I'm totally fine with downloadable patch installers. But then again I'm totally old school. :D

I wouldn't mind an auto-updater if it is optional. Optional being the key word. I hate the forced autoupdates Steam way (I know you can turn them off - I just forget to do it sometimes, having to do it separately for every game): Ahh, I have about half an hour, how about I play that game.. oh look it's downloading a huge patch.. guess I won't play it then, thanks.

Downloadable patch.exes are a must for the whole "DRM free" thing: that way you can save all the necessary files to your HD or burn to a DVD, to play the latest version of the game many years from now without any connection to GOG server or game developers server.

GOG having a delay for the patches.. well I honestly don't know about that since I rarely play games close from launch anyway.

I would be fine with that, as long as it is optional and an offline patch, or at least an updated offline installer, is always provided on top of that by default.

So none of that shit like with Rise of Legends, where I certainly can install the game from my retail CDs, but the only option to update the game would be to use the autoupdater from within the game... except that of course the update servers have been taken down a long time ago already. And of course the developer never made an offline patch for that game, at least to the latest version (not sure if they made any).

Fortunately some pirates then made a RoN patch of their own, gathering the missing updated files into a compressed file which you have to install with a .bat file. I was sure to back up that offlne patch because at least that place where I originally downloaded it over a year ago is also offline now. These things would disappear for good unless heroes/dinosaurs like me occasionally archive them to our local repositories.

So to GOG: yeah please expand the current GOG Downloader Client with an optional auto-update to appease the people who want more Steam-like experience, but please always keep also offline patches and/or updated offline installers.

I completely agree, that's true. Even more the information policy, they tell you about updates, but there is no log nor any other function to determine if your games can be updated at a later time which is very disappointing.

They are just very much behind in this department and it's a reason not buy games from here that might be updated often. Unfortunately many modern games are.

Just to bring an example. Witcher 3 will surely be updated heavily in the first year. With the current working of GOG the most convenient solution is to wait for a year and then download it completely and then install and play. But then there isn't any reason to buy before this time. At this time the price has already dropped and the profit for CDP also. If the updates would be going more automatically and more timely some users could see this as reason to buy earlier when prices are still higher and profit for CDP also.

It's just sad to see that technologically they are so much behind and cannot create a working synchronization and update tool. I mean optional automatic synchronization of the installer repository and differential patching of the installers so sending only the differentials over the wire and automatic notifications if something is ready to upgrade as well as a one click solution for starting the upgrade process. This are all standard technologies.

Anyway, I guess in 10 years people will be complaining "Dowloading/installing games? Are you insane? With OnLive I just log in and I can play any game in an instant, out of thousands of titles!". There's a point in that, but I'll probably continue being such a dinosaur that I still prefer downloading and installing my games separately, instead of just streaming them.

I've personally always found e.g. playing console games where you have to swap CDs/DVDs in order to play different games much more work than having to patch a digital (PC) game with an offline patch.

Also, just demonstrating why I feel there should always be also a clientless option for installing (and updating) games: I earlier thought the Humble Bundle Android client is pretty nifty, how it automatically checks for updates, tries to stay alert of which games you have installed and whether they are up to date, etc.

But it turns out that client is still both buggy and far too restricted for my use, like:

- Sometimes it just seems to forget that I have already installed certain Android games, and offers to download and re-install them, sometimes in an endless loop. I can usually fix this only by uninstalling that game manually, and redownloading/installing it with the client again.

- The client insists on downloading and keeping the .apk installers (which it checks for whether there is a newer version available at HB servers) on the main memory of my Android tablet. That is a bit of problem because the main internal memory of my tablet is only 16GB, while the external microSD memory is 32GB, almost empty.

So fortunately that client is indeed fully optional, so for now I have chosen to download the .apk installers manually from HB servers, and keeping them stored on the 32GB memory and installing them directly from there instead (the games get installed to the internal 16GB memory, but at least there is now much more free room on the internal memory, as the installers are elsewhere).

Also as the client tried to make things simpler, it also makes things harder unless you do everything exactly as it expects. So, let's say you don't want to keep the installers around, at least in your tablet's internal memory. Maybe you want to move them elsewhere, or remove them altogether (and just keep the games installed). Naturally the HB client doesn't really support anything like that, you'll have to find out manually where it hides the .apk installers, and then the client seems to get a bit confused if it doesn't find the .apk installers anymore on the default place.

So, I'm working manually for now with my HB Android games, until HB radically improves the client. And I hope they still keep it optional.

