Game store GOG.com has finally updated the browsing experience for those of you who prefer getting your games there.
When you go to search for a game now, much like Steam, there's plenty of new options to help sort through masses of games. It was a needed refresh too, since GOG has grown to have over 5,500 titles available across different platforms. When you go to the store pages you will now be able to filter across price range, genres, release date range, and a newly introduced tags system.
One bit that is now missing however, are the platform icons to see what supports Linux, macOS or just Windows. You now need to use the platform filters, which you can scroll down for on the left panel or go to individual game pages to see. It's a bit of a backwards step for an otherwise great upgrade for searching through GOG.
It's about time really, and perhaps it will help more people find what they want, after it was recently announced that owners CD Projekt have been losing money on GOG.com.
Article taken from GamingOnLinux.com.
Some you may have missed, popular articles from the last month:
The comments on this article are closed.
TheRiddick Jan 18, 2022
Wish they push out a GOG Galaxy 2 for Linux. Its actually pretty useful launcher under Windows.
0 Likes
Quoting: TheRiddickWish they push out a GOG Galaxy 2 for Linux. Its actually pretty useful launcher under Windows.Wish they published an api for their website and shop so that others can interact with their backend directly . We have so many cool front ends out there in addition to galaxy
1 Likes, Who?
I've never liked the GoG website, it's always felt like a chore to browse. Perhaps it's because I'm lazy, but having to open a new webpage in my browser every time I want to see anything about a game beyond it's price and a bit of artwork is less like browsing and more like a chore. It's like getting the phone numbers for all the merchants in a village by running to each one of them individually and asking for it.
Steam and itch.io all let me scan game info without leaving the page. That's why I shop there for 99% of my games. The other 1% I get at GoG.
Last edited by Nanobang on 19 January 2022 at 6:07 pm UTC
Steam and itch.io all let me scan game info without leaving the page. That's why I shop there for 99% of my games. The other 1% I get at GoG.
Last edited by Nanobang on 19 January 2022 at 6:07 pm UTC
1 Likes, Who?
Quoting: NanobangSteam, itch.io, and Humble all let me scan game info without leaving the page. That's why I shop there for 99% of my games. The other 1% I get at GoG.
I have my issues with the design of the galaxy client on occasion as it tends to waste space but I don't have a problem with he website apart from not rendering HTML correctly on the wishlist page.
Especially not in a way that stops me from buying games.
It is more likely that that a certain just doesn't exist on gog, that is love to have it as a pre release I can still influence and got to steam instead or that there is no alternative to steam workshop.
What would you change? One page per game is what is common and I don't see where the design issue is that you mention
0 Likes
Quoting: Alm888AFAICR, this was available before. The selection is not persistent. Besides, Windows-titles will still be shown on the main page, along with promo-newsletters. There is no way to set the "show me Linux stuff exclusively" setting in your profile.
That would require serious design changes for any gaming website. Realistically, if you only expect to see Linux stuff on GOG, the website would look quite terrible. Imagine not seeing many (or any) news on the main page - it would be extremely weird. And their flash deals and other special offers would look really weird as well.
Think about seeing the flash deals sections with no game displayed. They would have to disable the whole section, and re-enable it when they have Linux games. If they did do that, you wouldn't be aware that they even have flash deals that you might want to monitor if you happen to load the page when they don't have Linux-compatible games in their deals.
Also, it's not always up to them to sell games with Linux support (through DOSBox or Wine), but the games could otherwise work just fine and it's nice to be able to see when they're discounted. So a site-wide "show me Linux stuff exclusively" setting is not necessarily an optimal way for someone interested in games. I ditched Windows over a decade ago, but I do like keeping an eye on discounts even for some non-Linux games. In my case, such a setting would not be useful.
Quoting: Alm888Again, AFAICR some time ago people complained they can not see Windows titles in their (Linux-native) Steam-clients unless they checked the "Show Me Unsupported Titles" checkbox (and apparently this setting was hidden well enough to mandate several Reddit HOW_TO-s). This was before Proton™ though, so I do not know how it is now.
