GOG Galaxy 2.0 - integrate games, stats, and friends across clients

[BFG10K]

https://www.gogalaxy.com/en/

I personally don't like clients and only use Steam as a necessary evil. But I think some people might like this.

GOG Galaxy is optional, and it might help with the ridiculous out-of-control situation we have now with juggling multiple store fronts.

 

[ImpulsE69]

Galaxy is just a front end, you don't have to use it if you don't want, but it does simplify installs like steam does.

 

[Almighty_Denny]

To be honest, even if I also don't like to have multiple launchers, this new GOG frontend feature sounds very interesting!

Besides Steam, I've been already forced to install Ubisfot's, Blizzard's and EA's launchers on my system anyway, so a way to have them easily condensed in a single place sounds pretty nice and organized.

 

[rivethead]

Initially, that looks pretty appealing to me.

 

[Stg-Flame]

I only use Steam and install uPlay and Battle.net when I want to play those respective games, then immediately uninstall the launchers when I'm done. Origin, Bethesda, and now Epic will never be on my machine as this is just getting stupid. This is starting to feel like the late 90s with everyone having their own media player or video player (same with messengers). I also understand developers wanting to go with someone who will ultimately give more money back to the people who made the game, but I'm perfectly fine waiting for the games to end up on Steam.

 

[Fanatical Meat]

I know I’m in risky P&N territory

Isn’t GOG Run by a Russian company?
Any security concerns about loading a GOG app?

@aigomorla please edit or delete if I’m out of bounds.

 

[DeathReborn]

I know I’m in risky P&N territory

Isn’t GOG Run by a Russian company?
Any security concerns about loading a GOG app?

@aigomorla please edit or delete if I’m out of bounds.

Polish, so you're pretty safe. CD Projekt (Witcher series) are the parent company.

 

[Almighty_Denny]

Yeah, AFAIK, GOG is pretty safe to use.

That's one of the reasons Galaxy is already one of my favorite game launchers and providers (even if I'm mostly an Steam guy)

 

[BFG10K]

Any security concerns about loading a GOG app?

No way, GOG is one of the most pro-consumer companies you'll ever find. They're very strong on customer rights and ownership.

 

[Igo69]

Galaxy is just a front end, you don't have to use it if you don't want, but it does simplify installs like steam does.

Simplify? All I do is just press one exe file and it installs the game how hard is that, while you have to log in into a software and then install the game.

 

[Igo69]

To be honest, even if I also don't like to have multiple launchers, this new GOG frontend feature sounds very interesting!

Besides Steam, I've been already forced to install Ubisfot's, Blizzard's and EA's launchers on my system anyway, so a way to have them easily condensed in a single place sounds pretty nice and organized.

Did they point a gun at you and said "if you dont install our software we'll shoot you?"

 

[ImpulsE69]

Simplify? All I do is just press one exe file and it installs the game how hard is that, while you have to log in into a software and then install the game.

Uh...what are you talking about? It is a little more involved when downloading GOG games from the website and keeping up with patches unless you go through the GOG client. I'm not saying it's difficult, but it does simplify it. Getting the games from outside the client is not just 'click an exe and install' at all for games bigger than a few gb and/or patching.

 

[Almighty_Denny]

Did they point a gun at you and said "if you dont install our software we'll shoot you?"

Hey, take it easy mate!
Just a way to say it, not that I've been literally (and much less physically!) forced.

But it's a way of 'forcing' the user as the games won't run without the respective launchers installed, like every DRM.
Steam is also like that, but it's a bit of a hassle to have that many launchers running at the same time, and as Steam is the one most used and with most of my games, I prefer to only have that single launcher installed, or two at the most, like GOG Galaxy, if I have to choose.

Just a matter of personal preference, not that we have some agenda against other launcher or anything (even if I don't fully like Epic and despise a bit some of its CEO's statements).

 

[BFG10K]

XBox Live / XBox One is officially integrated with Microsoft's partnership: https://techreport.com/news/3463523/quick-look-gog-2-0-integrates-all-the-stores

 

[CP5670]

I like Galaxy and use that to install my GoG games. It's like Steam without any of the DRM, auto-updating games or other downsides. Once you install a game, it's no longer needed to run the game, but tracks achievements and other things.

 

[Stg-Flame]

What's so bad about automatic updates?

 

[DeathReborn]

What's so bad about automatic updates?

Updates aren't always good, bugs and what not... plus they tend to break mods quite often.

 

[Stg-Flame]

You can turn off automatic updates though. I did this for Fallout 4 on numerous occasions when I was playing through with mods.

 

[SMOGZINN]

So, the question is will this start a DRM war like we saw with other things of this nature in the 90's where someone would build a all-in-one frontend to combine the multiple providers and then each provider would intentionally make small changes on their end to break it? We saw this happen with the chat clients, media, and video players. You still see it with front ends for the video players where you can't get a working frontend that can handle both Netflix and Amazon.

 

[CP5670]

You can turn off automatic updates though. I did this for Fallout 4 on numerous occasions when I was playing through with mods.

It still eventually forces you to update in order to run the game. As others said, updates often break mods and no-intro patches, and occasionally saved games. For Fallout 4, I use the script extender to start the game, which seems to bypass Steam, but trying to run the game from Steam itself forces it to update.

 

[DeathReborn]

You can turn off automatic updates though. I did this for Fallout 4 on numerous occasions when I was playing through with mods.

There used to be a "do not update this game" option in Steam but that's been missing for years now. The closest it gets to stopping updates is setting every game to "only update upon launching" which didn't stop Football Manager 2016, 17 or 18 from updating or Fallout 4 or Skyrim for me.