It literally doesn't exist for the platform I make primary use of, so I can't hold an actual opinion on it.

C'mon, man. I know you like DOS, but there's no way they're gonna port Galaxy to it; it's time to move on.

;P

If I understand you correctly, then that has nothing to do with macOS, and everything to do with Galaxy lacking support for different users on the same PC. (In other words, I'm pretty sure this is an issue for multiple would-be Galaxy users sharing a single Windows machine, too.)

I appreciate the responses from everyone, specifically those with legitimate concerns.

I can see that most of you are mainly concerned about one of five things.

#1. You don't like GOG tracking you.
#2. You are worried that GOG will no longer be DRM-Free in the future.
#3. You want complete control over your game installers.
#4. GOG Galaxy uses social media, and social media sucks.
#5. GOG Galaxy can't be used on Linux.

I don't really want to argue with these points, because I completely understand where you're all coming from, but I'm still going to make a few points or counter-arguments (yes, I realize the contradiction) for the sake of clarification.

#1. I also hate the idea of being tracked, but you can actually turn off some of these trackers in the settings. That being said [to play devils advocate] some of these trackers are necessary for certain features withing Galaxy (Game Time Tracking, etc). That being said, it would be nice to see GOG release the source code to put everyone's mind at ease.

#2. I really don't want to argue this point, because I feel the same way. I absolutely don't want to see GOG ditch their DRM-Free status, but I don't think the introduction of Galaxy will actually effect this feature. I realize that many of you believe that a client uses DRM as a default (through multiplayer), but I'm not sure if I'm on board with that logic.

#3. I totally agree that you should always be in complete control of your games, so if GOG ever decided to ditch the individual installers completely I would be the first one lining up at the gates of GOG headquarters with a torch and pitchfork in hand. Personally I don't use them, nor do I think I ever will, but I do agree that they should always be available.

#4. Speaking as someone who doesn't use Facebook, Twitter, or any other form of social media, I actually welcome the idea of adding friends to my Galaxy account. It would be cool to get to know more like-minded gamers.

#5. This is actually one of my biggest pet peeves of GOG in general, so I am 100% behind this objection. I've actually been wanting to move to Linux for years, but the only thing stopping me from making the move is the lack of Linux support from GOG. I realize that there are ways to install your GOG games on Linux, but I'm really not advanced enough with Linux to deal with this problem. I would absolutely love to see GOG release a solid version of Galaxy for Linux.

That being said, I think GOG has done a lot to satisfy the needs of their users. I can say without hesitation that GOG has actually implemented a number of features that I suggested for Galaxy 2.0, such as the inclusion of more options in the games list view, and the general visual appearance of Galaxy. I don't think it's fair to say that GOG is not listening to their customers, because they are undoubtedly listening to feedback ... but we all have to be patient. I realize that I sound like a fan boy (because I am), but I'm confident enough to know that GOG actually does have our best interests at heart. If you watch interviews from some of the team-members at GOG, they sound exactly like everyone on this forum. Gamers who want a solid gaming platform.

I guess people whose last purchase include Wizards and Warriors or who only got old small sized games on their account don't realize modern games on gog often come with multiple mandatory installers like .bin files. I have tried only booting .exe files, but game installer asked me about .bin files so I wouldn't be able to install my games without GOG Galaxy - because downloading large and multiple .bin files take so many times I would often give up on game.

And, hilariously, I've seen lots of threads where people are having an issue that is caused directly by Galaxy. "Stop using Galaxy" is a serious answer I've given.

Talk about worst of both worlds. No, worst of all worlds.

You have to use it, and it breaks things, and you can't use it because GOG doesn't care about your OS. And then you
get punished for not using it.

There's other irritating stuff, like GOG's blanket ban on modifying or reverse engineering it. I think that just shows contempt. (No, the fact that big asshole megacorps behave exactly like this isn't good justification for GOG to follow suit)

Sucks doubly hard when they refuse to open source it and afaict there's still no official, public api docs.

Spot on. I wish they'd listen and understand, but they've quit interacting with the community and are too busy pushing Galaxy to even realize we're here.

That could very well be true, I don't know how the Windows version of Galaxy deals with multiple users but I do know the MacOS version wasn't compatible last time I checked.

Not multiple files! Oh the horror, how will we cope. Are you saying that we have to click on each one and wait till they have downloaded, it’s far too complicated. How do you manage to do advanced computing like logging in?

