Feral Interactive have no plans to put their Linux ports on GOG

As someone who prefers his games on GOG this is somewhat disapointing - but I can understand it for technical reasons.

A friend of mine was doing some digging around at one point - I believe for everspace - and it seems like GOG has a bit of a technical limitation atm in their backend that doesn't allow to set other OS versions of a game as "beta" and such. So requires a lot more testing and finalizing to get it to the same "quality".

Quoting: liamdawe

Quoting: Pikolo

Quoting: bgh251f2I would believe that's because there's no clear way to know if a game bought on GOG is being played on Linux, so it would be hard to make the division of profits. The fact that there's no client can't be helping either.

Nonsense. GOG keeps track of downloads, and whether you downloaded an .exe or a .sh is not hard to count(GOG installers come as .sh, I think they're AppImages)

GOG installers are MojoSetup.

Thanks for the information, I didn't know about it!

As expected. It makes their pro-DRM attitude quite clear, since in this case it was totally Feral's decision given that 2K have no objections to the DRM-free release.


Last edited by Shmerl on 18 June 2018 at 11:10 am UTC

Quoting: bgh251f2I would believe that's because there's no clear way to know if a game bought on GOG is being played on Linux, so it would be hard to make the division of profits. The fact that there's no client can't be helping either.

GOG don't need to track playing, but simply downloads to attribute platforms, it's not really any different in practice. How hard is it to run some queries on their logs? If that's a detriment to them releasing some games, GOG could provide such feature relatively easily. So I doubt it has anything to do with GOG's statistics.

Also, if you think GOG sales split isn't working for Feral, what stops them from making the game DRM-free on their own site? That wouldn't have any of the above problems, right?

Feral's dodgy answer where they don't explain the reason, most likely points to their interest in DRM.


Last edited by Shmerl on 18 June 2018 at 11:19 am UTC

Quoting: GuestNot being on GOG does not equate to being pro-DRM.

Not always, but in this case it is. There were several sources already which quoted Feral's own words about their stance on this. Even something like "incompatible differences" in their views. Also, all this has an elephant in the room. If Feral have a problem with GOG in particular but no problem with DRM-free in general, why is the game not DRM-free on their own site?

And I have hard time buying the argument that company which specializes in porting can't make a standalone version which doesn't depend on Steam.


Last edited by Shmerl on 18 June 2018 at 11:43 am UTC

Do Feral ports use Steam DRM? Or do they use Steam only as a distribution platform and perhaps the runtime? Is it possible to run a game from Feral directly, without the Steam client running in the background?

I'm asking, as I play all of their games on a Steam Machine without a keyboard attached, so don't have too many options for investigating...

Quoting: skinnyrafDo Feral ports use Steam DRM?

According to warez scene groups, they use mainly steam drm but also custom and ferals own.

Kinda expected this but greatly disappointed in their decisions. Their response is a flat out no, it doesn't say much.

Would be interested to have some more elaborate details.

Quoting: GuestI've not seen _anything_ to support your statements.

Private people's e-mails from Feral that were referenced in the GOG thread. I think there is enough information to conclude that Feral are pro-DRM, or at the very least don't care to make an effort to release DRM-free, which in practical terms doesn't make any difference to DRM-free users, they still can't buy Feral's games without DRM.

Quoting: GuestSelf hosting entire game store backends I don't think is cheap. Steam takes care of all of those distribution concerns.

There are other options like itch.io which take care of hosting costs. What stops Feral from releasing only their versions there?

Quoting: GuestNot to mention a hefty amount of multiplayer interaction.

Windows version of Xcom on GOG has no multiplayer, so this isn't the blocker here.


Last edited by Shmerl on 18 June 2018 at 12:06 pm UTC

Quoting: GuestDoes xcom on windows run without steam, if bought via steam? I guess from your words that the gog version had something removed to be able to be on gog. That is a blocker here.

I'm not familiar with differences between versions, or whether the game has multiplayer to begin with. I only saw someone saying that there is no multiplayer in the GOG release, so lack of Galaxy isn't the issue here (it is sometimes an issue with other games). Plus, Feral aren't some amateurs, that they can't make multiplayer optional.

Anyway, you can think DRM isn't the reason, but it doesn't make any difference in practice, as I said, Feral games aren't available DRM-free and Feral clearly don't want to do anything about it. And dodgy attitude is the usual PR tactic to avoid discussing a thorny topic.

For related GOG discussion, see here.


Last edited by Shmerl on 18 June 2018 at 12:26 pm UTC