Any decent modern web browser should be able to resume downloads that fail due to connectivity issues etc., but there are browser addons that can further dramatically improve the user experience of downloading smoothly on bad connections too. It does depend on the webserver supporting resuming downloads and byte ranges and whatnot but pretty much every server out there does these days anyway so that's not an issue in practice. It should be possible for someone to download their games through a browser either by itself or with addons and still have a relatively smooth experience without needing GOG downloader or Galaxy, at least in theory. I've had times where my connectivity was poor for a few days or a week on and off and I've never been unable to download massive files in bits and pieces personally. Not saying that it's impossible to have a bad experience, but rather that there are ways to make it better even without the custom tools GOG provides.

Yeah for problems like you mention there is no one universal "right" solution as different people will prefer different things. I think the key is rather to be more flexible using smarter controls. That includes ever improving sorting and filtering options (and what we have now is just that - what we have now, not the final result, things can and likely will continue to improve and evolve), and other ways to personalize.

I tried using the manual sort a few years ago and half the time when I went to look at it, things were shuffled around from how I left it and I just considered it unreliable and unusable and never looked at it again. The custom-sort on the Steam wishlist is very similar in that you can reorder things and as you add more titles they'll randomly show up just about anywhere in your list making it useless. So I stopped using that too.

Even though I don't use manual sort or care much about it myself at the moment, I do recognize the utility of it and why other people would want to have it. If you buy physical game boxes in a store and bring them home you can put them anywhere you want - organized, disorganized, whatever. You can put them on a real bookshelf and put them in any kind of order that makes sense to you for your own reasons, whether it is some form of alphabetization, or fondness, group games in a series together, a combination of these things or something else and that freedom is just the default, not something the publisher, developer or distributor had to permit you to do by creating virtual infrastructure in order for it to be possible.

The problem as I see it comes from the fact that for the digital equivalent to have similar properties, someone somewhere has to write software to make that real world bookshelf paradigm have a digital equivalent with a set of rules/algorithms to make it all work in a sensible manner.

As a software developer myself, if I were to approach the problem of developing a manual bookshelf I think it would be super easy to do personally. I'd basically drop new game purchases/gifts at the very end of the shelf in the order they were purchased in *or* have a second "new purchases" shelf where they get dumped until the user sorts them from that shelf onto their personal manual shelf. Then I'd store the order that the person drag'n'dropped the titles on their shelf and never fuck with it in any way. New purchases either go to the new purchase shelf separately until the user moves them, or tagged onto the end of the manual shelf, possibly in an "unsorted new purchases" section or whatever. I would not attempt to put any AI to devise a way to intelligently put new titles into someone's existing and possibly chaotic arrangement. I'd also probably have an option to let the person make multiple "views" of custom organization of their titles too.

Having said that I don't think it is a difficult problem to solve and it is something that some portion of people will definitely want and feel strongly about naturally, so I tilt my thoughts in favour of it even though I probably wouldn't use it myself or I'm at least a little indifferent for my own use currently (but that could change too). I'd rather see people who do want it have the option though because options are good.

Its interesting that Chamb has already outright denounced any chance for reimplementation of manual sorting since gog supposedly doesn't have the expertise needed to develop a new galaxy platform dependent manual sorting system for the webstore library. I don't know how I missed that in the announcement.

I have all my games downloaded. So I manually sort them on there. I can add HTML and images, and make it more like a web store for picking and choosing my game. Who needs the GOG library when all it is for is for download links?

These types of problems are really things that will vary a lot from game to game and require human thought to try to "choose the best solution", plus may involve renaming things from the way the publisher names them and they may not be able to do so if the publisher doesn't approve ultimately. One way to resolve that is to have an official publisher endorsed name for the product, and a separate naming or ordering code with which sorting and organizing is done. That too could become complex in some cases as there are a lot of corner case situations with individual game series, expansion packs, spinoffs, DLC, game remakes/reboots etc. and no clear obvious one way to do it. Largely individual people will have different ideas about what the "right obvious way" is to order things and they'll most likely differ in opinion about it, so trying to manually decide such a thing for everyone with one set of golden rules seems both a huge amount of time and effort and most likely to always end in some number of people considering it failure. Again, the solution is to just not make things more complicated than they need to be IMHO and instead let the user sort it out themselves.

