Well, the last patch "overworld shroud/fog of war patch addition and dungeon improvements" for Breach and Clear Deadline from the 23rd November 2015 has still not reached GOG. This sometimes make me think if I should buy newly released games at all at GOG. Although I am not sure if it is GOGs fault or the Devs/Pubs, probably a mix of both.

Or it is the exhaustive testing oO. More than 3 months to test a patch....

For me personally, it depends on two things:

1. What does "waaay later" mean exactly? A couple days later than Steam? Meh. Several months later? Yeah, what's the hold-up?

2. Is it a single or multiplayer game? For multiplayer games timely updates tend to be more important (at least if lacking them means that others will play a newer version, and you can't play against them; I guess this is relevant only with crossplay games?), but with single-player games I can afford to wait a few days or even a week or two, unless it is a game breaking bug that will surely hit me and prevent me playing further.

Then again this affects me less because I tend to play games quite a long time after their original release, so it is not like they are getting new updates frequently anymore. Like Freespace Silent Threat I am playing right now, I bet it hasn't received new updates for ages. :)

Even for newer games, I prefer to play them when all the expansion packs and DLCs are already available and important updates delivered, just to get the best possible and complete experience, instead of the broken 1.0 or even 0.8beta experience.

This is rather ridiculous.

Firstly, the patches now tend to be smaller, which means they require less testing. Less as in less, not no testing. Steam requires no testing or verification at all. Not even that the patches apply cleanly. Hopefully the dev does adequate testing because Steam doesn't have anything to do with it.

Secondly, that's not a legitimate solution when something erases your saves or otherwise damages them. Or just adds things that prevent you from using a save from a newer version with an older copy.

Lastly, people bitch about just about everything. The people bitching about that and threatening to leave for steam weren't terribly dedicated to GOG in the first place. How many of those folks are going to continue buying here even if their demands are met?

And yes, this is rather ridiculous, but I'm not the one being silly.
Obviously that's ridiculous, and I suspect the hold up there is that they haven't gotten the patch at all. Changing their standards is unlikely to affect cases like that.

I would say, at least in the case of Indev games that autopatching through Galaxy will and should be the norm. If you don't want to deal with regular patching you probably shouldn't be picking up an Indev game.

It's also a great way to slowly get people used to autopatching and the client (those that aren't already). As long as they provide rollbacks and optional autopatching that would seem fine.

As for the standalone installers, is anyone really thinking those are ever going to be updated anywhere near the same rate as Steam? They won't be, ever. It's just not possible to compare to autopatching, and that's where GOG is going with Galaxy. I imagine installers will be updated every now and then if there's regular patching, or if there happens to be some critical gamebreaking things then on special occasions. Other than that, if you want to be up to date, using the client will certainly be the way to go. Devs pushing out their own updates is the logical next step.

Um, no quite the opposite is happening actually. Patches tend to be much larger as far as size now for newer games because games are A) being rushed so they need a lot of fixes on release and B) are using much higher quality art assets, etc with this new generation of consoles being out. It's not uncommon for brand new AAA games to get patches that tend to reach 20 or more GB now. Your are correct Steam does no testing, they leave that to the developer, and all in all reports of patching breaking something game breaking are rare. Not saying it doesn't happen but it's not a huge constant issue either. No real reason it would be here either.

This can happen with testing. I've seen it happen to a number of games. You can disable patching completely and wait for reports from the community before jumping in and downloading it same as you can now or wait for the standalone installer (assuming GOG still handles that). So yes it is a legitimate solution, obviously if a patch erases saves then the forum will be full of complaints. The rare chance something like that would happen though is not a good reason to not do it.

Quite a lot actually. There is a reason Steam is the most popular client. People want quick patches, people want auto updating, people want achievements... these people would use GOG more if GOG gave them a Steam like experience. GOG knows this, hence why we have Galaxy now.

GOG has a perception among the gaming community that it's not good for new games, only old games. That's lost sales and it is a perception GOG needs to change.

You clearly only care about what you want, so yes this is rather ridiculous and yes it's a bit silly.

Many people want this, and GOG should do what it can to provide it for those who do. It's like literally a constant complaint that I've seen quite a lot. They have given you ways to avoid it and will give ways for patching to be quicker for those who want it. So at this point, it's bitching to bitch. Any time GOG tries to make progress and bring GOG into the realm of what every other digital distributor is doing people bitch because it's not what GOG was, ie it's not niche GOG anymore.

It might be. There is no real reason that couldn't automate that, meaning when a patch is uploaded to Galaxy the standalone patch is automatically created from the files. There quite a bit that GOG can automate, even though I wouldn't want them to go the Steam route for everything... there is some stuff GOG really should be automating though to save time and resources.

If they really want to continue to get people to buy here vs. Steam, they'll need to keep pressing forward on this matter. Fortunately GOG still has a pretty good reputation despite slow patch releases, but I'm sure they've lost some sales from people b/c of this ("GOG for old games, but not new games"), and it's not something to be ignored.

EDIT: IE, I've said nothing new here. :P

Wait, what? How do you figure that the patch size means less (or more) testing? You can have a 5 GB patch that requires almost no testing (replaced Italian 2 voice with a unique one, instead of reusing Italian 1 voice), while you can have a 5 MB patch which requires a complete playthrough (Spawning Biff the understudy multiple times will no longer crash the game).
The first case is a simple asset replacement, the second one is changing code encountered throughout the game.

And I really, really don't want to be expected to pay for beta versions that may or may not ever get finished...
Wasn't that game released last Friday and it's barely Monday morning? You're complaining that GOG doesn't have someone in the office on the weekends just so you can have your patches before the beginning of the workweek?...

and, really, thats the main difference between gOg and Steam patching system. one relies on the staff turnaround, the other does not. For alpha games, and completely new games, devs like to get hotfixes and patches out as soon as possible., which yes, means in matters of days or hours, so that a game do not get negative reviews due to easily fixed bugs. The market is different today, it is over saturated and the consumer is fickle. There is very little needed for a game to get a negative reputation.

Turns out it's 3 patches now, and yes that's what he's complaining about.
Though we wouldn't have this issue if the devs could give us the patch themselves. :P

yeah ... kinda

working in shifts is pretty common for custumer support and other shops that offer stuff 24/7
this means people that work on weekends get their spare time on monday + tuesday for example

i dont get why gog is so underdeveloped when it comes to this area ... it seems they kinda insist to check patches manually but they dont want to put the manpower into it

i really hope gog will level up soon on this front ... at least offer a tool so that devs can upload patches whenever they want

sure the hard fanbase will stand behind gog ... but at the end of the day gog must compete with other shops that offer faster service

The difference between happily playing your newly bought game all weekend with the new bugfixes or having to wait with to get the patches till the start of the workweek when you don't have time to play the game anymore? Absolutely worth complaining about that 'bare' difference if there's another platform delivering the better experience.

And what is this mythical other platform that delivers "the better experience"? Is it one that one doesn't have to explicitly and repeatedly have to request permission to use what one has previously lawfully paid? Is it one that has no DRM including no mandating of the use of proprietary clients to download, install and/or play games one has lawfully purchased? Is it one that is unable to remove access to games for which one has already lawfully paid? What is the name of this great altruistic benefactor who has descended from the Heavens on high to bless us all, the undeserving great unwashed masses, with this nourishing manna & ambrosia without any expectation of any sort of recompense? Who really is this too good to be true saintly other of which you speak???...

The one that better suits your needs. If your needs are to play during the Weekend a bug-free game, the platform that has a bug free game during the weekend is the one with the better experience.

Get a grip on yourself, we're talking about patching here.