GOG.com


There is a whole plie of free games on GOG right now... must be a email thing it doesnt show on the store page....
If you mean these, will be always available for free

Code:
https://www.gog.com/partner/free_games

There were some games given for free only during the Christmas time, but I didn't find the time to update the forum.
  • South of the Circle
  • Lacuna – A Sci-Fi Noir Adventure
  • Caveblazers
  • Lost Ruins
 
well i got an email from GOG . i thought i already had all the free games. when i followed the link there were about 15 titles i didnt have.?? oh well doesnt matter
 
GOG is on maintenance for more than a day, and according to their advice, the services should have been already up right now, but everything is still down.

So I finally had the possibility to check how their client works without their services up, and man, is bad...
Luckily the client started even without the online status, but only after three forced restart with an endless "LOG IN" window loop.

The very bad stuff is that all the integrations are disconnected, so all the other stores accounts (Steam, Epic, Ubisoft, etc...) are not accessible without the GOG server running.

It is also impossible to launch already installed games even from GOG.com, and it's also impossible from there to install/play games of the other stores directly, the only way to do that is to use their respective store clients.

The only way to start the GOG installed games is to use directly their executable.

In other words, the client is useless without GOG services.

I expect flame waves in different forums because of this.

EDIT:

oh, they just changed the advice adding 2 more hours for the maintenance to end.

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EDIT 2:

I really wonder why an online service is required for GALAXY to launch a local game, when the path of the executable is already known by the client...

1707432709038.png


EDIT 3:

They added another hour to the maintenance.
 
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Why even use the Galaxy client? The game install files can be downloaded and installed without any client. More importantly, they can be backed up!
 
Why even use the Galaxy client? The game install files can be downloaded and installed without any client. More importantly, they can be backed up!
  1. Updating multiple installed games without me having to check for new versions
  2. Update using the client is also faster, most of the time it just downloads small patches, that are not always present as offline downloads for most of the games
  3. Check and correct files of possibly corrupted games faster than me having to install the entire game again (this is particularly useful for 30+ GB games)
  4. Integrated forum pages, store and account, without me having to reconnect every time to the site
  5. All my games accounts in a single client (GOG, Steam, Epic, Battlenet, Indiegala, Itch.io, Ubisoft, EA, Humble, Fanatical, and also manually added local games), with single aggregated entries for same games on multiple platforms, I can easily search if I already own a game in any of the connected accounts in a simple way: CTRL+F -> game name
  6. TAGS !!! This is the most useful function for me, I can put TAGs on all the games of every connected store in a single client !!!
  7. Filtered views, that with the help of the TAG system can be used for every kind of aggregation of games from all the stores in a single window
  8. It is required for online games
  9. It is required for cloud saves
  10. I started to like gameplay time statistics for every game I have
  11. I don't mind very much achievements, but is cool to see them listed in play statistics

It has a lot of missing/unfinished features, but it is the most usable launcher for me compared to the clients of the other stores, and even Playnite, that I tried a lot to use in a reliable way, but I always go back to Galaxy because aggregation of games is really useful.

I hated it at the beginning, also because I was forced to install it as it was the only way to get all the DLC for Dying Light, those weren't available offline for a lot of time, and the devs corrected the issue only after months... but also that game have online gameplay modes that are really fun to play... so that's it I needed the client...

Then I started to appreciate the various added functions that I had to do manually before using it... like updating or making sheets with lists of all my games...

EDIT:

Just a little better explanation about the "same game aggregation" and the TAG system, because it's really the bestest function ever.

Let's say I own "Batman Arkham: Asylum" on Steam, Epic and GOG.

The client, in a filtered view containing more stores will show a single entry of the game, and on that entry it is possible to select what version of the game is the default to be used.

Now let's say I install the GOG version, the "installed" view will show always that single entry.

Then I TAG that entry "Completed".

If I then go to the "Steam" view, where I see only the games I own on that store, I can filter away "Completed" games, and that game will disappear from the list even if I never played the Steam version !!


EDIT:

By the way, the GOG staff added more hours to the maintenance advice.
 
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Now I understand, thank you.

I realize I'm not really the target audience for the client. I install maybe 2-3 games/year and it's mostly story driven single player games you can complete. Don't care much for competition or achievements. I only have a GoG account (shut down my steam account a few years ago), but it sounds really useful to tag games in multiple services! I know I tag my games using the GoG website

EDIT: I may also be getting old and hostile to all new tech :)
 
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I am using the GOG client mainly because of cloud saves. I really like that feature.
And to get easy updates.
 
Galaxy could have become a lot better after all these years, but seems like GOG is not putting so much resources on the development... or, at least, on the development of the "required" things that are still missing...

Some examples of missing features that should have been present from the beginning:
  • TAG multiple games at the same time.
  • Removing/Renaming a TAG globally in a single move. Right now the only way to do that is to change/remove it in every single game.
  • Sync TAG between the site and the client. Right now is impossible even by hand, because they use totally different TAG systems.
  • Integrations with other stores was the most advertised functionality, but is not maintained at all by GOG, it's all thanks to random people if there are actually existing integrations.
  • Integrations also are not managed very well during the first connection, seems like that the client tries to launch them all together, only to leave some of them hanging while the others are receiving data... and in the end most of the time I have to manually retry the connection for all the integrations that failed with timeout...
  • The customization of the interface is almost not existent... and the list of games is the last thing you see, in my case I have to scroll down to reach it.
  • ...and so on...
Instead seems like they put the devs at work for things that virtually no one asked for... like the "Discover" functionality to make you "find" games on the store that could be interesting to you, and no, this is not the "Browse all games" function from the site, where you can filter by genre and all, it's actually an exclusive functionality of the client.
Also the function to create a randomized list of games to play.
They even put a lot of work to add the possibility of buying games of other stores directly from Galaxy...
 
