Whenever I debate GOG vs other services with people I know, 2 main criticisms have been brought up:

1) Steam is more convenient

2) Steam has more newer games

I think a single programmer with the right skillset could do it within a month. It's not nothing, but it's not gargantuan either.

I don't use Steam, but I have over 600 games on GOG and they roll the updates fairly consistently.

Updating them manually can be a chore (even when using the downloader, I need to delete the old file and initiate each download manually, plus I need to juggle the tool between 2 external hard drives).

Also, whenever I do a reformat of my hard drive, tracking down the the location of all my save games for different games can be mildly annoying as by the time I reformat, I'll have gone through at least 30 games. This is a pre-GOG issue that has been annoying me for years and then it hit me I could actually do something about it for myself.

Use 1 client with more optional features.

I honestly think you're overplaying the complexity of client-side development.

I'm not saying it's trivial, but it's a lot simpler then designing a rock-solid server-side.

My point was aimed at steam users that may want the same kind of client from gog, that would be 2 clients running. And then you can add gamestop, origin, and Uplay (do they have a client ?) on top of that.

I agree that I am certainly very cautious in my estimations, but in all fairness I didn't speak in details about the features embedded in the hypothetical client (just that it would have more functionalities than a folder full of shortcuts).

Edit: now that I think of it, have you in mind a launcher like Blizzard does when you speak about client ? Because when I think client I have something like Steam in mind : a micro browser with the store, the frontpage and all the impending security.

Pretty much how I feel as well.

Why does this matter? Why do you care?

Why do you care that I care ?

Sorry for the stupid answer, but you asked for it. See previous post.

I have:

Steam client
Origin client
Desura client
UPlay client
Big Fish client
Wild Tangent client

and maybe a couple more I do not remember the name of right now...

I only start those who I need to to play the games. I would have no problems having a gOg client managing my gOg games also.

I prefer to have 10+ clients to manage instead of 1000+ games to manage.

I'm obviously misunderstanding you because I keep thinking you're talking about is exactly what I have in Windows 7.
On the Start Menu, under All Programs is a Group called Gog.com with every gog game I have installed there, with links to readmes, manuals, setup utilities, etc. Is there another Start Menu that I'm not aware of or am I misunderstanding what the Start Menu is??

I tried to take a snipping tool screen of it, but as soon as I click on the snipping tool (or anything else for that matter) the Start Menu disappears.

Try opening the command prompt as administrator (in the Start menu, start typing "command prompt" and, when it appears, right click it and select "Run as administrator") and using the prompt to enter the following two commands:
regsvr32 -u c:\windows\system32\gameux.dll
regsvr32 -u c:\windows\SysWOW64\gameux.dll

That should disable Games Explorer on your computer. Hopefully it will stay disabled, but updates or other might conditions might bring it back occasionally.

Oh I already read through all of your posts, and while you clearly display some concern, I'm still trying to figure out for what.

I'm not trying to attack you, quite the contrary, I just want to understand why having multiple clients is in your opinion a bad thing.

From what I can tell, there really isn't a cause for concern. If someone wants multiple clients, then so be it.

Thanks for the tip!

I do the exact same thing. It's simple and it works like a charm. I neither want nor have any use for a game launcher.

It's a great idea that has been discussed quite a lot on the forums over a long period of time. I wont be the least bit surprised to see GOG create such a launcher eventually or even integrate such functionality directly into the installer as there is heavy demand for it. There are however a lot of people out there with irrational fears that if GOG creates any code of any kind whatsoever to do anything to improve the gaming experience for their customers in an optional way, that this is a "slippery slope" that will turn GOG into Steam and they equate "Steam == DRM" which basically is an irrational view that if GOG does anything at all whatsoever to provide customers who want it with an optional tool to make their life more convenient, that GOG will turn into Steam.

I for one certainly hope that GOG does not allow this irrational mindset to control or prevent them from innovating their platform to provide such optional features to people who would love to see them. People who do not want to have such features can simply ignore that they exist and never use them and everyone is happy.

The entire userbase of GOG customers shouldn't be punished to never see any innovation from GOG due to the irrational fears of a small minority of highly vocal people. If GOG can't be trusted to do such an optional thing by such people, then I wonder why they are GOG customers to begin with now if they don't trust them with such things.

Not only do I welcome a "GOG client" with open arms, I think it is a great idea and will attract 1000 times as many customers to shop at GOG.com than the minority of people who go into a rage about an optional feature they never need to use or care about and stop being a customer here. People take things too seriously and get far too emotional over this stuff. There are pills for that. ;o)

Continued from my post above....

gog member Martek taught me how to take a snipping tool screenshot so it's attached below.

If this is what you're talking about, and yours isn't doing it, is it possible that having the gog downloader installed first, and thus initially creating the Start Menu group Gog.com, why mine does have a program group for gog games??? I'm on Windows 7, 64-bit Home Edition.

I wouldn't call it an irrational fear. For myself, it's more of a KISS thing. If we can accomplish the same thing with a simple drag-and-drop into a couple folders with shortcuts that directly launch the games, then I find that preferable to a client that does the exact same thing but that also adds a bit more to the registry, gets updated periodically to fix this or that bug, etc.

But hey - so long as it's completely optional then I suppose I don't really care unless it DOES shift things, that are separate from the client, toward a more Steam-like experience.

I understand the appeal but I'm an old-school gamer from the DOS days of boot disks, but from modern-day experience I also understand that streamlining this stuff can end up being more messy than just doing it with the tools already present within the OS.