I'm a bit late, but w/e.

I use it from time to time. Just as often I'll just double-click the desktop launcher and be done with it, and I ALWAYS download the installers as a check against a bad server day.

First I've heard of LGOGDownloader. Might need to give it a spin.

I refuse to use Steam and have even forgone games that *require* Steam to be installed for them to work. Likewise, I'll do the same with Galaxy. I'm not interested in multiplayer, cloud saving, or attaining "achievements" as some kind of online gaming badge of honour.

Out of habit after any game purchase on GoG, I always check for the classic installer. Not that I've noticed any problems with that method for any particular games I've purchased, but if there are games (existing or upcoming) that *require* Galaxy for them to function properly, it should always be clearly stated on the store page in a prominent location, or at the very least, in the "requirements" sidebar.

Sad fact for me is this: I only buy games these days via GoG. Why? I simply got tired of all the bloat packaged with games that I don't want or need, particularly with most of the AAA publishers and each having their own online activation or need to be online in order to play.

So long as Galaxy or the need for games to be permanently "connected" online is never forced upon users, I will remain a loyal GoG customer.

To be fair, nothing requires Galaxy. I'm not sure, but I think even the installers with it have an option not to install it when installing the game. Hell, GoG still adds friggin' downloader links to every game, and it still works even on Windows 10.

Worst case, you'll get a game whose desktop shortcut will open Galaxy if you have it on your machine, and that's easily solved by going into the game's folder and making a new shortcut using the executable.

gogrepo's still good if you have a good branch. I have a wrapper script for it to download en, jp, and ru versions of windows and linux downloads. Very convenient.

I'm not using it. I think there is no reason for games to have a client.

Gwent.

Nearly all multiplayer games.

Release notes!

https://github.com/blog/1547-release-your-software

You know, I always forget about the multiplayer thing. Can you tell I don't do multiplayer? :P

Yup love it, seems to be getting quicker and quicker with every update. The UI is a lot lighter and better fonts then steam. If steam is itunes galaxy would be windows media player.

Only problem I have is how the client is a pain to manage bandwidth with. Im either draining every last bit downloading and even when I pause downloads I still see the client draining bandwidth. The options in the client to limit bandwidth need to clearly say "bits" or "bytes" and explain when settings kick in.

Gwent is awesome!!
I love it.

GWENT is not the same thing as Galaxy. Galaxy is the name of the client through which you play GWENT, and also manage your GOG game library.

Depends what you mean by "that", I can still see some room to argue e.g. "we meant that you don't need an online client to run your games, we never meant you wouldn't need one for downloading your games, after all a web browser is a client too".

So at some point, in the distant future in a galaxy far far away, I could see them having a system that you do need to download your games with an official client, but there'd e.g. be an option to backup your games as zip files, or the initial download itself would be a zip file (+ an install script maybe) that the client would use anyway if you let it also install the game for you.

Depending how they'd implement it, I might even be fine with such an approach. All I care is how easily I am able to download my games to my local archive, in a format that I can easily "install" and play them later on another system, without having to re-validate them online or be online at all. It is less important to me which kind of client I can or have to use for that process, be it a web browser, the old GOG Downloader client, Galaxy, gogrepo.py or whatever.

If, say, Galaxy would have an option to download all your GOG games in nice tidy zip files in one swoop, and even have optional peer-to-peer technology for the downloads... hell, all hail Galaxy! I'd be all over it. But for now, Galaxy doesn't offer any real benefits to me how I download, install and play my GOG games.
That is the only reason why I don't have Galaxy installed. I don't want it to launch itself if I merely want to play some GOG game by clicking on a shortcut, nor I want to go through the trouble of manually creating new shortcuts for all my installed GOG games. I'm not even sure it is really that easy with all games ("just create a shortcut to the game executable"), e.g. games which use some 3rd party programs to run the game, like DOSBox or ScummVM. Then I'd have to inspect the original shortcut how it is handled, try to copy that to the new shortcut without the Galaxy bit, etc...

Nah, I'd rather just not have Galaxy installed for now, since it wants to run whenever I just want to play some standalone GOG game.

i thought about installing it but i am already swamped with clients unless there is a killer game that i own that requires galaxy not going install it.

clients already installed

battle net
steam
uplay
origin

Not to mention other games which have online only as such a major part of the game as to make anything else inconsequential, e.g:
Absolver
Goblins Inc