i have this reoccurring suspicion that Steam was behind Gamestops purchase of (or rather- perversion of) Stardocks Impulse client. It became a mini-me of steam. The opposite of what Impulse previously was. Impulse gave options to those gamers who did not approve of Steams Term of Service, Privacy Policy, method, market influence, etc. When Gamestop got Impulse, the service stopped being a serious game-changing competitor to Steam, because it did things near the same way as Steam.

i liked how games could be bought, downloaded and installed using stardorks Impulse, and Then could entirely delete the Impulse client with absolutely No disruption in our ability to play these games - Owned. That client only ran when the User told it so - Pwned ! That is just how i like it !! -the client is pwned by User, rather than user getting pwned by client.

user control

.
- i hope that Gog Galaxy will fulfill the bought-out promise of Stardorks::Impulse. The king is dead. Long Live The King!

I know. :) I just wanted to support the voice and the part about sorting additional content (patches, bonuses, etc.) in directories. That's something I would really appreciate having as one of possible default configurations.

Yes, you were the original person that I was referring to. How was I supposed to recognize that you were being sarcastic/making a bad joke from plain text? And I'm fine with people having opinions that aren't my own, as long as they can be logically argued. I don't think anybody has any logical reason to complain about Galaxy, as it's entirely optional and won't change GOG for you at all if you don't want it. I apologize for the confusion though, I didn't realize you were joking.

See - this is the problem. I rarely mind WHAT people think, most of the time it is HOW they think that irks me.
When I see something new, my gut instinct isn't to suspect it to be catastrophic. I encourage you to drop the doomsaying.

That's what I call "listening to customer feedback". Do you know what the difference is? People were reacting to REALITY, not imaginary scenarios that could have occured further down the line.
Furthermore, and this is as much of a conjecture as what you have said explicitly and otherwise, I believe even in that very instance they were trying to act with our best interest in mind.
Ultimately - we have very little control over how other people act. All we can rely on is the respect they have for us and trust we have in them. Hypothetically - your wife could stab you do death in your sleep, but you probably neither consider nor make plans to save yourself from such a scenario. Hell - lacking this basic form of trust would mean living as if everyone around us was pretty much a zombie infectee that could turn against us at any point. Society cannot function like that.

That's not what I was making fun of. I mostly meant to underline the contradictory fact that people kept going on and on about how they "don't care" about multiplayer, achievements, and such... When you don't care about things, you're not usually vocal about them. There's a plethora of things that people don't care about, more than the ones they do. Similarly - there's a lot more things that DO NOT exist than things that do. Mentioning the things you don't care about, if at all possible, serves very little purpose. Having a very particular set of things one very much doesn't care about... is paradoxical.

I rarely judge by my guts. I judge things by my experience. Which i've learnt to be more reliable then my guts, by, uh, my experience.

Being overly dramatic won't deny the simple truth that being CAREFUL (not paranoid, mind, careful) is the only reason the whole human genre didn't vanish in the belly of T-Rexes long ago. I think you are reading too much into my previous comments. I never said the service is gonna be bad. I just wrote i'll suspend my judgement before actually seeing how that will turn out, which doesn't strike me as much different than what you suggested as an optimal reaction. The only difference between you and me is that i've learnt, the hard way, not to be too optimistic about companies (that do what they do for PROFIT, in case you didn't know, they aren't charity associations) when they claim they are doing things "with my best interest" in mind. Therefore, i preventively express my doubts before anything bad may happen. I'm pretty sure that giving feedback to a company about what i won't like to see is much more constructive and smart then having to whine about it after it occurs. I like prevention over reaction.
And the fact that people have very little control over other people's actions never convinced me. I respect your opinion, but i think there's a bazillion cases that proves the opposite. Just to stay in tune with the topic, as i wrote earlier, the "fair price" thing on GOG and the Microsoft Xbox One "no used games, always online" policies, that were changed purposedly BECAUSE PEOPLE COMPLAINED. Take that, "no control over other people's actions"!

Your reasoning is very stretched and forced at best.
First of all, grouping my own thought to those of other people, generalizing them, isn't nice nor smart. You don't know me and you don't know how i normally express my thoughts, so your generalization it's just pointless if not outright offensive.
Second, fact is, i DO am vocal about things i don't like. Everytime. I actively protest for small things or more important matters. I think expressing your discontempt about something when you don't like it is not only your right, buy your DUTY. If people accept everything without ever complaining they are just mindless sheeps. Should i only be vocal about things i like? That wouldn't make any sense. If i create a product and the customers' feedback is all "yeah, i like this, yeah, i like that", i won't ever be able to tell if something is wrong with it or if there are some aspects i SHOULDN'T implement in future because those will displease my customers. Expressing what you DON'T like, what DOES NOT work, is much more important than the opposite. Expressing what you like may be a suggestion or just a compliment, but not criticism. And it's criticism that make things better, not compliments.

If I purchase and download a game from GOG.com, is there a possibility that I will be locked out from using any part of it at a possible future date?

There doesn't have to be a single reason behind every single action. It does make things simpler when one suffers for what is right, since then the motive of self-interest can more easily be ruled out, but it's not unreasonable to assume that we can want good things that are also good for us. By analogy - companies do need to be profitable to exist, but don't necessarily do EVERYTHING just because they're after money, and they don't have to do things ONLY because they are after money.
Some artists like to create art while also getting paid for it. This doesn't mean they are only doing it for the money, nor does it mean they are only doing it for their own enjoyment, or for art itself...
Again - I mislike simple and singular motive attribution.

There is a very sharp difference between things one DOESN'T LIKE and things one doesn't CARE ABOUT.
Hell - that was pretty much my point. It's not like people "don't care about" the things they so relentlessly mention...

What if checking ownership status is not a function of Galaxy, but of each game (which is the case with multiplayer for several games currently on GOG)?

Well to me it's a difference, if the Game checks the Ownership or the site where I download the game does. It's clear to me that in our word digital distribution without any kind of DRM wouldn't work. And it's also clear, that it's difficult to ensure that all multiplayer games on GOG run without any authorization (except for downloading the game). But I think that GOG Galaxy is hardly more DRM-free than Steam, Origin or U-Play. Sure you still can download the game and play it singleplayer without any client, but I don't consider this as part of GOG Galaxy (correct me if I'm wrong).

I'm curious, could you please elaborate? Tell us what kind of client GOG needs to deliver so that it adheres to being DRM-free.

Are you guys going to incorporate achievements for the older games that normally have no achievements (for instance pretty much those DOS games)?

Here is a logical reason to not like Galaxy: it takes company resources away from other areas of the business. Even if you don't like or use Galaxy, by buying games from GOG you in fact paying for Galaxy because your payments are funneled into the development of that project. Think outside the box. For the record, I love the idea of Galaxy and I can't wait to try it out. I'm just playing devil's advocate.

Just dropping by to say I'm very pleased to see a GOG client on the horizon. Looking forward to using it in the near future!