I mean, if I walk into EB Games or Future Shop 10 years ago and go to their store shelf and look at games, the last thing remotely on my mind is "boy the alphabetization is terrible" or "This game box should be sitting over there beside that box" before rage-leaving the store. That'd be just ridiculous and someone would probably be thinking "gee, did anyone tell that guy that they have medication available for that?" It's just a store shelf, you look for a product and you buy it or you don't, and if it isn't ordered in the most perfect way possible who cares really, either keep looking to adapt to it until you find what you want, ask for assistance from a store clerk or if it is frustrating to find something, give up and don't buy anything but don't develop a hate for the store and boycott them to the death because of their store layout... seriously.

But... when you BOUGHT a game and it is yours, the store no longer decides whether you put it on your desk, on your bookshelf, on the floor under the dog or what, it's yours and you're free to do what you want with it and you do so without ever even consciously having to think about that. But digital goods like games on GOG.com or Steam or Origin or wherever do not have a digital equivalent of this "complete total freedom to do whatever you want with organizing your virtual goods" as a default natural state, but rather it is something that doesn't exist unless a software engineer writes the code to do it, and they're more likely to develop something with one way to approach the problem than to provide infinite flexibility that you might get from buying physical game boxes in the real world and chucking them around your house liberally.

A happy medium solution is ultimately the best choice IMHO. Personally what I would like to see is a simple manual shelf back on the store and in Galaxy just to allow people who feel really strongly about it have a built in option, but I think the ultimate solution that is 1000 times more flexible will be when GOG eventually stabilizes their new website code, backend and all the bits of Galaxy and they eventually document and publish the Galaxy APIs for 3rd party developers to write their own software. Most likely a number of people will spring to life and write some alternative frontends for Galaxy, for organizing one's virtual library in a variety of flexible ways, maybe even having a 3D world view of a virtual bookshelf that you can navigate with a VR headset on like you were picking up real boxes on a real bookshelf. I'm sure we'll likely have some shit like that in the coming years. I don't think GOG should waste time creating it mind you, but if they enable the APIs to access the raw data, Developers Will Come(TM).

People love customizing things, creating, personalizing, modding. Valve learned this, Bethesda knows this, several other companies understand the will of the individual to want to create and customize things and make them their own. It's our human nature and it isn't right or wrong, it just is. If GOG recognizes this and in the future make their APIs fully accessible as they've promised and I'm sure they'll follow through on, then I have no doubt in my mind that there would be a tonne of 3rd party options out there that would be way way better than anything GOG could develop in isolation themselves with a small and finite number of devs.

I want to some day walk into a virtual GOG.com 3D world store with an Oculus Rift and shake Marcin's virtual hand. Hey, it could happen! :)

Not sure if it'll work but try hitting SHIFT-ENTER instead, that works on Facebook comments for line break instead of submission, and it works in various other software/websites also as a sort of common convention. No idea if it works on GOG, but if it doesn't it'd be good wishlist material too. :)

With how this thread has turned personal, I don't know why I feel compelled to chime in but I will. Let me preface by saying I am pretty agnostic to the recent changes. Some are better, some are worse. None of them will affect my decision to buy from GOG. GOG's opportunity with me is to offer games that I can play at a reasonable price, and some level of support once I make a purchase. Other than that, they can paint the entire place green with unicorns on it, and I don't care.

I am a gamer, and a collector. As a collector, I use a separate database software program for a gaming catalog that has a nice bookshelf background and more detailed information about my collection that GOG or any other site will ever offer. Did I spend a couple of bucks to get it? Yes I did because it offers the features I wanted. Plus, this database has ALL 1500 or so of my games in it, regardless of where they were purchased. Therefore, I am not reliant on GOG or anyone else for my catalog collection.

GOG has no obligation to cater to me, and I would challenge folks to look at other sites mentioned here (Humble, Gamersgate, DotEMU, etc.) and see how your library looks there. If you think what we have here sucks, take another look at those places. They sell me games, offer a nondescript page where I can find download links, and that's about it. GOG may have made changes that some disapprove of, but it's still better than most. They are a business, and I'm sure they offer the features that they need to for maximum satisfaction of their client base, and do away with ones that are cutting into their profit margin. No harm, no foul. Too many specialized features that cost money and resources, and GOG becomes a thing of the past.

So I would encourage the OP to find a better system for collecting than to rely on a "for-profit" enterprise to provide that service for free. It's their sandbox, and they need to make money from it. So catering to a small segment does not make good economical sense to keep the lights on.

OP, I hope you can find something that will help get past these recent changes, but I don't think things are going to return to where they were. GOG is trying to grow as a business, and they are making decisions they feel will help them do so. If they guess wrong, I guess they will fold up shop at some point. You may have to look elsewhere to find the functionality you want, but I hope you can get past this and stick around the community. Good luck!

