I agree with you that currently, the situation is still "drm-free" but as a business, GOG is coming close to some kind of crossroads in terms of "business growth/development" where they could have an opportunity to sign some drm'ed titlles aong the drm-free ones. This solution would be kind of "we stay faithful to our old users by sticking to drm-free for old users but also offer some drm'ed titles on the side for new users" => even if hell would break loose on the forums (I'll surely grab my popcorns ^o^), I'm pretty sure that it would increase the userbase and the profits (CD Projekt is on the stock market after all).

But well, what do we know, wait and see in a few years for some suspense and surprises ^o^ (back in the beta days,who would have imagined GOG currrent market position?)

Actually I've seen a few developers prior to Galaxy state they would not bring their games here because they feel that their game without achievements and global leaderboards would not be the same and they didn't want to devalue their product by posting an inferior version here.

In some cases, it was preventing games from reaching GoG.

Some developers were fine stripping it out but others consider that part of the game itself.

Who knows. Though I would never buy a DRM locked title. Or one that doesn't come with an offline installer. I mean, if some title for some reason installed Galaxy along with the game I wouldn't mind that much - as long as Galaxy is allowed to stay offline. But I would consider it "bloat".
Ok, thanks for the info, I didn't know that. I can see the importance of leader boards for some "competitive" games where earning high-scores and boasting with them is part of the experience... I know that some people looked for very obscure songs to play in Audiosurf, to be "No.1" because nobody else ever played this particular piece...
As for achievements... I don't really see the importance, but if some devs consider them that essential... I'm just afraid that those might be games I wouldn't like if the devs themselves think they are not rewarding enough on their own...

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I fully agree. I also find it annoying that every time I have to report an issue to Support, the first thing they say is to "download Galaxy." Galaxy is supposed to be optional.

Where did you see a bundling of Galaxy?

Haha oh damn that's pretty bad.

Wait really?
Why?
What issues are you encountering that would be solved by using Galaxy. O_o

That's just it, they would say this for any issue! Their first go-to is "download Galaxy" and it just doesn't make any sense! Before they would constantly say "use the GOG Downloader" when I prefer to use the website itself.

Do they at least help you even if you didn't install Galaxy, or are they adamant that they won't do anything until you install Galaxy itself?

It's been over a year since I had to ask support for anything, but I remember they were incredibly helpful and willing to work around a situation, even if the game wasn't listed as compatible with that operating system.

Did GOG undergo some huge restructuring (Read: liquidation of staff) in the past year?

Well the latest issue is with the original Flatout. The latest "patch" basically trips up multiple AV programs--not just one. So many on GOG are concerned that some kind of malware may have slipped into the program.

The first responses from Support were the boilerplate, "It must be a false positive." It's been months later and multiple AV scanners are still reporting the file like crazy. Many still want GOG to recheck and rescan the installer.

Then Support replied back with:
"Can you try installing it using Galaxy ?
We strongly advise using GOG Galaxy - our new application which makes downloading and installing games as convenient as possible."

When Galaxy has absolutely nothing to do with this particular issue! And this certainly isn't the first time that they told me to use Galaxy. It's just very disconcerting that Galaxy is mentioned over and over by GOG Support.

Damn. I get exactly what you mean. I don't remember them being half as pushy with the Downloader so I just wonder what changed, or if it always was like that and I never noticed.

I feel like old GOG would have taken the concerns of multiple users seriously.

I agree. I'm afraid one day Galaxy will be made mandatory and then GOG will have abandoned their last core tenet. Many were upset that GOG stopped their "One World - One Price" motto, and I sincerely hope they're not going to do the same thing with "DRM-free..."

I know there's laws, legal hoops, and payroll issues, but a lot of their issues could be solved if they were more open to remote posts. Heck, I know some people would gladly help GOG free of charge, if they were able to.