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Quoting: "FutureSuture, post: 4673, member: 204"Guess the Humble Bundle has been quite happy with their success on Linux. Surely this can be used as ammo for even more support soon enough!

I think the success on Linux has been a two way street. They have been incredibly successful at getting so many games ported to Linux.

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It was written by the same person on the previous page in that thread (on GOG forums). The last paragraph.

I think it's not that they believe this likely, but they'd rather be on the safe side.

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Guess the Humble Bundle has been quite happy with their success on Linux. Surely this can be used as ammo for even more support soon enough!

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Quoting: "Anon, post: 4665"And also, this:

Quote... Not to mention publishers coming to us and saying, "It looks an awful lot like you're telling people that your game is supported in Linux. This is funny, because you aren't paying us for Linux distro rights."

I already read the other bit you posted but where on Earth is that from? That sounds pretty bad.

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Hope they finally port Limbo :)

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I hear because of Adobe Air version mismatch (Adobe Air stopped supporting Linux), the game would not run on some systems. (heard complains but didn't try for myself).

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Makes me wish I had a little more porting experience :/

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As I said, they stated that they're over-worked with the problems on the three systems they already support (and would need to hire/train to support Linux), they're not sure whether it's viable (they're estimating that it would hardly increase sales - and I think that's true, because Linux users already buy from them. The increase would be slight) and they're afraid of getting sued (no rights to distribute a publishers/developers game on Linux, and well, some of those publishers do seem likely to do this at times).

Also, many people that have great experience with much of the work (unlike me) have tried and failed.

I'll just quote something from the GOG forums (three reasons why it would be hard), written by one of the people behind it:

Quote...

1: Testing. What distros do we support? There are 10 "fairly common" ones (Ubuntu, Mint, OpenSuse, Fedora, CentOS, ArchLinux, Debian, Slackware, FreeBSD and, um, I've forgotten a couple). Hardware? What level of updates? Only FOSS drivers, or can we take some closed source stuff? Once we've decided on a test bed, we still have to check the games. Do they boot? What about oddball games like, say, Theme Hopsital? There's a version-specific DOSBox-related fix there. Does it in work in any distro? In all of 'em? Managing testing across the 3 OSes we support is tough and requires a lot of time, effort, and money. How much more complex will 10 more OSes make it?

2. Support. Having problems getting your game running? We'll help you out. Contact Support and they'll try to diagnose your problem and offer a solution--but they only know how to fix common (and less common) Windows problems. LInux is famous as the hacker's OS--that is to say, the OS of people who like to do odd things with their hardware. If someone contacts Support because he can't get his copy of Fallout running on his Raspberry Pi with a video out that's connected to a six-panel e-ink display and he wants his money back, well, that puts us in a bad spot.

3. Maintanence. Across those 10 common distros, how often does one of them update? Quarterly? Monthly? I don't know, but the answer is certainly "often". What do we do if slackware updates and breaks the functionality of a glide wrapper that we're using for all of our games? Or if FreeBSD removes a driver from the kernel that we depend upon in order to run some games? Just planning for Windows 8 is a minor headache--ask Tolya about his test plans if you want to hear an earful--but planning for a wide spectrum of OSes that have constantly changing sources and see major feature and bugfix releases more than once a year? Man, that's a Herculean labor.

...

And also, this:

Quote... Not to mention publishers coming to us and saying, "It looks an awful lot like you're telling people that your game is supported in Linux. This is funny, because you aren't paying us for Linux distro rights."

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Quoting: "Anon, post: 4660"Contracts can be re-worked and new agreements can be made. The only thing is, they need a good reason to start on that. Desura has a couple of the games they have for Linux (via dosbox), so it obviously is possible - one could point them to this as proof that not much work is required. But if they're afraid of running into problems with their partners, they're going to need to be persuaded that this is indeed worth it.

But I honestly do no think they're going to even think about it properly until Steam either fails or succeeds.

Well, as you seem far more fluent in the art of persuasion with regard to Linux, why not head over to GOG and do some talking there? My technical knowledge is too limited on this matter in my humble opinion.

