GOG Has More Linux Games Added To Their Collection

Blocks That Matter and Tetrobot & Co. are two of my all time favorite games. The latter has some of the best level design I've ever seen in a puzzle "platformer", but unfortunately it didn't sell well. Which in turn might mean Swing Swing Submarine will have to close down shop if their upcoming game Seasons After Fall isn't a massive success at release.

One thing that both surprises and annoys me about Steam's store front is that they don't do more to promote new releases and ports to Linux. You'd think they'd be interested in doing that the way they promote Linux as "the platform of the future" but when Tetrobot & Co. was released for Linux at the end of 2013 hardly anyone even knew about it.

Quoting: fleskOne thing that both surprises and annoys me about Steam's store front is that they don't do more to promote new releases and ports to Linux. You'd think they'd be interested in doing that the way they promote Linux as "the platform of the future" but when Tetrobot & Co. was released for Linux at the end of 2013 hardly anyone even knew about it.

Hmm. I have noticed the exact opposite. Since in the last year I'm logged into steam from Linux probably 90% of the time, as well as purchasing more stuff with Linux support than not. I have noticed that the target adds when you open steam are almost always a Linux game. I just fired up steam and ALL the "slideshow" ads at the top of the homepage are ALL Linux games. I don't think I have set anything to make it do it.. I'm pretty sure its all targeted.

Yes, Kingdom Rush is a great tower defense game. Too bad I already got in on Steam last month, when it came out and was promoted. I agree that some new Linux games don't get the push that they probably should, but I have over 200 games in my Linux Steam library, so I must have heard about some of them from Steam...

The target ads depend on your user agent, so if you're browsing the store front on a Linux computer you'll only see games with Linux versions* there. Try switching your user agent (e.g. with a browser plugin) and you'll notice that only one (Papers, Please) of 15 games at the moment are available for Linux. That's actually a lower ratio of Linux games than there currently are on Steam, which is about 1 of 6 games. Additionally the target ads are a mix of top sellers and new big releases, so even a lot of new releases with a Linux version will never show up here.

There's the "New Releases" tab further down on the page, which is my favorite, but even that has several issues:

1) It's not selected by default. The "Top Sellers" tab is.
2) It's limited to 100 spots, so new releases will disappear off this list never to be seen again if they haven't made an impression in a matter of a few weeks.
3) Many probably never will because if you want to see releases that are older than two or three days, you'll have to meticulously click through several pages to find the rest, which I'm pretty sure the average user won't bother with.
4) Older games with a recent Linux port never show up here. If they're lucky they show up among the featured Linux games or in the news frame.

That last one is a big problem in my opinion because several indie developers push out their games for Windows (and maybe Mac) first and then a Linux a few weeks or months later. But by that time it might be a little too late because it's going to be that much harder to find it. There really isn't a good way at the moment to find these games unless they're high profile game.

*You'll currently also see Son of Nor there, but I assume the reason why it's visible to us is that it had a Linux version of release but it was pulled by the developer because there were a number of issues with it.

Quoting: GuestThe demo of Blocks that Matter completely breaks my system when I run it and I have to reboot, and the full version in Steam doesn’t start at all.

Kingdom Rush, on the other hand, is great!

Blocks that Matter (full version) used to work ok for me, then all of a sudden I got a total freeze that forced me to reboot my computer (a really rare case these days) After that I edited the config file to run the game in the window - so in the case it did it again, I would be able to just kill it with ctrl+alt+esc (KDE). But it worked fine afterwards.

Quoting: fleskThat last one is a big problem in my opinion because several indie developers push out their games for Windows (and maybe Mac) first and then a Linux a few weeks or months later. But by that time it might be a little too late because it's going to be that much harder to find it. There really isn't a good way at the moment to find these games unless they're high profile game.

That's quite true, but I sincerely think it's the developers' job to promote their games and that they cannot (and shouldn't) delegate this crucial task to Valve.

Back on-topic, both Blocks That Matter and Tetrabot & Co. have always worked like a charm for me (although admittedly it's been a while since I fired up any of them). The latter however I couldn't ever get it to work on Desura (the MCF seems to be broken, but the Swing Swing Submarine guys didn't seem to care even though I warned them about it :S: )

The wait for Galaxy for Linux and all those games on GOG that already have Linux clients elsewhere is driving me nuts. I need to do some buying and gifting once all the stuff I seek becomes available.

Good to see them catching up on current games. I hope they'll eventually break the wall with Disney, Activision and EA regarding old games as well. Quite a number of great games are still missing in their library (Loom, Full Throttle, VtM Bloodlines, Neverhood and others) which can be released for Linux in ScummVM / Wine.

Quoting: Guest

Quoting: muntdefemsThat's quite true, but I sincerely think it's the developers' job to promote their games and that they cannot (and shouldn't) delegate this crucial task to Valve.

I wouldn’t qualify new Linux releases appearing in the new releases for Linux list "promotion"… It’s just the way it should be.

Yeah, I agree with that. I don't expect Valve to go out of their way to promote these games. I just think it should be a lot less hard to actually find them in their store. The only way I've found to relatively conveniently find them is to either have been subscribed to a "Port to Linux please" topic on the Steam forums or by following @SteamDB_Linux on Twitter (which I incidentally just learned was set up by project lead of Spacebase DF-9, JP LeBreton of Double Fine).

Quoting: ShmerlGood to see them catching up on current games. I hope they'll eventually break the wall with Disney, Activision and EA regarding old games as well.

The walls of Disney and Activision regarding their classics certainly seem a bit less impenetrable lately.

Oh, and I only now realized that this is all way off-topic. Sorry about starting this Steam discussion in a GOG article. More on topic I bought CLARC (http://www.gog.com/game/clarc) on GOG last week and I think it's really good. Haven't gotten very far yet though.