Posted July 21, 2023
Though, My problem w/ a lot of clients is - I own so many games on them, besides the client being slow, it's even slower b/c it's gonna load the tons of games I own. Even my GOG Galaxy is so bogged-down b/c I tied a lot of my other accounts and whatnot too it. Epic's Store is probably the slowest now, even slower than Origin. Even EA App seems to go faster than Epic for me.
In many instances, for games on GOG and Epic - it's always easier if I'm using a client, just to go use Heroic. That client's way faster and I only got Epic and GOG games tied to it.
Even me... I used to only use Galaxy for new games that updated often. Everything else I used the offline installer. Lately though I'm just defaulting to using Galaxy for everything. Why? It's easier and more convenient to use, simple as that. Thankfully I can still backup the offline installer in case GOG ever shuts down, which is the whole appeal of the store.
One benefit to me about GOG's installers are - I can download these; store them; and install games if I'm offline. Pretty easy and useful for that. Pretty useful for stuff I don't want to use updates on (which I always disable in Galaxy) and just stay away from Galaxy. I'd still rather use Heroic, TBH - just runs and works better, as a client-app.
Though, to me - usually using offline installers is also a good idea when a game's no longer updated anymore and no longer getting DLC's/expansions officially. They (dev's and pub's) are flat-out DONE w/ doing anything. So, you can just install using installers when offline and not ever deal w/ stuff - think stuff like Deus Ex: Human Rev Director's Cut.
Galaxy and client-app's can be useful for installing game that are still active - games still getting updates, games still getting DLC's/expansions, and stuff of that sort. Think something like Cyberpunk.
Right, Steam has tons of features - but, many are tied to Steamworks and/or where that acts as Soft-DRM as sorts (i.e. you need to be online to use those Steam-Features) and/or can be proprietary stuff, which makes the Steam-version the one to get in most instances. Controller-Support for numerous types of gamepads, Steam Achievements, Cloud Saves, Steam Community and Steam Friends List, Big Picture Mode, Steam Remote Play Mode, and more - that stuff's useful while a game's active and while you're likely still online & into social aspects - but if you want to say go offline and if the game's got actual DRM on Steam-version, that doesn't help there. So, sometimes I do feel...I need both Steam-version for online and GOG (or another DRM-Free version) so I run the game when I need to go offline.
