If you launch from the .exe or a shortcut to the .exe then yes, it launches as normal. If you use the installer's "launch" or the default shortcut it often launches Galaxy. It depends on how new the installer is and such, I was referring to the ones with the .dll files. They're obviously there to let it use Galaxy if Galaxy if the situation arises, IMO. The Steam dll files on the other hand...

Makes sense if you think about it. If you have Galaxy installed, chances are you want to use it (for game time tracking, achievements, cloud saves) etc., otherwise - why have it?
Many people download the offline installers and still use Galaxy. And once you have them, it's usually a lot faster to install a game using the installer than having Galaxy download it, esp. if your internet connection is not the fastest. I did it this way when my internet connection was slow, since downloading a big game could take a whole day, why bother when I have it lying around on some HDD?

Has anyone compared the galaxy version and offline version of the DLLs?
It's possible that the one is a stub with no functionality actually implemented in it.

It would be easier for GoG to handle one set of install files per game and simply switch out dlls as appropriate than keep a galaxy version and an offline version which are different builds. The devs probably only want to handle a single build per store too and wouldn't want to be dealing with GoG online and GoG offline and having to test both builds of the game to make sure that their achievement removal hasn't caused an issue somewhere else when they could just push out a single fix and have GoG handle it via their dll.

Ofc this is just speculation and we'd need a GoG dev to actually say what's going on here, but the simple inclusion of a dll does not mean they're slowly trying to move people over to Galaxy with some sort of fifth column attack.

I don't think so, but if someone wants to check, please do.

I would guess it's the same dll. The game talks to the API in the dll, and the dll checks if Galaxy is there it talks to the client, if not, it simply does nothing.

like:

For multiplayer, for example. Or, to have autoupdate for selected (but not all) games, like in-development games. But not the rest.

To me it would make much more sense that GOG games installed using offline installers (and not imported to Galaxy afterwards) wouldn't launch the Galaxy client, if you run the game. After all, why would you install with an offline installer then, if your meaning was to play it with the Galaxy client anyway?

That is the reason I don't have Galaxy installed: I do not want my single-player GOG games to launch the Galaxy client. Yes that irritates me also with other clients like Steam and EA Origin, where double-clicking the game on your desktop forces the client launching too. It is just an unnecessary step there, logging into the client in order to play a single-player game.

I'm actually a bit surprised that the GOG games do that, run the Galaxy client even if you don't ask them to. I think I asked about this some months ago here and then I got the impression that no the offline installer games will not launch the Galaxy client. Apparently that isn't the case after all... So yeah, I guess I keep not installing the Galaxy client, unless there is some GOG online multiplayer game that I really want to play online.

And no creating an exe shortcut to all GOG games is not the solution to me, as it is too burdensome, especially with DOSBox games (there you don't simply create a shortcut to the "game exe", but DOSBox.exe, and you have to specify extra parameters like which dosbox.config files dosbox should use etc.).

could do or it could be 2 instances of the same interface where one simply returns defaults or simply does a no-op when called, whereas the other actually hooks into galaxy.

either way works i guess.

I mostly agree, and I'm sure that's the reasoning. "If someone has Galaxy installed then they like the client experience, so have it launch in the client." I only had Galaxy installed to try out the 2.0 beta though, so for me it was a little 'WTF?' I uninstalled Galaxy though and all is well.

The whole reason I use GOG is to avoid using a client, so I get why people want to avoid anything Galaxy. However I also get why GOG wants to push it, since the vast majority like clients. As long as these .dll files never effect how the game runs (and I can't imagine they would) then I don't see an issue with it.

What about all those who buy tons of games and never DL a good number of them? ;)

Regarding the default shortcut, this is a bug. I talked to GOG quite some time ago and they told me that in some installers the detection routine is faulty. Normally the default made shortcut should only point to Galaxy if the user installed the game using Galaxy (and it is obvious why this is the case then). Unfortunately that is not always the case but regarding the game I recently installed everything's fine here. Please don't ask me, why the "launch" button in the OFFLINE INSTALLER also defaults to launch Galaxy though - this is completely illogical.

Adding extra stuff to offline versions for no good reason? That's pretty annoying.

There may be a good reason. Not knowing the reason does not mean there is no reason or no good reason.

My guess is harmonising the different installs as much as possible to reduce the developer's need to maintain multiple builds and also to make it a bit easier for GoG to keep things in order.

Of course that view can be extrapolated to: well, most use galaxy, so we will just make that the only outlet hence making it easier for developers to get their game and patches out without having two streams...

Do also note that these files are now present, and with the excellent (/sarcasm) changleog and ability to download any version (not), you could find updates further down the line which do other things. Maybe galaxy.dll is currently just a dummy, maybe scumvm 3.0 a year down the line GOG will update galaxy.dll to work with their new Facebook integration without mentioning it. I mean go look at the library, new updates showing scummvm updates, looks like a must have download, except those installers were previously “updated” to include galaxy component reliance. So you have a choice, do you risk a download for which you do not know what is happening now or in the future, just to get the update to scummvm, or do you stick with the download you have, which fully works and is the same game, but without the extra galaxy requirements?

Honestly I am not too worried about this at the moment, however it’s worrying steps that are being taken here. It may be worth going through stripping out the game files from old games, and having a separate scummvm/dosbox setup. It would save a lot of disk space all those copies of those, and keeping the plain game files would provide less future compatibility issues. Of course newer games are loaded with galaxy, steam, unity etc. so there is very little hope in cleaning them up, I am afraid it’s cracks for those down the line.

i very much doubt their aim is to move everyone to galaxy. There are a lot of steps between "making it easier to serve multiple versions of an installer to customers" and "move everyone to a steam-like client that a large percentage of the userbase does not want to be mandatory for a myriad of reasons".
As for not knowing what's in your download: that's any dll or exe you download. Be it GoG or the actual game. You have no idea what the code that the game developers wrote is actually doing or if they included some 3rd party extension that does something they didn't realise or didn't care about. Or what they'll patch in at a later date.
It comes down to trust at this point (and maybe legal liability in extreme cases).
Do you trust GoG, or do you think they're really trying to sneak things in?

I mean in an ideal world it'd be nice to be served every possible different variation of download to cater to whatever need you want, but that puts a huge admin overhead on GoG.

Occam's razor says that it's probably just a dummy file and there's no secret agenda.

As for saving disk space: that's not really a problem is it? Unless you're running original hardware with massively limited hard drive space. Games are growing to be gigs big. a few megs here and there is not going to save anything even spanned across hundreds of games. the things that eat size are the models and art and music and voice. code is ultimately pretty small and the bits that should be different in the various installs shouldn't more than code.

As i say: i'm speculating here. i don't know what the actual files contain. i'm not going to try decompile them and sift through the results. and GoG hasn't given an official statement here. But it just seems alarmist to claim the dlls are anything more than what they appear to be imo.

/shrug. at this point it's just opinions vs opinions i guess. i could be wrong.

I think their goal is "make the best client we can to get more people to use GOG, because people tend to like clients." However they're very cognizant of the face they have to keep the "offline" route open or they'll lose a decent chunk of the loyal fans they already have. They've been walking this same tightrope for years.

yeah, that's my thoughts too. an optional client that does all those achievements and easy to use launcher and whatnot to attract people who want that, but maintaining the drm free mantle that they've pledged.
i trust gog and so i don't think they're trying anything sneaky. i could be wrong, but until proven so i'm happy to give them the benefit of the doubt.