I've always looked at the library as a list ordered by date, and I don't particularly miss the old list. There's one difference that only time will tell about: so far, the game at the bottom of the list hasn't disappeared in the new library. But knowing Fallout, I'd say it's too early to tell if it's planning to escape again or not.

Frankly, I only missed old shelf in first hour after Account updated.
I'm fine with the new look as well.

I am not one to complain too much about the redesign, but I have to agree that it's the small things that count. I for one enjoyed the virtual box shelf with all my games there and the ability to manually arrange them. I try not to let it bother me, but if one truly wants change to the older way to be implemented, one should make use of the wishlist and make his desire known there. I believe quite a few people aren't happy with this change, so with enough support these lost features will come back.

I'd like to believe that but I guess I'm too pessimistic here. Even with enough support lost features will only seldomly come back, because there must have been a reason they got lost in the first place, and this reason probably still exists.

http://www.gog.com/wishlist/site/bring_back_game_boxes_in_the_game_shelf

I voted to add to the support, but even if the feature doesn't come back I think people should not overlook the improvements for the lost benefits. The tag system is pretty great and I'm already making use of it to determine which games I have already completed, which are on my next to play list, and which are just going to sit in my backlog for a while longer. I used to hide the games I completed from my shelf just so I could keep track of them. That is no longer the case and I can proudly present my full collection now when I access my account page.

The disappearance of Fallout was a problem with the old shelf, it never happened to the embedded view of Galaxy even before the website changed to the same.

I agree 100%.

The changelogs are nice in theory, but useless the way they are now.
Tags... I don't see any good reason to be tagging the games. I have "tags" for completed games and everything in my Excel file that has all my games listed.
I would prefer getting rid of tags and everything, and have the option of manually sorting the collection, as there's no other way to accomplish the kind of order that fits my thinking (and also matches the tabs of my Excel file).

I dont recall, but how did GOG manage newer digital games which don't even have any retail version? Did they come up with their own fake "virtual game box" design, using some generic art from each title?

I can understand somewhat the longing for game box pictures for old retail games (at least if the picture is a photo of the genuine box), but I guess it started making less and less sense, as newer digital-only games started appearing on GOG. This is actually why I prefer the new shelf. At least the game titles are easily readable now, unlike in that old shelf with different fonts and colors. When you were browsing your collection, with the old shelf it was much harder to tell each game's title. Just compare the titles of e.g. System Shock 2, Pirates Gold Plus and Deponia in your picture (the first one). I recall far worse examples too, where the game title was nearly unreadable due to colors, placement of the text on the box, and very odd fonts. And of course due to the fact that the original text was on a full-size retail box, not a small thumbnail of it.

I guess that is why I always preferred using the list view instead, so I guess that "unreadable game boxes" problem was not a biggie for me even with the old shelf. Too bad sometimes the list view seemed to have some issues that the shelf mode didn't have (filtering etc., if I recall right; maybe they were fixed later though).

Yup I miss them it looked way better like that, the new way just looks awful and cheap :(

Please Gog do not go down steams horrid road.

I don't know whether to be happy or sad. Fallout's disappearance tricks certainly added some spice to my GOG life.

Yes, and even for several that had been boxed, they used different art than the original box/case did. They never simply scanned the box front, but even in those cases they had the same artwork, the final result was different.

I also miss the old shelf with boxes, you felt like you really have a virtual collection of the games. Could we have an option to toggle it on/off?

And if not, at least please give us back the seamless scrolling, I don't want to click through the library when it is and was possible to scroll and see it all in one place, like a really big shelf. :)

While I miss the old boxes and shelf, I find that its not huge deal for me. I really do miss the manual sorting though since some games are now in different areas from where the rest of the series is (i.e. Post Mortem and the other 2 Still Life games). If they can't do manual sorting for whatever reason, it would be nice to have more sort options where you can pick multiple types. A good setup for what I like would be to sort first by series alphabetically then sort by release date.

With all that said the fact that we now have a changelog for updates is worth its weight in gold. No more having to scan forums to see if the updated game is an update that is useful to you or just an additional language you don't speak, or an update for an OS you don't own. For that alone I won't whine too hard about the shelf changes.

I miss the old wooden shelf, too. It was something that made GOG like a cozy home for me, together with many other details I discovered when I first registered here October 2011. Since then there was a minor change in design, the embracing of indie games and other changes, but it never affected the visual impression, the feeling.

When GOG changed its design to a boring whitespace-flat-y one, I lost major interest in this platform. Yes, I still buy some games here, but apart from being DRM, there is no thing left that differentiates GOG from any other download platform like Steam, Desura, Origin … it is now big business, no room for family. The shelf was just the last element here.


And I want back the information when I bought a specific game. I still can sort by purchase date but I cannot see it.

I think a before vs after pic comparison settles the issue: