Proving the OP's opinion wrong more than 5 years before they even voiced it. Kudos.

And, wow, that post was one month shy of 6 years old. Man, where did all that time go?

On topic, I couldn't really give two sh*ts about the features Galaxy offers, so using it holds no attraction to me. If it is of use to you by all means go ahead. The benefit I get out of not using Galaxy is not having to have it running on my system... is your mind blown yet?!?

Even if the lord did say something similar in record (wich we can agree, he did't), it was more than a decade ago and companies change a lot of policies in a couple of years, specially when they are about to go under...

How many companies in the PC and videogame space said something to promptly do the opposite because of some "reason". We could talk abou GOG but even Valve's meme "soon" happens for a reason (valve time).

Why wouldn't they remove the DRM if they would ever go down? What benefit would be for them to not do it? There are hundreds of millions of people using Steam.
You still have the option to play without any DRM. Galaxy is an option for people who like to have cloud saves, and auto updates. Not everyone wants to worry about storing every games local save files every time they save in a game. Plus manually downloading the latest updates for all the games isn't appealing to me either.

You are way too paranoid. You can say as many times as you want that Valve and Steam could go down at any moment, your statement has no value unless it actually happens, and so far they are doing better every year. When I say them going down, I'm saying the games going down too, and if that's the case they will remove the DRM.

Validating that the offline installers work properly. If nobody uses them, nobody will know for a fact that they work as intended. You're welcome btw.

Also, if you want to do a proper backup of your games, you will have to download your offline installers anyways. You can back them up directly into the cloud, but so long as GOG exists, most people will find it more convenient and economical to back them up locally. I'll only start maintaining an offsite backup the day GOG here is no longer with us (but on that day, I'll aggressively backup a copy of all my games there to have 2 copies in separate locations).

Also, while some gamers swear by online features, Galaxy in the end, is a huge operational burden on GOG that doesn't further its purported mission of keeping our games playable in the long run, that doesn't differentiate it from other platforms and that, beyond the possibility of additional users (who can be a mixed blessing for as they don't always share the core community's drm-free outlook), doesn't bring additional revenue to offset its cost. It also introduces platform-specific integration in the GOG servers that devs need to navigate more carefully in order not to break offline installers (and some offline installers have been broken and it has been noticed and fixed only due to community vigilance).

Personally, I'd rather GOG spend the time and energy they spend on Galaxy on other endeavors that solidify its position with those that care about preservation (both of their purchases and games for posterity):
- Improve the experience of backuping your games (atm, you have the browser and third-party unofficial clients that leverage an api poorly optimised for that purpose... ideally, they'd lead the charge with a client optimized for this, but if not, they could at least rework their api)
- Develop a deep technical expertise in making aging games work on up-to-date platforms and bring some beloved games back from the dead. That part, they are doing more now and I'm glad and they get popular exclusives on the platform too, which judging by the sales, brings them quite a bit of revenue and makes the whole thing substainable
- Improve the experience making their games run offline on a platform that is less of a proprietary moving target then Windows, for example with WINE on Linux or some of its wider community ecosystem (ex: Lutris or Heroic Launcher). They could differentiate themselves from Steam by cooperating with an existing community on this and ensure that their games keep running easily in the long run on a vendor-agnostic platform. This is something that Steam has not done with Proton btw, where they co-opted existing projects into a Steam-specific fork.

You do realize that removing the drm on all Steam games (which includes quite a bit of validation to ensure all the thousands of games on their catalog work properly offline without the Steam platform) would be both a gargantuan technical and legal undertaking right?

Even if you remove the consideration of the technical hurdle on a company that may no longer be solvent at that point, a lot of video games IP holders, some of them quite large and with a lot of legal resources at their disposal, have not legally agreed for their games to run offline outside the Steam online ecosystem.

Don't be so naive as to delegate your contingency plans to the hands of others who are under no obligation to conform.

You mean, something like the old GOG Downloader that was retired as soon as Galaxy 2.0 replaced the old version?

Yes, exactly, like that. Now, they need to move back in that direction and also make the tool work not only on a regular filesystem, but also for some popular cloud storage apis like s3.

Also, it needs to run on Windows, MacOS and Linux.

... because they wouldn't get paid to do so?

So I'm trying to enjoy monkfruit over stevia, but I've got to say that Monkfruit has this weird aftertaste that I don't get with Stevia. It also hasn't paired particularly well with this earl grey tea I'm having.

Oh, the topic.

Well, in many cases, Galaxy is a redundant waste of resources. As it is based on Electron (last I checked), that means it's nothing more than a glorified Chromium session in a sandbox, and some of us take umbrage with that idea.

Magnitus covers the majority of the talking points given.

You shouldn't, it was made for folk with a mindset like yours, etc.

On the other hand, many of us don't care about those features you care for, or to have yet another program running on our PC, especially while playing a game. There's more to it, but that's the basics.

Offline Installers are just how you install the game, not what you play it with. It is the same game you play with Galaxy, just not through Galaxy, though you can if you want, import what you installed into Galaxy to use it.

P.S. I never bothered to reply at your other thread, chiefly due to the nonsense you claim about Steam saving gaming etc. You showed a clear bias and a lack of knowledge and understanding with just that unsubstantiated claim, so I couldn't be bothered to read the rest, which appeared to come from the usual Steam Fanboy. I left it to others to refute you.

You state first: "your statement has no value unless it actually happens"

And then yourself state (regarding Steam going down) "if that's the case they will remove the DRM"

Given that Steam has indeed not yet gone down, doesn't your reasoning dictate your claim (that they will remove DRM in such a scenario) has no value, since it hasn't actually happened?

Furthermore (this is a reductio ad absurdum), do you go through life not wearing a seatbelt, not consuming food, not going to the restroom, etc? After all, the potential crash/starvation/soiling oneself hasn't actually happened yet, so if you do engage in those activities, it's probably just paranoid weird behavior that I can't understand.

The answer to that question is really simple: installers distributed without going through Galaxy are DRM-free.

Ahead notice: I am going to ignore all posts pretending that the distribution method should be excluded when looking for DRM. I am not interested in discussing « It’s not really DRM if… ».

co pilot A.I. answer

There are several benefits to not using GOG Galaxy for playing games. Here's a brief overview:

No Forced Updates: Unlike some other platforms, you're not bound to update your games when GOG Galaxy demands it. You can play your games in peace without dealing with inconvenient updates.

Lightweight Performance: Without the GOG Galaxy client running, you might notice better system performance, especially on lower-end hardware.

Privacy: Some gamers prefer not to use game clients for privacy reasons. Not using GOG Galaxy can mean less tracking of your gaming activity.

Flexibility: You can manage your game installations and files however you prefer. You're not locked into the structure dictated by the GOG Galaxy client.

Offline Gaming: You have the freedom to play your games offline without any client dependency. This can be especially useful if you have limited or unreliable internet access.

Of course, using GOG Galaxy does come with its own advantages, like automatic updates, cloud saves, and a unified library. It’s all about what works best for you! Is there any particular reason you're considering playing without GOG Galaxy?