I've posted this on another topic, but felt like making a new one to show what turned out to be an open letter of sorts.

A brief reminiscing on my history here regarding DRM-Free and the Galaxy client:

I was first sold on Galaxy on the promise of it being optional. I was and am willing to try it's new functionalities and there are things (like achievements) that I've grown to like. But there is a reason I still maintain an up-to-date backup of all my 555 GOG games. Being DRM-Free was, from the very first moment I've heard about Good Old Games way back, one of the main reasons for me to buy here. Heck, I've rebought games once they became available here as I wanted to send a message that DRM-Free should be valued.

Ever since the GOG Downloader stopped being officially supported, GOG has made it increasingly harder to download my installers. We shouldn't have to rely on community tools to do this - if GOG values DRM-Free, it should make it so everyone can easily downloaded the latest (smallest possible, not bloated) versions of their legally acquired games. NOT as it stands right now, digging in hidden menus and doing many clicks for each single game. GOG is still the best place if one cares to own DRM-Free files of their games, but only because the competition is limited in what they offer regarding this (apparently Humble Bundle games are not kept up to date, for example). If making DRM-Free files easily available becomes so low on the list of GOG's priorities - and it's becoming increasingly evident to be the case - then me prioritizing GOG as storefront will also be low on my list. Simple as that.

I had impulse-bought many things on this store, just because it was on GOG. I have bought games I had on pysical media, because it was on GOG (and thus would work better). I have bought games only previously available on Origin or steam, because it was now on GOG. I have saved money for the sales here and there were times I wouldn't even care to check other storefronts. I have bought games here for the simple pleasure of having them on my GOG's digital shelf. I have promoted this place to everyone because it was the best and it deserved more attention - I don't do that as enthusiastically anymore.

If this sounds like a goodbye, is because I feel like saying goodbye. I will stay around, not only because I think we deserve to have updated, unbloated executables of all our games, but because I still have some hope left for them to treat us with better care. But GOG has reached a low point that I could never dream many years ago. It's increasingly harder to justify a purchase here and I'll probably just do it from now on after much deliberation.

Good thing we never have that problem here on GOG.

... Oh, wait.

I agree with most of what you said. The GOG store, as well as its community, used to feel special, but nowadays it feels more like "just another games store". Currently it's still the overall best option for DRM free games, but most of its special perks are already gone. It seems, one step at a time, they're trying hard to be like the competition, while in the process they just make the competition look more and more appealing.

I've considered writing a bit of an open letter myself of sorts, except for different reasons. I'm losing the support I once had for GOG less because of Galaxy (since, as much as I'm on the side of those who don't want to see Galaxy pushed, I never particularly "cared" about GOG that much or had it feel like a store I could really trust - I always viewed it as "just another store" and continue to view it as such, hence I don't feel particularly "hurt" in that regard) and more because of their lack of support for their own community. It increasingly feels as if they're trying to shove us down with PR talk and push us behind a wall (we are, after all, the only part of their userbase who ever actually complains about anything) when they used to treat us as people whose opinions were valued. Granted, we're not always the best people to listen to and we'll often rage at the tiniest thing, but man, does it ever feel like the gap's widening.

Edit: Great, I can feel it coming on just from writing this post. Maybe I should just make up the whole thing...

I'm not sure how often they're updated there but they are updated. Click your E-mail address in the upper right-hand corner, Library and then sort by recently updated. Each entry will tell you the date they were last updated except when a soundtrack or the like is added. In any case, if you know there's an update for a particular game that Humblebundle doesn't have yet then you can ask the developer. Just click the developer's name over the circled arrow and "Download" and you'll be taken to the developer's website.

This is my first time writing here. It's because your post hit too close to home with me. I just wanted to download the newest version of one of my most beloved games an noticed the little text underneath that it now contains the Galaxy client.

I am probably a minority here but my internet connection is really poor. The additional 200 odd Megabyte are a big deal for me. And of course the fact that the previously optional client is now part of the package.

Sure, after digging in the menus I found the regular installer. But GOG has taken a step further to making it mandatory. I really like DRM free games. I've never made a Steam, Origin or Uplay account because of it. And now there will always be this nagging feeling in the back of my head before I buy a game.

Just like you I've bought many games here on impulse. My library consists currently of 299 games. I am now not sure if I want to expand this list even further. I now have to check all my recent downloads if a "tainted" setup made it to my harddisk.

I can't say I am happy about this.

Yeah, it's true... I guess I was still overly optimistic about this one bit. Right on... Goodies are pretty much gone. Games that you can trust will run well because GOG takes care and wouldn't release broken stuff? Gone. DRM-Free is well on its way for a while now... And meanwhile folks of the community, which I've always regarded as one of the nicest gaming communities, are just shrugging it off or even aggressively defending business practices that do not benefit the users one bit. I really feel that too and the recent galaxy-bundled-installers fiasco has been one of the more clear examples to me. What I saw was blues saying they were gonna do this one way or another. But they were supposedly taking into consideration what we said. And so throughout many posts users gave lots of real good, detailed advice, as well as questioning the necessity of bundling Galaxy in the first place. I probably didn't catch all the blue posts, but the final "announcement" (this one doesn't makes the headlines, huh?) from 3 days ago shows me that they weren't willing to do much. Not sure they even bothered to read most of the feedback, sure doesn't feel like it. You should go for it.

