Ouch, I too am very worried about this new trend…
I hope there is a better explanation than just making projects like Adamhm’s wrapper or ./play.it impossible to maintain.

With password-protected RAR installers, at least we were still able to extract the game data to do what we want with it. But this, this is very bad. The worst being that I can’t see any rationale behind it other than prevent us to install our games in any way but the "official" one.

This kind of artificial restriction has a name. A name that I thought we would never see associated with GOG…

I use innoextract to install some of my games and I am concerned about this development, too.

Innoextract is the way to go if you already have DosBox, ScummVM and game engine recreations installed even for Windows users, yes. There's no need for all that bloat.
For Linux users it's essential, because even many DosBox and ScummVM games don't get a Linux package and then there are unofficial native ports of course in addition to WINE.

Adam's WINE wrappers were the only reason why I'm buying Windows games here anymore at all, because I could be sure that they work well, I really don't see the reason why GOG would kill that off.

The whole encryption does not make sense. All it does, is preventing innoextract (and in extension the wrappers) from working and make the files even bigger. As always, GOG didn't communicate with the community at all and I fear that it will stay that way.

I might have jumped the gun on this one, after checking not all of the games updated in the latest wave of internal installers updates where messed up to the point of becoming unusable with innoextract.

So there is still hope that this is nothing but a mistake by the packaging team, and that we will see a fix soon (but probably not before Tuesday, I think next Monday is a holiday in Poland).

Also buy Windows games because of Adamhm's wrappers. GOG receives money for Windows game purchases that it wouldn't otherwise, so hopefully this is an error. Hope GOG can let Adamhm know what's happening.

We are more than three-four.

Thanks, please keep us tuned as soon as you learn more about this ;)
Some of us are already working towards improving the existing tools to extract these new installers, but it would help us greatly if the packaging team sticked to "human-readable" installers.

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Actually the new packaging do not use encryption, and I’m pretty sure the obfuscating is a side-effect of something else and not the point of this packaging scheme.
GOG packaging team did use encrypted installers some time ago (password protected RAR archives), but they quickly dropped them when they saw how it made the work of tinkerers more complex.

On the packaging side, GOG has quite reliably been friendly to tinkerers, so I would let them some time to explain and hopefully fix the issue before assuming any evil scheme ;)
(I know my post 4 days ago tells the exact opposite, but it was written before I took some time to think about the issue at hand)

Glad to hear they're open to a solution. Even as a Linux user, I still download the Windows version for most of the games I buy. I prefer unpacking the games manually, using the installer is too slow compared to the command line and I have to clean up the shortcuts after it's done - A hassle I don't want or need.

How about hyphen?
some_game-1_2-789.sh would still be easier to figure out.

By the way: can't we have a linux-only sales, to have thouse-who-do-not-want-to-give-linux-binaries-for-free change their minds? What I have in mind is say separate Metro Last Light and Metro Last Light (Linux).

What I'm not getting with the new Windows installers, is why GOG keeps rolling them fully aware they can no longer be extracted manually. Unfortunately I won't be buying any games due to this as it bothers me greatly.

To be fair, there is a way to unpack new installers: https://www.gog.com/forum/general/adamhms_linux_wine_wrappers_news_faq_discussion/post182
But these installers still have a lot of issues.

Thanks for the direct link. I'm currently downloading some of these new installers and I'm being rather selective by downloading only the ones for games I know I won't be playing for a long time.

It looks like the new installer format is a closer match to what Galaxy does. Perhaps this means classic installers have a chance of getting updated sooner -- something that has bothered many classic installer users. I, for one, gladly embrace such a change. I never understood any excuses for why classic installers should take so much longer to arrive :-) Except the one that is outdated process. This seems like a step forward.

There is no encryption or deliberate obfuscation, it's just that files are now identified by their hash, and possibly chunked. Innoextract can't deal with it as-is but it's easy enough to adapt.