Today, GOG officially announced Galaxy 2.0 and their aim seems to be to pull everyone together under one roof.
There are two things that matter to all of us gamers: the games we play and the friends we play them with. But as more titles come with dedicated launchers and clients, our games and gaming buddies become scattered in between them. With GOG GALAXY 2.0, you’ll be able to combine multiple libraries into one and connect with your friends across all gaming platforms!
It's like a much fancier version of Steam's own ability to add games installed from other sources, as Galaxy 2.0 will also support cross-launcher friends lists and chat making it sound pretty darn handy. They do also state you can "Connect more platforms and add new features with open-source integrations.". Those hoping that is some kind of olive branch being extended for Linux will likely be disappointed though, going by their FAQ on the newer dedicated Galaxy site it sounds more like it's simply for adding other services into the client itself for those GOG haven't yet done.
This would have been the perfect time to finally announce the ridiculously long-overdue Linux support for GOG Galaxy (especially with the Epic Store also not supporting Linux), sadly GOG are continuing to leave Linux out. In response to a user question on Twitter about Linux, the GOG team simply said "GOG GALAXY 2.0 will be available for Windows and Mac.". While an honest answer, it's also pretty blunt. No mention of it coming, just a whole lot of nothing.
It's worth noting the wishlist entry "Release the GOG Galaxy client for linux" on GOG's own website with over 21K votes, has been listed as "in progress" for a long time now (at least as far back as 2015 going by the Wayback Machine). You would think by now we would have had some sort of sign.
Considering even itch.io, a tiny little outfit has managed to support Linux really well with their open source client you would think after multiple years GOG would.
I've reached out to GOG, to see if they would like a chat about it. I will update if/when they reply.
Article taken from GamingOnLinux.com.
Quoting: ShmerlNot necessarily. Our platform needs more games. GOG installers are pretty easy to use too. If they wouldn't have been missing releases though.
By experience I can tell you that they aren't easy enough for people that are complete computer illiterate (i.e. the average Windows user).
Steam just works and if we want to talk about bringing more games, Proton talks for Valve on this regard. This whole thing is sad, GoG could have done something to give the minimum support on Linux without much effort, but they decided to do nothing.
Quoting: ShmerlGOG installers are ridiculously slow, though, always have been. I do not know what they do with these files other than unpacking them, but every GOG installation just takes ages (and on multiple good PCs, too).Quoting: x_wingand in the end, is what our platform needs.
Not necessarily. Our platform needs more games. GOG installers are pretty easy to use too. If they wouldn't have been missing releases though.
Every time I installed some games that way I was reminded of the ages of installing from CD. And I use SSD, ffs!
Which doesn't even address their biggest issue: Lack of auto-patching.
Games nowadays simply aren't released in a "done" state anymore, it just doesn't happen. There are patches, sometimes A LOT of them.
With GOG installers for linux, you always have to re-install the entire game just to replace a handful of changed files.* And did I mention how slow their installers are?
A platform like Galaxy or Steam (or a launcher for the actual game that applies the patches, like many MMOs do) is almost a necessity, and GOG simply doesn't provide that on linux.
*In theory, you could argue the developers could provide patch files.
Yeah, right. All the extra effort to create a patch file, for the subset of a very small audience, for one store.
I know I wouldn't.
Last edited by TheSHEEEP on 23 May 2019 at 6:38 am UTC
They don't care about Linux, or the ideals behind it or open source, they don't even want it to succeed as competition to Microsoft, because for one reason or another they don't want Microsoft to have competition (conspiracy theory: because MS incentivises them to be happy with just Windows, non-conspiracy theory: because they have only one PC platform to support). Linux is completely alien to them, they see no need for it and have no idea why anyone would use it. It's enough to look at the Witcher 2 debacle to see how it works. Someone is rude (beyond rude, admittedly) and, since that's all they know, they think the whole Linux community is like that and now not only do they have no financial interest in supporting us, they have the satisfaction of spiting people they don't like.
Quoting: ShmerlQuoting: x_wingand in the end, is what our platform needs.
Not necessarily. Our platform needs more games. GOG installers are pretty easy to use too. If they wouldn't have been missing releases though.
The installer itself is easy enough, but you need to have a bunch of libraries installed for almost any given game to work which are not installed by default and they are listed in the system requirements box on the game's store page and someone who's just moved to Linux because whatever and is not an IT guy will a) have no idea they have to install them, b) have no idea how to install them, c) wonder why the hell their game isn't starting and d) reinstall Windows.
I mean seriously ?
Arehandoro May 23, 2019
Having GOG Galaxy doesn't remove the fact that games on GOG are DRM-Free. Most people might want a client for ease of updates, chats, friends, etc... but also the ability to have a copy of the installers on their HDDs. And is with this combination where I believe GOG should focus to make a difference in the store wars. Now, if GOG decided to change that then their stance on DRM-Free would stop being true... and my position towards them would likely change too.
With this said, I still like GOG and will buy their games whenever it suits me though can't help to feel a second class costumer for the most part.
Quoting: GuestUsing Windows games on GOG means as well you support Windows. Only Valve got the statistics right with Proton counting as Linux.
This is bunk. If you hold this view, you shouldn't be using any Windows games from Steam as well. Do you? Otherwise, don't tell others they support Windows by using games in Wine. Statistics are all there, and stores can easily count where you downloaded your games from (with user agent) and they are already doing it. What anyone does with those statistics (i.e. how developers and publishers use that) is not public info anyway. So no point to speculate.
Last edited by Shmerl on 23 May 2019 at 4:26 pm UTC
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