Good to know; thank you!

Oh my...

Did you learn your debating skills at the kgb?

I am amazed at your powers of projection, boy!

In this case, maybe GOG could make a modified version of the dependencies/libraries of the 2017-2023 games that, after replacing the originals, would make the game see the new dependency/library as the same as the previous one, while the dependency/library itself would use the new function for the 2024 dependencies?

If such is possible, then GOG could make a downloadable patch like publishers of smut games do for re-enabling the cut contents on Steam (and for older titles, GOG too), while GOG updates each installer as they can.

Re: the original question, I have only one data point.. I know an indie who has a game here who chose not to go with Steam because they were pressuring excessively for an exclusivity contract. GOG did not press the issue, and he made the decision based solely on principle. A principle, BTW, that came at the expense of turning down a fairly large advance that would not have to be repaid if the game did not sell enough copies. So at least a part of the equation is Steam is able to buy off developers to starve other vendors.

Epic game store does the same tactic as Steam then.. not saying because I am a Epic buyer or anything but because many assume Steam doesn't do that or not to the level Epic does.

Malicious companies could exploit every single file in your game if they'd want. They don't need achievements to do this.

Being pro achievements does NOT mean being pro DRM.

I like achievements, I hate DRM, I use Galaxy even though I think it often is a PITA and I will never forgive CDPR for making it mandatory since the people at GOG promised it to stay COMPLETELY(!) optional, I prefer to buy on GOG, I ask for achievements but I disagree in forcing anybody to implement them or removing games that don't have them. So am I pro DRM as well now?

Yes because I'm intentionally paying for malicious software on my PC. This completely sidesteps the issue that achievements can be a vehicle for DRM to impose onto customers and defacing game preservation. I'll make it clear - achievements are a feature that functions like a DRM'd game and can be used as a DRM tool. If servers go down, you can't access the game anymore. This is the same with achievements. If servers go down, you can't access achievements anymore. I cannot understand why anyone who claims to be staunchly anti-DRM would be a fan of a feature that effectively functions the same as DRM'd game.

Sure, client achievements are a very small part of games. But holy smokes do some people here have an obsessive nature of them such that they treat them as the end goal of games instead of the story, characters, and gameplay. In any other entertainment medium, this would be seen as insanity. For example, do moviegoers watch movies because they genuinely enjoy it as an art form or because they want to increase their total movie count? What would people think of the latter?

If devs cite that implementing achievements is too much work as their excuse for not being on GOG, then that already is a good enough reason to abandon the feature altogether since we've already lost at least one potential game to it. Let alone delisting 1500 games to accomplish a madman's hidden motive of converting GOG into another Steam.

EDIT: Axiom Verge 2 is a casualty, even though they should've probed further if Galaxy SDK was mandatory.

Why, are you another Galaxy DRM achievement obsessive? Don't tell me there's more than one!

I was about to then saw he responded to your ping (thanks) with a "We're still looking into it", so I'll see what happens.

That sounds plausible as long as the files are interchangeable across versions. Problem is, swapping one game's galaxy64.dll for another version without updating the .exe sometimes works, but sometimes doesn't. If they manage to produce a simple drop-in .dll replacement that can handle 5 years worth of different Galaxy stub versions within 4x different filename combinations (galaxy.dll or galaxy64.dll and common.dll or common64.dll) without needing to recompile / reupload each affected game, I'd be highly impressed...

Achievements are a means to bind customers to a store and to ease them into always online “feature” i.e. have an excuse for more intrusive DRM.

They are not DRM themselves, they are more like a mixture of a store bonus points system and a picture album – an artificial bond that makes it feel bad to switch to a different store.
Has anyone tried to replace the dummy steamapi.dll that in term references the Galaxy stuff by a Goldberg dll or a different stub? If that works, it should simplify the setup by getting rid of at least one layer of indirection.

Not explicitly, no. Read the above issues (including by a Blue above) though and there's no question that the huge mess made of offline installers involving flaky wrappers are only needed because of Galaxy achievements. (Cloud Saves can be synced without each game having to be coded for it, see how GameSave Manager & Ludusavi do it without any store client in sight even for old disc games like NOLF. Likewise, overlays that display FPS counters, take screenshots, record video, etc, also don't need each game hard-coded to store clients to work (see MSI Afterburner / Rivatuner, FRAPS, OBS, etc)).

So if the above mentioned 'blue post' saying "we're trying to fix it" issue end up not being fixed, then being angry at offline installer users for increasingly growing to hate Galaxy achievements as a direct result of same achievements screwing up offline installers, whilst simultaneously claiming to support DRM-Free offline installers whilst calling for more achievements, there's no other polite way of calling that anything else other than "cognitive dissonance" or denying that when it comes to reliable offline installers vs GOG achievements, 'give & take' compromises have been "all give" by the former and "all take" by the latter, and not in any healthy way.

Thank you for retesting.


No, it should definitely not be this way. This is horrible, but at least there is a way out that we can do ourselves if GOG is not able to get their act together.

This, alone, is enough for me to want to leave them out. Too many games will never come to GOG because a large percentage of users feel like they're not able to have fun without achievements. If they like achievements so much then it doesn't make sense for them to spend their money anywhere but Steam.

It doers not matter what they were meant to do (which also is imo arguable in a time when gamers want achievements and devs are including them during the development of their games simply because they can be additional fun) - it only matters what they do and with a client that is (more or less) optional achiements don't bind you, they give you the option of using them if you like. As long as there is no intrusive DRM in said clients those achievements also do not lead to DRM.