I don't consider it GOG's fault. I think some of it is that GOG has such a small marketshare compared to Steam, that those who are successful on Steam don't want to bother with GOG's small amount of money for the extra work required.

This might be relevant.

That's a gross overexaggeration, pertaining only to the latest releases and the "culture war".

For older games, the higher traffic on the Steam forums simply can't be beat. Game specific forums on GOG are basically dead for all but the most popular games and sometimes, you just want to chat about a game, its mechanics etc, even if you just played it for the first time 20 years after release. And that's just something that won't happen on these forums. Or you get a response from one person 2 years after your initial post. I usually check a game's forums both on GOG and Steam after having finished a game, but I feel like 90+% of GOG users don't really even consider the game specific forums. Neither do most devs though, to be honest.

Compare for example the Dungeon Siege 2 forum on Steam vs the all DS games together forum here on GOG.

So are you here to purchase DRM-free games or not? If you're looking for discussion, even if GOG barely supports that, there's plenty to find on the web as is.

The forum software may be outdated and somewhat clunky, but I'm happier here rather than at Steam precisely because the community here is smaller and tends to be easier to get along with as a result. The forum software is pretty easy once you get accustomed to it.

As for the games, I think we'd all like to see more of the big names here, but you need to talk to the publishers about that, not gog.

Not everyone is going to be happy at gog, and I've learned to accept that. But it works well for my purposes. And for me, gog has enough newer games that I will always have a backlog. I don't need the latest most popular thing. As long as I can get DRM-free installers and download them without using a client, I'll always be happy here. Having any kind of a forum at all for me is really just a bonus. Hell, for my first 5 years or so, I never even used the forum. Just let me buy the game and own my copy and I'm fine.

I'm beginning to see why GOG isn't as intimate with indie developers as I had hoped.
Well, if you want a lack of compassion, I suppose either would suffice.

Thinking gog and other stores don't having similar issues? Gog forcing you to use latest versions unless you have older version saved or using galaxy, and some current gog games don't work properly but previous versions do. What do you thinking happens when staff curating like store is being their personal collection? Forums here are being made dead by design. Less work for staffs that way. This bit is being somewhat hyperbolic I can reading things just fine.

DRM is the way of the world. DRM-Free is the exception.
So GOG are never going to close any gap with Steam.
At best, they can offer an alternate for some games also available at Steam.

The best way to see GOG though, is as a holistic alternative. That means swapping to what games are available at GOG, and forgetting about those that aren't ... unless of course you are happy to use both stores. It is a bit like a Sea Change.

That said, you can of course use Community Wishlists to request games currently missing from GOG, and hope for the best.

GOG offer a lot of DRM-Free games, though many don't have their MP aspect as DRM-Free or even have the MP element available in the GOG version. Depending on your disposition and taste, it is quite easy to be satisfied with games just from GOG, and maybe a few supplements from Itch.io and ZOOM Platform for instance.

Then there are all those free games via EPIC, many of which are DRM-Free Lite, and many are AAA games. It's not that hard to avoid using Steam, and still have access to many many great games. Any issues really depend on whether you just have to have a specific game not available at GOG, or whether the DEV has abandoned their game(s) at GOG.

If that is the only issue you have with Steam, can't you disable auto-updates for your modded games? Some of them may even be playable without the client.

If you were expecting GOG to carry all or even most of the Steam library, I can understand your dismay. However, I have no idea where you even got the idea that would be the case.

Me, I am super-happy when something like Kingdom Come: Deliverence II, Robocop: Rogue City or Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance comes to GOG. Yeah it may feel like mere scraps from the Steam library, but hey if mice can live with scraps falling from the table, so can I!

Being a GOG gamer is a bit like being a Nintendo Switch gamer: sure you will miss lots of AAAA titles, but who cares if you still have lots of interesting games to play? No Cyberpunk 2077 or Elden Ring on Switch? Oh well, I guess they play something else then...

Ah yes, the age-old "It's not GOG it's everyone else" defense.

