Games via torrent? Well, that's a too much realistic option (everybody download games through torrents these days) for the industry brightest minds to catch up with :-P

Using torrents to distribute content is quite possible. GoG could set up a private tracker and restrict downloaders to only logged in users just like it is done in other private trackers. Not sure if tracker softwares available would support restrictions on special conditions (bought or not) though. And as extra security files could be distributed in encrypted form using gpg. But I doubt it will happen since as it really is not that simple as it sounds, and publishers probably would get the wrong idea on just hearing word "torrent".
In the end, no need to fix a system that works. At least I have no problems downloading using browser. And only thing GoG would save with torrents is bandwidth, which I guess is not bottleneck in this case.

With the risk of people like, say: Dennisstalker!? No.
Its too easy for "people" to sneak a virus into their seeding, some people are just that mean.
yes... simple...
But you are right that publishers will run away screaming at the sound of those syllables uttered.

Torrents? No,thanks.

No torrents. It would leave the doors open here.

Is Torrent that much faster? I can get most of the games off of GoG in an hour or less which is fast enough for me.

This.
Direct downloads are fine.

I've seen closed systems available that require log in and provide the benefit of seeding. I don't think that it would be impossible for GOG to update their downloader to incorporate seeding. But avoiding terminology that would cause a publisher shit fit might not be such an easy task.

Torrents aren't faster as is, nothing can magically create more bandwidth. But due to it's distributed nature it does remove bottlenecks so chances of getting full download speed your own network connection allows are greater, as long as there are enough seeds.

Private trackers use passcodes (I am on such a tracker). The passcodes are generated upon account creation and then can be reset at the user's request. A passcode can easily be used as a form type piece of data (IE: the url would be tracker.gog.com/announce.php?passcodehere). An invalid or non-existent passcode would get rejected by the server.
This should work quite nicely for a GOG tracker.

You guys need to remember that some ISPs also throttle P2P downloads, also, I just don't like the idea of using torrents here. I'd much rather prefer a direct download over a torrent. Besides, not everyone can upload very much or very fast.
Torrents to help support and download mod or map packs for our games I am all for though. But I say leave the full game downloading to Bitgravity :)

i love torrents but that's because i have a terrible connection and it takes me hours to download anything. I almost always disconnect before i download anything that takes more than a few hours and a lot of the time the download fails.
I'm sure anything that's on gog is available on the pirate bay so if someones going to pirate than it wouldnt matter where it came from. Its probably easy enough to create a torrent of a gog game anyway.
But if it discourages developers from releasing on gog than i wouldnt want it.

Funny how I was thinking about this a few days ago. Could work, but like others have said before direct downloads are pretty fast as is.

It's still possible to share such a torrent with people you trust not to spread it.
It wouldn't be too hard for GOG to find out.
On the other side, you can also share your bought games that way.
Passkey system or not, you still have to keep DHT and peer exchange in mind.
It's actually possible to bypass the passkey system.
I've seen that happen on a private tracker.
On the other hand, DHT and peer exchange used for the free games could be an extra advertising possibility for GOG.
Personally I prefer direct download over torrents.
If GOG decides to either move to torrents or offer them as alternative in order to decrease server loads and network traffic (and associated costs), they'll have my support.

I wouldn't use it because the direct download from this website is quite fast and there's also the AIR based application ("GOG downloader") for people who have issues with downloading large files at once.