Open Source implementation of GOG Galaxy's Communication Service, Comet sees a first release

I'm glad there's people working on this at least, though I still wish GoG themselves would work to make their client official... I prefer them philosophically to Steam but Steam usually wins me by sheer convenience.

GoG endorsed Heroic Launcher in their Reddit posts and they gave the Heroic Team an affiliate link, so this is rather close to an "official" client


Last edited by tpau on 11 Jul 2024 at 6:31 pm UTC

GoG endorsed Heroic Launcher in their Reddit posts and they gave the Heroic Team an affiliate link, so this is rather close to an "official" client

Never knew that, not bad. Still wish they had Galaxy working instead but Heroic generally does the job at the level I need it to.

Still wish they had Galaxy working instead but Heroic generally does the job at the level I need it to.

Is there anything you need missing apart from the fact that it doesn't use the wrapper plugins for other stores like Rockstar or Ubi and has a strict focus on reversed backends?

Is there anything you need missing apart from the fact that it doesn't use the wrapper plugins for other stores like Rockstar or Ubi and has a strict focus on reversed backends?

I'd more just like to seem them put some support behind Linux themselves, that's a big point in Steam's favor to me and a reason I buy from there more often. For me, Heroic has all I need; I don't use any launcher for more than downloading and playing.

A moment of gloating.

Indivisible worked with it with no issue whatsoever.

I'm pretty happy with myself for that one.

!☄️

Maybe it's just me but I don't like the GOG Galaxy client. The social stuff is a mess and all over the place with all the platforms it supports. Same with games, I don't care that I can play a game on my xbox. I just wanting to see my GoG games on my Linux box. SO I'm not really hurt its not native for linux. I do love heroic though.

GOG's Linux-hostility means that I last gave them money in... 2017, and I have no intention of giving them more in the future. It's good to have tools to stop people's GOG libraries keeping them locked into Windows, though.

GoG endorsed Heroic Launcher in their Reddit posts and they gave the Heroic Team an affiliate link, so this is rather close to an "official" client

That's less than Epic did; they gave Lutris a token amount of cash. And no one would consider Lutris to be anything like an official Epic client.


Last edited by CatKiller on 12 Jul 2024 at 3:59 am UTC

Wish they would implement the matchmatching too, this is the only part I care about. Something like Goldberg's emulator but for GOG.

Maybe it's just me but I don't like the GOG Galaxy client. The social stuff is a mess and all over the place with all the platforms it supports. Same with games, I don't care that I can play a game on my xbox. I just wanting to see my GoG games on my Linux box. SO I'm not really hurt its not native for linux. I do love heroic though.

Absolutely. I’ve used Galaxy before and it was one of the worst apps I’ve ever seen.
Heroic, Bottles or even Mini Galaxy depending on what you need, are all much better experiences anyway.

Wish they would implement the matchmatching too, this is the only part I care about. Something like Goldberg's emulator but for GOG.

There is actually Nermintgas' Galaxy Emulator for LAN games.

GOG's Linux-hostility means that I last gave them money in... 2017, and I have no intention of giving them more in the future. It's good to have tools to stop people's GOG libraries keeping them locked into Windows, though.

What do you mean by hostility? To me it's felt a lot more like they probably had one or two people wanting to support linux and they were cool with it, then it faded for whatever reason -- like the same people moved on from the company or something.

Honestly the Galaxy Client itself, ignoring Linux for a moment, feels mostly abandoned as it is. I believe the single person they had maintaining the integrations quit quite some time ago, and was never replaced. While they did promise Linux support, it's always felt like you often see with .Net apps -- especially around the time Galaxy was being made -- where MS loosely promised Linux support in .Net, then the next version of .Net, then just Nah but you can use 3rd party to implement the GUI, and naive promises were getting made by people/devs that didn't do their *homework. The client just isn't great; Heck, if you use "Surprise me" to have it "reveal" random games -- they're always the same games, chosen in the same order, every time you restart the client.

My point is Galaxy itself feels low priority, and very loosely managed. Very much feels like people "feeling like doing this or that", and the someone that felt like doing linux things is... probably not even there anymore?

*: You'd see the same exact thing with stretch goals in KS projects promising Linux support, because their game engine claimed to support it; And again, failed to do their homework only to find out later they actually had to put effort in, and likely plan and develop from day one so they make good choices. Then you'd see "Blah blah not worth the effort (we made bad decisions but this is a popular excuse right?)" and they just don't do it.

GOG's Linux-hostility means that I last gave them money in... 2017, and I have no intention of giving them more in the future. It's good to have tools to stop people's GOG libraries keeping them locked into Windows, though.

What do you mean by hostility? To me it's felt a lot more like they probably had one or two people wanting to support linux and they were cool with it, then it faded for whatever reason -- like the same people moved on from the company or something.