I am actually pretty happy with the current update system on GOG. What they need to implement is a system that really tracks the status of what you have had downloaded the last time. I mean the notification system should not simply say that there is a new patch, but also tell you what you have downloaded already. What I also find irritating most of the time is that the GOG-patches nearly always have different build revision numbers than the developers version is, although they mean the same revision in the end.
I usually do not keep all of my games installed which seems to be the case for most people that argue that Steam's patching-solution is the best. Neither from GOG, nor from Steam, I will usually uninstall games that I do not play over a longer time. So I basically will download the latest installer anyway when I chose to play a game again. I keep some GOG installers (not all of them) offline as an archive, but I always check the actual download version with the offline-installer in case there was an update in between the last time I downloaded it.

In my opinion, we can not blame GOG for this situation at all though because the patching-system of Steam is actually one of their biggest plus for developers if you trust them on their words when it comes to why some developers are Steam-exclusive these days.
So even if GOG would introduce a patch-system like Steam, there would still be a release-delay because, well, we here at GOG are simply the second-class citizens of digital distribution. Why do you think the developers would suddenly change their mind and release the patches faster only because the patch-system was similar to Steam? This would only work if the patch system was not only similar, but the same, which is totally impossible. If it was not the same, the developers will still have to create different builds for every distribution platform which is obviously the reason that holds back patches from being released at the same time everywhere.

In my opinion the best solution is for us to have the developers own auto-patching system in their game launchers. The Witcher 2 did so, also Battle Worlds: Kronos does and many others. For GOG, this makes it more necessary though to update the downloadable installers to the latest version from time to time. What also does not work for the user, is picking a certain revision of a patch after a clean installation, at least as long as you do not happen to have downloaded the binary installer at a certain point from GOG that has this certain revision. Although that is a luxury problem which you will never have on Steam for example anyway because Steam will always install the latest version of a game, no matter what version you install a game from. Steam-patching system is just horrible in most aspects, except that it works basically automatic in a sense that you will never miss a patch.
A launcher-based, developer controlled patch-system makes the patching-process independent from any client-based systems like Steam and is the only workable solution for a parallel release of a patch I could think of. The downside is for the developers that they will have to create their own auto-patcher for their games themselves, so no fancy Steam-solution out of the box. Oh I can see many devs cry about the costs of a patch-system without using the Steam-framework, we will rarely see them doing it because only the rich devs can afford it. ;-)

After my dreadful experience with Hotline Miami I stopped buying new games from GOG.
Waiting 3 weeks - 2 months for essential patches that are already available elsewhere and make the game work is unacceptable.

The developers are to blame for taking so long to provide the executables, but GOG is not without a fault too. Their patching process is just a lot more cumbersome for the developers than Steam.

There's probably a lot other different aspects to it too, but from a gamer perspective, buying indies from GOG in the first three months since release is asking for trouble.

Nah, I bought Speedball 2 HD on release and got the patch from GOG pretty quickly (which fixed the resolution change bug which caused the game to fail at launch on some systems, mine included).

And considering GOG's recent 30-day money back guarantee, I'd expect GOG to keep pushing patches faster and faster from indie developers. So if you feel you are getting too much trouble from your non-working GOG game, at least you get your money back, if GOG fails to deliver in a given time. Quite the opposite of "asking for trouble".

Could be mainly because the developers simply put more priority on the Steam patch, and don't even start working on the GOG patch before the Steam patch is finished. A bit like why GTA games coming to PC takes a damn sweet time, it isn't really because developing for PC is a lot more cumbersome but because of lower priority (albeit it may be somewhat more cumbersome, mainly for increased Q&A for different PC configurations, not necessarily the coding in itself as long as you are familiar with PC game development).

Just another reason why optional game client is A NECESSITY. But knowing the speed of GOG staff work, we will see fully functional client in 2020.

Well, yes, I do agree this is probably the case and that's what I meant by cumbersome - more work, being familiar with PC game development (and, oh, some indies certainly aren't). What worries me is that it's probably very difficult to change.

Also, it's definitely nice when GOG patching works (as in the example with Speedball, you mentioned). Installing patches at my own convenience would be preferable, but I don't see it being universally possible in the future.

Desura might not be perfect, but it handles patching better than anything else right now.

Yes, i agree with you. That's exactly why i mentioned it. I mean, DRM-free and auto-patching do not exclude each other. You can have a good optional client with auto-patching while keeping DRM-free, like Desura.

Like the Steam offline mode doesn't always work. Or Steam cloud saves, one of my Valve games (could be Half-life IIRC) still tries to unsuccessfully sync the saves every time I log in to Steam.

Still, naturally the offline mode and cloud saves are nice when they work, but that is not enough.

*shrug* and it gets lots of complaints. And it needs to be improved, much the same as with GoG's patching system.

This has nothing to do with the argument. In Poland we call this fallacy "And in Africa they beat the negroes" (I know, racist).

Steam needs improvement, that's obvious. A lot of things on steam need the improvement. But it has nothing to do with what GOG should work to improve.