GOG Partners with Epic Games to Expand into a Universal Storefront

[Valantar]

Yes, they actually are. Sometimes games are days or weeks behind in getting an offline installer update, or the original install version is behind the release version on Galaxy by two weeks as happened with Iron Harvest. Also keep in mind their “Help” personnel number 1 answer to everything is “maybe if you’d install Galaxy the problem would go away.”

Otherwise yes, I do get what you are saying on an intellectual level. I just object to the king of independent gaming now encouraging its members to be like everyone else. Trust me, once they have an overwhelming percentage of their users on Galaxy, the offline installers will go away. At least what I have already bought is stored on two separate locations.

I might be an optimist, but I think you're being overly cynical. Expecting them to drop their core ethos and base of player trust just because the proportion of users making use of it shrinks? That's just cynicism. Providing DRM-free installers costs GOG pretty much nothing at all, and given that that's the core premise of their pitch to users, removing that would be really dumb of them. As an underdog, they likely wouldn't survive the backlash. Updates lagging behind? Sure, that'll happen. They're likely at a point where they're stretching their resources to achieve their goals. If they keep growing, that will likely swing back as they get more resources to hire more people. As for their support techs recommending Galaxy: is that a surprise? For the vast majority of gamers, that is the type of service they want and need, and it will solve a bajillion of PEBKAC issues. It's likely the GOG version of "did you try turning it off and on again?"

Playnite has been doing this all along. You can add anything even plain exes, modded ones... all stores, platforms...

Only those friends lists might make GOGunique in this sense.

I tried using Playnite a while back, but sadly I found it rather lacking. The interface was laggy and buggy, and (at the time) there were no console integrations, so it did nothing to alleviate the major pain point of re-buying games I've gotten through XLG or PS+. GOG solves all of that, thankfully.

 

[rtwjunkie]

I might be an optimist, but I think you're being overly cynical. Expecting them to drop their core ethos and base of player trust just because the proportion of users making use of it shrinks? That's just cynicism.

You hit the nail on the head. I am a pretty cynical person. What can I say, LOL.

 

[R-T-B]

I might be an optimist, but I think you're being overly cynical. Expecting them to drop their core ethos and base of player trust just because the proportion of users making use of it shrinks? That's just cynicism.

Not when there is direct evidence of that happening, though.

The offline installers are absolutely being neglected as of late. I had to wait a half a week for that last Kerbal Space Program update to drop.

 

[Valantar]

Not when there is direct evidence of that happening, though.

The offline installers are absolutely being neglected as of late. I had to wait a half a week for that last Kerbal Space Program update to drop.

Yes, but as I said, there are reasonable reasons to expect that to be temporary. If GOG is focusing their (limited) resources on rapid growth in a short timespan (rather than rapid growth over a long period, which they would need to be stunningly naïve to plan for) it's understandable that some resources are temporarily refocused towards the elements that might provide said growth, but that they will then shift back afterwards. Unless things start going badly for GOG due to this push, I would expect things to start equalizing again in half a year or something like that (a concerted marketing push can't last that long).

 

[R-T-B]

Yes, but as I said, there are reasonable reasons to expect that to be temporary. If GOG is focusing their (limited) resources on rapid growth in a short timespan (rather than rapid growth over a long period, which they would need to be stunningly naïve to plan for) it's understandable that some resources are temporarily refocused towards the elements that might provide said growth, but that they will then shift back afterwards. Unless things start going badly for GOG due to this push, I would expect things to start equalizing again in half a year or something like that (a concerted marketing push can't last that long).

Gog galaxy pulls from a file server somewhere too. I don't see how this should be so complicated.

 

[Valantar]

Gog galaxy pulls from a file server somewhere too. I don't see how this should be so complicated.

True, but those installers have all kinds of tie-ins to the launcher, which would break if it wasn't present (cloud saves, achievements, etc.). They also lack the GUI to be installed manually. So while the process of repackaging an offline installer isn't likely to be very complex, it's not done in five minutes either, and it likely can't be fully automated.

 

[R-T-B]

True, but those installers have all kinds of tie-ins to the launcher, which would break if it wasn't present (cloud saves, achievements, etc.). They also lack the GUI to be installed manually.

Everytime I install from GOG galaxy, the installer still shows up, and I haven't noticed any integration cruft in the game. Galaxy seems to do that on it's own.