We have no obligation to use any of your ¨software recommendations¨, and less use time on it when GOG offered it fast and prepared to jump on it, as we have no obligation to continue paying for an "experience" that we enjoyed it, and now is changed.

900 votes and still growing... I am sorry but changes do not bother me, (I never complaint in 10 years as STEAM user) BAD changes bother me, I complaint about two things here and both are related to the same thing "the GOG experience", and beyond a bad experience, what is utterly worse, is have a terrible PR and CM response, and users telling us "what we should do" to step further and continue being "happy with our destroyed GOG experience"

Who is trying to sell games, GOG, or you guys? User experience nowadays is as important as the game catalogue you have, is extremely ridiculous that GOG try to copy STEAM now, and at the same time is trying to say "hey! what is important is that you can still digitally buy non-DRM games... you can manage them later with 3rd party software, ... collector..." , when STEAM is TOTALLY FOCUSED on the experience.

In a race you can choose to follow your own path and arrive the first to different places, GOG did this time ago and it was the key of their success, or follow the path of others and arrive the second, the third, or the fourth, to a race won by other. It is their decision to gather their new "sandbox" (again good luck vs VALVE!) and maintain the lights "on" LOL , as is MY decision to look at the website as it is now, not longer a place to "collect" games, but as much to buy a game from time to time... and definitively, not longer as my first choice.

For sure I can tell you, that for me "collecting and impulsive purchases" are utterly OVER here, not even arriving to the conclusion that this "ship" is controlled by too many "captains" and changing directions pretty abruptly, not considering that yes, you are right, they have a new BIG market vision, like the "HIPSTER MOVIES" thing... I bet they are getting so HUGE revenue with it...

My confidence in STEAM, even if I do not like many things there, never been "dynamited" in 10 years... only someone that offered me a more "charming" experience a collector´s experience, made me stop buying games on STEAM as a priority, this people was GOG. But after bought METRO here and find out, thanks to people like fenix or you even more, how much we "old users" are not important anymore, I celebrated these changes yesterday buying my first game on STEAM after 6 months on the dry...

Don't waste your time with this thread... Just let it die ;) And don't be afraid to vote for the old shelf on the wishlist if you prefer it over the new one. Yes, "someone" will count your vote as one more upset user who stops buying from GOG, whenever someone steps into this thread to say that the new shelf isn't a complete failure. But... Who cares?

900 votes in less than one week care, among other people complaining in several threads. Cope with it.

Thanks for posting your thoughts. Nice screenshot, I'm curious what the software is you're using. One thing I'd like personally is for all software and websites I use to take proper full advantage of all of the pixels available on my monitor. Sadly, most "web" based applications are to some degree or another developed with a non-responsive design that assumes some large number of people out there are using monitors that max out at 1024x768 or similar and that they must use pixel based designs. It's very unfortunate because all such websites end up taking up about an 8 inch wide strip of the middle of my 30 inch monitor centered in the middle with massive 8 inches or so of wasted space on each side. I'd much rather for example see my GOG game library show 16 to 20 titles side by side from the left of my monitor to the right of my monitor, but I don't have any expectation for that either. But if other software offers such a feature to recognize my monitor is more than 1024 pixels wide, I'm certainly curious about it to say the least. :)

See? That's what I meant when I said "someone will count your vote as another upset user". I already told our Mr. Rant here that the wishlist entry doesn't say what he thinks that it says. But he won't listen, so... Yes, just don't waste your time with this thread ;)
Read again. 899 votes from reasonable people asking to restore their prefered shelf view + 1 vote from you. Cope with it.

Well you totally miss the point, is not about me, is about the LIBRARY, but it seems that the problem with GOG to listen users is an EGO one. So the ones that need to get rant about my insignificant post are ego driven too. So please, honestly from this humble consumer, I am not interested in show who is right, I am interested in get my experience back, or just simply choice other market as GOG is also choosing other market. Fair enough

So please, If you think my words are nothing, please show me, and "let this post die" ;)

Ciao!

No, you totally missed the point.

No, it is a programmer skill one. Read the official post from Chamb. They were not able to do a satisfactory manual sorting function, so they removed it. They splitted the library into pages for performance reasons. If this was an ego problem, they wouldn't have told us any reasons why they were changing things.

