So the GoG Galaxy client is now officially in BETA. I know we've had discussions on the client before but we can now use this thread to discuss it and our experiences with it in the fiture. The client seems to have all of the nifty features it should have.

The feature I was not expecting, and am most excited about, is crossplay with Steam! Not sure why but I thought multiplayer would be restricted to the playerbase of each client.

Another nifty feature included is one click rollback for game updates, which I'm not exactly sure if Steam has as well or not, to be honest. You can also didable automatic updates for individual games.

I'm excited to try it out, seeing as all three of my Witcher games, which I've yet to play, are all on GoG.

What are you liking, not liking, surprised by, confused by, etc.

Just checked it out. I doubt I'll use it in the future though, I suppose I just don't have much reason to.

The copy of Witcher 3 that came with my 970 is the GOG version so I'll definitely check it out. Although, I clicked "join the beta" and it said it sent me an email but I have not yet gotten an email.

Yeah I'm sat waiting for email too.

I guess I just thought that this was what gog already was.

GOG was essentially just an online store. You paid for the game, downloaded it, and it was all yours. So for them to go the extra length and add all the functionality of Steam but keep the DRM out of it is pretty great.

I'm somewhat surprised that the internet isn't rallying around GOG all the time.

Well, for the most part, Gog Galaxy is just the Gog website/downloader inside an executable file...

If I remember correctly, the emails are supposed to be sent out sometime during the next few days, not right away. I've checked out the closed alpha 4 days ago. Some people are noticing minor bugs, but I haven't run into any. It's a very clean and usable client, without any of the unnecessary crap that clutters the steam window nowadays (and actually always has, but to a lesser extent). It sort of reminds me of Origin, but with a better organised store.

Oh I have never used gog before and just assumed it was like steam already.

I'm pretty juiced for this, I'd rather give GoG money than Steam. I like the way they do business better (customer service, lack of DRM etc).

The social features and achievements are about the only advantage Steam has on GoG for me. If I like Galaxy GoG will get pretty much all my jump ball purchases if I have choice between platforms.

@slag: Galaxy has achievement support, unless you're referring to your friends seeing your achievements on Steam specifically.

@hypnotoadbrwowrowrow: I believe, this Slag meant that this advantage existed until now.

I'm pretty pumped for this, but the lack of Linux support out the gate, while completely understandable, is slightly depressing.

The Alpha was serviceable so I'm looking forward to trying the Beta.

@slag : I've been waiting for a GOG client for that reason (in 2015, I just prefer the way they do business compared to Steam) too. After being in on the Galaxy Alpha my mind's made up - If a game's on Steam and GOG it's getting bought from GOG now. The only real complaint I had about them before was that update support wasn't as slick as Steam's but with a client that shouldn't be a problem.

I'm waiting for my email. Pretty psyched to mess around with this. I made sure to purchase witcher 3 through GOG to support them directly

I'm excited for this. I have a bunch of games on GOG, but I would always forget about them since I would only go to their website to buy a game if it was cheap. Now that there is a dedicated client I can pin to my taskbar, I'll be paying way more attention to the games I own on that service.

I'm confused already. Is the library feature not cross-"platform"?
I could see myself using this if all my games were accessible from the same list, but if not, it'll be more convenient to just add Witcher 3 through the "add non-steam game" feature on steam...

Is anyone else still waiting for their email to download it?

Yeah, I was super surprised to see that they were giving the GOG version of that away. Then again, CD Projekt Red is just that fucking awesome, so it honestly SHOULDN'T be a surprise.

As for the Galaxy Beta, I might check it out at some point. However, with the way I interact with and use GOG, I don't see myself needing Galaxy anytime soon.

Also, the "crossplay with Steam" feature is pretty awesome. I didn't even think of something like that needing to exist.

I haven't tried the beta yet so this is just my thoughts on how I would use GoG Galaxy. I don't think this will replace Steam as far as my usage goes. Steam, despite it's flaws, is still a good service. Plus, I have so many games tied to it now. However, Galaxy looks to be a good alternative to Steam and it will probably increase my usage of GoG. GoG can be a bit cumbersome to use through the webpage interface and having a separate client should streamline a lot of things. I look forward to trying Galaxy

GOG is a subsidiary of CD Projekt, which is the parent company of CD Projekt Red, so it isn't a surprise they gave out GOG codes since the same company owns both GOG and CD Projekt Red.

@qrdl 's reading of what I wrote is what I meant. I meant that Steam's only advantage for me before Galaxy existed was that they had Achievements and Friends lists and stuff. Now obviously Galaxy adds those features to a GoG purchase. Sorry if that was unclear.

