A question I am sure is burning in everyone’s minds is "Will gog.com ever support Linux", well I aim to give this a bit of limelight here on GOL.
First of all let me direct you to this wishlist item on gog.com itself which has 11,125 votes on it, I find that crazy that a store like gog.com has that many customers who want to support them with their money if they just put up Linux versions of games. So while you are on that page be sure to give it a vote if you like DRM Free games in a standalone download, no messing around with clients like Steam or Desura.
Now something else has popped up on my email radar recently, I am speaking about Simon Roth the developer of Maia who stated this on reddit in response to a question from one of our supporters FutureSuture;
That sounds vaguely promising doesn't it? Well I choose to look at it that way anyway.
Personally I think gog.com run a great service for the PC Gaming industry making sure gamers have a place to get games new and old that aren't filled with any DRM, it's really a great store, hell I am even a customer!
I have a copy of Freespace 2 and Theme Hospital from them to use on the open source engines, I would gladly buy more from them too if they only allowed Linux versions up.
Although this did get me thinking, is it difficult for developers to bundle Linux, Mac and Windows executables in one package? I have seen some developers do this before so I know it is possible and wonder why more don't do that?
That's not exactly a full solution though, we need gog.com to note if a game has a Linux version and support us on it. Personally I consider them one of our major roadblocks for getting accepted as a major gaming platform considering how big a store they are.
The more places that support us the more people can learn Linux exists too right? That can only be a good thing.
What are your thoughts folks?
Article taken from GamingOnLinux.com.
First of all let me direct you to this wishlist item on gog.com itself which has 11,125 votes on it, I find that crazy that a store like gog.com has that many customers who want to support them with their money if they just put up Linux versions of games. So while you are on that page be sure to give it a vote if you like DRM Free games in a standalone download, no messing around with clients like Steam or Desura.
Now something else has popped up on my email radar recently, I am speaking about Simon Roth the developer of Maia who stated this on reddit in response to a question from one of our supporters FutureSuture;
QuoteI've spoken in person at length about this with them. I can say no more!
That sounds vaguely promising doesn't it? Well I choose to look at it that way anyway.
Personally I think gog.com run a great service for the PC Gaming industry making sure gamers have a place to get games new and old that aren't filled with any DRM, it's really a great store, hell I am even a customer!
I have a copy of Freespace 2 and Theme Hospital from them to use on the open source engines, I would gladly buy more from them too if they only allowed Linux versions up.
Although this did get me thinking, is it difficult for developers to bundle Linux, Mac and Windows executables in one package? I have seen some developers do this before so I know it is possible and wonder why more don't do that?
That's not exactly a full solution though, we need gog.com to note if a game has a Linux version and support us on it. Personally I consider them one of our major roadblocks for getting accepted as a major gaming platform considering how big a store they are.
The more places that support us the more people can learn Linux exists too right? That can only be a good thing.
What are your thoughts folks?
Article taken from GamingOnLinux.com.
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Quoting: HamishBesides, GoG games do not tie into one central Dosbox install when they sell their games anyway, but ship with a custom configured executable with each game purchase. Can you imagine the trouble that would cause if it did? Just because Linux has a packaging system does not mean you need to do that level of dependent insanity.Which is rather silly and is caused by the lack of any packaging system on Windows. On Linux they have no need to package DosBox and ScummVM for each DOS game - it's pointless, they can use distro's emualtors and ship only config files.
But those games aren't really the main focus in this issue. Native Linux games are. And for them as you said, many packaging solutions are developed already.
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Quoting: ShmerlWell getting their Dosbox library to Linux would probably be very easy and could be a good start of moving GOG to Linux. The two most wanted things for them to do in regards to Linux is to package their Dosbox(and ScummVM, etc) games for Linux and to add installers/binaries for games that already have them. As for why they package Dosbox with each game? To make sure those who buy the game can run it out of the box.Quoting: HamishBesides, GoG games do not tie into one central Dosbox install when they sell their games anyway, but ship with a custom configured executable with each game purchase. Can you imagine the trouble that would cause if it did? Just because Linux has a packaging system does not mean you need to do that level of dependent insanity.Which is rather silly and is caused by the lack of any packaging system on Windows. On Linux they have no need to package DosBox and ScummVM for each DOS game - it's pointless, they can use distro's emualtors and ship only config files.
But those games aren't really the main focus in this issue. Native Linux games are. And for them as you said, many packaging solutions are developed already.
They can't be sure that you have Dosbox installed and without using (several) distro depended package managers they can't do that on Linux either(Does Dosbox even have packages?).
The ideal for a company like GOG is that you can use only one installer or similar on any Linux system using any (supported) distro and it will just work. They would want game installation to be a self-contained thing that any "noob"(and there ARE Linux "noobs" ) could do.
Personally I don't see why things should have to be any harder on the Linux side than on the Windows side but I also can't think of any technical reason for why things couldn't be just as a easy and universal on the Linux side.
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I actually would strongly dislike if they'll release DOS games for Linux with bundled DosBox and ScummVM - it's extra clutter. They can specify a simple prerequisite - have DosBox / ScummVM installed for those games. Users aren't dumb, and if they are interested in old DOS games, they already have DosBox and ScummVM installed with high probability (and if they don't, they'll easily install it from their repositories). Many Windows users are also "noobs", yet GOG don't bundle for example DirectX with each Windows game.
