And, what does that even mean ? Of course it's "practical" for them, what's wrong with that ? What wouldn't be practical would be if they own games on their own platform had less features than the Steam version.

From a business point of view "no growth" and "stagnation" are very very rarely something positive and usually if both are used to describe your company then you better start looking for a new job very soon.

That means: They have their very own distribution platform now. In fact this is GOG and DRM-free is with no word mentioned in their plans.

As I've said: A myth because there can't be unlimited growth. And therefore the numbers on the papers always win. More installers means more distribution capacity for the CDN-network, more bandwidth and just for a single published game. That's not logical following those thoughts about growth and it's just an intermediate step for more attention on Galaxy. GOG even noted that exactly, with some fluffy arguments round about. So the now presented solution is just a false one.
They don't even manage their responses here in the forum, talking to the community is about some luck here. So when this is all about growth there are more steps to come! ;-)

good job you realised companies are not your friends

Yeah, hit up Frito-Lay...

By your definition of "lowest common denominator" (the people who will…), wouldn't it make more sense not having a checkbox at all? To just install Galaxy if not already installed, and don't bother saying anything about it? Then auto-open Galaxy afterwards?

I don't think you've thought this through any more than GOG has.
It's not about tech savviness, computers don't require that.

I'm thinking of it more along the lines of an archaeological supposition. It's not "people" that are stupid, I think that's a useless stereotype in regard to computers. It's that the experience of being stupid is possible for everyone at any moment for anything. Stupidity is simply not knowing at the moment, which might be because of not recalling something at the moment. Pretty much like ignorance it's simply a "not knowing". Nothing shameful about it, it's simply descriptive of an experience.

A computer engineer could be said to be stupid by not knowing what someone else needs, even the computer engineer's own future self who ends up not agreeing with the results of the past self.

I generally don't find the problem/solution concept useful for anything other than job security because of the busy work it entails: every solution becomes a new problem. As such, applying the problem/solution approach definitely hasn't seemed useful for addressing stupidity, not either of a person using the what a computer engineer has made or of the computer engineer.

I believe computers aren't meant for the everyday person, even if only because computer engineers can't seem to handle computers either. Over the decades it has become clear to me the issue to address is not the person being stupid about what to do at the moment with a computer or an application on it. The issue to address is the interface of the computer or the application on it.

This is same circumstance when a person reads something that person wrote years before and does not relate to what was written, can not fathom why those thoughts were ever had. The necessary context had not been recorded in those notes, and similarly the necessary context is quite often not present in either the computer interface or the application on it. It's not about "enough" context, it's about what is needed in that moment so that person can make sense of it in that moment. That changes from moment to moment for the same person. Even the computer engineer who made it can be lost.

I think that's why an intuitive interface comes from both familiarity with it and from discoverability for when recall fails for the moment.

Yes. It would. And if Gog didn't have to worry about being DRM free and keeping the client optional I'm sure that's exactly what they would do.

But this way is enough to help those who don't know any better what Galaxy is or why they need it and also allow those who don't want it the choice not to install it.

Obviously they have to balance between allowing choice and making sure the people who don't care or don't understand the choice get the 'best' option (which in this case is a game with all the advertised features, i.e. with Galaxy)

Well, I'm not going to be surprised when questions popup on the forum (even within the game forums) that someone downloaded the game, installed it, and has only noticed Galaxy but not the game itself. The question being: "Where's my game?" The answer being a repeated description of how to find/use Galaxy, perhaps even how to reinstall Galaxy if for some reason it's not working, rather than how to start the game outside of Galaxy.

I also won't be surprised when it goes the other way, too. Someone downloads, installs, and then starts the game without giving Galaxy any notice. Or later when Galaxy is noticed and opened, they'll be wondering how to make Galaxy perform the features it claims to have. The answer will mostly be easy: "just start the game from within Galaxy". Though there will be exceptions complicating the answer, such as mentioning the various options for each feature. I expect everything will be repeated over and over again just to help each and every person find their games and understand what Galaxy is about, and that it likely is already installed somewhere on their computer. What if they understood beforehand, before downloading anything, perhaps before purchasing a game?

It's too bad starting a game outside of Galaxy doesn't reap any of the features of Galaxy. (Have I misunderstood?) A person might not even realize Galaxy has to be opened for its features to work, they might just think it only needs to be installed for the game to work at all, like QuickTime for iTunes. (At least I think iTunes requires QuickTime, or maybe its libraries; isn't it bundled?)

And that's the crux: such a bundled installer highly suggests the game needs Galaxy in order to work at all, but so far Galaxy is only for non-required generalized experiences (except perhaps the few multiplayer games pretending to not be mmorpg). As far as I understand, all the expected features of Galaxy do not work at all when the game is started outside of Galaxy, therefore the good intentions of auto-installing Galaxy won't have worked.

But why would any of those misunderstandings be had by anybody? It seems to me auto-installing game+Galaxy without explanation and with the excuse of it being for their own good is the approach of treating people as if they could not ever possibly understand.

Rather than say that's a failure of communication between the software developers and anybody using the software, or even anything to do with cynicism or disdain of the software developers towards the purchasers of the software developers's art, I'd say it's more of a demonstration of a failure in the design of the system. It doesn't seem like it has been designed at all, and instead hacked together.

I sure hope Galaxy from the bundled installer realizes the game is already installed without having to make it search/import the game that was just installed from the bundle. Or if Galaxy is installed first by the bundled installer which then triggers Galaxy to perform the installation of the game, I hope Galaxy realizes it doesn't have to download the game because it'll know it was part of the bundled installer. Though, I can't help but think this is going to be yet one more factor that continues to prevent Galaxy being used when more than one computer account is logged in on the computer.

I think it would help immensely to list the features of Galaxy on the game card in a person's game library, both on the website and within Galaxy. For me, those few words (achievements, cloud saves, etc.) in themselves would be a big step towards relating Galaxy with the game, thereby learning the value of Galaxy for that game. Promoting Galaxy as the official downloader would also be a way to convey its value regardless of which game, thereby nullifying the use of bundled game+Galaxy.

The bundled installers seem like one more variation (multiplied by the number of OSes: Windows, Mac, Linux, etc.) that'll be confusing 10 years down the road when people try to salvage the games, much like the trouble already had for other reasons with games from 10-20 years ago.

Just a braindump of everything on my mind at the moment… Like talking out loud and working out possibilities… But definitely inspired by that statement "this way is enough to help those who don't know any better what Galaxy is", because regardless of those stated good intentions it still doesn't seem to me like it's going to be helpful at all. Just different.

I mean, if I get busy and don't make it back to GOG and the games I have until a few months later, I can imagine I'll need to familiarize myself with the website as it is at that moment in time, and what approach to choose: either Galaxy or not. I can imagine this because it has already happened a few times over the past, even before Galaxy. Likely I would want to start with one game, and there's no need to manage one game. Also likely none of the Galaxy features are going to be of interest if I'm just trying to jump into a game with least effort (and minimal amount of time) to revisit my experiences of a familiar game, and probably nothing for a new game either. As such, I'm going to mentally be in the position of being a "new" person by being unfamiliar with what has changed with the website and Galaxy, yet the Galaxy bundled downloader is likely not going to give me anything essential to the game I want to start playing.

Anyway, I definitely have my doubts these supposed good intentions of GOG are going to help. I hope their good intentions keep them motivated with discovering what they like to use themselves, because I can't believe they would like to use this themselves as they've announced it (or as they have recently amended it).