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Kakarot96: And what about direct installers without Galaxy? I mean, maybe they can do the same but they will need to create specific installers that would be there for 1 or 2 days and then they will have to change them again to the 'normal' ones. More work and more complicated, imo.

Anyway, i think they will have to do that to the exe file for it to work, and will be the same as to add DRM. Also, it would be the devs doing that work, it cannot be GOG themselves (not with this DRM-free system). I think that if GOG starts to ask publishers and devs that kind of extra work, it probably will mean less actual games released here.

It's not an easy solution, imho. Maybe GOG don't have pre-load, but has other advantages that Steam lacks. It's a matter of choice: drm-free or being able to pre-load? For me, it's an easy choice even if i have to wait until the release.
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eisberg77: They did a pre-load with Witcher 3 on GoG. It was missing files so it wouldn't work till release day.
Yes, that is a better solution, but even that will be a problem for the "classic" installers. On release you will need the pre-load installers, the normal installers and a patch file for the first ones to complete the files. A bit complicated, also. I don't know/remember what happened with Witcher 3, maybe they just did that with the Galaxy version without any other kind of installers until release? That will surely solve any problems related to the "classic" installers.
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eisberg77: They did a pre-load with Witcher 3 on GoG. It was missing files so it wouldn't work till release day.
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Kakarot96: Yes, that is a better solution, but even that will be a problem for the "classic" installers. On release you will need the pre-load installers, the normal installers and a patch file for the first ones to complete the files. A bit complicated, also. I don't know/remember what happened with Witcher 3, maybe they just did that with the Galaxy version without any other kind of installers until release? That will surely solve any problems related to the "classic" installers.
If I remember right Witcher 3 for installers was missing the program to unpack the the .bin iles, so it was missing the executable to begin the install process, also the .bin's were missing important files that would be needed to run the game. Then on day 1, one other .bin, which was rather small was added plus the executable for the installers which was rather small as well. Not problematic at all.
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Kakarot96: Yes, that is a better solution, but even that will be a problem for the "classic" installers. On release you will need the pre-load installers, the normal installers and a patch file for the first ones to complete the files. A bit complicated, also. I don't know/remember what happened with Witcher 3, maybe they just did that with the Galaxy version without any other kind of installers until release? That will surely solve any problems related to the "classic" installers.
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eisberg77: If I remember right Witcher 3 for installers was missing the program to unpack the the .bin iles, so it was missing the executable to begin the install process, also the .bin's were missing important files that would be needed to run the game. Then on day 1, one other .bin, which was rather small was added plus the executable for the installers which was rather small as well. Not problematic at all.
Exactly this ^^. Just have all files available in the installer except the exe and/or the exe to actually run the installers. Then release the missing bit(s) on release day (e.g. the exe installer + possibly game exe as another small .bin). No changes are required for any of the installer files (for that version) either pre or post release (just some are missing pre release).
A missing file works just like any other patch. Those without GOG Galaxy still use patches to update version number, right? The preload version would be something like version 0.99 and then update with a tiny patch up to version 1.0. If the User did not want to bother with this they could just wait until release day and download the full version 1.0 to begin with. It is extra work for the developers, but not much extra work. They already do patches all the time and this would be one of the easiest and simplest patches to create. Total extra development time would probably be about one hour to both create the patch and verify that it works properly. That is still a nonzero amount of time and some would prefer not to bother with it but some would do it. The alternative is to just not have a preload for the GOG version which appears to be what they did in this case.