So... Yes, it is about you (your horrible attitude) and not about the library. You could tell GOG that you prefered the old library and ask them to keep working on manual sorting and a single page shelf. Instead you chose to stomp with your foot and to ignore what everyone says. All we get from you is "I'll stop buying from GOG and think about getting my stuff from Steam". But beware f someone says "Well, go to Steam then"... This makes you rage even more, telling us that we're not the ones to tell you where you spend your money and that were undercover GOG staff, doing a bad job at damage control and community management. And beware if someone wants to be nice and tell you about a software that gives you a cross-plattform shelf view of all your games. You just keep on raging, being agressive towards everyone, throwing around your wishlist votes without even knowing who voted for which reasons -.-

Whatever you say... Maybe I'm just sick of your overly aggressive attitude and want to make some fun of you. I don't do this normally, but you're just beyond belief. Just have another look at your reaction towwards jdjones1966... He just wanted to be nice and tell you about a possibility to get a GOG-like shelf for all of your games (GOG, Steam, wherever). And what did he get? One of your stupid "You are no one to tell me what I do!!!!!" seizures...

I'll post wherever, whenever and whatever I want :P

So you care...

Hey! I posted my feedback and my feelings for the website I being using and expending my money for so long with more reasons than you coming to tell me what I need or not to do, what I need or not to accept, and I post it "whenever, and wherever" I want, if you are able to say this words judging the same for me, you are just an ego driven troll, and not someone trying to get back what they liked in this website, whatever if we rant or not, whatever if we decide to leave or not, it is not your business, and yes, absolutely I do not need to LOSE time using any other 3rd Party software that I need to configure when GOG did this before for me, is MY time, not YOUR time, MY preferences, not YOUR preferences, and I repeat 900 people think the same. But It seems you are really much more concerned that GOG itself about my shopping habits, something that frankly speaking is really WEIRD, or is just that you found someone to discuss with because your are boring as hell...

But hey! feel free, again if you care for it... just do it... you are not going to get any more replies from me, because as contrary as you, I do not care about people that want to ¨suggest¨ others that they should stay here, saying at the same time, that we do not longer have a place here. "Sandbox" market ... lights "on" ... changes... GOG need to "survive" with the BIG market...

Sure! I wonder why you care so much...

When I decided to go it alone to catalog all my games in one place, I looked at two programs.

Sisimizi Game Catalog - Free

Collectorz.com Game Collector - Std. $39USD, Pro $49 USD

Ultimately I bought the Game Collector Pro as I figured I had thousands of $$ invested in my game collection, so a few bucks for something with all the bells and whistles was worth the money for me. I am not affiliated with either site, just a consumer who was looking for a solution to untie me from any individual site's catalog system.

To OP, I'm glad you got your vote in with the other 900 people, and I hope your votes enact the change you want. But at this point you seem so upset that any post in this thread is met with some level of aggression. So I will withdraw from here wishing you the best to find whatever organizational system that will satisfy your needs, be it here or somewhere else.

Do not worry I am not upset in a "serious" way, I am upset as a "user" and "consumer", and this is enough to tell your now ex-favorite website about it. Thanks for your concerns, more if they are honest, I am sorry I am not sure about this seeing all the effort you put in build the idea that GOG need to grow, and we "oldies" collectors are not needed anymore, is something that does not match at all with the initial concern. And also, because we do not really understand why some of you don´t get when at the beginning of this thread we said several times "we do not have time even to play all our games, or we do not want/have time to manage 3rd party software" quotes that several of us post here, seriously, your intents to compensate our lost in the GOG Experience is NOT what we are asking for, is TIME consuming, it needs to be BUILT. Before it was BUILT by GOG, and now is GONE.

I seriously also do not understand why several people in this same post, when some of us decide to "vote with our wallet" you guys rant even more than us, vs us. I really wonder why also one of the users that come to "help" get so angry and concerned about our shopping habits. (Actually more than one, you included, with the ¨sandbox thing, and the lights on whatever" and all the nice words about do not consider GOG changes so bad, not to mention that all your speech started, again, with the "even if the unicorns invade gog.com design WE NEED to buy here...)

We have no time to use other programs, or we just simply do not want, we loved GOG library, we really LOVED this page from the very beginning, and if it c̶h̶a̶n̶g̶e̶s̶ eradicate some features, me or others we have the right to give feedback, complain, do not be considered "reluctant to changes" when some of us never complain in YEARS (and since then we got many changes here).

Do not worry about what can satisfy my gaming needs, I KNOW what satisfy my needs, not you, that is the point you missed. I moved to GOG as my primary website because I wanted something different, and I got it. If this place is going to be another STEAM clone. Do not worry, I got clear my preferences in that other "Market Battlefield"