For people who don't want to use Galaxy, it is malware.

And the OP's proposal is to force that malware into their installers. That's a truly horrible idea.

Likewise, saying the malware-infested version of the installers, as proposed in the OP, would "check for updates to Galaxy and install them if needed" just makes it even worse malware...since later versions of Galaxy (i.e. 2.0) are much worse than earlier versions (i.e. 1.2).

So therefore, many people who do use Galaxy, still don't want the newer, crappy versions of it shoved down their throats against their will...like the OP is proposing to do with these malware installers.

Yes but those are the same, separate, offline installers that we already have also on the web page. It doesn't decrease much of GOG's workload nor take care of the "parity problem", it they just made it a requirement that one must use the Galaxy client to download those "backup installers".

The only real benefit I can think of would be just pushing the Galaxy client even to non-Galaxy users (ie. simply taking away the ability to download their games from the web pages), but if that really was their motive, then I would consider it a high possibility that their end goal is to get rid of the separately maintained offline installers for good, after some kind of transition period.

I was more thinking if they wanted to make this all more streamlined and simpler so that there would be no separate installers that need to be prepared (but still offer an option to download such separate game installations, whether or not you could download them also with a web browser), just zipping (probably to a self-extracting executable) whatever there is in the Galaxy delivery of the same game. In the Galaxy client itself, it could even be a "backup your installed game" feature similar to Steam's backup feature:

https://support.steampowered.com/kb_article.php?ref=8794-yphv-2033

which would just prepare that zip file or self-extracing executable from the game you have already downloaded and installed. The difference to Steam being that the backed up game wouldn't need the Galaxy client later to be usable, but could be a standalone backup of the game. That same zip/exe could be just as well be offered for download from GOG web pages.

The current offline installers apparently already are very much in the same "format" as the Galaxy-installed games, but at this point they are still separate installers which are prepared and maintained separately from the Galaxy-versions of games, even if they are supposed to be handled mostly automatically.

I would support this, but many on the forum would go apeshit. They refuse to even accept Galaxy as a delivery method for the offline installers.

Obviously. That'd make it no longer optional, and GOG no longer an option in any way, shape or form for clientless gaming. (Still baffled that I need to use that term, when using a client should be the oddity, for those with a particular need of one for some special personal purposes.)
Don't want to, thank you very much. The whole point of a system partition is to have all those things there, separate from other stuff. Like games, that should stay in their own partition. Pissed enough by the fact that they save in various user folders and I need to track down where which is for the backup script, but that can be sorted out with symbolic links if I want them to actually end up in the game's folder. This would require actually moving a system component, and no way, as I said, would defeat the whole purpose.

The vaaaaaast majority of people want the client experience, even on GOG last I heard, so I don't know why you think it should be an "oddity."

The fact that most want something doesn't make it make sense. Usually quite the opposite, people being people...

It's comforting to think you have some special knowledge or reasoning that puts you above most others, but it's much more likely they have valid reasons to prefer what they prefer.

I am on the fence: it depends what options and features such official "downloader" would offer. For instance if it had these, I would run screaming to use it for downloads:

- The ability to mass-download many or even all of your GOG game installers (somewhat like gogrepo.py now).

- Support for p2p so that you are not dependent only on GOG servers' upload capacity, and wouldn't feel bad for mass-downloading your games from GOG content servers.

The overall negative thing would be that I wouldn't be able to download my GOG games on many systems where I can do it now, e.g. Raspberry Pi4. Since Galaxy is currently Windows-only, I could download the games only on x86 Windows... but for me personally that is not a dealbreaker, if such "Windows-only" downloader client would have very enticing features. After all, the old GOG Downloader client was also Windows-only IIRC, and people didn't seem to mind.

Also it is always possible it would still work on x86 Linux with Wine, as a downloader tool at least...

However, if they streamlined the offline installers with the Galaxy versions that way, I don't think it would require that then one can download them only with the Galaxy-client. They could still offer those same self-extracting executable versions of those games on their web pages too. The decision to allow it only through the Galaxy client would be a "political" decision, ie. that they want to push everyone to use it, even if merely to download the offline versions of the games.

