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

Quoting: RaabenI keep trying to support GoG, but they keep giving me less and less reason to.

I kept wanting to support GoG, but they kept piling up reason after reason for me to just stick with Steam and Humble Store. This admission of their ongoing lie is just the "final nail in the coffin" for me, virtually guaranteeing they'll never see a single dime of my money.

Quoting: ShmerlAbout 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?

Maybe https://www.gamingonlinux.com/2020/12/standalone-steam-controller-driver-and-ui-sc-controller-gets-a-sweet-small-upgrade/ still works?

Quoting: BlooAlienMaybe https://www.gamingonlinux.com/2020/12/standalone-steam-controller-driver-and-ui-sc-controller-gets-a-sweet-small-upgrade/ still works?

I'd expect something like that is needed, yes. But I haven't seen anything addressing Steam Deck specifically.

Hm. Looks like they are working on it. That's promising:

https://github.com/kozec/sc-controller/commit/4d0e6c7d469bc14119adfbf90ea2bcc45e331b95

I hope they'll publish some instructions how to use this on the Deck to enable controllers for non Steam games.

Python though isn't a good idea for APU use case. I wish they'd used some compiled language for better performance.


Last edited by Shmerl on 1 July 2022 at 11:52 pm UTC

They should have replaced the notice with the image of a middle finger and the caption "To our Linux customers". Because that's how it comes across.

I used to like GOG. But Valve bends over backwards to cater to a Linux user like me, so I'm sticking with Valve for the foreseeable future. Plus, I've been a Valve fan since I played Half-Life back in the day, but that's neither here nor there.

Quoting: Purple Library Guy

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.

Actually their principles and possibly falsely reading the market might have caused this situation.

Attracting users with Good Old Games repacked in a form that works on modern systems is a niche market.

What glorifies a store is mostly AAA's because mainstream user base wants to play them. DRM is a norm in AAA market so GOG's Drm Free policy is not in their favor here due to it essentially blocking them from that store.


So in a way GOG is in a weird spot where it is niche due to reasons above but likely has more expenses/operation costs compared to other niche stores such as itch. So self sustaining is probably hard.

...god fucking dammit, I was actually one of the people who had their hopes up. You know what? Fine, if they don't want to support Linux, then open up the Cloud Save API so that Heroic, Lutris, and Mini Galaxy can easily access them. THAT is literally the one reason withholding me from buying games on GOG. I'm even willing to pay more (since they don't have regional pricing for my region) if it meant I could get the VNs I want and I could have Cloud Save to go with them!

Fuck GOG man. Until they open up Cloud Save, they're a no go for me, no matter how much I want to just buy Muramasa and Evenicle 2 (because, yes, they have that) from them.

Quoting: Guest

Quoting: jens(they could have made Proton completely closed, but decided to go 100% Open Source!).

It's based on wine. So no, they could not have kept it closed. So please don't make an essential requirement look like they did a great thing.

It needs Wine to work, but Proton itself is a separate thing, and Wine is LGPL not GPL, so there's nothing to stop someone from attaching Wine to a closed module. Sooo, yes, they could have kept Proton closed.

I have a GOG account, I have even bought a handful of games from them in the past, so I am definitely open to the idea of buying games from GOG. But I have no interest in doing so right now. The gap between Steam and GOG in terms of quality of service on Linux, is simply too vast. GOG needs to up it's game.

At the minimum, before I'd even consider buying future games from GOG, I'd need to see a native GOG client, with automatic game updates, cloud sync for game saves, a game overlay for features such as screenshots in game, displaying game performance info (like FPS), and Wine integration for Windows-only games.

Yea I know, realistically, that simply isn't going to happen, no need to tell me, that is too much ground for GOG to makeup and they clearly aren't interested enough to even try. At the same time though, I don't think in 2022 that's an unreasonable feature set to demand for gaming on any platform, and a feature set Steam is very comfortably delivering right now, plus a whole lot more (Remote Play, Shader Pre-Caching, Steam Workshop, etc..).

So why would I even consider buying a game from GOG, when they don't even have a native desktop client?

GOG, do better.

Quoting: GuestWell they do already do that if you think about it. Steam is the module.

You've turned everything around. Steam is a store. Proton is a separate module.


Last edited by mphuZ on 2 July 2022 at 9:25 am UTC

Quoting: Guest

Quoting: Purple Library Guy

Quoting: Guest

Quoting: jens(they could have made Proton completely closed, but decided to go 100% Open Source!).

It's based on wine. So no, they could not have kept it closed. So please don't make an essential requirement look like they did a great thing.

It needs Wine to work, but Proton itself is a separate thing, and Wine is LGPL not GPL, so there's nothing to stop someone from attaching Wine to a closed module. Sooo, yes, they could have kept Proton closed.

Well they do already do that if you think about it. Steam is the module.

