At this point nothing is compelling about it.

No, nothing. Total air. You can download through browser. If you really need to know your game time, buy a stopwatch. If you want achievements, get a job. If you want a social life, there is a thing called the real world. Total waste of resource in an attempt to draw in the steam/origin crowd.

Unless you want to do multiplayer in Galaxy multiplayer games, or have your playtime tracked, or get achievements, or want to roll back your game to a previous patch version.

Other than that, sure, it's optional ;)

Since it doesn't do a reliable job of those features, I'd say it's very optional.

There is still gotcha with the force-import feature. I tried that process on maybe 50 games I had installed pre-galaxy. If Galaxy can recognize the game with top-left + button, there is a good chance that it won't have to download anything additional. Or, it will say that "the version you are currently on is no longer available" in the game details, but will let you keep it that way (you have to go to configuration and enable manual updates to see it, I guess that if you don't Galaxy will eventually decide to update it automatically, but I never let it get that far).

Using the other way to import, there is good chance that it will decide to download the whole game. And there is no way to uncheck automatic updates until the download completes and you get to the configuration screen. If you need to worry about your data cap, you should watch the import process, and when "downloading 20/20GB" appears, you have the option to cancel it. It seem Galaxy won't touch your game folder until the download completes, so it should be safe.

Just tried it on some oldies to be sure it wasn't fixed yet. Divinity 2 - wasn't recognized, importing folder did work and didn't seem to download anything. Both Kings Bounty Legend and Crossworlds were not recognized, and downloaded the whole game when force-imported from library. I made backup of Crossworlds before doing the import, and only thing different are new __redist and _lang folders, about 400MB - nowhere near the 5.7GB downloaded.

Except it isn't a total waste of resources if the increase of income from customers more than weighs up the cost of developing the thing, and more customers on GOG makes it more compelling for publishers to release their games here. Do remember, us forum regulars are a quite small minority, and even then, quite a few of us to enjoy the combined download-and-install of Galaxy.

I would actually welcome a quality GOG client that would let me manage all my purchased games, as long as it's not too intrusive or bloatware. Things I'd like include a categorisation of games into "completed", "backlog" etc. similar to what they introduced for the virtual shelf. I don't chase achievements, but some games implement them well so that feature is nice to have. It's just that I've been reading a lot of complaints about Galaxy on the forums, and that has prevented me from downloading it. Maybe once it goes out of beta and they fix the biggest annoyances.

Two words.

Automatic Updates.

The best thing about Galaxy is that GOG isn't forcing me to use it.

There are two groups of gamers here at GOG: those who are here almost entirely for the old games, and those who are here for the lack of DRM but buy plenty of indie games. Galaxy is built for those in the second group... it automates a lot of the things that make downloading indie titles a bit more annoying (larger file sizes requiring multi-part downloads, far more frequent updates, DLC management) in a very Steam-esque way, without ever being required and without ever locking down anything it installs (IE, you can install and update through Galaxy, decide you don't want to use it anymore, and your game will still be there and functional as always).

For the people who bought the Forgotten Realms set, with its collection of games all weighing in at 20 megs each and running on DOSBox, the appeal of an automated download+installation process and automatic updates is fleeting at best. For the people who bought the first episode in a Telltale Games series and want to play the rest as it comes out, there's a lot more to justify it.

And the nice thing is that both approaches, and groups of gamers, are being accounted for without stepping on anyone's toes.

Not entirely true. I buy a lot of games here, new old doesn't matter. Its zero hassel to download things and backup/patch. Once you start doing it regularly, it is simple. Just bone idleness really, typical of the cheap throwaway culture we have nowadays. Back in my day it was a moment to buy the new game and we played it to death, age of nodding, knowing everything about it. Nowadays they spew.out the new games 10 to the dozen and no-one puts any effort in.

Anyways, why bother discussing it, we are in different camps. Use it if you want, I am only here until it becomes totally optional.

I don't use it because I have no interest in achievements, multiplayer, or recording how much time I've spent playing the game. And I download my GOGs through my browser without a problem.

I suppose the only reason I would consider it is if it acted as a cloud to save/load games from. For instance, I'm currently playing GeneForge 3 on my PC. But if I were to go on vacation, it'd be nice if I could take my laptop with me & load my previous game from the Galaxy and play it while I'm away. Of course, I suppose I could just download the game itself to both devices, and then copy the save folder over. That would work too.

Ah yes, I remember the halcyon days of such classics as the Skunny series, (Literally) Impossible Mission, Puck-Man, CD Man, PC-Man, anything ever put out by Acclaim or Accolade, and 90% of the Atari 2600 library. Please, video games have always been a case of digging through dirt to find the diamonds, and for everything that's great you've got dozens (at least) of garage company tripe made to cash in on a recent big release or another half-baked puzzle game nobody actually played. The clones and distribution might look different today, but don't fool yourself into thinking that it was all gold when you were a kid.

I will never understand the grognard mentality of "thing is easier than thing used to be, therefore thing bad and casual now." Yes, I remember the memory acrobatics required to get Ultima VII working back in the day. I also remember how nice it was when it came out on GOG and I bought it, installed it and played it with no additional futzing about required. That's one of the core appeals of this site, and one of the things "abandonware" communities used to make fun of until they realized that nobody actually cared. If someone finds an automated downloader easier, then it's a good thing GOG is offering one. For the rest of us, the website remains as it always has and likely always will. I'm not understanding the vitriol.

“Times are bad. Children no longer obey their parents, and everyone is writing a book.”
― Marcus Tullius Cicero

YES!!! I 100% agree.