The Steam client made it easy to toggle the display of platform-supported games (in your library) some while ago, and the client remembers that setting. But of course this is different from browsing the store. Steam does allow you to only see games for the platform(s) you're interested in, but they have a different format - no news of their own, like GOG have. Besides, Steam has over 20K Linux-compatible titles (compared to 4095 titles as a whole on GOG), so not having news and having so many games for each platform makes it easy to only show certain stuff.
GOG would have to do some rather invasive changes on their website to allow for what you'd like. That's not to say it wouldn't be useful to some people, but at least at this point in time it feels unrealistic for them to tackle something this big.
Last edited by kneekoo on 19 January 2022 at 11:11 am UTC
0 Likes
Quoting: kneekoo…I do not understand why you are trying to persuade me "I don't want what I want ant want what I do not want".
Yes, I do not want to see any games not supporting Linux.
Yes, I am fine not seeing any news if the only "news" GOG shows do not concern me.
No, I do not want to know about Windows-exclusive game releases. Nor do I care about Windows-exclusive "flash deals".
No, I do not think GOG's site would look terrible without all Windows-exclusive stuff being shoved down my throat. GOG's site is terrible as is.
No, I do not care whether a game in question "Runs Great With Proton" or not (not that GOG has any intentions to start providing this kind of information in its "release news" any time soon). If, for some wicked reasons, I would start to wonder whether some particular Windows-exclusive game is available on GOG or not, I would use the search page. But no, GOG thinks I am experiencing delight in shoving aside tons of windows-exclusive "release news" in order not to miss the one in fifty Linux release news. No I am not! If things continue the way they are now, I'd rather stop paying any attention to GOG site at all and will visit it only to check for updates or if I've heard about a game elsewhere and want to inquire about its availability on GOG (but even then, I'd rather use the quick search field).
Quoting: kneekooThe Steam client made it easy to toggle the display of platform-supported games (in your library) some while ago, and the client remembers that setting. But of course this is different from browsing the store. Steam does allow you to only see games for the platform(s) you're interested in, but they have a different format - no news of their own, like GOG have. Besides, Steam has over 20K Linux-compatible titles (compared to 4095 titles as a whole on GOG), so not having news and having so many games for each platform makes it easy to only show certain stuff.
GOG would have to do some rather invasive changes on their website to allow for what you'd like. That's not to say it wouldn't be useful to some people, but at least at this point in time it feels unrealistic for them to tackle something this big.
Funny thing, GOG in fact does filter content by OS. If you try to browse the Galaxy promo page with your User-Agent string indicating anything Linux-related, you won't be able to even see download links there.
See? No download link. Yes, GOG can and will block content based on your OS of choice on its site. But user's wishes mean nothing to GOG.
Last edited by Alm888 on 19 January 2022 at 2:46 pm UTC
0 Likes
Quoting: Alm888I do not understand why you are trying to persuade me "I don't want what I want ant want what I do not want".
I didn't try to persuade you of anything. I basically told you that what you want is next to impossible for GOG. They've moved way too slow with pretty much everything throughout the years, including community wishlists. It is what it is.
Quoting: Alm888Funny thing, GOG in fact does filter content by OS. If you try to browse the Galaxy promo page with your User-Agent string indicating anything Linux-related, you won't be able to even see download links there.
See? No download link. Yes, GOG can and will block content based on your OS of choice on its site. But user's wishes mean nothing to GOG.
QuoteGOG GALAXY 2.0 Open Beta is available for Windows and Mac. Please download the installer on your PC.
This is a common idiotic thing many site owners do. It's a trend made up by stupid people, adopted by lazy people who don't care how things work. They either think that "PC = Windows", or don't care and pretend that's the case, for the sake of the many people who cannot tell the difference. But again, it is what it is. I gave a few site owners my feedback (politely, not as blunt as I put it here), and that's it. It's their choice to look like complete idiots after all.
1 Likes, Who?
Patreon
PayPal
See more from me