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Quoting: "blubber, post: 4661"i stopped caring about desura. it's basically just another form of drm. you can't update your games without desura, you can't download anything game related without desura and you can't sell your game. while it is a "moderate" form of drm, it still restricts me. i tried to like it, but i don't for the same reason i'm not happy about steam coming to linux either (if it really ever does).

You can download games straight from the website if you prefer assuming the developer put up purchased downloads. I am not sure why using their software to update games on their service would be considered unreasonable. And the main difference, the most important difference between Desura and Steam (and I am sure Stallman would agree with me on this one) is that Desura can not remove binaries from your machine. It has no contact with your system. At best they can remove games from your account, but that is it. The binaries are there and can be copied to places separate from their service, and I have in fact done this to give a demo I grabbed from there. So I am not sure exactly what you are upset about.

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i stopped caring about desura. it's basically just another form of drm. you can't update your games without desura, you can't download anything game related without desura and you can't sell your game. while it is a "moderate" form of drm, it still restricts me. i tried to like it, but i don't for the same reason i'm not happy about steam coming to linux either (if it really ever does).

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Contracts can be re-worked and new agreements can be made. The only thing is, they need a good reason to start on that. Desura has a couple of the games they have for Linux (via dosbox), so it obviously is possible - one could point them to this as proof that not much work is required. But if they're afraid of running into problems with their partners, they're going to need to be persuaded that this is indeed worth it.

But I honestly do no think they're going to even think about it properly until Steam either fails or succeeds.

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Quoting: "Anon, post: 4655"There's a thread where a GOG team member said many of the bs (hard to support), but also that it's because the deals do not cover distributing on Linux which could cause some problems for them.

It's silly since a good 5% of the forums are Linux users there, seeking and providing help with the games, with a good set of lists (one was lost though a couple of months back, server-side accident they said - it was the most upvoted list quite funnily, before the new request system). I'd say a fine part of their community already consists of Linux users, and by supporting Linux they could gain what, at most twice that. I don't think it's worth it for them. Many already provide the support for the games unofficially, and that pretty much covers it. People will buy the old games either way. I'd love a nice package (whether a .tar, a .deb or an .rpm doesn't matter, since they're all easy to make), but they've stated their attitude (too hard to test at the moment and something about how those things quickly change and what not - I guess for a company that hasn't started with Linux yet it's a good reason, since they do not really know much. Especially since they apparently do not have many Linux enthusiasts on their team).

I'd say it all boils down to one thing though - contracts. Can't get around them, and who knows what some companies might do.

I find that so incredibly unfortunate. How will GOG justify not being able to offer the Linux and Mac OS versions that many indie games come with these days? With the increased interest in Kickstarter and the Humble Bundle, does it make much sense? Even Steam is coming over now.

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Oh bum thanks i will edit tonight to add the link (on phone during the day - work yawn)

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The price is keeping it from being an impulse buy for me, but not a complaint. This game is on my list of game to buy and I don't feel the price is too high.

By way of comparison, Deadly 30 looked kind of interesting and it was very cheap. Realm of the Diggle Gods was also very cheap and I knew I like the base game. I grabbed both while buying Trine 2. Likewise I might jump on a sale if I see one. As long as it isn't a problem for Sinister Design that I'm going to wait to buy it, I don't see any problem.

On an unrelated note, I'm not sure if I missed it but I thought you might want to include a link to the [URL='http://www.desura.com/games/telepath-rpg-servants-of-god']Desura profile for Telepath[/URL].

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There's a thread where a GOG team member said many of the bs (hard to support), but also that it's because the deals do not cover distributing on Linux which could cause some problems for them.

It's silly since a good 5% of the forums are Linux users there, seeking and providing help with the games, with a good set of lists (one was lost though a couple of months back, server-side accident they said - it was the most upvoted list quite funnily, before the new request system). I'd say a fine part of their community already consists of Linux users, and by supporting Linux they could gain what, at most twice that. I don't think it's worth it for them. Many already provide the support for the games unofficially, and that pretty much covers it. People will buy the old games either way. I'd love a nice package (whether a .tar, a .deb or an .rpm doesn't matter, since they're all easy to make), but they've stated their attitude (too hard to test at the moment and something about how those things quickly change and what not - I guess for a company that hasn't started with Linux yet it's a good reason, since they do not really know much. Especially since they apparently do not have many Linux enthusiasts on their team).

