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.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kvnOXIiJrMw
Last edited by michaldybczak on 1 June 2019 at 2:40 pm UTC
Quoting: michaldybczakDid you guys see this interview? GOG Galaxy 2 will be open source and they are expecting the community to improve it, so it's not that impossible to see Linux version in the near feature, maybe not the official one but it will be done knowing the Linux community ;) :
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kvnOXIiJrMw
They are only talking about the integrations with other platforms. It was a part of the original announcement: "Community platform integrations
Connect more platforms and add new features with open-source integrations." Source: https://www.gogalaxy.com/en/
It just means that if there is no official support for cross platform chat etc with for example itch.io(do they have have things like chat?) then the community can make such an integration layer. There has been no statement regarding open sourcing the rest of Galaxy 2.0.
Apparently I'm a dying breed, but I miss the old gog. Don't like that they are chasing after and replicating Steam in everything they do. Wouldn't be surprised if they dropped the DRM Free "principle" (LOL) at some point too. They've dropped everything else they once stood for and (claimed they) believed in.
In a sense Humble Bundle is even more sad. At least I still check out GOG and still buy games there from time to time. Definitely a case of "least bad". WTF happened to the gaming industry? :'(
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