I'm a huge fan of GOG because the team behind is honest and pushes the DRM free system which is awesome. But whenever I try GOG Downloader I start asking myself WHY OH WHY is it so, how should I put it, rubbish?

Only real benefit of it is resuming and downloading of multi-part installers. And that's it.

Why can't GOG Downloader evolve into a more Steam like shape while retaining same great points GOG has now?

What I'd like to see in "new" GOG Downloader:

- make games installable/uninstallable within the GOG client the same way Steam does. By being able to see list installed/non-installed games and pick and download them directly from within GOG client without the need to navigate GOG webpage first.

- when you install games, they should be installed directly within the GOG Downloader folder, making it a centralized folder structure to hold all GOG games.

- Portable client/games structure, when games get installed from within GOG Downloader, they should remain listed in the client even if system was refreshed or re-installed. Steam does that and it's freaking brilliant. Whenever I refresh Windows 8.1 or reinstall it, ALL games remain installed and functional. I just have to re-install the Steam client itself, but the games remain functional. EA Origin on the other hand requires game re-installation after every such system refresh/re-install and when you have hundreds of gigabytes of games installed, it's a really painful task. Keeping it portable structured would solve this as well.

- Keeping stand alone installers. While client would allow to install games directly from within it, there should still be stand alone EXE installers to keep the DRM free and open structure. Basically, when you install the game from within GOG Downloader, they should be silently unpacked and installed within GOG Downloader folder. If you download a standalone EXE installer, you should still have fully free control on where you want to install it. Such system would be really awesome, making GOG Downloader convenient, but also fully open and not limiting to the users who prefer the "old" way of getting games with a single EXE installer.

- Galaxy integration. I don't know much about GOG Galaxy apart from the fact it's a multiplayer platform, but it would make sense integrating it into the GOG Downloader client. Either calling it GOG Galaxy as a whole or some other way. This way community, multiplayer and convenience of managing all your games would be merged into a single unified client.

What do you guys think? Any additional ideas? I know I'd use GOG Downloader way more if it worked like this because I really like Steam because of all this, but I don't like Steam's DRM part and limitations that are brought with it. "New" GOG Downloader woudln't have such problems which would make it even cooler.

GOG Downloader is being phased out for GOG Galaxy. See the sticky for more info on it and how to get into alpha testing of it.

Edit: And all of your suggestions are part of the current Galaxy client from what I recall.

Yeah, the problem is GOG Galaxy is closed project so I don't really know what has landed in it and what hasn't.

you can apply to be an alpha tester

and seriously a lot on here needs improvement
instead of everything being diverted to galaxy

or nonsense like unbundeling games

I love the downloader,

Where I live a downloader like this is a must.

GOG Galaxy client already can install, uninstall, download backups of your games and bonus content. It is only alpha development build currently and only works with a portion of the catalogue (about 2/3 of my games), but that's a work in progress. It does not yet detect all already installed games but that's also a work in progress.

You seem aware of the existence of Galaxy but not really what all it is/does. I'd suggest going to http://www.gog.com/galaxy and watching the video for an overview although GOG has given presentations since then expanding on some of the details of what they have planned.

Galaxy client more or less does everything you just said modulo the details, although it is not 100% feature complete yet and really only useful for people focused on testing and providing bug reports to GOG. Not ready for mainstream use, but that probably wont be more than a handful of months off.

http://www.gog.com/galaxy/alpha to sign up to be an alpha tester and give bug reports and feature requests via their bug tracker at http://mantis.gog.com (only available to testers that have received their invite).

I fully agree, it does just what I need & nothing I don't

I don't have any issues with the downloader; I think it's rather simple and straightforward. Download, go to file, run.

So go into GOG Downloader settings and configure it to not automatically run the installer after downloading. Yes... it does have settings. :)

Well, in my view, downloading and installation woudl be a fully transparent and silent porcess. When game is downloaded, it gets unpacked and installed silently inside GOG Downloader folder without any further user interaction.

There could be an option to just download and wait for user to manually confirm installation, but that's not really what most people need. For majority, if you decide to download it you most likely also want to have it installed.

Not always, sometimes I just want to back up to my 2nd HDD.

I never want games to install automatically. I download installers so that I have them ready if I want to play a game. That does not mean I want my hard disk cluttered with every game being installed. And I am not sure if I am really a minority with this.

Nah.

All that "newfanlged convenience" shit IS NOT needed.

Galaxy Client is going to be GOG's white elephant. All because folks these days overly value "convenience" over almost everything else. Peeps these days ore overly conditioned to be "babied" for everything.

I'll miss the nice simple downloader when it goes and gets replaced by the monstrosity of Galaxy.

JMO :)

Exactly. One of the great truths out there : one man needs is another man needn'ts.