From gogrepoc update --help:
-installers <snip> (Deprecated)

Okay, thanks. Obviously that is in the DEV version, which I have never used.

So clearly if it no longer works in the version of gogrepo I am using, where it should, then GOG have changed something.

I am presuming from all that, that we can no longer download the Galaxy variant, even with the DEV version?

My understanding is that the galaxy variants (i.e. offline installers with galaxy included) existed only for a few months (weeks?) a few years ago, until GOG removed them after a shrill outcry from many gamers. I don't believe they exist anymore.

Okay, I was not aware of that.

I do recall a point where Galaxy was bundled inside installers, and the outcry over that because of wasted archival space. Perhaps it was due to that.

I guess we all better hope GOG don't give up on offline installers, especially the Linux crowd.

That's exactly what I was referring to. These installers were separate from the regular installers and identified by having "_(g)" in their file name.

Ah yes, I do remember that.

I remember the hue & cry, and then checking all my downloads to make sure I did not have such files. Lucky I did not have so many games back then.

The day they do that will be the day I stop buying and just play whatever is in my backlog for the remainder of my life (I have enough to last me that long) at least until another mainstream DRM-free alternative pops up or someone decides to give access to a very large selection of games in exchange for a reasonable monthly fee like Netflix (which affords more control, but is less financially advantageous as you tend to pay more overall in a real ownership model).

I will not support merchants who masquerade rental as ownership. If they want my money, they need to be honest about what their business model is and get into gear. You can't have your cake and eat it too.

Yep many of us would follow suit and also have the same great game collection.
I choose to buy more, as in reality I don't need to.

I doubt GOG would do that to us, but I guess you never know.
The shit would certainly hit the fan if they did, and you can imagine the angry uploading to Pirate Bay etc that might occur, so very foolish if they did do the dirty .... those DEVs and PUBs represented here, probably wouldn't thank them for the fallout.

Yeah, GOG doesn't make the Galaxy installers available for downloads, in fact if you query a game for them you just get blanks now. The options are only there to preserve existing manifests / stop existing galaxy installers being deleted by verify / clean.

(There are new extremely light Galaxy installers but they contain no actual data and just download the galaxy client if it's not installed and then install the appropriate game, so it's not worth making a release to support )

It was the clever thing to do on more ways than one.

If the Galaxy installers had been available in standalone format, I would probably have taken a crack at reverse-engineering the Galaxy protocol to try take advantage of Galaxy multiplayer on a LAN.

But given that the Galaxy-enabled version are not available in DRM-free format, I don't see much of a point.

Clever in some ways maybe, but certainly not a good look, especially with their big push for Galaxy and lessened support for Offline Installers.

It's certainly no longer feeling like they are being very open.

They've gone from one extreme where a Galaxy Installer download included Galaxy, and so wasted lots of archival space, to now just having an essentially empty downloader. They really could have created a middle ground to please all.

Seeing as that downloader checks for Galaxy on your PC, and then downloads it if it doesn't exist or needs updating, that was all they really needed to do. The rest of the installer content could have stayed the same. And whether to download Galaxy when executing, could have been a user query. In fact, if they did it well, they could do away with having two types of installers ... one installer could do one or the other based on a user query, as 99% of the content would be identical.

I'd certainly tolerate that user query if it meant the Offline Installers never fell behind etc.

I fail to see how including a Galaxy installer stub into every GOG offline installer would have ensured that offline installers never fell behind in versions compared to Galaxy-installed versions.

When GOG started including full Galaxy client installers to all GOG offline installers, that certainly didn't ensure that the offline installers are always up to date (compared to versions on Galaxy)... so why would a partial Galaxy installer stub ensured that either?

Most new users would have wanted the "Steam-like" experience anyway, ie. that you download and install a small-ish client which then goes to download and install the game for you automatically, instead of having to download 100GB of Cyberpunk 2077 installer files in 28 parts with their web browser, with which they then install both the Galaxy client and the game itself. Or alternatively, only the game without the Galaxy, as you suggest. The current way is what new users want (streamlined etc.), and still there are also the Galaxy-free offline installers for those of us who won't or can't use the Galaxy client.

I personally wouldn't want my GOG offline installers to have even optional Galaxy installer included (neither stub nor full), because there is a small step to make that non-optional at some point, ie. it always installs the Galaxy client if it detects it isn't installed to the system. And if the user tries to abort the Galaxy installation, then the installation of the game itself is aborted as well.

You misread what I wrote.
I specified one download for all. Not a separate Offline Installer and a Galaxy Online Installer.
And Galaxy would not be inside that installer, it would be a user query to download (if desired) when executing the installer ... much like how the placebo (shell) Galaxy Online Installer does now (though not via a query).
The installer would be the same as current OfflIne Installers, but have optional executed Galaxy elements, so 99% the same as is now.

If GOG do that right, it would mean less work for them overall, especially if they make it modular, and the installer would remain up-to-date always.