While GoG doesn't have many games I play multiplayer (yet anyway), Steams's friend list functionality is a big reason I use it as much as I do. The critical mass of users, diversity of played games and functionality makes finding and arranging co-op games much more convenient than most of their competitors. I suspect that is a big reason my friends prefer DOTA 2 over League of Legends, Steam just makes it easier to find people to play with.

fwiw I personally couldn't care less if my friends see my achievements, I just like them for myself since it's basically another kind of stat that's neat to look at. I like stats.

Sweet got an email from them. Can't wait to mess around with it when I get home.

I just installed it, seems alright, definitely pretty barebones and beta-esque right now

Pretty much all that appears to be functional is the store, library and downloader

the social features, notifications, game suto-updating and achievements are listed as "coming soon"

I tried the scan &import folders function so to see if it could find my witcher 1 install so I could launch it from the client and it didn't see it :(

Not bad for a new launch, hope the achievement system is place for the Witcher 3 launch

I'll be honest... none of this really appeals to me. I like GOG quite a bit, it's allowed me to play a bunch of old games from my younger years and games I'd never gotten a chance to try. And their sales have been pretty spectacular these last few years.

But the friends I keep in contact with for gaming purposes are on Steam, Steam text/voice chat works well, and most of my games now (except for physical discs/carts in boxes, etc.), are Steam games, back from when I first bought the Orange Box. GOG's great, I just hit download, then install a game and it sets up its version of dosbox just fine and I hit go, but just downloading a random exe from the site was pretty appealing to me.

Maybe the direction GOG is going these days, more multiplayer and newer indie game focused, isn't marketed for people like me as much? I'd like it more if it was as focused on old-ass games like it originally was? (though it took a while for it to start bringing out the 80's and early 90's games). And anyone remember that marketing stunt where they said they were shutting down... except they weren't? That was a shitty move.

It seems fine. Seems to serve its purpose without trying to do a bunch of extra stuff. I was able to add all of my installed games purchased through GoG to it after verifying the files. Lets you view the game manual and download extra content (art, soundtracks, etc) right there from the library. There's a friends list to add GoG friends (I have no GoG friends). Nothing stands out as amazing, but it's simple and functional. I burn all of my GoG games to disc, but it's nice to have a nice easy way to download, update, and roll back those DRM-free games in one place. The rollback feature is the biggest feature this has over Steam. If a patch breaks the game, you can just go back to an old version.

Just got my email this morning. Should be rolling out soon to those that signed up the first day it went public.

I don't believe Galaxy will replace Steam like some people seem to want, or think. I'm using it as a supplement, much like Origin. It will be nice to have the client now since I hardly visited the GOG website. Now that it will be on my desktop, it will be way easier for me to see deals they have and keep my games I've purchased from them organized. I don't plan on using their friend feature much, since my friends I play games with are on Steam.

I'm glad it finally came out, GOG is more useful to me now, might actually take advantage of their sales and games now that I have an easy place to keep track of everything.

Considering that I got an email from them announcing how happy they are to have the original series Star Trek adventure games from the '90s, I don't think that's totally an accurate assessment of their "direction".

I think the pure fact is that the old games they bring to their store probably sell a ton when they're first (re)released, and taper off pretty quickly after that. The audience is dedicated, but small. Not to mention that there are a limited number of old games that people are yearning for. If they continued as "Good Old Games", at some point, they'd just be a store of old games that had already sold what they worked on to the folks who wanted it and just sort of slowly fade away.

So introducing modern games as well is a chance to not only potentially increase their revenue (which would allow them to put more work into getting more old games), but to serve as a truly DRM free platform for indies who'd seek that out.

None of that means that they're any less dedicated (at least from everything I've seen) to polishing up and bringing out all of the classics that we want.

I know. That's why I mentioned CD Projekt Red. I guess I should've pointed that out.

I'm typically not interested in everyone making their own damn client, but for some reason I don't mind this one bit. GOG does good stuff.

@theht: difference with GoG though is that they're not a publisher making a client, they're a retailer.

@hypnotoadbrwowrowrow: Sure, but that doesn't make much of a difference to me. I wouldn't be interested in an Amazon or GMG client at all. The difference for me is mostly that I appreciate what GOG does. I'm not sure why, but I'm finding the promise of DRM-free more and more enticing.

Oddly enough though, it seems GOG is "publishing" some older games now, and intend to do more. But even that comes across as a weirdly goodwill endeavour.

Trying it out now. Just a really simple, clean interface that I really like using. I don't think it will be steam or trying like steam but I think it's an awesome alternative that I'm more than willing to support. The rollback feature seems like something really simple and awesome for someone like me who isn't always the most savvy person when it comes to this kind of stuff.