I also don't like two factor and I use "remember me on this computer" if possible.


No seriously, in past, my .bin files were damaged while I was downloading them through my browser, making me redownloading them. These files usually took between 10 and 40 minutes to download through browser file by file, while whole game could be downloaded in 30min using GOG Galaxy.

Don't get me wrong, but I'm not using computer to make myself difficulties.

I don't either hate nor use Galaxy at the moment, but still: I have 1762 games on GOG.com, so how does that would work in practice? I have to install all my 1762 games on my PC (with the Galaxy client) in order to be able to zip them and store them somewhere?

Sounds quite complicated and burdensome. I prefer skipping that installation part and simply downloading the ready-made installers. I currently use a third-party tool (gogrepo) to download all my GOG game installers, it also checks if there are updates to any of those installers which I've already downloaded.

Also, don't any of the zipped Galaxy games need any Windows registry changes or anything? If they do, at what point are those registry settings added when I unzip the game and start playing it (without Galaxy)? When I want to "uninstall" the zipped Galaxy game, how do I get rid of the registry entries for that specific game? Do I have to remove them manually with regedit?

Or was your meaning that I'd always have to validate the unzipped games with the Galaxy client when I want to "reinstall" the game? Doesn't that need Galaxy connection to GOG servers, or how does that work? What happens when the GOG servers are not online anymore, I can't use the zipped games anymore because Galaxy can't validate them anymore?

Again, as I mentioned in my post above, I actually fully support the idea of always having access to the direct installation files. My question is simple. What's wrong with Galaxy? I can download and install all of my games from Galaxy with the click of a button, and I never have to worry about downloading (or updating) installers ever again. I understand the need to have a backup should GOG shut down, but I would still much rather use Galaxy for my day to day gaming needs. I do agree that it could be a problem if GOG closes down and Galaxy becomes irrelevant, but I think GOG will likely make their software fully capable of adding games to a library without the use of an internet connection (verifying games that have already been installed). Galaxy 2.0 has already taken huge steps towards personal customization, and even combining competing storefronts to the client, so I'm betting there will be more DRM-friendly features coming in the near future. In order for GOG to improve, we need to work with them to make it better.

* Personally I would love to see Galaxy go completely open source, but I think they're doing a great job with it so far. I'm also glad that most people are still open to using the client, but want to see it improved. We need more people like you.

Well, the limit per file is 4 Gb, so of course larger games will have multiple files, always did. And so far I didn't have damaged files.
But depends on past experience too I guess. 90s, early 00s, multiple floppies, multiple CDs... multiple (dozens) small archive volumes to be able to be uploaded to various places on the, er, high seas.

I can download all my installers with the click of a mouse just via the browser. Then I store them on my hdd’s and backups and never need to download the installers again. I also don’t need to install more third party tools, rely on GOG to store things and provide access, or a web connection to get or play them.
My day to day gaming needs, just as they always have, have never included the need for a client.
I also have a fully featured library, offline, currently using collectorz but that will be replaced soon with a local DB, so no need for that.
Why would DRM friendly be a benefit? The stores only selling point is that the games a DRM free (and only a literal term of drm too).
In order for gog to improve, they could start by fixing all the broken stuff from years back. The forum for instance. Creating posts with working links. Chasing up devs who don’t update their games. Rather than wasting time developing some dick holding who has the most achievements systems.
If anything, galaxy was the single most defining moment in gogs history where the company changed around, both going away from its previous moniker, but also a change in customer focus from those who cared about things like no internet connection requirement, drm free, no social etc. To cater towards the steam base they wanted to target. Since the. The site is chockablock full of shovel ware, mobile games, internet only multiplayer, social media infestation (for instance giveaways and news only going out to those platforms), further data mining happening behind the scenes (Facebook integration, google services etc.).

I still buy the occasional game here, but enthusiasm has gone, and it went at around the time galaxy appeared.
Anyways, you use it, good for you. It’s still optional for now, it won’t however remain that way.
Yep, not had a single download issue in years now. I did have them very occasionally sometime back, the odd one would terminate early. I also don’t see how galaxy can download things quicker? If my connection will only allow six simultaneous connections at maximum mb/s totally, galaxy cannot magically find more. Or are we saying that galaxy users get more bandwidth from gog than non galaxy users?

