HereForTheBeer: I guess I'm a bit baffled in this: whatever mechanism is being used for Galaxy, it could probably be used in a stand-alone patch / update doohickey. So why isn't it? Can't there be a client-lite like an updated Downloader? Something smaller, simpler, and manual-er. Something friendly to those who either prefer to DIY as much as possible or have various internet connection limitations to work around. Or whatever reason. I mean, do we really need to download a 145MB Galaxy installer to retrieve a 4MB update? Especially when the update is the only feature we'd use.
BKGaming: Could be sure... the reason is they want Galaxy to be the center of everything you do on GOG that isn't on the site. Even stripped down version would be another piece of software that has to be maintained. It's not ideal to have two pieces of software that basically doing the exact same thing, it's actually redundant. If they are based on the same architecture, then you would also have a lot of overlap (ie same bug having to be fixed on both versions, meaning twice the amount of work).
Well, there's a reason I don't buy Swiss Army knives: too many tools I will never use, and it's not the best solution for the ones I might use. Or pick any other similar analogy. If I get a tool to do one or more things, then I want to use most everything that simple tool does, and I want it to do them really well and as easily as possible.
Yes, I'll note a couple ironic / puzzling things about my feelings on the matter:
- these are games and not something critical, so what's the BFD?
- the Galaxy download + its own updates is much smaller than a couple of the full games I'd have to download to get the latest game updates
I get it. On the face of it my position makes no sense. Yet I'm not ready/willing to dive into the ongoing beta, and there are better and simpler solutions that could be implemented that dovetail with Galaxy. Using the Downloader is pretty darn simple. I'd have no gripes whatsoever if the updates could be obtained through that.
Anyway, not going to lose any sleep over the matter. It's annoying, and I have ways to get around it.