this post was submitted on 14 Jan 2026
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Ehhhhh.
I actually think the current model is what more stores should be doing. Have a solid web store/client with the ability to just download games without anything else. Provide hooks so that third parties (e.g. Heroic) can manage games for people.
Rather than assuming every single store needs to dedicate resources towards building out library management tools. Especially since EGS has shown that people will then just want social media on top of that.
They don't "provide hooks" though, Heroic's Galaxy integration is reverse-engineered and could break at any point that GOG update how they do things. Providing a downloadable installer is nice for some people I'm sure, but most people just want to download the game quickly and easily with features like cloud saves available.
Yep, and even for me while I prefer to download the game directly usually, when I need to bother with manually getting it to work, I much prefer steam and its proton integration. It's nice that most games at least just work by running them in a random proton prefix with protontricks, but shipping them with an install script that just gives you a shortcut and installs any dependencies would be huge (actually a step up from steam). And then if galaxy runs on linux it could use that same process.
Yeah, I wish there was a good way for third party clients to detect game updates, though.
Heroic seems to detect updates to GOG games just fine.
It's against their interest to offer this as they have everything to gain by making you install their proprietary application and capturing you inside their ecosystem where they don't have to compete fairly. Would Steam be in the position it's in if you didn't have to install it to download your games?
Honestly yes it likely would. GameSpy sucked.
Steam hate it or love it from its early days still was basically the best and most stable and reliable option for the endless number of services that gamers needed out side of downloading and buying games.
Seriously steam could have no store front at all and it would still have been a majorly successful application and service for the entirety of its early life.
GOG sells only DRM-free games and has usually taken a pro-open source stance (I don't have a source for this sorry)
And... I don't give a fuck about a corporation's best interests (at least, not one I don't own significant stock in).
But also: Epic have the financial backing of god, hollywood, and fortnite behind them. Valve make more revenue off their cut of everyone else's games than many small nations have in annual GDP.
GoG is a recently spun off loss leader for a large regional publisher. And you don't add these kinds of capabilities without a LOT of corporate investment... or management who decides "AI Can Do It"