Alrighty then.

Galaxy is a piece of junk. It has always been a piece of junk, yet GOG has forced it on us from the beginning. And it already is a form of DRM as, without it, you can't install games quickly or play them properly.

I'm moving onto other platforms. Because if I'm going to be forced to use a crap piece of bloatware to download games, I'll reactivate my Steam account and use that.
You can say 'alrighty then' as much as you like, because that's the response of a sheeple.

Meanwhile, those of us who will not be dictated to as to how we are allowed to install the DRM-free games we bought will just move onto other platforms.

For instance, I had a game in my cart I was going to buy this afternoon along with 3 others on sale. But...I downloaded an old game to play today, got the "You must log into Galaxy to play the game' message and I immediately removed the one game from my cart and forgot any thought of buying the others.

Because if this is the direction GOG is going in, I'll buy my games at Steam. Because, hey, they might also have a piece of bloatware they force you to download in order to get decent download speeds, but at least their's works!!!

Ah, yes. "Sheeple". Congratulations on winning the "use one word that instantly loses you any discussion you want to partake in" game.

Meanwhile, if you bothered to glance through the thread, you'd know that although I wasn't using the downloader (and don't use Galaxy either) I sided with people like you who lost their prefered method of download, and I was very critical of how GOG handled discountinuing the use of the downloader.

What I was pointing out with my apparently too confusing post is that you simultanously tell us you're quitting GOG because you can't download your games, and the first action you take in your dramatic exit is... downloading your games. Well if you can download all your games after all, then what exactly is preventing you from using GOG? Your post was rather... internally inconsistant, and that's what I was pointing out.

And what game was that? As far as I know the only game here that literally requires Galaxy is Gwent.

Also "For the King". True, it's a bug, but the fact remains that the game won't run without galaxy (since October 2019). GOG is aware of this.

Some people have craptastic internet. Downloading something from a browser is fine if it can be accomplished quickly. But the longer it takes the more likely it is for the connection to drop, leaving you with incomplete garbage files.

Absolutely.

I'm currently in the U.S., where downloading anything is not a problem. But...I live in Austria, which has some of the slowest Internet speeds I've ever experienced (been with 3 Austrian ISPs, they're all garbage), so downloading game files is a nightmare via a browser and I will not use Galaxy.

That means my choice is basically to download all my games onto a hard drive while I'm still in the U.S., then just walk away from GOG as I don't have time to mess with browser downloads once I'm back in Austria -- awful speeds plus the need to download a boatload of separate files if you want the extras. No thanks!

This would be a good solution for many, I would think.
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Galaxy hasn't been forced on anyone(that I know of) beyond maybe MP players, and it isn't DRM(except maybe for said MP players).

So you'd move to an even more DRMd platform/store just to get faster download speeds? How does that make sense?

Why not one of the other DRM free stores instead?

The only ones that should be doing that are Gwent(which is tied to galaxy), For the King(due to a bug), and MP parts of games....nothing else.

If you're getting such messages maybe message GOG staff about it or start a thread about it to get help/info from others?

(Or are you maybe talking about the suggestions in game installs to play via galaxy? If so, those are optional and just suggestions)

The download speed of the browser is just fine. It downloads things equally fast as any other piece of software.

In the absence of the GOG downloader I use the browser and what is missing with the browser is "just" convenience. You have to select all the goodies one by one and all the parts of a big download. That used to be better and indeed is a regression in that regard.

The downloader was really useful. I used it for many years and was very satisfied with it.

If only they had some sort of app that allowed you to download all the offline installer files through it, with no added DRM whatsoever. Oh well.

And since they decide not to fix it after all this time it probably isn't a bug. So it's an (accidental?) feature. In other words: it is effectively DRM and GOG refuses to remove it.

Maybe they're just cheap and lazy?

(that also works and explains it as well)

But doesn't make it better. The effect is the same: GOG sells a single-player game that requires Galaxy. They know that the game requires Galaxy and they choose not to change that. Whether they ditched their last principle out of laziness or out of malice is not as important as the fact that they did ditch it. In any case it shows how little GOG cares about their 'Always DRM-free' and 'Galaxy will always be optional' promises.

Well of course not...no one said it did.

Well if it's the dev's burden to fix such then it's their fault & there's likely little GOG can do(unless the company sends them a fixed installer/file[s])...especially if they(GOG) are legally bound via a contract to sell for a set period.

They didn't ditch it(for single player games beyond Gwent).

Unless you maybe have proof they did?

(And like any logical person I don't consider gut feelings solid proof)

Wrong. They can de-list the game if the dev refuses to fix it. As they have done in the past, when a dev was 'unable' to provide patches for games.

Wrong again. In case you didn't notice, the game we were talking about is "For the King" That's a single-player game which requires Galaxy. Sure, they say it's a bug. But since they refuse to fix that but (for whatever reason), they knowingly distribute a single-player game that requires Galaxy to start.

I find your reply to be disingenuous.