I actually tested the Steam backup feature yesterday (on Linux as I happened to be there), and overall it was actually pretty nifty, in that it lets you e.g. divide the backup to parts (you decide the size of the parts), and it lets you backup several of your installed games in one swoop, by selecting several with checkboxes. However, it would still be quite cumbersome to backup e.g. 100 games that way, as you would still have to manually download/install each of those games, one by one, before you can back them up.

But that could be changed of course, e.g. already before installing the games, you could mark games in your account with checkboxes and then click "backup", which would download and compress all your selected games, one by one. You'd just need to wait for it to complete.

Well, here we go into semantics, whether "clientless gaming" includes also the delivery part, not just playing the game.

Like I have argued many times before, the old GOG Downloader, and a web browser, used for GOG game downloads, were clients too. There has to be some kind of software to deliver (download) the game to you, there is no way around that.

Not that I don't like the current approach where I can use ANY web browser client to download my GOG games, or even special-purpose third-party clients like gogrepoc.py or lgogdownloader. But no matter what kind of client I would have to use to download my games, in the end what matters to me the most is that I can use the downloaded game (install/decompress and play) without online clients, like Galaxy (or my web browser; I wouldn't be any more happier if my single-player GOG games would always require me to log into some online account with my web browser, just in order to launch and play a game).

You really do despise Linux users with this incessant "Forcing Galaxy for downloads should be acceptable to everyone", don't you?...

I keep hearing random claims about its vaaaaaast popularity that but have never seen any actual facts that weren't pulled out of someone's rear. Back in the "We're planning to sell Epic Games via Galaxy" thread, a moderator claimed in the first post "Since its launch, the most requested new feature has been the option to buy games not only from GOG.COM, but from other platforms as well, straight from the GOG GALAXY app.". So many people (tm) wanting DRM'd Epic games on Galaxy eh? Back in the real world, a quick look on GOG's feature wishlist on the same day showed just 3 people wishlisted it. Not 3,000 or 300. Literally just 3 people (vs 60,000 "continue to be a DRM-Free store"). Three.

In addition to that, when GOG introduced the "unbundling" (splitting bundled store games into separate boxes in our libraries required by Galaxy), they also claimed that this was "one of the most requested features". Yet again, at the time, the relevant wishlist item had just 17 votes. Seventeen. With "statistical disparities" (putting it politely) like that even coming from GOG officials themselves, I seriously doubt any user who claims to know "what most people want" without ever doing some actual poll of some kind, and I think you need to stop being so naive and falling for every piece of viral marketing under the sun. As for the "irrational" fear, with glorious official statements like this from "Verified GOG accounts" opening promoting the sale of DRM'd games on GOG, it's about as "irrational" as not wanting to jump off a cliff for fear of getting hurt...

Of course it does. If you can't obtain it, you can't play it.
Never touched the Downloader either, and a browser isn't something specific for GOG, it's a general purpose tool that GOG adapts to use, not the other way around. Also, the user-made scripts and tools in existence prove that a browser isn't actually required either, but just a means to interact with GOG servers, which can be even custom made by those with the required skills. If a specific piece of software is required (yes, even if it'd get to the point where only a specific browser would be required and those custom tools would all stop working), then we have the store tied to a client that's no longer optional.
The difference between required to obtain the game and required to play is for me the difference between completely unacceptable and worse. Irrelevant. Once something is unacceptable, the fact that worse things exist doesn't make it less so.

Why is it "much more likely they have valid reasons to prefer what they prefer" just because they are great in number? Unless I'm misunderstanding, that sounds fallacious. And, ifanything, given social dynamics of how so many people just "follow the crowd" without perhaps doing a deep dive into what is best for themselves, wouldn't the more people agreeing on something tend to indicate that they do not have valid reasons?

On the topic of DRM itself, most people just accept it and don't really question it. Yet, if hypothetically there was a clean slate with no historical baggage of Scheme, no social peer pressure, etc, it doesn't seem clear why anyone would choose DRM over no DRM. That is, all else equal, if a game is completely identical across two versions but for that one version includes DRM, why would anyone choose the DRM version?

When it comes to the client, this thing is advertised ad nauseum. If it's so desired, why is there such a push for it and everything defaulting to it? Remember, according to your post, if the people who don't want the client do not have any special knowledge or reasoning, then they are equal to the ones who don't want it. In that case, the ones who do want the client are just as smart and have no need for tactics like hiding the offline installers out of view.