I'd say it all boils down to one thing though - contracts. Can't get around them, and who knows what some companies might do.

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Quoting: "motorsep, post: 4649, member: 154"Sounds like no Linux support on GOG (despite that funny image "Linux support by 2012") ??

Yea, I find this to be most unfortunate. Considering how there are meant to be millions of Linux users, garnering thousands of additional votes shouldn't be too much to ask for, right? :( I hope that this mindset that GOG currently has can be changed in the near future. Relying on Valve to change GOG's mind will likely take too much time. Perhaps when enough gamers complain about buying a game and not getting all of its versions (Linux, Mac OS, and Windows), then GOG will change its mind?

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Try pinging TheEnigmaticT on their forums, he usually knows what to do. Although I'd say just bother them again via [URL='http://www.gog.com/en/support/contact/business']this link[/URL]. I'd start with the second. They've been taking 3 games on weekly lately, so they might get it out quicker (no more than one indie at a time though).

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Sure, and I contacted them quite a few times. Having someone, who knows GOG guys, to ping them about SS:BR from Kot in Action would probably either get things going or get an idea why they never responded. It's all about who you know.

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Have you tried their proper business mail? http://www.gog.com/en/support/contact/business

That page specifically states it's used for people wanting to sell their games on it, contact them there.

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Sounds like no Linux support on GOG (despite that funny image "Linux support by 2012") ?? Btw, I have no idea how to get Steel Storm to GOG. Does anyone have contacts at GOG ? (yes, I am looking at you Mr. Banana ;) )

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shmerl, a user on GOG, posted [URL='http://www.gog.com/en/forum/general/linux_support_on_gog/page1']this thread[/URL] in response to me posting a link to [URL='http://www.gamingonlinux.com/index.php?threads/getting-gog-com-to-support-linux.899']this piece[/URL] on the page that [URL='http://www.gog.com/en/wishlist/site/add_linux_versions_of_games']the request for adding Linux games to GOG[/URL] is on. GOG responded...

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Most polish video-game makers don't care about games for Linux, because Windows is dominance in Poland. People in this country rarely buy games for Linux.

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If only I was in Warsaw. They always say they never employ anyone remotely...

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Basically, I as understand it, they would like to add Linux support but do not want to put the work in themselves. Sounds like a good opportunity for someone new to enter the industry to me; all you need to do is convince them to give you a low paying starter job just to try and prove the point and get some Linux games up there.

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As a "good to know" note, a lot of GOG.com games are supported on PlayOnLinux. They have partnered up together to create a pretty neat thing: from PlayOnLinux, you can enter your GOG username and password and directly download and install your Windows games.
If you take a look at their news posts (http://www.playonlinux.com/en/news.html, you will see that a lot of new games are coming from GOG.

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Oh, look, what's this? GOL broke GOG! For the time being anyway. ;)

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GOG always says that it would be too much effort and that the resources are not there but then when I discuss this with members of the Linux community, they seem to come up with simple solutions right there and then. Needless to say, I am not very knowledgeable on the subject, but when they make it sound so easy, what is holding GOG back?

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Oh, that's such a bullshit response. Making a .tar with all the libs included and there's nothing to worry about. And making .deb and .rpm files from that is very easy and takes no more than 30 minutes per package. I could do it for them for a fraction of what an average wage is.

I do hope they change they're opinion. Especially since more than half their games already work (Dosbox, ScummVM) and they've got a couple native things (indie games, AAA games with official ports (what a weird time that was, the 00s), KickStarter games, Mono/.NET and so many more).

Well, I'm honestly just waiting for the Steam release, because it could be honestly a game changer with many of the online shops out there. That is, if they succeed (100k users in the first three months and I'd say it will be on the right track).

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I already sent them an email a few months back and their response about it was the usual: "We wish to provide quality service, and with the multiple distributions of Linux, cannot guarantee that."

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