I don't know how feasible this is, but are they planning on letting you import friends from steam so that I can chat with a friend who is on steam while I might be playing a GOG game? Not a big deal since I can probably have both open lol. Just curious. I do hope there is a simpler way to add friends through a search menu instead of the way they are doing it right now.

I view GoG kinda like a Classic Rock station, eventually today's rock is going to be tomorrow's Classic Rock.

Same is true for games, so makes sense to me that GoG is laying down the foundation to handle multiplayer games and such as they become "classic" games. And I think a more modern library mgt system is a plus all around.

Doesn't mean the Oldies that you (and I) may prefer are going away, just ensures that GoG is going to hopefully remain relevant for a long time to come. Which Ultimately hopefully means the 80's stuff will remain available to all of us.

I am curious as to how the Steam/GoG crossplay will work as far as friends go, or if friends will even be part of the cross play feature. Realistically, I think it will just allow for the game playerbase to interact through the platforms in-game, but some sort of cross-platform-friends feature would be nice.

I really like the client, but GOG continues to be a place where I buy shit, but never play. At least with steam I'll buy shit, never play it, and then go play Dota 2. Either way GOG is a great service and I hope this helps them become more popular.

@slag: But man when GOG starts putting Green Day on their storefront I'm out! Radio is off!

But from a business perspective everything they're doing makes sense, it's just they're making more money off of new customers that aren't like me. I lost my shit when they put up one of my two favourite DOS games of all time, Sword of the Samurai. If they ever are able to distract Koei from Dynasty Warriors games for a moment to let them get Uncharted Waters 2: New Horizons on GOG, then I'll lose my shit again and suddenly all will be well with the world.

...I really hope they put up UW2, I kept full dosbox and norton commander installed on my old PC right up till I got a new PC and have been too lazy to install that on this.

Good on them but the reason gog is good is that it is clientless. I dont need a client for Jagged Alliance. Unless they did the millions of hours of work to make mp work for those games (Xwing vs TIE fighter) then that'd be a reason to install even the most bloated client.

This will definitely get me to buy more random games, which is what they want. I don't browse the GOG website, but through the client I'll see sales on the front page or be reminded of games that I forgot about.

Don't agree with this at all, the fact that it was client-less is why GOG is the place i buy games that i never end up playing and why i have multiple installers downloaded across multiple hard drives. Also their Downloader felt like a shoe horned half-assed attempt at convenience.

So far, the Client does what i want it to do. I prefer the list view in the library and wish they would show all the games on the one page; There are some grayed out features so the "view all" may take care of that when it works. Still want a bandwidth limiter (the Downloader had one so i'd imagine it'll be added). Overall, it's simple but functional which is good enough for what i want it for. Unless they're going to work towards making old games compatible with their multiplayer network system it's not something you would need but makes things much more convenient.

I like it better than what I was doing before with games I downloaded from GOG. Using this is better than searching through a folder for the right game. I don't know if using it will become habit like using Steam is but I hope to.

I'm hoping this will start making GOG more of a competitor against Steam. As much as I like Steam, Valve really needs more competition.

Seems to work nice for a beta, though there is one annoying thing. The back button on the mouse doesn't work, so it's a little annoying to browse. Hope they fix that.

I played around with it a bit. not much you can do in the beta so far but this is what Steam looked like when it was first launched. Looking forward to further updates.

Competition is good!

Seems okay so far, had a quick look around, minimal at the moment which would be nice if it stayed that way, Steam is just impossible to find anything on now. I am one of the weirdos that quite likes Origin so with GOG and Uplay being a store soon Valve will need to start stepping up their game.

You're not a weirdo man. There are dozens of us! DOZENS!

@hypnotoadbrwowrowrow: I'd probably have steam open anyway, but yeah if I was in a GOG game it'd be nice to, for example with multiplayer, connect with someone on steam who I want to do some multiplayer with (though every time Ive done chat it has been through Skype lol). Not a dealbreaker by any means.

It seems okay. I don't like how it starts up full screen when you start your computer though. Steam is still my jam but I think it may be a good secondary service. I'll still be damned if I get forced to use Origin or Uplay. I hate that they exist at all.

Unlike Origin and Steam it seems incredibly light weight memory wise, so I see no reason to shut it down while doing something else. That said, the current friends list solution they have is garbage, and I certainly hope the rest of the community features aren't far off. As it is right now, it's just a more convenient way to download the games I've bought, since the library view on the GOG site loads slowly, and the GOG Downloader was kinda unstable.