It's less a case of "heresy", imo, and more that some here seem to be unwilling or afraid to change with the times(not change for the sake of change, just to change when one must).

(And no I am not lowkey saying people all need to use galaxy or asking them to do so......i'm just asking people to make a choice: Try to make a case for this in the right areas to get the most impact/chance at change, adapt and use alternatives[not just galaxy], move on from buying here, or continue to buy regardless)

Those first two have been in Galaxy for YEARS. I've been doing that with Galaxy 1 as long as I've been using it , since I download the installers to a different HDD than the OS is on. Not sure about the last one, never used it myself. These are really the only two things that Galaxy needs, along with automatic retrying on failed downloads. That and maybe a "download all installers" option or something along those lines.

Honestly, while I do miss Downloader, and the gog team could have been a bit more up-front (I only learned about this today as I don't do a ton of forum lurking), there are people making a mountain out of a mole hill out of this. They could have easily removed the browser downloads as well.

I guess some people aren't fans of "thank you m'lord, for only breaking one my legs" mentality. Weird.

Yes, but I am talking about how things were when the very first versions of Galaxy were released 5+ years ago.


I think it's the same issue that MS had with XP : they waited too long. IMHO If they had disabled it a couple of months after the release of Galaxy it would have been less of an issue as the announcement of it being at the end of it's life to be replaced by Galaxy would have still been fresh in peoples memory, but doing it after five years people have come to believe that the two clients would coexist together forever.

The reaction to GOG becoming a client-based shop would have been much harsher back then, if they had removed gogdownloader immediately. The (quite different) community was anxious about galaxy becoming obligatory, and GOG turning into a weak Steam. But because gogdownloader still worked, it didn't seem like a big deal, a big change of identity. It felt like one additional option for the achiemements-deprived and the steam generation unable to run an independant executable.

Five years later, the demographics of GOG has changed (gamergate, AAA games, client, etc). Galaxy is not new anymore, it's part of the landscape, and most GOG users are indistinguishable from Steam kids, especially in terms of expectations. The gogdownloader can be removed, because the community's culture, values, preferences have shifted. Because "you had time to get used to it anyway" and "it's how things are now" (arguments that could apply "as is" to clients, bloatware, in-game commercials, DRM, or any of the criteria GOG's identity was built against : regional price, etc). During all these years, some people have complained about GOG "shoving Galaxy down people's thoats" at every turn, in reaction to every newly implemented strategy to this effect, and other people have minimized it ("come on, you still are free to not use Galaxy, look, they didn't hide the alternative links that far, look, you still have the downloader", etc). It now reaches another threshold, and the people who were to react later down the line react now. Others will only react when the file download links will be hidden farther away, or removed, or whatever, and will face the same counter-arguments ("come on, stop whining for a detail, Galaxy is fine, and else you are still maybe free to manually go through these new supplementary obstacles there").

But still, staging the changes along the years shows to be the better, most efficiently manipulative strategy. The little outrage about gogdownloader here is minimal compared to what it would have been if Galaxy had been explicitely made obligatory on day one. We, who complain now, are dumb. Dumber to those who denounced this strategy earlier. Less dumb than those who'll denounce it later. But these different magnitudes of idiocy are dispached throughout the timeline, and there's less and less of the "dumb but still opposed to obligatory clients" ahead. What remains now is mostly the kind of people for whom such bloated, multi-purpose, social networking, persistant shopfronts and game and stats management interfaces are the norm when it comes to launching games.

Some of you will start complaining at later stages, they'll be even less significant. It works. It's doing it all at once that would have been GOG's mistake.

You are, again, so right. When they bundled Galaxy with the offline installers years ago, it was a different (perhaps wiser) audience and the outcry was enough to make them relent on the decision. At the time, it was too much too fast. I'm afraid now that most of the audience here wouldn't even mind such a thing these days. And once we do reach the point when Galaxy is required to download anything (even the "offline backup" installers), there will still be plenty of people here, if not the vast majority, actively defending such practice and trying to silence critics. Be prepared to see plenty of "if you don't like it, you're free to shop on another store".

you mean - "Again, I agree with you"...

these are opinions, not facts. You may or may not agree with Telika, that's fine, but if he is right or not is a different matter.

This is a small, but very important distinction, especially now in the "post-truth" society

Heck, I've been feeling quite dumb for only starting to complain (bitterly and relentlessly) since the "good news" in Feb 2014, and even tentatively taking a step back then after that "getting back to our roots" message and the new promises made, until they added regional pricing to a bunch of existing games later that year, in August I think. Those who saw the writing on the wall right away were those to lashed out since the "bigger. fresher. newer" announcement (Mar 2012), when they stopped being "good old games". Or late 2011 even, when they announced the future plans first, with newer games and focusing on growth...

No, because at the time it was simply replacing an optional client with another optional client that just happened to have more/different features, including the much requested, at the time, auto-update of installed games.

That some peoples prefer the downloader because it was easier to use, less bloated, more convenient, that's perfectly fine, that they would prefer if Gog kept it active indefinitely that's also fine, that they are angry that Gog removed it because of all those reason, again understandable.

