167
How is GOG Galaxy Still Not On Linux? (notthesolution.substack.com)
submitted 2 weeks ago by formerlytomato@lemmy.sdf.org to c/linux_gaming@lemmy.world
98 comments fedilink hide all child comments
top 50 comments
sorted by: hot top controversial new old
[-] ozymandias117@lemmy.world 47 points 2 weeks ago

I think the bigger complaint is that, when Galaxy was released, GOG said (back in 2015)

A Linux version of our client is planned eventually ... Stay tuned for future announcements

Ten years is plenty of time to implement a launcher, or at least give a planned timeline

Sure, third parties have done it with Heroic, etc. but promising support and not delivering leaves a really bad taste to me

[-] rob_t_firefly@lemmy.world 17 points 1 week ago

CDProjekt/GOG said the same thing about Cyberpunk 2077, their biggest product ever, and in the year 2025 I'm still running the Windows version of that through Proton because they give no fucks.

[-] Zeron@lemmy.world 12 points 1 week ago

To be fair, you probably don't want a native version anyways. Most native games i've played just required me to switch to proton because they had their own share of issues that the proton versions didn't have.

At this point it's better for devs to make proton support a goal(i.e steam deck compatibility) rather than native linux builds. Linux just has too much diversity for native linux support to not be a massive pain in the ass in my opinion.

[-] merdaverse@lemmy.world 5 points 1 week ago

True. I've had plenty of games where the native version didn't work, but the Proton version worked flawlessly. Small devs can get more value for their time by aiming for Proton compatibility

[-] sanpo@sopuli.xyz 10 points 1 week ago

Ten years is plenty of time to implement a launcher, or at least give a planned timeline

Or to give literally any kind of update, like admitting it was never seriously planned.

load more comments (1 replies)
[-] stargazingpenguin@lemmy.zip 21 points 2 weeks ago

I used to purchase everything I could from GOG until I switched to Linux full time. I still like the company and buy some from them, but until they become more Linux friendly or Steam gets worse I'll still prioritize Steam now. And it's not only the (very odd) resistance to making a Linux version of Galaxy, I've also seen them not offer Linux versions of games even when the developers have released it on other platforms.

[-] Kaldo@fedia.io 12 points 2 weeks ago

I tried to push for GOG purchases too and then I just ended up with games that would receive updates late. I'd miss out on discounts and bundles that make future purchases cheaper, at some point it was cheaper to just rebuy stuff with DLCs on Steam than continue building up the library on GOG.

I also gave their galaxy client a try since it promised a united library for all platforms and then they did a horrible job managing the plugins for other stores - they constantly kept breaking or logging me out while even Playnite worked perfectly out of the box.

In the end I just stopped wasting energy on GOG, life is too short and complicated enough. If they have a good deal on old games I might grab it, otherwise I prefer anything else.

load more comments (1 replies)
[-] Korhaka@sopuli.xyz 3 points 1 week ago

And Linux versions taking over a week longer to update than the steam ones. I refunded a game over that before and got it on steam instead.

[-] squid_slime@lemm.ee 15 points 2 weeks ago

Heroic Games Launcher, supports gog cloud saves, full wine/proton integration and even store front.

[-] scrubbles@poptalk.scrubbles.tech 8 points 2 weeks ago

And that's amazing work they've done, but really it's surprising that it's not already supported natively.

[-] daddy32@lemmy.world 2 points 1 week ago

I think there is some ... cooperation? Or at least acknowledgement towards heroic from GOGs side.

load more comments (2 replies)
[-] Wolfwood1@lemmy.world 2 points 2 weeks ago

It's also a nice way to use a single launcher to replace 2 / 3 (Epic Games, GOG Galaxy and Amazon gaming).

On Linux I only use Steam and Heroic.

[-] xavier666@lemm.ee 2 points 1 week ago

Also, it has controller support (slightly dodgy though)

[-] exu@feditown.com 9 points 2 weeks ago

Yeah, they promised Linux support years ago with Galaxy 2.0.
It's basically the reason why I always prefer Steam for my games.

[-] TheChickenOfDoom@lemm.ee 7 points 1 week ago

I use GOG to get away from downloading things in the context of a store and have a nice little archive of installers to use whenever I want it. I am trying to get as many Steam games to just be that way so when I run the binary it just works without Steam being involved at all. Laughably few will do it on their own but there are some ways around others...

Yeah, quite happy without some bloated launcher, thanks.

