Jeshibu on 20/3/2021 at 22:58
With the less-than-optimal launch of Cyberpunk 2077, CD Projekt Red seems to have diverted effort away from GOG Galaxy 2, the last update being from just before Christmas. And while I liked the concept and look of (
https://www.gog.com/galaxy) GOG Galaxy 2, in practice the little annoyances I've had with it have built up enough to make me look for alternatives. I learned of (
https://playnite.link/) Playnite, and since installing it have switched to mostly using that for library management. I'll now bore you with a list of pros and cons for both when compared to each other.
But first, the ways in which they're similar.
+ Both support integrations for GOG, Steam, Epic, Xbox (360/One/X/S and PC), Playstation 4/5, Amazon, Battle.net, Bethesda, Humble Bundle, Origin, Uplay/Ubisoft Connect, and emulators out of the box. These allow you to import games, but also launch and (for most integrations) install/uninstall them.
+ You can manually add games to both, even for non-PC platforms. For GOG it's got to be in IGDB, for Playnite you also look it up on IGDB, or you can fill the fields yourself.
+ Both have grid views with game covers, and both have list views with configurable column visibility
+ Both allow you to assign games tags to use for filtering/searching later on
+ Both have a "sorting name" field to allow you to correctly order stuff like the Tomb Raider and Assassin's Creed series
- No advanced search options, like selecting games without a certain tag or combining criteria with AND or OR operators and criteria grouping. Granted, this is not something any game library manager has, but it'd be a neat improvement imo.
- Both use IGDB as a data source, and IGDB genres are the worst. Their use of "Adventure" fits like 90% of games that aren't board games. "Indie" is a useless classification for a player. "Shooter" covers DOOM as well as Ikaruga (there are no FPS or Shoot 'em up genres). I could go on but I'll spare you here.
- No achievement importing for Uplay, Xbox 360, PS3 and PS Vita games.
GOG Galaxy 2
+ A landing page that shows what games you added and played recently, what friends are playing right now or recently, bar graphs games added, achievements earned, and time spent per platform.
+ Dynamic collections: basically lists of games that are saved as search criteria rather than static lists. Allows you to make a list for all the games with a certain combination of genre/platform/system/rating/tags/install status/ownership status.
+ Subscription management: GOG Galaxy 2 can detect what games are a part of Xbox Game Pass if you're subscribed, and these are by default in a separate collection than your owned games.
+ Search functionality with auto-complete on game titles, friends, and all the filter options
+ 1-5 star user ratings per game
+ Game detail page includes IGDB's videos and screenshots
+ Shows what friends own the same game and how far they are, achievement-percentage-wise, as well as their playtime.
+ Game activity feed. For GOG games this can include news, but for most games it's an achievement feed for you and your friends.
+ Grouping duplicates: if you've got a game on 2 or more platforms, GOG Galaxy 2 groups them into a single entry. If you go to that game's details page, you can switch between platforms.
- Grouping introduces some weirdness around filtering. If you've got Halo: MCC installed on Steam, and it's also part of Xbox Game Pass, and you want games that are part of a subscription and are installed, you still get Halo: MCC in the results.
- No control over grouping. I've got separate entries for Turok 2: Seeds of Evil (Steam) and Turok 2 (Amazon). These are the same game.
- Instability. This is the biggest issue for me. Pretty much every day I'll get a crash-report window from GOG Galaxy 2 if I leave it running. Plugins will randomly crash or lose connection, and the client is basically unusable for half a minute after a crash while it rebuilds its library.
- Regular chugging. Not sure what it's crunching, but scrolling doesn't feel snappy or smooth, and it frequently stalls for a second or 3.
- No customization over IGDB data. This means that if IGDB doesn't know a game, it gets listed as Unknown Game, leaving you with next to no leads to figure out what it was. Also stuff like Dante's Inferno (2010) being confused with a game of the same name from 1986. You can still edit the release date and cover, but the description is set in stone.
- Memory usage right now: about 550MB
Playnite
+ Complete control over all fields of a game entry, while still importing its initial data from the platform's store page or from IGDB. You can import IGDB data later too, and select which source you want to use per field when the field already has a different value.
+ Separate field for game completion status (beaten/abandoned etc). I had to use tags for this in GOG Galaxy 2, and you can't combine those with other tag criteria.
+ Skinning support that also allows for messing with the layout.
+ Oculus library plugin. Only gets installed games and names them by their executable, but still better than nothing.
+ Playstation library plugin also adds PS3 and Vita games.
+ Has an option to open game directories, even for Xbox/Windows Store games, while those are usually well hidden.
+ Snappy scrolling, very rarely chugs
+ Manual control over what data to refresh and when
+ Filtering by any field, including developer, publisher, age rating
+ Memory usage right now: just shy of 200MB
- No built-in achievement tracking. There's a plugin for this, but it's not the most graceful in its layout. Doesn't track Playstation trophies.
- No grouping duplicates. This is somewhat annoying, and it takes time to hide all the games for the platforms which you don't favor.
- No social stuff other than a button to open the Steam friends list. That means no friends time tracking and achievements. I can live with this.
- Dynamic collections are missed here.
- Subscription-games are only added when installed. Subscription-games that have lapsed from the subscription have to be blacklisted from the platform plugin to prevent from being re-added when removing them.
- The settings are spread over a few locations that won't always make a lot of sense for a new user. I've had to search for how to do pretty basic stuff for a bit. Protip: the ... button by the search bar handles the different views.
TLDR: Annoyed by GOG Galaxy 2's instability and non-configurability. Playnite fixes both but is a little clunkier in some other ways. Maybe give it a shot?If you know any other app that does something like these do, let me know too!