Honestly the Galaxy Client itself, ignoring Linux for a moment, feels mostly abandoned as it is. I believe the single person they had maintaining the integrations quit quite some time ago, and was never replaced. While they did promise Linux support, it's always felt like you often see with .Net apps -- especially around the time Galaxy was being made -- where MS loosely promised Linux support in .Net, then the next version of .Net, then just Nah but you can use 3rd party to implement the GUI, and naive promises were getting made by people/devs that didn't do their *homework. The client just isn't great; Heck, if you use "Surprise me" to have it "reveal" random games -- they're always the same games, chosen in the same order, every time you restart the client.

My point is Galaxy itself feels low priority, and very loosely managed. Very much feels like people "feeling like doing this or that", and the someone that felt like doing linux things is... probably not even there anymore?

*: You'd see the same exact thing with stretch goals in KS projects promising Linux support, because their game engine claimed to support it; And again, failed to do their homework only to find out later they actually had to put effort in, and likely plan and develop from day one so they make good choices. Then you'd see "Blah blah not worth the effort (we made bad decisions but this is a popular excuse right?)" and they just don't do it.

I take your point and think that was generally well put . . . but at the same time I think making a comparison with Microsoft in your argument that (thing) is not hostile to Linux is fundamentally unpersuasive.

GOG's Linux-hostility means that I last gave them money in... 2017, and I have no intention of giving them more in the future. It's good to have tools to stop people's GOG libraries keeping them locked into Windows, though.

What do you mean by hostility? To me it's felt a lot more like they probably had one or two people wanting to support linux and they were cool with it, then it faded for whatever reason -- like the same people moved on from the company or something.

Honestly the Galaxy Client itself, ignoring Linux for a moment, feels mostly abandoned as it is. I believe the single person they had maintaining the integrations quit quite some time ago, and was never replaced. While they did promise Linux support, it's always felt like you often see with .Net apps -- especially around the time Galaxy was being made -- where MS loosely promised Linux support in .Net, then the next version of .Net, then just Nah but you can use 3rd party to implement the GUI, and naive promises were getting made by people/devs that didn't do their *homework. The client just isn't great; Heck, if you use "Surprise me" to have it "reveal" random games -- they're always the same games, chosen in the same order, every time you restart the client.

My point is Galaxy itself feels low priority, and very loosely managed. Very much feels like people "feeling like doing this or that", and the someone that felt like doing linux things is... probably not even there anymore?

*: You'd see the same exact thing with stretch goals in KS projects promising Linux support, because their game engine claimed to support it; And again, failed to do their homework only to find out later they actually had to put effort in, and likely plan and develop from day one so they make good choices. Then you'd see "Blah blah not worth the effort (we made bad decisions but this is a popular excuse right?)" and they just don't do it.

I take your point and think that was generally well put . . . but at the same time I think making a comparison with Microsoft in your argument that (thing) is not hostile to Linux is fundamentally unpersuasive.

Hah true, I didn't mean the comparison in that way but rather that particular example. MS is obviously pretty hostile towards desktop Linux.

The only thing I am missing is the achievements and playtime counter in GOG Galaxy. I switched to Linux a few years ago and bought all my games on GOG before. But I wanted my achievements back so badly, I bought a couple of games again on Steam since I was using Linux solely (Witcher 1-3, Cyberpunk...)

I don't use any launcher for more than downloading and playing.

I don't even go that far. I download the offline installers for all my GOG games manually. For me, launchers that download and install games feel too much like DRM. I mostly play offline. I have little use for the social features and I can take or leave the achievements. What I do like is the playtime counter, a centralized location for launching my games, and being able to install the games in their own prefixes. Steam does that but only gives you the playtime counter if you are online and logged in. Lutris works offline - for both the playtime counter and installs - making it my preferred launcher.

Don't know much about Heroic. The last time I used it, I found it limited and not terribly intuitive, with insufficient manual control of installation and setup. Perhaps that has changed now.


Last edited by Caldathras on 12 Jul 2024 at 4:59 pm UTC

GOG did an AMA on Reddit, and someone asked about Linux: https://www.reddit.com/r/residentevil/s/nfL7k7WanM

The reply:

"**Maciej:** It's amazing to see Linux gaming booming, and the Steam Deck is a fantastic device - I'm thrilled to see it happening. To be completely honest, GOG isn't doing much to proactively support Linux gamers at the moment. We have an affiliate deal with Heroic Game Launcher, an alternative open-source client for Epic, GOG, and Amazon Prime Games, but that's about it. You might say that Linux gamers are doing more for GOG than we do for them, considering some of them created the open-source GALAXY client "Minigalaxy". Ultimately, we'd love to provide a better experience for Linux gamers as soon as we can afford it without diverting resources from our mission of Making Games Last Forever. Even within that mission, there's still a lot we feel we could do better. It might not be the answer you were looking for, but it's an honest one :)"

What do you mean by hostility?

The dev tools for Linux builds of games on GOG were significantly worse than those for builds for other platforms; better Linux support was massively the most-requested feature from their own community on their own wishlist feature for years, which they alternately ignored or silently deleted; and then they chose to use their Linux-using customers as the butt of a joke for edgy Cyberpunk marketing. These are not the actions of a company with a positive attitude towards Linux.