No fooling here, that's a genuine idea I've uplifted.

https://www.gog.com/wishlist/galaxy/make_galaxy_a_subscription

It's quite simple. If Galaxy is a fiscal boat anchor, turn it into a gilded privilege used by those willing to support it. The rest of us can support GOG itself in the traditional way by buying games and not using it.

Thank you, I did not think of sharing that one in the wishlist, but it does make a lot of sense.
I voted in favour of it, obviously.

If they're considering a subscription business model, it seems to me they're really desperate for revenue.

Galaxy users already have more benefits than most of us without paying, like updated games, faster download speeds, quick access to downloads and rollback feature (funnily enough, things there were present in the Subscription Survey to be voted if a subscription service would be created here...),

So why not apply that subscription to Galaxy itself?
It makes sense when we have a quick thought and also a protest against that absurd Subscription idea on a DRM-Free store.

Like someone said on another thread, Subscriptions are not inherently bad, but this kind of business model does not work with a DRM-Free store necessarily as explained by others in this forum too.

Considering, though, that GOG would survive the backlash and outcry on social media that would happen if they in fact decided to make Galaxy subscription based, why not?

Unfortunately, on the thread "Stop this madness, Preservation Program is killing games!" Galaxy users apparently insisted that the solution for broken Offline Installers added to the Program was simple: Just use Galaxy.
So it makes sense to pay more for a better service, right?

It makes sense nowadays. Despite our hate for abusive Subscription services, consumers today are addicted to paying for many subscriptions at once. Netflix, Amazon Prime, Disney+, Paramount+, Ubisoft, Xbox Live, Sony, whatever...

It would probably make GOG more famous and rich, with the advantage of killing DRM-Free Offline Installers quicker, as they seem to want.

Yes, please.

-contains sarcasm and irony-

Oh, I wasn't implying that Galaxy was better or anything. In fact, I'm of a simple mind:
Either people willfully pay to use Galaxy, or it doesn't pave out and the Galaxy program finally gets canned. Either way, the fiscal burden vanishes.

Yes, and bring back GOG downloader.

My thoughts exactly, GOG is investing more into this platform than they can sustain. Meanwhile, a platform like Steam is printing money and is beloved by gamers despite Valve making it very clear that Steam users own their games about as much as Ubisoft users.

Clearly DRM-free isn't enough to attract the market. But charging those who care enough about this niche area of gaming is unlikely to help...

My only misgiving about this idea is that if it turns out to be the former, and people do end up paying (because let's face it, people these days seem to be willing to pay for any subscription/microtransaction bullshit, some are already proudly declaring they will pay) then it will become an additional encouragement for GOG to drop the offline installers once and for all.

Losing the only edge over steam, seems fairly suicidal. If a board thinks it a smart idea to copy steam. Why would anyone come to gog?(rhetorical)

Which is why I suggest to charge for the client instead. Either it pays for itself, or the client is shuttered as the money sink it is.

I see where this thread is coming from, and I believe this is a bad approach about it.
GOG must improve it's offline installer support and web based services, but I do not believe giving Galaxy more resources through a unique subscription will actually go as expected.

People are actually paying for launchbox, so if a subscription or a yearly permanent license for Galaxy meant they would actually push development further I can see it could do pretty well. I have tried many third party library management software and even if Galaxy ain't perfect I believe it could have a bright future if enough resources were put into it.

So yeah, not a good approach I believe.
It could potentially backfire and there is no need to throw Galaxy under the bus either. It already feels like they gave up on it anyway.

Ehhh... I see where you're going with this, but it feels like a monkey's paw wish because it sort of encourages GOG to stop offering offline installers so they can collect a Galaxy subscription fee from ALL users. Not necessarily a fan of the idea.

GOG just needs to get out of the launcher business. The One Launcher To Rule Them All idea for Galaxy 2.0 was an OK idea, but GOG didn't have the capability to make that idea a reality, and Galaxy already has been surpassed by other all-in-one launchers anyway. At a minimum, I don't see where the closed-source, Windows-only Galaxy has a hope of competing with the free, cross-platform, open-source launchers that have been released since Galaxy. Their time and money would be better spent on other things. (Personally, I would like a simple manager/downloader for offline installers.) GOG could even try to partner with other open-source launchers out there and promote them as "GOG-approved" or whatever. That would probably make the launcher maintainer happy because of the increased visibility, and it would save GOG development costs.

Provided this isn't an April Fool's joke, I firmly disagree. One of the more major reasons I've moved away from shopping with GOG is the way they utterly neglect Galaxy. DRM-free is obviously the most important aspect of this platform, as it should be, but y'all will never convince me that an OPTIONAL client, one that is fundamentally well-made in spite of its issues, is somehow a bad thing.

The fact that it can't run on Linux-based PCs - especially handheld PCs - is a major limitation, and the fact that GOG keeps ignoring requests for a Linux version only makes the situation worse.

I don't disagree that it has some issues, but the idea of locking it behind a subscription ain't going to help anyone other than GOG as a business.

I also don't disagree that if they're going to ignore Galaxy the way they do, they should just hire Heroic's devs and just turn it into an official project, but I also don't know if I like the idea of such an awesome launcher going corporate.

This is exactly why I am 100% against subscriptions. If you purchase a game, you should get a fully functional game. You should not have to pay for a subscription on top of that to obtain the functional version.

The offline installers are the only thing that GOG has over Steam.
If GOG does go this route, we should all make Steam accounts.