Anyway, this shouldn't be something for GOG to spend their time on first, while they don't sell native Linux games yet. Their DOS games installers are trivially extractable with innoextract and anyone can play them now without running through Wine.
Anyway, this shouldn't be something for GOG to spend their time on first, while they don't sell native Linux games yet. Their DOS games installers are trivially extractable with innoextract and anyone can play them now without running through Wine.
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I run Arx Liberatis using the Arx Fatalis files I purchased from GOG. I have advised people who have encountered 7kaa to buy the game on GOG, just to get the detailed manual. When I see The Panumbra Trilogy and Amnesia: The Dark Descent on GOG, I grit my teeth.
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Quoting: AnonymousI run Arx Liberatis using the Arx Fatalis files I purchased from GOG. I have advised people who have encountered 7kaa to buy the game on GOG, just to get the detailed manual. When I see The Panumbra Trilogy and Amnesia: The Dark Descent on GOG, I grit my teeth.7kaa is open source though http://7kfans.com/ pretty sure it's even in Ubuntu's repo nowadays.
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Quoting: ShmerlI actually would strongly dislike if they'll release DOS games for Linux with bundled DosBox and ScummVM - it's extra clutter. They can specify a simple prerequisite - have DosBox / ScummVM installed for those games. Users aren't dumb, and if they are interested in old DOS games, they already have DosBox and ScummVM installed with high probability (and if they don't, they'll easily install it from their repositories). Many Windows users are also "noobs", yet GOG don't bundle for example DirectX with each Windows game.DosBox and ScummVM are small enough that I wouldn't care if they bundled them to make an out-of-the-box experience for those who want it -- it's easy enough to delete an unneeded subdir after the game is installed, like gogonlinux already does for a bundled windows DosBox
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Quoting: ShmerlIf GOG would start supporting Linux, they can even allocate resources to actually port games to Linux. If Humble Bundle managed to do it, surely GOG can do it too.That's a misunderstanding that also occurs a lot on the wishlist discussion also.
Why it can take them a long time - GOG are perfectionists. I personally think it has a lot of downsides, but that's how they operate. They don't use agile releases and beta features. They take their time to develop something before releasing it. They have several R&D projects for 2013, one of which can as well be Linux support. The fact that "Steam does it" doesn't mean they are doing it very well. Pulling a massive runtime to enable some game is not really an ideal option.
And indeed, GOG expressed their interest in supporting Linux before.
GoG not supporting Linux isn't the issue at all. It's not that they passively do not support Linux, they actively remove Linux support from the software they are selling.
They get a bundle from the developers, take one package out of it and throw it to the bin instead of providing it to us.
When asked by 10k of their customers what they think they are doing, all we get back is "Aww, not now, it's so haaard to support you !" with one single PR-speak comment during the whole affair.
They even had the nerve to spin the story where their shiny installer appears as the killer feature they just can't take the responsibility to let us live without.
I've called BS on far more convincing strories. If you think all that actually makes sense, fine, who knows.
But discussing about them actually porting a single codeline to Linux when in fact they remove Linux support given to us from the game-devs, and then completely ignore our bug report, that is a bit far-fetched, methinks.
Given all that, I'm not so sure we won't see DRM free Steam games before GoG even opening up to a fair debate.
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There are already games on Steam that don't require steam to even be running, Steam already supports it.
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Quoting: ShmerlWhich is rather silly and is caused by the lack of any packaging system on Windows. On Linux they have no need to package DosBox and ScummVM for each DOS game - it's pointless, they can use distro's emualtors and ship only config files.
It is not silly, it makes the games much easier to maintain for GoG and run on a much wider range of systems. Tying a commercial application into a variety of distribution's package management systems is a pain in the ass, and is not worth the effort for something which is not a dynamic free software project which are easier to package and allow the distributions themselves to do most of the work. Dosbox and ScummVM may be free, but the GoG products and modifications are not, and they should be treated just the same as any other proprietary application.
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Quoting: liamdaweThere are already games on Steam that don't require steam to even be running, Steam already supports it.
For me DRM free means several things:
1. Having an option to get a downloadable installer / package which you can save and use at any time on any machine without relying on existing service.
2. No registration keys and etc. to play the game.
3. No requirement to run some shadow process ("client" and etc.) to play the game.
4. No requirement to connect to any servers to play the game (unless it's a MMORPG or something that implies on-line connectivity by design of course).
I'm not using Steam, but I got the impression that it requires #3 (running a client) for many games. And while it doesn't require it for some games, it doesn't offer a downloadable installer for any game. So there always is some DRM involved. I'd rather support services which have clear DRM free policy.
Quoting: HamishDosbox and ScummVM may be free, but the GoG products and modifications are not, and they should be treated just the same as any proprietary application.
Do you mean they distribute modified DosBox and ScummVM? I'm not aware of that. None of the DOS games I got from GOG so far had any problems running in stock DosBox and ScummVM. It's not an indicator of course, since I have just a small subset of their games. But sure, if they need a modified emulator - the only way is to ship it with the game. On the other hand, why can't they submit their patches upstream in such cases?
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