Are all the new comers to the board this paranoid?! Yes it is forced, they are also watching you from a satellite. GOG is alive! ALIVE!!!

Of course it is. I don't make a habit of hanging around corpses.

A little paranoia can be good for you. I'm always reminded of a quote from one episode of Kim Possible "You know, the lesson here might be that fear and paranoia is a bad thing, except that's what saved us."

I'd rather have tin-foil hat thread remind GOG from time to time that we are keeping an eye on Galaxy, and that yes, we still don't want a mandatory client, rather than have GOG think we don't really care, and to one day wake up to some more "good news".

While the Witcher 3 disc prompts you to install it, Galaxy isn't necessary either to run Witcher 3 or to download patches/DLCs for it.

Hardly what was implied/written when I installed it.

PS : Paranoia ? Quite random statement and nothing to do with it ; no idea where it even comes from.

Yes, you could call it misleading, but it still doesn't change the fact that you don't need the client to run the game and install patches/DLCs.

Can be, I'll check out once I'm completely done with it. Uninstall, reinstall ; but that will take a good while.

Interesting responses. Well, I`m old enough to remember how it all started with Steam... It was very much the same way. Small innocent inroads into one or 2 games optionally, then it slowly just started taking over everything and all the options stopped. Anyone protesting were shouted out and even banned from Steam. Some of the knee jerk responses here were the same as well, people calling those of who simply questioned as `paranoid`. Steam lapped the nerd rage of the Steam sycophants and now we have a Steam system that is mandatory and even tried to force charging for mods as well. Steam listens to nobody unless there`s a huge backlash. The `little` man is completely ignored now.

I am not niave enough to think that GOG is not susceptible to this too. Success might make it become greedy and in not a good way for the customer. I really love GOG, but that does not mean I`ll accept anything they do. The reason I love GOG is because they`re different to the rest, they buck the trend. They say, `NO!` to DRMs. If they now become just like the rest due to manic greed or whatever goes on behind those locked doors, I`m out. I did not join GOG just to find myself in a different kind of Steam or Origin or UBI.

I, respectfully, hope the GOG crew are listening.

If GOG makes Galaxy a forced system then GOG would be more like Steam.

Except... that Steam has a much bigger catalog of games, a bigger number of users, it can usually offer better discounts, the client is light-years ahead of Galaxy, the site is less buggy, some games are updated more frequently, etc.

So, if I had to accept Galaxy as the only way to install things I might as well use Steam and then I had no incentive to buy here, but for the oldies that are not on Steam or have better versions than Steam.

Making Galaxy compulsory would be a bad business decision, in my opinion. I trust that more than ideals or the goodness of GOG heart.

= = =

Also, something implicit in Tallima's post but better repeated explicitedly: there are
1. a Galaxy client
2. a multiplayer component / backend probably developed with the client and that is being called Galaxy too

The second comes with some games and does not require to install the client.

Get used to companies having to work with the customers to get big, then going bad. The second stage could happen at any minute for example also when the company sold (usually after getting big) or changes leaders or getting closed,.... That's how the world works. Keep your "bags packed" and it's great that GOG allows you to do so by downloading and keeping your property on a backup medium plus the email receipts you get when you buy a game. The great thing about GOG at the moment is, that for the stuff you have bought already, it doesn't matter if GOG vanishes overnight.

Assuming that one has already downloaded all of their games. If not, well then it's not so great...
I know for a fact that many users only 'download as they play' and don't keep a full backup of everything purchased, so if GOG did indeed disappear, a lot of people would be screwed.

Apart from the fact that you don't have to use Galaxy, Galaxy doesn't require you to be online. I don't know where all this panic is coming from.
Sounds like you're talking about the Witcher 3? I knew that patches and DLC had to be downloaded through GOG, but I don't think Galaxy is required. Have you tried going to your library on this site?

You are talking about the Galaxy launcher that used to be installed alongside games like AvP Classic 2000 and Witcher Adventure Game. Ever since Galaxy entered beta, the launcher has been removed from those games and the only way now to play online multiplayer with them, is to launch them through the Galaxy client.

It's not. I have Witcher 3 with all current patches and DLC installed on my Win7 rig. Galaxy is not smd never has been on that rig.

The problem newcomers are running into is that, while Galaxy is completely optional, GOG seems to be rather circumspect about that fact and even misleading people into believing it's required either for patches, DLC, multiplayer, or any combination of those. And GOG also seems to have taken pains to hide the standalone (old GOG DLer) links.

So, IMO, this is where the problems arise and newcomers to GOG should be given some slack for being under the impression that Galaxy isn't exactly optional.

That is the same for anything requiring the internet, however here it is slightly less as at least once you have downloaded something, then you don't need the internet any further, unlike certain well know stores.

As for "download as you play", if you can't be bothered to download things as you purchase them, then its really your own fault. You wouldn't buy a car and say, I will pick it up a few months later, just hope your still in business then, would you?