Ah, but it’s a no win situation there. There is a large user base who do not want o move from XP or 7, and therefore complain about the updates made to make things work on 10. It depends on what you are looking for from something. Me for example, I do not like that all installers including offline installers, now come with galaxy components. It was not present in older installers, but has been systematically added. Those are unnecessary updates being made.

I only ever buy off of Steam for two reasons:

1) Sometimes, the sales/overall prices are better over there, but not always.
2) Unlike GOG, Steam sells prepaid cards to add credit to the Steam Wallet. Being a non-credit card user, this makes it a lot easier for me to purchase games, since prepaid credit cards don't work due to CD Projekt being a Polish company and those cards are only usable in the US.

However, overall, I DEFINITELY prefer purchasing my games on GOG and I could give a million reasons why. That being said, I'd say that the prices are usually pretty even between the two platforms but the sales usually produce way higher discounts here than on Steam. For example, one game I want to get at some point, inXile's Torment: Tides of Numenara is on sale on Steam for 50%, placing the base game at $22.49. Meanwhile, it's on sale on GOG for 75% off, making the base game $11.24. In addition to the sale being way better, the DRM-free nature of GOG makes it that much more appealing.

So yeah, like I said, I'd say that the prices generally hang around even rates but the sales on GOG tend to be waaaay better than on Steam. And I'd take GOG over Steam any day. Now, if only they'd release prepaid cards to sell in stores like Steam does so that people like me can purchase from GOG without having to have a family member let me use their card and reimburse them...

Look, I am not arguing with your points here, and I fully support the view that all versions of the created installers and patches should be made available through the store to be downloaded when needed (as for instance I would like the installers pre forced galaxy components).

However a lot of your assumptions here are incorrect. First, GOG is not an archive service, it is a storefront. It is there to sell a product to you, what you do with that product is entirely up to you (drm free is the point), they do not control that. They do not however say anywhere, that they will make the product available to you for the rest of time, on your terms. It is your responsibility to store and protect your product, you can buy HDDs for next to no cost, you can rent online storage, you can keep a NAS setup at a friends house, you can burn to cd and put in a safe deposit box, there many options to protect what is yours. Relying on any internet company is fraught with risk, gog could fold today and you have then lost everything (it’s not legally required to keep its servers open, nor is steam or epic if they closed).

Next up, things move on. It’s a simple fact of of life, and whilst your quite welcome to continue running XP or any other operating system, you should not expect a business, who need to focus on the mass market, to continue to pamper to you who have made a decision not to move with the crowd. They already provide 3 base OS options. To note I am also hit by this, as I do not use clients, however the main userbase does, so it it’s obviously GOGs interest to push galaxy against the wishes of a smaller percentage of the user base.

So to conclude, I fully agree that all released installers and patches should be made available, I believe there was a wish list entry for it (though that is another thing wished for years back which never got fulfilled, actually being able to see what you wished for, so don’t hold your breath if it’s not galaxy related!).

Oh, and your English is fine.

Valve doesn't do anything to the games on the store true, unless the game publisher is Valve itself of course (Half-life 2, Portal 1-2, Team Fortress 2 etc.).

But generally classic releases on Steam are made to run on modern PCs too. First of all, there are several other companies besides GOG who apply such fixes to old games to run on new PCs, or even making remakes of them. Nightdive, DotEmu etc. So when they fix an old game to run on new PCs, they normally release the same version of the game both on Steam and GOG.

Also, I think there have been many cases where the Steam version has the same fixes that GOG has applied earlier to the GOG version. I guess GOG has made a deal with the game publisher in those cases, ie. GOG fixed the game and got a limited-time exclusivity to the game on GOG, and later the same game with the same (GOG) fixes was released on Steam too. I *think* that e.g. many of those old Star Wars games, and the Carmageddon games, are like that.

There may be some single games where the Steam version has problems running on newer PCs or Windows 10 while the GOG version has additional fixes, but I think the reverse is also true, some Steam games got new updates from the publisher while the GOG version is still lacking them (e.g. I recall someone mentioned KOTOR 1 and/or 2?).

Sorry for delay and 1st thank you for your kind words about my English but writing a post takes me a long time, and it's a compromise between what I want to say and what I'm able to say. I'm trying to do my best.

I'm afraid I can't agree with you completely (I can't agree with every word you have said - could be better).

"GOG is not an archive service" - not exactly true, because if you have bought a game and this game has been removed from the store, they are still archiving it for you, what exactly do you expect from fair company. And I think GOG is this kind of company and I support them as much as I can because of this.

"They do not however say anywhere, that they will make the product available to you for the rest of time". Before registering an account, I remember the sentence on the main page, which assumes that what I bought will be waiting for me in my library. That was most important thing that convinced me to digital distribution. I don't remember if it was in this words in rules that's why I called it "promised". And I still have the original Fallout 1, 2, tactics thanks to GOG and I appreciate it.

"gog could fold today and you have then lost everything" that's true but how long they operate they should allow me download the product that I've bought like products removed from store (+60 days as they told in rules). I can't do nothing more but check if game is compatible with my PC before purchase. It's insane that I should checking it every week whether something changes and prevent it.

I thought it was clear that I'm not expecting that GOG will update installers of unsupported OS's, but do not remove the installers that were promised to keep. Especially since some new installers have broken the game, for example Divinity Original Sin and currently you cannot have the appropriate installers.

It's 2 that's missing the updates/etc.

This is exactly my experience too. If someone finds it the other way around, I bet there aren't many examples of it to make it really matter much.

Plus, Steam *does* have some great sales sometimes. Summer Sale especially - You can find some really deep discounts over there on some stuff if you dig hard enough.

This maybe an unpopular opinion, but I think GOG would get more user traffic and sales if they sold GOG Gift Cards in stores like Steam does. GOG seems like a mature audience. Steam is a huge mixture of mature and younger kiddos. Gift Cards are how the younger ones buy games online. Mom and Pops ain't giving them their CC info 9 times out of 10 to buy something off a website they are not familiar with whatsoever.

I seen one old lady in Walmart this past Christmas break that had a FAT STACK of Steam Gift Cards she was buying. I bet she had 20 or 25 of those suckers (or more) - It was impressive. Betting she was buying them for her grandkid(s) or kids or whatever.

i'm not sure if i can identify these observations from my own experience

most tripple a games will cost you between 40 to 60 euro's nowadays
the prices on gog and steam are generally speaking the same, i belief this is the dev's call to make and not platform independent unless some special pricings are agreed on

maybe the illusion of lower prices is created because of more sales on gog's side? or the addition of more indie games on gog ( which is not true but more obvious since steam is the more common platform for most in general speaking )

As I say, I am not disagreeing with you. I. Fact, have a look at this post where I am pushing for a better download system whereby you can access old versions, and see what changed etc.
https://www.gog.com/forum/general/provide_a_full_and_complete_changelogged_download_system

In terms of them providing installers after they close, it would be nice to think they would leave servers open (like shinyloot did),however if they close then it may go offline that day. GOG actually pulled this some years back and went dark causing panic. Me, I would never rely on an internet based service, it’s just never in your control.

In terms s of “archive”, we’ll that actually means store for a long time out of stream for future use, so not really want we are talking about here.

This! See, I don't have a credit card and don't want to have one. Prepaid credit cards don't work with transactions with international companies, so when I buy off of GOG, I have two options:

1) Use my grandmother's credit card (with her permission, of course) and reimburse her, which I don't like to do because she's nervous with online shopping, especially over digital goods.

or

2) Buy a PaySafeCard. The major downside of that is that the nearest store that sells them is about a 30-minute drive from my home. This is worse because of all the crap going on and I refuse to wear a mask, which I'd definitely have to do to go into the store to buy them.

I know for a FACT that I'd buy off of GOG nearly exclusively if they had those prepaid gift cards like Steam has. Frankly, that's the only reason that the majority of my game purchases are still on Steam (which is a trash platform).