This "nagging feeling" was never supposed to come near GOG. It was a haven of sorts, where we knew there were no extra steps or installers between our games. Pay for the game, download the installer, tuck it comfortably in your hard drive and there you go. Now there are many things to worry about. And bloating the installers is a big thing, you're right. Even if most people have good connections, doesn't matter - that's would be the sort of excuse that gives place to single-player always online DRM. The offline installers should be as small as possible, preferably with incremental updates in the form of small patch files and whatnot, so we don't have to keep redownloading big files.

This concern has been voiced by so many active community members, and yet it feels like nobody in the decision making team cares. It feels bad to say so, but it saddens me to see the current state of the site.
I personally feel it is not worth leaving those who stood by you in the past, to cater to those who prefer the ideals and methods of the "competition". True that inclusion of games like Gwent has drawn in newer groups of consumers. Yet I don't feel that is a userbase GOG should rely on from a long term vision.

I wan't to say a lot of things about how I care for the store, its staff, its ideals and philosophy (though I am a quite new user here), but then I don't know if my words are worth anything. :(

What really troubles me is that I fail to comprehend how people who were brave enough to stand against the tide and create a store like GOG are gradually giving up those ideals. It really baffles me.

Ultimately, it is about money. I don't know if they had some ideals at the start. Maybe they did, maybe they were genuine, I don't know. However, if they see bigger money somewhere else than in old games, you bet they will be going that way.

personally i came from a different direction from steam user which i still am without a middle man like steam, Galaxy client, or another system i never play online against other people

i'm with zeogold because all i see is this as another store with classic old games that run

also i'm a achievement hunter which when i found out Galaxy had them i didn't hesitate to change from the downloader

adapt or stay small company there getting a lot more people but for some people they don't see a reason to join gog if it's the same as steam and the only difference is DMR

didn't gog always have that download installer anyways? because i always liked them since i can throttle my download with them and most free ones on the internet was time trials or crappy ones that only let you control 3-4 programs at once. i forget if downloader had that throttle limiter at that time when galaxy came out because it was one of the few reasons why i changed

Personally, I think that they should keep GOG as is and honor the legacy of a DRM-free and gamer-friendly service as well as continue their AWESOME work on bringing us many more classics. Let's face it. Before GOG the publishers always said 'meh no one cares about these old games anymore and it is too much work to make them run on modern systems and the developer does not exist anymore yada yada yada ' ... excuses, excuses, excuses.

Along came GOG and told the publishers to let them have a crack at bringing back the classics and that is why we now have such a nice, big library of GOOD OLD GAMES. One can not value enough what GOG have done here for the gamers. Let us never forget that.

Anyway, I can fully understand if CDP wants to broaden and expand their scope and their market but I don't think they should (ab-)use GOG for that purpose. Why not create a new service called REDnet (or something like that) for the digital distribution of the entire GOG catalogue + whatever other titles including DRM they would like to distribute.
That would be the best course of action IMHO without ruining GOG's legacy.

All the GOG staff had to do was not botch the implementation of this whole thing. If they really wanted the easy approach, a simple checkbox in your installer that activates a stub routine to obtain Galaxy separately. Those who get the installers this way know it exists when they get around to getting the game, but alas. I keep saying those same things because, that's really all I have to say about this.

Which leads us right to this feeling of GOG slowly taking off everything good they had in favor of appealing for more publishers. Again, what is their motivation behind this push of Galaxy? What happens if they 'fail' this push, so to speak?

Well we don't know what kind of messages Support gets. And there are occasional grumblings about GOG on some subreddits (usually about how, supposedly, GOG isn't as good about making sure old games work on new machines as they used to be :P). Well, since it's a business, workers come and go and thus the business vision may evolve. Most notably was when TET left (some have speculated he saw the writing on the wall, I don't know how invested he really was in GOG), then G-Doc and Piotr and probably others. And some of those who have stuck around don't post as often here or can come across as more stressed out when posting (though that may be because we forumites are pretty annoying at times, and not so much because of business changes).

(Of course I'm not saying I necessarily agree with the evolution.)

If they're anything like what we complain about here on the forum, then they obviously ignore most of them.

I'd be willing to bet money that there's more "is this steam?? where s my steam key I ant to play game plzl :(((" than there is actual critique of the site.
What, the Reddit page that has, like, 15 users? The same one that only ever seems to say positive stuff and thought that Galaxy being opt-out rather than opt-in was a good thing? The same one that I'd also be willing to bet that GOG listens to more than they listen to the forum?

r/gog, r/games, r/gamedeals - GOG gets mentioned and discussed there sometimes. I wasn't talking about the opt-in thing, just in general.