GOG finally remove the false "in progress" note about GOG Galaxy for Linux

About Steam Deck, I'm still not clear if input support and all the controller related stuff is tied to Steam or not. Let's say you get a GOG game (whether native or Wine use case). How are you going to integrate it with controllers without Steam? Is it possible? Are there open source libraries for Steam Deck controllers support that can be exposed to games and Wine?


Last edited by Shmerl on 1 July 2022 at 8:03 pm UTC

Quoting: denyasisI'm a little sad GOG is struggling, but their business model failed and they seem to be struggling with what to do next.

Which is a problem when your business model is to be the anti-Steam and in the process, Steam becomes a near Monopoly.

I'm the end, turns out people are really more ok with DRM and a nice, albeit mandatory, client than they bet on.

How do you retake market space without alienating uses that bought in on those founding principles?

Perhaps the bigger problem is that they had principles in the first place.

I think you're making an unwarranted assumption. I don't think the principles involved hurt them. Certainly not around here, where everyone basically says "I like their principles, if only they didn't suck in other ways". The Linux crowd is perhaps unusual there, but I think GoG's problem is that while their no-DRM idea was good and by and large helped them, it wasn't enough to beat a competitor which was superior in some other ways and had big network effects.

It may be that GoG tried to grow too big. Sometimes you have a small but profitable business, you decide to expand, you spend a bunch of money to expand, and it turns out the additional revenue isn't enough to make up for all the new expenses.

No mention of minigalaxy?

Quoting: ruskieGiven I stick to lgogdownloader as my archiver and minigalaxy as my GOG Launcher - not too bothered(at least for native releases, lutris for wine). Having talked with some devs about issues they have on releasing Linux builds on GOG - there is a lot more they need to do behind the scenes then anything. Still I'll prefer GOG over any other store.

I am aware supporting Linux is more work but it is also an investment, a marketing opportunity, partnerships opportunities. GOG simply does not have vision or have someone in leadership that is anti Linux or both.

Quoting: Purple Library GuyI think you're making an unwarranted assumption. I don't think the principles involved hurt them.

I would disagree. I think they were hampered by them. I think It made it hard to move away from them, creating issues that didn't exist on Steam. As @ObsidianBlk pointed out, the main thing was a DRM free back catalogue of nostalgia that no one else had... Then those games got published on Steam. They had to change away from that core business model to keep up.

I agree that their principles are nice and I agree with @ObsidianBlk and you that they probably helped get them off the ground, but I do think their existence made it more difficult to adjust to a competitor with some superior offerings and no self imposed constraints. Now they've certainly made many other mistakes asking the way, I absolutely agree with you completely with that, but limiting your business model to something that most gamers don't really see as a purchase altering priority, I would argue, does hurt then a bit.

Edit- sorry @ObsidianBlk. I totally butchered your name when typing.


Last edited by denyasis on 1 July 2022 at 10:01 pm UTC

I’m a Steam customer and have my full library there, because convenience but also because their investment into the Linux gaming stack (they could have made Proton completely closed, but decided to go 100% Open Source!).
That said I do think GOG fully deserves their place and I hope they ship into better waters soon. Granted, their communication could be better, but in my opinion they support Linux, but just passively and not actively like Valve. I guess reasons are of simple economical nature. GOG is certainly not anti-Linux and still deserves it’s place in the Linux gaming world.


Last edited by jens on 1 July 2022 at 10:13 pm UTC

Quoting: dorron...and that's why i don't buy anything from GOG.

They do have Linux builds and they work well. The no drm policy makes a client irrelevant outside convenience features like auto updates.
Steam is also great and they've done a lot more for gaming on linux than gog but gog is the only drm free store out there. Steam also has drm free titles but they do not label them. Both have contributed a lot in their own way.


Last edited by devland on 1 July 2022 at 10:32 pm UTC

Quoting: jensI’m a Steam customer and have my full library there, because convenience but also because their investment into the Linux gaming stack (they could have made Proton completely closed, but decided to go 100% Open Source!).
That said I do think GOG fully deserves their place and I hope they ship into better waters soon. Granted, their communication could be better, but in my opinion they support Linux, but just passively and not actively like Valve. I guess reasons are of simple economical nature. GOG is certainly not anti-Linux and still deserves it’s place in the Linux gaming world.

Agree, I have over 110 games in GOG, I really like their store. However, over time I've found myself shifting more and more over steam than GOG. Maybe due to all the features that Steam client provides (controller input regardless of brand, cloud saves, proton, etc), things that I can't have with GOG.

I do like like GOG galaxy, but even while running it with Wine doesn't work well. Releasing GOG Galaxy on Linux for sure would be really helpful, but maybe not enough now that we have proton on another launcher.

Quoting: jensbut in my opinion they support Linux, but just passively and not actively like Valve. I guess reasons are of simple economical nature. GOG is certainly not anti-Linux and still deserves it’s place in the Linux gaming world.

I think that this is the issue I have with GOG - it's not a big deal for me, just an occasional nitpick. I do still buy there because there are games they have that, as far as I know, Steam doesn't, but their Linux support seems to be a bit scattergun and I'd go there more often if it wasn't.

For example, they've got a whole lot of classic MS-DOS titles, but they inexplicably aren't all available with the Linux DOSBox wrapper. Of course you can get around this with Innoextract (which I learned of from some of the folks here on GOL) but that's an extra step that you don't always have to take. It just feels odd to me that it's inconsistent and sometimes mildly inconvenient.

While I'm certainly disappointed that development has almost certainly ended, I'm not surprised. Frankly, I wouldn't care at all about most of the features of Galaxy if Lutris/Heroic/miniGalaxy could get cloud saves to work. That's literally the only feature the client offers that I consider something I will strongly miss. I do sort of enjoy having hours played and achievements (mostly just as timestamps - kind of interesting to look back years later to reminisce about a game), but if they disappeared, I could move on.

I am hopeful a solution will be found so I don't have to manually set up Syncthing for games. GOG will still remain my preferred source to buy games.