GOG previously said they planned to look closer at Linux, and that it was the next major frontier - and they're now working towards GOG Galaxy on Linux.
  • FoundFootFootage78@lemmy.mlEnglish
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    9 days ago

    Now if they would stop being so selective about what they allow on their platform. There is a wide array of popular games available on Steam and DRM-free on Itch but for some reason they aren’t available on GOG.

    I get that some people have been loudly calling for curation on Steam, but curation is a terrible thing. The customer should be the one to decide what they buy (provided the developer isn’t mass-producing asset flips). If they want a middle-ground they can just not promote any unendorsed games.

  • Bluewing@lemmy.world
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    8 days ago

    A really dumb question from a non-gamer. If I were to buy a game from GOG. Say Doom, can I simply run the Windows installer with bottles? I have no interest in “modern” games and I seldom play, but I have a taste for the occasional trip down memory lane.

    I do use a couple of windows programs in bottles without issue, (Bambubuddy and Meshmixer), but I don’t know jack all about buying games.

  • Lemmert@reddthat.com
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    9 days ago

    I don’t know what they could put on the table except for something like Big Picture, which is not nearly as fleshed out on Heroic.

    And even then, Big Picture is already available for most gamers, because Steam is already installed.

    I think it would’ve been a better use of resources to just officially support Heroic. GOG support exists because of their open distribution system. So why make use of that software?

    • kevinsky@feddit.nl
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      8 days ago

      Heroic is ultimately outside of GOG’s sphere of influence. If you decide to officially lean on them and they decide to drop GOG or Herioc development entirely they’d have to scramble for a replacement.

      And honestly I only use Herioc to interface with GOG, i’d probably prefer use the official application if there was any.

      • Lemmert@reddthat.com
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        8 days ago

        Yeah I get from a user’s perspective why they would like an official client. But I personally don’t believe it would attract enough new users to make maintaining a Linux version worthwhile from the firms perspective. Especially managing game compatibility on Linux seems like a nightmare. (I take this back, I was thinking about it and I haven’t had any issues with Proton for a while now.) But hey, their board probably already weighted this out before making the decision so I might just be underestimating the crowd it would attract

        • kevinsky@feddit.nl
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          7 days ago

          Linux gaming has been in the lift for a good while now and is getting increasingly difficult write off as insignificant, I’m not sure the intent here is to attract users as much as to just service those the made the switch.

          Could also be long game. Ideally this keeps growing and everyone (including the anti-cheat developers that are the sole reason some games still don’t work) are giong to have to take this seriously.

          And we don’t know how much actual additional work there is here, it could be relatively trivial to get the client working on Linux.

  • osanna@lemmy.vgEnglish
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    8 days ago

    they’ve been working on a Linux client for, what, 10 years? I’ll believe it if it happens.

  • Nibodhika@lemmy.world
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    9 days ago

    Amazing, it only took them about a decade from it being the most voted for feature of all time until they started working on it. That gives me great confidence that they’ll treat us Linux users like first class citizens /s

      • Nibodhika@lemmy.world
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        9 days ago

        I’m glad they’re doing it, but I’ll believe it when I see it. This seems like a marketing thing more than anything else, like most things GoG does. Which brings me to:

        They are right about the DRM

        Except they don’t believe that themselves: https://www.gog.com/forum/general/drm_on_gog_list_of_singleplayer_games_with_drm/page1

        Plus, if you disconsider the whole “having to use Steam to download binaries is a form of DRM”, AFAIK the same games that are DRM free on GoG are DRM free on Steam.

        I’m all in favor of no DRM in games, but being able to play the games on my OS of choice is miles more important than them being DRM-free, because I honestly don’t care about the DRM status of a binary I can’t use. So I’d rather keep giving money to the company that’s investing in making me able to play games. I used to buy games from GoG back before Proton and DXVK, but those projects made Steam so much more attractive for Linux users that it is not even a contest.

    • Björn@swg-empire.de
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      9 days ago

      This new effort started when the new CEO bought back a majority of shares. He was one of the original owners. Back then their Linux efforts were also better.