Many of you are still not understanding my proposition and many of you still haven't read my first post properly or my other replies.

In fact, it seems some of you seem to be purely responding to the title of this thread, without reading the first post at all, or certainly not in its entirety or diligently. Slow down, read properly, follow the FULL logic, and don't be ruled by your bias against Galaxy, making you blind.

What unrequested third-party software in the game installers?
I suggested none. I haven't suggested anything that doesn't exist in the installer now, other than a tiny bit of code taken from the current stub, modified to be a query about downloading Galaxy or not.

I'm not going to endlessly repeat myself. I have already responded to most of what is being brought up ... possibly all.

Believe it or not, what I am suggesting would be doing all of a us a favor ... if you only had the wit to understand.

No idea what you are talking about here.
The way I remember it, was you could go to your library and download an installer that included Galaxy or an Offline Installer that didn't. Now of course, the Galaxy variant is just a stub file, but once upon a time it was more than that until complained about.
There was a period where some claimed that Galaxy was included in some Offline Installers as well, but dormant ... but I never saw any proof of that.

I am not suggesting they do.
If using Galaxy, it would be as seamless as now.
If using the Galaxy option on the online library web page, they would get an installer instead of a stub file, but in practice it wouldn't prove that different. Something has to download the full game. What matters for the Galaxy user, is whether Galaxy takes over the install process, which it would for them. The same files and roughly the same amount of time would be the result.

What Galaxy does now and what Galaxy could do are two different things.

You are just not getting it.
Galaxy and the Offline Installer are using the same source.
In reality, it is not that different to what occurs overall now, just about how that source is being managed.
Both Galaxy User and Offline User end up with the same game files, as they do currently.

---------------------------------------------------------------------

Okay, now that at least some of you probably fully understand what I am suggesting GOG do about game installers, let me just mention the one true objection GOG might have - facility for rollback.

As has been mentioned elsewhere, Galaxy installing gets priority, and really to be perfectly honest, another instance of preferential treatment, by allowing version rollback if the gamer wishes to do so. This means they GOG don't really need to oversee and check an update, which is part of the problem with Offline Installer updates, where they feel they need to, before they are released to us.

With only one installer type for a game, as in my suggestion, they would need to offer older version download links, so that we the Offline Users could also rollback, independent of Galaxy. In a nutshell, giving us access to what Galaxy currently has access to. That means GOG would not need to oversee an Offline Installer update, before it it becomes available to us.

Clearly, GOG currently don't want to give access to older versions, or a previous version, to those who don't use Galaxy. No doubt they see it as one of their selling points for Galaxy.

We should all really be complaining about the preferential treatment Galaxy installing and Galaxy users get. If there is something truly worthy of a boycott, it should be that.

This "tiny bit of code" is unrequested. Its only purpose would be to install unrequested software.

People who want to use Galaxy already have it installed, or would go through the Big Button™ GOG so conveniently provides to trick their users into installing Galaxy whether they want it or not.

No. It would have no effect on Galaxy users, and only downsides for those of us who do not want to use Galaxy.

Nice, so insults it is now. I guess this is all you have left.

---

Well, if it turns out this way, what would be the remaining difference between GOG and Steam?
Fewer games and late updates? Not a strong selling point ;)

Clearly you don't have the wit to see, as you keep repeating the same stuff without thinking it through.

If you consider that an insult, be my guest. It wasn't meant to insult you, it was meant to inspire you to think more deeply.

What about the insult to me by lazy readers not showing the respect they should ... just being negative for the sake of it or because they can't overcome their biases.

I've covered every objection that has been brought up, but you wouldn't know it by the continuing responses.

Sometimes, I just don't know why I bother. I was actually trying to be helpful.

Some of you seem blindly dedicated to throwing the baby out with the bath water, no matter what.
The negativity here truly astounds me at times.

It's the big picture that really matters, not the little ones that many keep bringing up.
Follow the logic through from start to finish.
And instead of treating my proposition as a dumb idea, like so many have, show some wit by overcoming your objections yourself.
Clearly the current status quo isn't working.
So how about suggesting something reasonable that GOG might just pay attention to and consider doing.