What the Galaxy Online Installer installs to your PC now (Galaxy Update excepted), is roughly 99% the same as what the Offline Installer installs to your PC. So it makes sense to combine them, leaving Galaxy itself out of it, having that as it is now, an online download if desired, by user response to a query. If you are offline, you don't even get that query, it just skips the Galaxy elements and installs the offline elements only, especially if you don't have Galaxy installed.

If GOG are only updating one installer file, and there is no other, it stands to reason it will be up-to-date.

One Ring To Rule Them All! ;)

In that case I didn't misread anything because that is exactly what I meant as well. By a "stub", I meant exactly what you proposed, that Galaxy installer (stub) would download the actual Galaxy client install files online (that is also what I suggested to GOG as a remedy, back when they just added the whole Galaxy client installer to each and every GOG offline game installer; just in order to reduce their size; and that is what the Steam installer is like, it doesn't contain all the files needed for a Steam client installer, but it is a stub that goes online to download the recent Steam installer files, and installs that).

However, how GOG eventually fixed it, ie. by removing the Galaxy installer (full or stub) from the offline game installers altogether, and instead adding a separate link to download the Galaxy client installer for those who want it, is the best solution IMHO.

I still fail to see how adding the option to install the Galaxy client within the offline game installers would benefit anyone, and ensure the parity between Galaxy-installed games and the offline installers. It didn't back when GOG added the Galaxy client installer to the offline game installers, so why would it do that this time either?

It appears the generation of the current offline installers is already automated if the gog developer pages are to be believed, so in that sense they should be in parity with the Galaxy-versions of games. However apparently that automated system was somehow broken recently (which caused there to be almost no updates to offline installer in past two weeks or so), but anyways...

However, if GOG wanted the "non-Galaxy" versions of their games to be in total and near-instant parity with the Galaxy-versions of games, then the most straightforward and simplest way might be that GOG abolishes the current (innosetup based?) GOG offline installers, and instead the "offline versions" that you can download either with the Galaxy client itself (with its backup function) or hopefully also your web browser, would be just some kind of compressed zip file of the Galaxy-installed version of the game, and some additional script the user needs to run if there are some dependencies and registry entries that must be created for the game (it could be that script is always run automatically when you run the game itself, to check if everything is in order). Maybe there should be another script too to uninstall the game, without Galaxy... (so that all those registry entries etc. are removed).

What exactly do you mean by the current "Galaxy Online Installer"? Do you mean that big blue "Download and install now" button in each and every GOG download page for each game? That is definitely not "99% the same" as the current game installers, because that installer behind the blue button has only the Galaxy client installer, which in turn will then download and install the actual game files separately. It is 100% different from the offline installers as it doesn't contain any of the actual game files.

So are you still suggesting that each and every GOG game installer should also have Galaxy installer stub within them? And on top of that there would also be a separate Galaxy client installer so that you can install the Galaxy client without having to download any actual game installer first?

Sorry, I still fail to see what would be the benefit of that, and how exactly that would ensure that the game installers (that you can download from the gog.com web page without the Galaxy client) would be up to date compared to the versions of the game you download and install through the Galaxy client. I don't see the logic in that.

I think you are misunderstanding something about what those different installers actually contain, and how they currently work.

It seems to me that you are still misreading what I wrote.
On the one hand you say stub, then you start talking about two types of installers. I was talking of one only.
I'm not talking about going back to what they had, I'm am talking about old blended with new, WITHOUT Galaxy being included in the installer, but having provision to download it via the installer via a query to user.

So it is like the current STUB file, but also includes the full game ... the full content of the Offline Installer.

Once again, you are misunderstanding what I wrote and are talking about two types of installer. And I am NOT suggesting installing the Galaxy client inside the installer, just the ability to download Galaxy from GOG via a query, if the user so desires, much as the stub now does, but without a query. Hell, it doesn't even need to be a query, as you could have a simple checkbox to deselect if you don't want the Galaxy install variant of the installer.

I am suggesting one installer ... one installer to rule them all. Two installers in One in essence, though Galaxy isn't present, just the code to download it via a query, plus any extra elements to make the installer Galaxy compatible if the user chooses that option.

That means when GOG update, there is only one installer to update. And that installer works for both Offline Installer users and Galaxy users. The only impact on the Offline users, is having to respond to a query about downloading Galaxy, which naturally they would cancel, and then just install the game as they do now. Galaxy users on the other hand, would click OK and do the Galaxy download/update/check, and then instead of needing to also download the game, it is already present in the installer.

The game files that the current stub downloads, are roughly 99% the same as the game files that the Offline Installer installs. So it makes sense to only have one file (one installer), that has the ability to be offline installer as well as act like a stub for the Galaxy App element. All the game files are present in the installer, for both types of installing, so only Galaxy is downloaded from GOG, if that is what the user desires.