All I can remember saying about Victor Vran recently is that is could be played offline and without Galaxy, which is true, and the user was causing his/her own problems technically, even though I agreed it was some really shitty programming by the dev to not better handle when a firewall was blocking shit.

Anyway, all games include some essential components to function so really what's new here? We are talking one feature, not the entire game and we are talking a component provided free of charge by the very store the game was purchased from.

What you advocate for, free and open multiplayer not depended on any service or store isn't going to happen on any large scale basis, devs and publishers will use the tools provided to them because it's easier and most people don't care enough to demand it. Online communities usually die off within a few years, except in some rare instances. A "few" people who would want it, isn't enough to justify spending the resources. May be harsh, may be morally wrong, but it is what is it. I'd rather not miss out games or get gimped version to satisfy some wish that is never going to happen anyway. Sorry.

Many games use third party and/or first party components for a various reasons that can have a negative effect on your ability to play game in the future. There really is no escaping that regardless of what GOG does.
No it's not. It's the same thing. Games that depend on Galaxy for online MP won't work online without Galaxy regardless if installed via standalone installer or installed via Galaxy.

There is zero difference, both outcomes are the exact same.
Evolution is inevitable. Companies grow and expand, not every change you will agree with but without growth you get stagnation and with stagnation you get no growth. Companies don't last long with no growth. All of us have that point where if GOG crosses it we will leave, but GOG is still by far the better alternative.

The biggest lie of the global capitalism at hand: Stagnation is a bad thing without any possible "development" or "evolution". And of course: Growth above everything else. But even though: There is no endless growth and I think GOG has expanded too much within a too short amount of time. So they will go on, believing this nice and big lie. Time will tell, but this lie ruined much in between, most things directly within society itself. ;-)

Ah and stagnation is a catastrophe, of course. And humans are just another kind of resource! Neoliberalism at hand. :D
And GOG won't stay a good alternative if they just passes their own principles. Much of them vanished until now. One of the last remaining? DRM-free, standalone installation-packages. Either the client is just another transfer-option or not: This discussion is really senseless and GOG will get rid of their own principles then. An alternative? A big joke then.

Just remember evolution has "dead ends", cancer is also a growth, and not all change is for the good ie. Dr. Jekyll.

- removed double post, loving the forum -

Possibly, I'm sure those small companies (like GOG) that have felt the crippling impacts of stagnation and have gone out of business wouldn't call that a lie though. Regardless if you agree or disagree with capitalism (I don't want to turn this into some political argument) it is relevant to how things work in many parts of the world. As they say: "money makes the world go round"...

Of course, not all changes are good. Hence why you listen to feedback and you make changes based on that feedback. Overall though, I think Galaxy is the defacto way people get games from GOG, and you better believe that GOG will only make significant changes like removing standalone installers if they have to data to support that. I still very much doubt they would do that though, unless it got to the point where only like 1% or 2% of their user base was using standalone installers.