I've used a service called Darkadia for years to keep track of my game library, to rate games, and tag games to be played next. I find the organization really helps me make decisions on what to play next. But adding new games to Darkadia is a bit of chore since I have to do it manually and we get so many free games these days. I'm wondering if using Galaxy 2.0 would be a good replacement. Anyone used it for this purpose? Any drawbacks? Also, my understanding is that customizations like tags and artwork are stored in GOG's servers so I wouldn't lose anything if I had to reinstall the app.

There are a lot of problems with Galaxy 2.0 and some of them have a significant portion of GOG users reverting to 1.2 and using the older version instead. I'm one of those people, BUT for people who are fine using 2.0 it does the job well enough. And it is good at streamlining that connection between accounts from other platforms, so if that's something you'll benefit from, it's well worth the ease of use for someone focused on getting that part of the experience.

The tags at least are stored in a server-side database, but the way this is done is one of the complaints many users have (the tags from 2.0 don't connect with your tags on the GOG website, while older versions of the client do sync with this information). It's still stored outside of your PC though, so you can retrieve it on a new PC just by logging into your account, it's just unfortunate that you can't access the Galaxy 2.0 tags without the client, and can't access your tags generated on the website in Galaxy 2.0 either.

I appreciate the info. I don't have too many tags on the website so I'm not too concerned about that. I don't really have too many requirements for my use case. Mostly I just want to be able to filter on a tag "play next" and a genre (which I can do) and the ability to manually add any game (including really old games), which seems to work.
But I guess my main concern is the longevity of the platform. Meaning, with Darkadia I can export my database if the site were to go under. I doubt I could "export" my data from the Galaxy database into any usable format. Am I wrong about that?

As far as I know, you're probably right about that, but it's not a question I've looked into. Hopefully if you are wrong, someone who knows better than me can show up to help with that question!

That´s correct. Galaxy is great but it´s not updated often. It´s perfectly usable though. Give it a try and see if you like it.

Yeah, try it. I had for years and years always kept seperate shortcuts for each client and then a seperate folder for DVD/CD games. Despite other clients allowing the addition of non-client games it just didn't sit well with my incessant need to be organized. The way Galaxy handles it though works well for me, namely being able to keep seperate tabs for each client and then be able to organize as I see fit via tags.

There are a couple minor issues for me, but nothing major. One is not being able to hide a game within one client entry and have it show in another. For example I have Nox on both Origin and GOG. I'd like to hide the Origin one and keep the GOG one showing, but if I hide one then both become hidden. The other is that sometimes the plugins become disconnected and have to be manually reconnected. This happens often for me with Battle.net and the Ubisoft Connect plugins. And the official Epic plugin likewise at times loses connection. Not often enough to be irritating, but I think they could look into an auto-reconnect option.

Other irritations are on the "Recent" tab (which I avoid completely) they always show 5 games that are "Recently played by others". Stuff like this needs to be opt-in only. But like I said I completely avoid this tab. Also, the background color keeps the hue/color of the game background you last clicked on. This can be kind of irritating if you want it always set to one color, which I do. I've adopted the habit of reclicking on a specific game when I'm done so it stays that color. Some background colors become awful to look at, being either too dark or too light and there is absolutely no consistency from game to game.

So yeah, they sorely need to add more options for many basic features. I don't remember there being any major developments since it's initial release either. Still, I find it far better than keeping all the other clients on my desktop. It's definitely grown on me and I find it very useful.

GOG galaxy is terrible if you want to manage large libraries from other sources like Steam etc. The unofficial Steam plugins are trash and it uses CPU like crazy. Playnite is a FAR better platform agnostic game library launcher.

I am actually shocked at how bad GOG galaxy 2.0 is.

Thanks for the input. I'm not actually looking for a launcher, just a game library manager. After poking around it a bit more and playing with some tags and example games as a test I think I've decided not to use Galaxy to replace Darkadia for my library management. The reason is that I realize I cannot mark a game as "completed" or "shelved" in Galaxy. I think the added convenience of library auto-import does not outweigh the loss of features that make solutions like Darkadia so powerful to use. I'll think on it a bit more, but that's where I'm leaning.

For the record, I love Galaxy 2.0 and use it all the time as my main launcher. I've just never used it for more than that.

Still using GoG 1.2, but the UI I use for game library management is LaunchBox.

I don't think it's ready to be considered a main library manager. It works, but still have tons of omissions and missing features.

I would suggest using PlayNite for bigger libraries / service integrations. For one, it's updated more frequently and it seems it listens to what the the users request / report.

Thanks, I'm glad you mentioned Playnite. A previous person had mentioned it too, but described it as a launcher so I didn't put much thought into it. The website isn't very detailed so I guess I'll have to install it to see if I like it and if it has all the features I'm looking for.

I also use Launchbox for emulators. I'm not sure I'd like it for my PC game library though. It's a bit too resource heavy for a quick jump in, get a game suggestion, and get out type of job.

Just as an update for anyone who is considering trying out Playnite. I've been using it for 2 weeks now and I've been very impressed. I took the time to migrate my data from Darkadia so I had a lot of seed data to get a good feel for how it will look/run in the long-term. The main limitations are:
- no field for "complete date" so I've been adding that to the notes section.
- cannot mark a game as "completed" and "playing" at the same time.
-the metadata for the genre is a bit lacking. I've noticed some very obvious things missing (i.e. Diablo not marked as an Hack n' Slash) and a few things that are just wrong. So I was hoping a plugin or change of source for metadata would help that but I haven't tried it yet.

Other than that it works really well. I'll be using it going forward for library management. I've also been trying it out as a launcher and it has worked fine so no complaints there either.

GOG philosophy of you owning games is pretty much top tier there is nothing better.
That being said.

GOG client effin sux hard, you update game? UAC prompt! You should not ask for admin rights when you update damn game installed in non privileged folder where it have all damn permissions you need. Why you need UAC prompt? Fix this damn annoying thing already!

It's 2022 people SHOULD NOT be forced to elevate privileges for something like a stupid game update. That's how you get infected with virus when someone finds a way to sneak into gog vulnerability if found.

Glad to hear it's working out for what you wanted.