOG was the one to follow and you trusted the dev to compile an exe that would just effing launch. yet STEAM is the vehicle burned to the disk. GOG is far behind but . . .

[based on the fact that the disk shipped with backers is loaded w/ STEAM. the disk that was supposed to be drm FREE]

I don't have Torment and can't check that one, but in case you're not aware how to access the Classic (no Galaxy) installers:

Go into your library here on the website, and select the game in question (Torment in this case)
Just to the right of the blue TRY GOG GALAXY button, select the MORE button
In the pull-down menu select the CLASSIC INSTALLERS option and download those files.

Apologies if I'm repeating something you already know about.