I am not quite sure what you are asking now. From your original message, I got the impression you were suggesting it would be totally ok if the only way to get your GOG games was to INSTALL them with the Galaxy client, and afterwards zipping the installed games. And if you wanted to use those zipped games on some other PC, you would have to install the Galaxy client on that PC too, and run a "scan the disk and validate my existing GOG installed games" to make those games runnable again.

As I said, that would make it pretty much impossible, or at least cumbersome, for me to download and archive all my 1762 or thereabouts GOG games. I'd actually have to install them all, before I could zip and archive them, one by one? Plus, I couldn't install (=validate) my zipped GOG games in the future when GOG.com is shut down, Galaxy can't connect to GOG servers, and/or the old Galaxy client doesn't work anymore on the future OS where I try to run it.
And even if I could, how can I uninstall all the registry entries etc. that the game may have created, as there is no uninstall option? Messy, messy, messy.

===========

If, on the other hand, you were suggesting that the standalone offline installers would still be downloadable, just that you'd have to use Galaxy client's "backup" function to download them and could not do it with web browsers or third-party tools like gogrepo and lgogdownloader... I guess I could live with that.

Still, I prefer that there are options how I can download them, e.g. nowadays I can download GOG game installers even on an Android phone, using its web browser, even if I can't install and play the games on that phone. For instance, in the future I will probably download my GOG game installers with my small Raspberry Pi 4 minicomputer, which is connected to the USB HDD where I store my GOG game installers. I will not install and play the GOG games on that device (it doesn't have a x86 CPU that GOG games require, even the Linux versions), but I can still download and store them with it.

===============

Or, if you were suggesting that everything would continue like now that I can download my game installers with a web browser/gogrepo and you can continue using Galaxy to install and run your games... hey I am personally totally cool with that. In fact, I feel GOG probably had to introduce Galaxy in order to keep customers like you happy, otherwise your kind would have never joined GOG.com, or had fled to Steam/Epic/EA Origin a long time ago already.

Also, if I ever start playing any online multiplayer game on GOG, then I probably will use Galaxy myself, just because a multiplayer game does have to be autoupdated so that it is always the same version as with the other players. Currently I am not playing any GOG multiplayer games (not even GWENT), so I don't need Galaxy. I don't care for achievements nor cloud saves for single-player games, and I don't need to keep single-player games fully up to date all the time, as long as the game works.

No you can't. You can install only one game with one click of a button. Installing (and zipping) 1762 games would mean clicking that button 1762 times (or more, as I presume there are extra clicks needed also to select the game you want to install, so at least 2*1762 = 3524 clicks just to install them all... shit, better to have an extra mouse if my current mouse dies).

With gogrepo, I just run one .bat or .sh file in the Windows or Linux (or whatever, as long as it can run python scripts), and gogrepo does all these things:

1. It checks from GOG servers if there are any updated or new files for my purchased games on GOG servers that I haven't yet downloaded.

2. It downloads all those new and updated installer/extras files to my local hard drive.

3. It cleans up my local archive, by moving any old/obsolete files (that don't exist anymore on GOG servers) to another directory, from which I can remove them if and when I feel like it. Or even keep the "obsolete" files, like when GOG had removed soundtracks from a couple of games, or replaced Riven CD and DVD versions from the account and replaced them with the ScummVM version (I chose to keep also those older files, just because). Neato!

4. It goes through all my local archived installers/extras for verifying their data integrity, making sure they haven't become corrupted (either due to failed downloads, or bitrot, or whatever).

Could it get any easier?

I don't see that happening. When importing your existing (installed or unzipped) GOG games to Galaxy, I presume Galaxy wants to connect to GOG servers for two reasons mainly:

1. To get the instructions how to "fix" that installation, probably some kind of installation script that adds the needed Windows registry settings and installing any missing Windows dependencies that the game may need. I presume it gets that data from GOG servers during the import, it doesn't keep its own local offline database including the install scripts and dependencies for all existing GOG games, just in case the user might need any of them at some point.

2. It wants to validate whether you are eligible to import that game to Galaxy, ie. do you own the imported game on GOG. That information resides on GOG servers, on your GOG account. (I presume this is how Galaxy works; I guess you could test it by installing Galaxy on some new pristine Windows PC, create a new GOG account that has no games, and then try to import such unzipped game that you installed and zipped using your main GOG account on the other PC. If it works, then I guess Galaxy does not try to check the license ownership when importing the game with Galaxy.)