With the Steam Deck only a few days away from release, it seems people are wondering the support status of other stores. Seems GOG won't be supporting it, which isn't surprising.
Currently, GOG does support Linux with direct downloads, although they only officially support a few versions of Ubuntu. They do not, however, support GOG Galaxy on Linux. This has been a bit of a problem, as some games with multiplayer rely on Galaxy meaning a few Linux builds on GOG came without multiplayer.
Speaking on Twitter, in reply to a YouTuber asking if they will support the Steam Deck they replied:
There's no official GOG support for SteamDeck. But since the device has an open architecture, as we understand, you can install Windows and as such also run GOG games.
They never replied to our email enquiring about it.
Technically, you won't need to do that. GOG Galaxy can run in Wine, although unsupported. On top of that, projects like Minigalaxy exist, Lutris has GOG download support, Bottles has a GOG installer and even Heroic Games Launcher is working on Linux support that's close to release - so there's options available on SteamOS 3 with the Steam Deck to get GOG games. However, Galaxy features are generally locked to their own app.
One reason that's likely GOG aren't working to expand their Linux support to Galaxy and Steam Deck, is that they aren't exactly doing well financially.
QuoteThere's no official GOG support for SteamDeck. But since the device has an open architecture, as we understand, you can install Windows and as such also run GOG games.
... or run your native Linux games from GOG on it?!?
Quoting: EikeYeah, we did point out they seem to have forgotten that they do stock Linux games.QuoteThere's no official GOG support for SteamDeck. But since the device has an open architecture, as we understand, you can install Windows and as such also run GOG games.
... or run your native Linux games from GOG on it?!?
Quoting: martinligabuealso bottles has gog installer afaikGood point, added.
Quoting: GuestOne thing that came to my mind. If steam OS is the official supported OS, that comes preinstalled, does this means that running Windows, voids your warranty or you just cannot ask for support?, like you are in your own if you do that?
You are free to do anything with your Steam Deck, even installing Windows, but it will probably not run well. Similar handhelds with Windows usually are not that good in performance as Steam Deck.
Quoting: RaabenGOG's stubbornness makes me sad. I'd buy alot more, even most of my games from them, if they gave just half a damn for the Linux library they do carry.
I feel you. I started to buy from them, because I don't like DRM, but most of the games just doesn't work as well as on Steam. So I ended up buying on Steam when possible and only buying nostalgic games on GOG.
Quoting: GuestI use Fedora and a lot of the games from my GOG library don't run out of the box. Sometimes they run but there's no controller support. So I just end up adding them and running them through Steam anyways. The only appeal they have now is to offer DRM free games.
Same here on Fedora Silverblue.
Last edited by Zlopez on 21 February 2022 at 3:04 pm UTC
GOG doesn't care about Linux and they only care about DRM for marketing purposes.
This has caused many headaches because the software tends to break from time to time when being run with Lutris or when trying to run the game and GoG Galaxy within different WINEPREFIXes (i.e. due to a compatibility settings/Wine version mismatch between Galaxy and the game), as the processes can't see each other then.
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