Oh come on, in the end both things talk across a bunch of wires and download a file or three or three thousand. Galaxy might or might not use http(s), but even that is sort of inconsequential. Handwaving about tailoring and experiences means nothing in a technical sense.

Oddly enough, there was definitely one such case of a game not getting a patch (or a full re-dl as is happening more & more often of late...) in the past.

There was a patch released for Shadow Warrior 2 at one point, which steam & galaxy users got their proper patch.
After nothing happened for a while I brought it up in one or another thread wondering when/if we'd get the standalone patch, only for a blue to state there wouldn't be a patch until the next update from Shadow Warrior 2 was released (of which they'd no idea if there even would be one, as that's down to Flying Wild Hog releasing more content etc).

This I linked 2-3 times in other threads discussing lack of updates to games/patches & low & behold, recently another thread similarly mentioning lack of updates, so I went to the previous thread to copy/paste a link & I noticed something confusing.

I realised the blue had edited their post, removing the comment about "there won't be a patch".

Alas, I hadn't thought to screenshot or archive the page, but I do any time ever since then...

To be honest... in essence, they could probably handle the patches via the site in a similar manner. But for most of Galaxy's features, the browser would not be sufficient. However it's not as clean and dry as you like to think.

Based on what Thiev said, it sounds like the installers when created (I'm assuming this is automated) have a high chance of needing tweaks or other things. So this means a much higher probability of broken patches ending up on the site. With Galaxy, it downloads compressed files not installers, and has a much less chance of messing something up unless its a dev error.

You also only get the difference in what has actually changed, something the browser can not do and which can't be said for installers. A lot of times the installers don't get patches, they get a full new build. This means if that build was broken, and you didn't keep an old installer... you may now have to re-download the entire game again to play an old build.

I assume GOG doesn't want to go that far with the site installers because A) they built Galaxy for this function so a lot more work would be required B) they have built up reparation based on testing games/patches before they are added on the site & C) it may or may be more of a technical challenge that could lead to more issues than not .

How do you know that, or are you just assuming? Maybe the publisher had indicated already to GOG that there is shortly another patch coming with far more important fixes.

As I said, I personally am fine with the idea that sometimes GOG might skip some updates to gather more to one bigger update for the offline installer, and/or if they know another patch is coming soon anyway. Especially when we are talking about e.g. in-dev games which might be getting even daily patches. If you are really going to download all such daily patches, yes you definitely should use Galaxy in order to use its auto-update function.

For me personally, auto-update is important for online multiplayer games, but currently I am playing one such game only on Steam (Team Fortress 2). It is very important to me for a multiplayer game that I get the updates automatically and imminently, as otherwise I will be blocked from playing with others (I think), the game doesn't allow playing with old version against others.

So what was the end result? Did the offline installer of Shadow Warrior 2 get further patches, or not? That is the important question to me at least. If it did, why do you think it is so important to archive some discussion where GOG staff said they will wait until the next update?

If they knew there was an incoming patch, they would've most likely (if had any sense) said as much. There was zero mention on steam, devs twitters/fb etc nor on here that there was going to be any more patches.
Also, seeing as you bring multiplayer into this, it would've also meant no one could play steam - gog due to different patches too.

Why was it so important for them to edit out their statement? Think, common sense isn't difficult.
Yes, it did get patches later on, but that's not the point at all.
When one site gets a patch, they really all should.
When this site sends out patches via galaxy, then it should be sent to ALL installer variants.

Ok so you just assumed then, and you assumed wrong, as more patches came later and found their way to the offline installers as well.

Also, considering how new a game Shadow Warrior 2 was (and still is)... wouldn't it have been quite odd if it wouldn't be receiving more updates quite soon, especially due to its multiplayer aspect? Or did you feel that one previous update fixed all existing problems that the game had, and there was no need for another update?

Most likely GOG was aware of another incoming patch, if they had made their mind already to wait for the next patch. It is quite possible that the publisher had communicated this to e.g. GOG (esp, if GOG had asked that), even if the publisher had not communicated it to all end-users. That is just common sense.

I already explained that I'd always personally use an auto-patching client for modern multiplayer games which need "constant" updates, for exactly that reason you mention. The game depends on everyone using the same version, so auto-update is very important. Also, more and more GOG games' multiplayer part requires Galaxy anyway, so...

My interest to the offline installers receiving updates too is more related to archiving my games, and there it matters less if a patch comes e.g. a week or even a month later (depending on its criticality too), as long as it comes.

That's the whole point. Your complaints seems to be some kind of moral principle thing, I look at it practically.

Wake me up when GOG really refuses to update the offline installers anymore, and the only way to get further updates is through Galaxy. Then I start caring.