Well, my statement was about Proton, not the Steam store. In my definition Proton is not upstream Wine. It is based on Wine but contains a lot more (modified spiced Wine, DXVK, VKD3D-Proton, Steam bridge, VR bridge etc.). Of course huge credits to Codeweavers (which are partially sponsored by Valve) and other Wine contributors but considering Proton just a repackaged Wine is a bit shortsighted if you ask me ;)


Last edited by jens on 2 July 2022 at 10:06 am UTC

Quoting: Guest

Quoting: mphuZ

Quoting: GuestWell they do already do that if you think about it. Steam is the module.

You've turned everything around. Steam is a store. Proton is a separate module.

I think you missed my point entirely, which was that if Valve were such open source champions they've have an open source client.

I don't know, your argumentation is like:

Mom: Hey honey, look how nicely our boy has cleanup his room!
Dad: Yeah, but he's still a bad child because he didn't do his homework yesterday!

It is fair to criticize Valve for the shortcomings of the Steam client, but it is also fair to give credits to them for how they approached the Proton development. It is, however, unfair to discredit the latter with the former. Having the Steam client closed source, doesn't make Proton a worse Open Source project.

Just to be sure: this is how I read your arguments, I can't be sure of course if you also intended to say it this way.


Last edited by jens on 2 July 2022 at 11:50 am UTC

Quoting: GuestValve gets too much credit in my opinion, and have basically bought goodwill by contributing to open source projects for the explicit purpose of having people reliant on their proprietary client. Microsoft also contribute to open source projects, yet hardly anyone (who isn't paid to do so) praises them in such a fashion.

Microsoft is big. I give them huge kudos for projects like .Net Core or VS Code, but I'm absolutely no fan of their OS (mostly from the user perspective, not so much because it is closed source) or some other initiatives.

Quoting: GuestI'm not anti-Valve. Anyone who thinks so, go back and read my words again. I just like to point out how what people say often appears to me in conflict with their own actions. In this case, originally by pointing out that what they (Valve) "could have done" is actually what they did: bolting LGPL onto a proprietary system.

I mean it's gaming, with games and assets being proprietary as it gets. By its nature this will never be a 100% OSS domain.
I see it more like a win-win for both. The Linux community wins because lots of resources going into e.g. the graphics and gaming stack which will benefit Linux in general and on the other side I have no problem with Valve further strengthening their position to in the end increase profit for themself. I don't feel that Valve is using or blackmailing me.


Last edited by jens on 2 July 2022 at 3:12 pm UTC

I just a had quick gander at their current wishlist, and I suppose this was always the direction of travel:



Four of the top 13 I snipped there relate to FOSS or Linux. So 30% of items that will never happen despite a combined total of 62000 votes. With another 30% of them complete already, the rest of the items, combined, amount to 61000 votes.

You know, maybe they have millions of customers. But repeat customers? I doubt it.

And maybe there's overlap in the votes, so they're downplaying it? You can see that I voted on two of the Linux items (they're in orange), at least. But still - if GOG released a Linux client, I'm pretty sure they'd be guaranteed AT LEAST 33K new customers. The synergy between anti-DRM and Linux users is pretty big. I'd be supportive and I think if you care enough to vote on a tracker like this, those others care too.

But I've spent over TEN TIMES more on the Steam summer sale in one week than I have on GOG in over eight YEARS. Because they don't have a Galaxy client.

Quoting: GuestValve gets too much credit in my opinion, and have basically bought goodwill by contributing to open source projects for the explicit purpose of having people reliant on their proprietary client. Microsoft also contribute to open source projects, yet hardly anyone (who isn't paid to do so) praises them in such a fashion.

Good grief, Mirv. You seem to be suggesting that Microsoft should get more goodwill for open sourcing stuff than Valve. Which is either delusional, trolling, or you're just really young and just don't remember what Microsoft is.

Because while they're both big corporate entities which only do stuff to further their own gain, Microsoft could open source another 10 thousand tools and still be as untrustworthy then as they were 20 years ago when they were funding SCO to blackmail entire industries with patent trolling. And just one example of how utterly shitty Microsoft are from top to bottom.

Valve get a lot of praise incidentally, sure, but their motivations aren't, unlike Microsoft, directly opposed to Linux as a viable desktop.

LUTRIS MASTER RACE

Quoting: Guest

Quoting: Purple Library Guy

Quoting: Guest

Quoting: jens(they could have made Proton completely closed, but decided to go 100% Open Source!).

It's based on wine. So no, they could not have kept it closed. So please don't make an essential requirement look like they did a great thing.

It needs Wine to work, but Proton itself is a separate thing, and Wine is LGPL not GPL, so there's nothing to stop someone from attaching Wine to a closed module. Sooo, yes, they could have kept Proton closed.

Well they do already do that if you think about it. Steam is the module.

Then how am I able to use Proton with Lutris, Heroic, etc? Even if Steam is "the module" in your analogy, Proton is still an independent, completely open-source tool than anyone can use freely without ever touching Steam. And it was Valve's choice that's made it so.

Quoting: Guest

Quoting: mphuZ

Quoting: GuestWell they do already do that if you think about it. Steam is the module.

You've turned everything around. Steam is a store. Proton is a separate module.