Galaxy could have become a lot better after all these years, but seems like GOG is not putting so much resources on the development... or, at least, on the development of the "required" things that are still missing...

Some examples of missing features that should have been present from the beginning:
  • TAG multiple games at the same time.
  • Removing/Renaming a TAG globally in a single move. Right now the only way to do that is to change/remove it in every single game.
  • Sync TAG between the site and the client. Right now is impossible even by hand, because they use totally different TAG systems.
  • Integrations with other stores was the most advertised functionality, but is not maintained at all by GOG, it's all thanks to random people if there are actually existing integrations.
  • Integrations also are not managed very well during the first connection, seems like that the client tries to launch them all together, only to leave some of them hanging while the others are receiving data... and in the end most of the time I have to manually retry the connection for all the integrations that failed with timeout...
  • The customization of the interface is almost not existent... and the list of games is the last thing you see, in my case I have to scroll down to reach it.
  • ...and so on...
Instead seems like they put the devs at work for things that virtually no one asked for... like the "Discover" functionality to make you "find" games on the store that could be interesting to you, and no, this is not the "Browse all games" function from the site, where you can filter by genre and all, it's actually an exclusive functionality of the client.
Also the function to create a randomized list of games to play.
They even put a lot of work to add the possibility of buying games of other stores directly from Galaxy...
I 100% agree.
No idea why they include all those stupid features no one really asked for.
It's probably because marketing department thinks it sells more games.
They however fail to make the client a real big deal that everyne wants to use.
It is such a huge wasted potential.
 
GOG was online some hours ago, but right now seems like issues arise again...

1707507808723.png
 
I try to completely move to Linux and found that it works surprisingly well. Steam worked almost perfect for me and for GOG and Epic I started using Lutris. Then I found Heroic Games Launcher, which has a much better integration of the stored. For some GOG games there are even cloud saves. It is still in beta, but it seemed wo work for the few games I tried.

Not sure if I would really recommend Heroic though. It looks and feels fancy, but there are always problems and bugs somewhere. Lutris is very solid, gives you more control and if you want to install something from a CD or installer you cannot use Heroic anyway.

Especially old games usually run much better under Linux using Wine than under Windows 10 or 11. Sometimes it involves a lot of fiddling (same for Windows though), and some games just won't run at all. But overall my success rate has been much better with Wine.
 
Not sure if I would really recommend Heroic though
That client is the best alternative for the Epic Client (the most heavy and slow stuff I ever seen).
I actually use it to add every week the free games... I don't have the will to launch the official client just to do this...

For GOG maybe could be useful for the integrated store browser, but there are many alternative launchers/downloaders for that store.

A very serious bug I have seen in Heroic anyway was relative to the update check system for the games... I had a game, installed for Windows, that had a version with a lesser number than the Linux version, because the latter had a patch for a Linux issue... well the client constantly tried to "update" the Windows version with the latest Linux version...
 
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I try to completely move to Linux and found that it works surprisingly well. Steam worked almost perfect for me and for GOG and Epic I started using Lutris. Then I found Heroic Games Launcher, which has a much better integration of the stored. For some GOG games there are even cloud saves. It is still in beta, but it seemed wo work for the few games I tried.

Not sure if I would really recommend Heroic though. It looks and feels fancy, but there are always problems and bugs somewhere. Lutris is very solid, gives you more control and if you want to install something from a CD or installer you cannot use Heroic anyway.

Especially old games usually run much better under Linux using Wine than under Windows 10 or 11. Sometimes it involves a lot of fiddling (same for Windows though), and some games just won't run at all. But overall my success rate has been much better with Wine.
Heroic is the best non-Steam option I found for Linux gaming.
Especially since I am 95% GOG.
 
I wonder if they will really follow what people will say...

View attachment 39146
Taking into account how the last 2 years of GOG Galaxy updates went, Ido not have high hopes.

There is so much potential, People asking about obvious features vocally and they get ignorerd/.

GOG has potential to gain a bit more relevance if they really tried. Not saying that they will outmatch Steam, but maybe get a tiny bit more market share to mae it attractive to more publishers.
 
There are really obvious features missing or not working even for just the store, for years now...

For example a filter for hiding VM18 titles, like all the other stores already have.

Or a proper management of game packages/bundles... there are many games where "MAIN GAME + DLC PASS" is different from "GAME ULTIMATE EDITION", even if the content becomes exactly the same... this gives 2 issues, the first one is that on the store, when you see the game "not owned", you need to double check all the contents to be sure it's the exact version you have... and second, because that package is "not owned", GOG will try repeatedly to sell it to you again and again...

This goes also in the "you can be interested in" functionality of Galaxy, where for example on the game page of "The Witcher 3 - Complete Edition", that I own, I can see that "I can be interested in The Witcher 3 - Wild Hunt", and the funny thing is that's a proposal to buy another edition of a game I already have, but with also less content than what I already have !!!

Anyway GOG already had for years public wishlists for functionalities... you can have a look at how many are completed.

Code:
https://www.gog.com/wishlist/site
Code:
https://www.gog.com/wishlist/galaxy
 
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