But at the end of the day, no matter how many melodramatic conspiracy theories, no matter how many strawman are pulled out or how much the definition of a client is twisted, it still goes back to five years ago with Gog announcing that they would be releasing a new optional client, aka Galaxy, to replace the existing client, aka Gog downloader, with the intention of the later being discontinued eventually. That's it, they didn't hide it, they didn't try to pretend it wasn't the case and, despite what some are trying to pretend, they never promised the downloader will remain forever, if anything it's already surprising they kept it online for so long (I suspect it's probably of the big "reset" that Galaxy 2 introduced).

That's the thing. They've kept the client optional, which is really all they have promised in that regard. I think Galaxy still needs a bit of refining, but people need to stop running around like the sky is falling.

You're right about that. They should have ripped the bandage off as soon as Galaxy 1.0 went out of beta.

... Except you can still run an independent executables? Galaxy is still optional.

It's still "optional" from a hypocritical, manipulative standpoint. A rhetoric that isn't rare. But not upheld by honest people.

The whole history of "galaxy" is about gog trying to force it on people while maintaning its alternative "we are not like steam, yeepee freedom" image. Every little change is going in that direction. Making life more difficult to people who dare not using galaxy, but maintaining that it's "only an option".

As I said, the day you'll have to physically go fetch the standalone executables in Warsaw, GOG and its fanboys will still go "but hey, Galaxy is still optional see".

Life is full of exemples of such hypocrisies, of people funnelled into less and less optional stuff, under a cute freedom-loving facade. Just a matter of increasing the practical costs of the alternatives. "Hey, I'm merely twisting your arm, not breaking it, and even, if you refuse, you can perfectly live with a broken arm, you're free. Freedom."

There are ways to use a mobile phone without bloatware. The cost is usually to void the warranty. Dictatorships offer the freedom to not be a member of the party. The cost is bureaucratic and social. You can get your executables independantly from Galaxy. You just have to manually check which file or patch you arleady have and click a bit more and then move each file manually to a folder made manually and maybe manually delete duplicates. All these are known tools to enforce willing consent. Used, again, by hypocrites who intend to force people into something without wanting to be accused to do so. It works if people are willing to go along with the narrative. And oh boy are they ever.

But there are alternatives, if you want to use linux, or python and do more work. The point is to shut down the easy, convenient, alternatives. There must be a pay to price, a supplementary work, going against the current. Because for GOG, having people use Galaxy is a goal in itself.

I simply grow tired of the dishonesty, denial and stupidity around that.

Only if you don't care that all your games will be up to date. There are games on GOG whose galaxy installers have been updated many months ago, but whose offline installers have not. Your only option of playing the latest version for these games is to use galaxy. Calling it "optional" is hypocritical, an hypocrisy --- not surprisingly --- propagated by GOG itself and by galaxy users.

In 2008 (i.e. since Gog creation) and for several years before Galaxy and even the downloader :

You could download the installers files one by one using a browser.
Multiplayer was either disabled or, for games who implemented it, available via LAN or a third party account.
No auto-update.
No achievements even for games that might support them on Steam.

In 2020 for peoples who don't want to use Galaxy :

You can download the installers files one by one using a browser.
Multiplayer is either disabled or, for games implementing it, available via LAN or a third party account.
No auto-update.
No achievements even for games that might support them on Steam.


So, where is this "hypocritical, manipulative standpoint" ?

What is the big difference between how it was at Gog beginning compared to now ? What was possible then that is no longer possible?

Yes we no longer have the "one price no difference between region", we no longer have the only two prices 9.99 and something .99 like we had before,etc... and arguments can be made about that but none of those are because of Galaxy.

In your caracteristic bad faith, in the fact that before the gogdownloader the number of gog games was much more managable for manual updates, saves and sorting, in the long history of gog pushing galaxy at the expanse of the rest (through links placements, embedded installers, site layout, etc) with the reactions it triggered each time from the non-galaxy users (at points sufficient for gog to step back), in the fact that a functional alternate downloader is deliberately shutdown, in its presentation as prohibitively difficult to maintain (for something that a 2000 lines code freeware can do), and in the discrepancy between GOG's "freedom and choice" and its open desire for the "galaxy choice" to be made. The fact that people have to basically beg everytime for something else than Galaxy to stay accessible, and for GOG to not be exclusively client-centered.

GOG doesn't "enjoy" offering multiple choices, as would a company based on the alternative models that it used to profess being. It drags its feet, as if these "identity values" were boulders that it's forced to aknowledge as part of its marketing position. Customers keep having to throw tantrums to remind GOG what it was supposed to stand for. All of GOG's decisions show how reluctantly they keep faithful to them. And yes it goes beyond galaxy, and touches many of former distinction claims.

The history of GOG shows how it's all about appearing faithful to an outdated marketing image that it attempts to circumvent whenever convenient, in whichever ways it can get away with. It's the exact equivalent to greenwashing. It's transparent to the few ones who care and who enjoyed GOG for its professed differences. Those like you can just play with words or dodge the matter, because there's nothing "behind" at stake. You're as empty as a publicist.

So maybe stop playing pretend. At this point, I'd prefer GOG to drop the mask and just state how annoyed it is by people not using Galaxy. Actually, it could remove the installer links altogether, instead of dancing around half-measures, and at least look more honest. For now these cumbersome remaining obligations (DRM-free and somehow technically available executables) are the only things that keep it afloat in front of Steam. Though I expect other ways to betray the spirit and keep the letter. It's not uncommon in commerce. It's certainly praised by a lot of people (manipulation is a job). It's irritating, at this obvious point, to see people fooled or pretending to be fooled by that.