But as far as the mentioned newest and shiniest AAA(A) games are concerned it is?

I don't get why it's so difficult to understand that the vast majority of the bigger developers and/or publishers don't release here (anymore) because:

They don't like DRM-Free.
They don't like true ownership of digital goods (via GOG's offline installers).
They don't like GOG (for advocating for DRM-Free and true ownership of digital goods).

It's simple, really,

Ownership (you can debate they don't call it that, but for most practical purposes, it is). That is the big draw of GOG. It's the reason I'm here and not on Steam.

For some of us, this overrides all other considerations. Steam probably has a humongous collection compared to GOG. I wouldn't know as I don't buy games there (sometimes, I go over there to get some info about games that are here, but that's it).

At this point, any game that I can't own, I'm not interested in paying money for period (before I built-up my collection here, I might have been interested in a cheap Netflix-like gaming service with a massive collection as that would have seemed fair, but no longer interested in that either and I definitely was never interested in the kind of faux-ownership crookery Steam is offering).

Yes, you can argue I'm missing out on some great games, but there are more great games out there then I'll have time to play. Heck, there are more great games on GOG than I'll have time to play.

However, at this point in time, this is a minority sentiment (most people don't care about that though I think they really should and it will eventually byte them... companies don't stick around forever especially without mutating, not even Steam) and thus, a store whose main differentiating point is to cater to that will also be a minority store. They are still doing okay. They make enough income to pay for staff and be in the green if they play it smart and actually listen to their community. They have over 4k games in there which are more games than you and I will ever have time to play, so...

For the whole community thing, it might be a generational thing, it might be an age thing, but at this point I mostly want to get my gaming fix offline either alone or with real life friends or family. Then, I want to get back to my occupations. I'm not interested in getting sucked into online gaming communities where I start feeling a sense of obligation to spend time there.

On gog's forum, I chime in whenever I have a bit more time, then I'm gone for a while living my life and I don't feel like I'm letting anybody down and that's exactly how I like it.

It is unfortunate GOG can't get more Indies, though that's often out of their control. As for the forums, it depends on what you're looking for. The sub-forums here are less "chatty" than Steam, but if you run into a technical problem, you'll find several of us will often help out with tweaks, etc.

Ok, that's pure bullshit! GoG just lies about having a curation (maybe that was the case a long time ago, but it sure as hell ain't now!), i've witnessed incomprehensible trash being dumped here and genuine scams!

What are you talking about? GoG has been dumping indies (sure, most of them are being low-quality crap) and nothing but indies for months on end! If anything, there's waaay too many indies here!

Seems to be true for many indie developers/publishers - big and small - too, unfortunately.
Granted, back when GOG was much stricter in their curation they might have burned some bridges and thus alienated some developers/publishers for the time being, but the "spectres" of DRM-Free and digital ownership likely do spook the indie segment a fair bit as well.

Perhaps I should have worded it better but GOG's problem isn't "we need to stop acquiring Indies and go after Far Cry 6 and call of Duty Rehash (2025)" (because most EA / Ubisoft / Microsoft AAA's won't be coming here anyway due to DRM). It's "there's often a flood of too many of the same lookalike / playalike released all at once and a distinct shortage of others". Eg, GOG is heavily "weighted" towards almost weekly pixel-art rogue-likes & NSFW games whilst higher-grade modern Myst-like Indie games (made by someone else who isn't Cyan Games) like Neyyah, or 'different' style Indies like Oxygen Not Included, Contrast, Balatro, Plague Inc Evolved, The Stanley Parable, etc), are a lot rarer. Add on the Indie games we lost (eg, Gray Matter, Space Engine, etc) plus missing sequels to original Indies we have here, (eg, Oxenfree 2, FAR Changing Tides, Evil Genius 2, etc). They're all "Indies" but there's a lot with hundreds / thousands of wishlist votes not here despite some people getting burned out on weekly releases of the same sub-genres then blaming "Indies" as a whole.