As most of you probably know, GOG don't provide links to older versions of a game in our library ... or very few of them.

Supposedly they may provide an older version on request, but I am not sure about that.

Like many I have pondered what we could do about that.

One idea, is to start a group that shares files. But that of course has complications, not the least of which is legal.

And I for one would not be willing to share with people who don't legitimately own a game. So you would need some way to confirm that and limit the downloads to just a confirmed owner.

Anyway, we can certainly contemplate the issues and discuss them.

And maybe even a GOG representative will give some input, and even (fingers crossed) give us better access to older game versions.

Of course, if you don't stay up-to-date with patches for a game, you can lose the continuity and need to download the whole game again. I am sure that many, like me, have had that happen.

They stopped doing that a while back. There were three of us who independently requested an older offline installer version of Divinity Original Sin due to this still unfixed bug and based on advice of Larian in the last paragraph of that post (asking GOG nicely for an older version via a support ticket), and all three of us received the same "Just use Galaxy and rollback" non-solution reply. Luckily I use multiple backup drives and keep one of them deliberately out of date, so I managed to find the older version I wanted on it. The "lesson learned" though was to treat older offline installer versions of games you own as "loseable" as if GOG had ceased trading and closed down the website, and to archive rather than delete older versions when a new one comes out "just in case". Yeah that's prone to people just asking for games they don't own. The simplest solution is just for GOG to add a dropdown "Version Number" next to "System" and "Language" on the download web page that works the same way as System does for selecting Windows / Mac / Linux, ie, it's ultimately just a URL that points to a different filename. The biggest "block" to this isn't technical competence though, it's GOG's "If it doesn't involve promoting Galaxy, we don't want to know" direction...

Already tried highlighting this:
https://www.gog.com/forum/general/provide_a_full_and_complete_changelogged_download_system

There is no interest, GOG will do nothing. All you will get is the standard use galaxy response.

Did you respond with - I don't use Galaxy, so can you provide me with the older Offline Installer please? Yep, the only way currently. I don't remove any of my older version files.

Keeping up with patches can be an issue though, especially as GOG's notification system is far from perfect.

Take the game 'The Long Dark'. It became unavailable at GOG, but I'd bought it before that, and had no idea that updates were still being provided for the game as I simply got no notifications from GOG about it. In fact there had been many updates provided and available at GOG for the game. I only found out due to a post I saw in some topic. While competent and up-to-date changelogs are a must, even more important is rollback without Galaxy.

Not necessarily, as ownership can be confirmed by being able to see that person's game library at GOG, as a friend.

In fact, that would have to be a necessary requirement to join the group.

The problems come after the confirmation, when you have to provide a link that could be shared.

Though I guess if the requester already has the game they don't need the group link to share, as they could simply share themself. It could be abused though, by you taking the risks not them.

Links could also be time limited before expiring.

It would be a legal quagmire though, I imagine.

Yeah, my post includes all previous patches and versions. The changelog is important too to know what each one is.

You don't have to be friends. You can check if you can see my games on my profile for example.

You are correct, I'd forgotten they had made that an option ... silly me. :)

Anyway, that option would need to be set ... making your games visible to others.