I think you missed my point entirely, which was that if Valve were such open source champions they've have an open source client.

A) There is a slight difference between restructuring and open-sourcing an already existing code base, and developing something as open source from the ground up.

B) What purpose (other than ideology) would an open source Steam client serve at this point in time? You'd still be shackled by it as a form of DRM, if that's what you're alluding to. And nobody said Valve are the "open source champions" - they're just a business that saw a great chance and took advantage of it, and in the process of taking advantage of it have managed to show more respect towards both their customers and the open source community at large than any other tech company of the same caliber, ever.

While GOG, on the other hand, are a company that even when given the opportunity to "steal" a piece of their competitor's efforts and convert it into their own success* without so much as lifting a finger, they refuse to do it and instead fool around with porn games "adult novels" as their preferred way of expanding their business. I mean, come on, this is fast becoming too ridiculous to even comment on.

(*Because if GOG ever utilized Proton in their own Linux client and marketed themselves as champions of "DRM-free" in every aspect of the gaming stack, now THAT would be a case for an "open source champion" in the making.)

Quoting: Guest

Quoting: scaine

Quoting: GuestValve gets too much credit in my opinion, and have basically bought goodwill by contributing to open source projects for the explicit purpose of having people reliant on their proprietary client. Microsoft also contribute to open source projects, yet hardly anyone (who isn't paid to do so) praises them in such a fashion.

Good grief, Mirv. You seem to be suggesting that Microsoft should get more goodwill for open sourcing stuff than Valve. Which is either delusional, trolling, or you're just really young and just don't remember what Microsoft is.

Because while they're both big corporate entities which only do stuff to further their own gain, Microsoft could open source another 10 thousand tools and still be as untrustworthy then as they were 20 years ago when they were funding SCO to blackmail entire industries with patent trolling. And just one example of how utterly shitty Microsoft are from top to bottom.

Valve get a lot of praise incidentally, sure, but their motivations aren't, unlike Microsoft, directly opposed to Linux as a viable desktop.

Another case of someone completely missing the point of what I wrote, and in this case, trying to put words into my mouth (or into my text area, as it were).

Well shit, I'm done. Can't contribute to a discussion without that happening. Too many people are far too eager to go nuts at me instead I guess. I mean, how dare I have what's viewed as an opposing opinion (whether it even is or not).

It seems as if every time I see you taking part in any discussion, it goes like this: you express your opinion -> people express their own opinions about your opinion -> you declare you're done and you're never going to participate again in such debates -> you participate in the next such debate.

Why all this animosity? Nobody called you out, and certainly not scaine. Can't you just reply to his opinion without making it seem like it's personal?

EDIT: Just wanted to add, in case it wasn't already obvious, that I too don't think there's anything wrong with mirv's opinions or his way of expressing them, in fact I agree with him more often than not. That's why I'm baffled to see this nice thread devolve into a kind-of-personal clash for seemingly no reason at all.


Last edited by Nocifer on 4 July 2022 at 8:13 am UTC

Quoting: scaineFour of the top 13 I snipped there relate to FOSS or Linux. So 30% of items that will never happen despite a combined total of 62000 votes. With another 30% of them complete already, the rest of the items, combined, amount to 61000 votes.

You know, maybe they have millions of customers. But repeat customers? I doubt it.

And maybe there's overlap in the votes, so they're downplaying it? You can see that I voted on two of the Linux items (they're in orange), at least. But still - if GOG released a Linux client, I'm pretty sure they'd be guaranteed AT LEAST 33K new customers. The synergy between anti-DRM and Linux users is pretty big. I'd be supportive and I think if you care enough to vote on a tracker like this, those others care too.

But I've spent over TEN TIMES more on the Steam summer sale in one week than I have on GOG in over eight YEARS. Because they don't have a Galaxy client.

Quoting: Nociferthey're just a business that saw a great chance and took advantage of it, and in the process of taking advantage of it have managed to show more respect towards both their customers and the open source community at large than any other tech company of the same caliber, ever.

Come to think of it, these points remind me of the "Crappy products for crappy customers." (i.e., catering to consumers that few companies want to bother with, but which would create a bigger market if someone tried to feed it) phase of disruption in business; I think it was part of the "Blue Ocean" strategy, but it's been many years since I read up on it so I may be misremembering its origin. It's a real pity that GOG didn't go for it (in their early days, I thought they eventually would), because they definitely had that connection with the Linux market right out of the gate.

QuoteAnother case of someone completely missing the point of what I wrote, and in this case, trying to put words into my mouth (or into my text area, as it were).

Well shit, I'm done. Can't contribute to a discussion without that happening. Too many people are far too eager to go nuts at me instead I guess. I mean, how dare I have what's viewed as an opposing opinion (whether it even is or not).

I'm sad to see you go, Mirv. That last sentence is a bit ironic though, eh? I have an opposed opinion to you, how dare I?

I always enjoyed what you brought to the table - a developer's view of Linux gaming, but still with a gamer's perspective. I'll miss your chat, although I stand by what I said about Microsoft.