In some way, GOG has lost the DRM war. Or given up on making it a "revolution", as it seemed to aim for in its beginnings. Having client-free, independant games used to be not just GOG's specificity, but also like an ideological purpose, some sort of ethical crusade. It was about convincing developers, and the whole videogame market, that DRM was pointless and harmful. It was about setting up an exemple and turning the tables. It was lead by anti-DRM people for anti-DRM people.
Now, Steam has imposed its client-based gaming as a new common sense, a consensual standard, amongst the new generation of players (possibly the same kids who, having grown up with it, see no problem with commercial breaks in their movies). So GOG has no real popular support, which makes it a bit hard to fuel a crusade, or to leverage convincing arguments for developers. The reality is : gamers don't give a damn about DRM. If anything, what gamers truly care for is stuff like omg feminists daring to mock macho stereotypes in their games (compare the respective violence of the gamergate movement and the anti-drm movement). Anti-DRM stances are simply "niche", which GOG isn't anymore. Anti-DRM players are like those who refuse to use facebook, or those who stroll without a mobile phone. A margin, viewed with either patronizing sympathy or hostility by the mainstream culture.
And GOG is outside this margin, without being hostile to it. On the contrary, GOG even manages a friendly space, a little zoo, for these marginals : there will always be a corner with Galaxy-free installers, there will always be an opt-out for grandpa (all know that at his age he doesn't chew clients very well, and everyone wants grandpa happy). It's, basically, an indian reservation on the conquered territory. We should not complain, nobody forced GOG to keep offering this alternative. They weren't cornered by the loud minority. The standard gamers want a client (and a mobile phone, and a facebook account, and a little message telling them that they "achieved" something when they clicked five time on that ork), and their number sustain GOG more durably.
But it's become a divide, between, on one side, GOG, its Galaxy standards, the mass of its customers and, on the other side, the enraged anti-DRM anti-clients, militants, and original GOG fans. The relation is much more friendly, cooperative, and respectful than nitpicky forum outrages make it seem ("rrrahr I boycott gog because it includes galaxy in its installers" "- fine, here are your installers without galaxy" "- rrrahr i don't care"), but it's still a "us and them" while, a few years ago, GOG and its core users were a same "us". There was a time where GOG seemed to be the same people as those who bought games on GOG to escape Steam-like clients. And, as GOG developed to meet the demands of steam-era gamers, by reappropriating the steam devices, the perspectives have divorced.
In practice : No big deal. GOG is not unfaithful to its traditional customers. It caters to them. But GOG is not its traditional customers anymore. The sense of self-identification is gone. And some customers keep getting disturbed by that. They wanted an unity and not an alliance. I think we should be happy with the alliance. Steam doesn't propose one.
At this point, it's too much fuss around a sense of mere symbolic betrayal. GOG went from offering client-free games, to offering also client-integrated games, to offering also client-free games. It expanded beyond what I use GOG for, it made what I use GOG for a bit more marginal, but it didn't remove what I use GOG for. It feels like a little bookshop becoming a big supermarket without really reducing the original bookshop in it. I don't identify with the whole of it anymore, but what matters is still there.
It's not entirely devoid of melancholy, but, again, it's no big deal. "Galaxy.com" is not gog.com but isn't steam.com either. It evolved to its own third thing.
