Ropay: In fact, you mentioned Galaxy, and it is indeed a fear of mine that we will all eventually be 'forced' onto Galaxy and stand alone installers will become a thing of the past. (I am in my mid 30s and somewhat resistant to change I've noticed...)
Vythonaut: Don't be afraid for something that hasn't happened yet; according to GOG, Galaxy will stay optional so everything else sounds like conspiracy theories to me. I can't predict the future, but i'm sure that a significant chunk of their customer database would eventually leave if Galaxy became mandatory and i'm willing to bet that GOG knows it very well. And what would GOG advertise then? How would they attract potential customers, if the best thing they offer right now (which is DRM-Free builds for classic and modern games) stopped to exist. Do you think people would choose a platform that offers less games than other stores (and most importantly less AAA games), less support for Linux users, less multiplayer options, doesn't feature a "workshop" thing (i don't care about that but others certainly do), potential devs that treat GOG customers as 2nd class citizens and what not? I may sound a bit bitter about GOG but this is far from the truth since none of it really detracts from the hasslefree experience i get here.
Ropay: For example, I felt exceptionally guilty because I bought the original Thief trilogy on Steam (at an unbeatable discount that GOG has yet to even get close to).
Vythonaut: Out of curiosity, what was the price on steam?
Ropay: Now, if I were to install the GOG version of KSP and found it to contain loads of GOG files for icons, installation log, webcache.zip etc. I would be most vexed, would you not?
Vythonaut: As long as it isn't some kind of malware (which it isn't), i don't mind.
It's a funny old thing maths isn't it. There are those saying that it's not worth doing xyz just for the handful of people who might be interested. And then there is the very small user base who don't use galaxy. But yet, to think of galaxy becoming mandatory, well there would be a significant chunk of their user base.
I would say if galaxy were to become mandatory, not a single thing would change. Sure one or two might drift away,but chunks of the userbase, I really doubt it.
And yes, people do choose the store with fewer games, higher prices, broken games, late patching etc. And not only that strive to defend at every turn anything which happens to the store. So that again would not make any difference.
