It's been almost a week since The Long Journey Home got a really important patch. Everspace just got a huge update. But because I'm a GOG customer I won't see any of them until some time in 2019.

GOG needs to come up with a more efficient way for developers to make their patches GOG-compatible. Pretty soon I'm going to throw my hands up over DRM and just take my business to Steam.

They did... it's called Galaxy. Dev's can push patches directly to Galaxy without any input from GOG. It's possible they may already be on Galaxy, but I don't own those games. Standalone installers usally take longer to get patched though.

There is not a whole lot of difference between a Steam build and a GOG build outside of DRM, and platform specific features... GOG usually takes longer to get patches because it's a slower process or because they ignore GOG's small user base not because it's a whole lot more difficult to make a patch for. More and more devs are release patches though on Galaxy at the same rate as Steam due to the more simple patching process.

The devs are responsible for patching their games, not GOG so they are the ones you need to complain to.
The devs are perfectly capable of making their patches GOG compatible, just as they make them Steam compatible.
It's the devs responsibility to provide the patch here, not GOG's.

Plenty of devs manage to release patches on both GOG, and Steam at the same time.
Hello Games had no problems releasing the recent No Man's Sky patch on both Steam, and GOG.
Dreamfall Chaters Final Cut, also released on both Steam, and GOG.
That's just two recent patches, I can think of without looking, but if they can manage it, so can these devs, if they wanted to.

Any reason the devs may give, is a feeble excuse. If unforssen problems arise, a week is more than enough to fix that sort of issue.
These devs are the problem, and they are usually the ones that release on GOG much later than Steam.
They only releasee on GOG, to get a quick sales boost, once Steam sales dry up
Then don't make any effor to patch it, until the new Steam update stops selling.

GOG is responsible for creating the offline installers, based on what the devs provide.
This usually means GOG Galaxy gets an update a few hours sooner, than I get my offline installer
This can sometimes mean a full reinstall, rather than a patch, due to the way it happens, but it's still released.

You are entitled to go where you like, but the problem is the devs are giving GOG a second class service.
GOG isn't the one witholding a patch, for better Steam sales, that's all on the Dev and/or Publisher.

It's hard to blame GOG for the problem of unethical developers. I do however feel like, the whole process of investigating the developers trackrecord, before buying a game on GOG is too time consuming. I buy games here, because they are DRM free even though I can get the game cheaper from steams re-sellers.

I can understand if GOG wants to stay out of this discussion, but its ultimately reducing the amount of games I buy here, because of the time investment required on my part if I want an updated experience.

It's not made easier by the fact that you can't easily navigate between the store page and the forum of a given game. And for some reason the changelogs are only visible in Galaxy for games I have already bought, not for games I'm considering buying. It is not easy figuring out what the latest version you'll be getting is.

I find a lot of patches sent to GoG take about a week to show up here. The offline installers require human interaction to create and test them so it takes time. Furthermore it was a holiday in Poland this Monday so it adds even more time.

Overall I don't mind the delay. If it's something game breaking that's fixed GoG tends to work a little faster. If the dev tries to pull something shady then GoG doesn't update the game - something I'm thankful for.

You can access all changelogs without buying the game. Use this, the MAGOG search engine to find what you need.

http://www.an-ovel.com/pages/magog.php

And I do agree with the state of things regarding patches on GOG. I think above anything else (aside from DRM), this is the most important as it directly effects gameplay, content and fixing bugs. It is exactly what everyone should be getting equally, as it is paid for by the customer.

I wonder if GOG can rip the steam versions, grab the files and custom update the games here, when crappy developers refuse to give GOG the needed patches.

Thank you for the link :)

I don't think ripping steam games are legal for GOG to do.

He whole update system is broken, doesn't work at all on the website. Dying light got a major update some time back which was not mentioned or marked as an update.
Personally i avoid new games which appear here, they need constant patching as they are still being made or having ripped out content added back in all the time, apparently this is a good thing for consumers, it's certainly great for deva who get paid before a product s finished, and don't be fooled by coming out of indev, corsair man of war showed how what a effectively an bug ridden alpha build can suddenly be a finished product, even though it is unplayable.

Sorry, typos, should read "the whole", bleeding forum is totally broken on mobile also.

Keep in mind that MaGog does not track games released on May 24, 2017 and later.
But there are a few of us that keep track of all updates in this thread, and post the changelogs in the respective game fora. There are also devs that do it themselves.
So if you're interested in a game released after May 24, check its game forum; if a changelog has been released here, chances are that it's been posted.

Ah shit. I didn't know that. I haven't got caught up with the thread for awhile. That does suck. No, it isn't. I'm just entertaining the fantasy that it might be possible, without triggering off the people who might care about that legal bit. I'm sure GOG-ers would gratefully keep that a secret though.

Someone already did on the steam forums. They said The Long Journey Home's patch was sent to GOG and Steam at the same time last week.

As for Galaxy, if I wanted to play my games through a frontend, I'd just use Steam.

You don't need galaxy to play your games. Just to get the updates faster

that's quite a bit of work.
don't think GOG has enough idle handle sitting around to do this :)