[-] Sylvartas@lemmy.dbzer0.com 2 points 1 week ago

IIRC galaxy could download installers. Maybe I'm confusing it with the older gog client

load more comments (6 replies)
[-] shortrounddev@lemmy.world 7 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago)

Because Linux still makes up a small % of PC Gamers, so CDPR hasn't prioritized it. Plus they'd need to have some kind of proton-like middleware (or just proton) for the majority of their games (which are mostly 15-20+ years old) to be playable. It seems like a large engineering challenge for a company which isn't nearly as wealthy as valve

[-] Excrubulent@slrpnk.net 8 points 1 week ago

"This river doesn't need a bridge because almost nobody ever crosses it."

Also is there a reason they can't just distribute proton? It's open under BSD, so they'd be free to do it.

load more comments (13 replies)
[-] sugar_in_your_tea@sh.itjust.works 8 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago)

Heroic did it. Why couldn't GOG?

[-] Dremor@lemmy.world 3 points 1 week ago

Because of the power of friendship... And open-source.

[-] sugar_in_your_tea@sh.itjust.works 4 points 1 week ago

And caring about Linux...

load more comments (4 replies)
[-] rapchee@lemmy.world 3 points 1 week ago

osx has an even lower market share (at least according to the steam survey), and they made one for it

[-] Korhaka@sopuli.xyz 2 points 1 week ago

Proton is open source, they could just use that. Valve would hardly complain as it helps more games run on steamdeck.

I want to use GoG more but they seem to increasingly not care about Linux. So I use Steam.

[-] patatahooligan@lemmy.world 2 points 1 week ago

Well it's not going to be the same engineering challenge as it was for Valve, because they only need to integrate proton, not develop it. If proton works on Lutris (via umu), an open source project with no corporate backing as far as I'm aware, surely CDPR can at least attempt it. This is probably the best time to do it, too. SteamOS has been well received and is likely to end up on even more handhelds, and Windows 10 is nearing its EoL. If GoG is one of the first storefronts to allow its users to play outside of windows it might generate a lot of positive sentiment in the community, just like they did with their anti-DRM stance.

load more comments (1 replies)
[-] CidVicious@sh.itjust.works 6 points 1 week ago

GOG doesn't really do much to maintain the Galaxy app unfortunately. The idea of being able to put your entire library into one launcher is appealing but half of the plugins don't even work. Even the steam one is broken out of the box these days (there is a newer version on GitHub, but I don't think it's official). So them not porting to Linux is unsurprising.

load more comments (2 replies)
[-] rapchee@lemmy.world 6 points 1 week ago

tbf with heroic launcher starting to implement comet (galaxy api), it might not be needed anymore

[-] sugar_in_your_tea@sh.itjust.works 2 points 1 week ago

It would certainly make me more likely to support GOG financially. At least fund its development.

I understand the devs profit from purchases made through Heroic to GOG, but I'd like to see something a little more explicit than what seems like an affiliate link.

[-] Artopal@lemmy.ml 5 points 1 week ago

Because it doesn't make business sense to them. The author of the article makes just two arguments and assumes those are the only relevant arguments. There's a lot more involved in the decision to port GOG Galaxy to Linux. Like support, for example.

Personally, since proton got so good and heroic can just use any version of proton installed, I've began to buy GOG games again and run them through heroic. 99% of the time they just run OK. But of course I do my due diligence and check protondb before making a purchase.

[-] random_character_a@lemmy.world 4 points 2 weeks ago

I've been with linux for 20 years now and at one point GOG was the place to go, because DRM was one of the biggest problems with wine.

I downloaded all my games stopped using it after they came up with their own electronic store, which I thought was a horrible shit and very clunky on wine.

Steam and proton were rising at the same time and more and more games were working without the usual fuss of installing .dll files, obscure media codecs, .net and etc, so it was bye bye GOG.

[-] ILikeBoobies@lemmy.ca 3 points 1 week ago

Look at what happened when Epic brought a store to Windows

Those barriers still exist on Linux

GoG makes even less sense to have a launcher because you can just download off their website

[-] AugustWest@lemm.ee 2 points 2 weeks ago

I agree, it was something I would have thought would happened a long, long time ago. Then a few years ago I thought for sure when steam and linux were really picking up.

It is one of the reasons I dont use gog that much.

[-] dragonfucker@lemmy.nz 2 points 2 weeks ago

CDPR suck.

[-] eldain@feddit.nl 2 points 2 weeks ago

Marginal support happens a lot on Linux. See AMD drivers without Adrenaline. "You may use Linux if you must... at your own risk... we do the bare minimum to keep you runnig... our past stuff is in the open but we can pull the rug on future releases any time." You can install gog games and maybe some dude made galaxy work in wine, corporate has decided that is good enough.

[-] LiveLM@lemmy.zip 2 points 2 weeks ago

This is what keeps me on Steam, along with Steam Input and Big Picture

load more comments
this post was submitted on 08 Mar 2025
167 points (98.3% liked)

Linux Gaming

17155 readers
72 users here now

Discussions and news about gaming on the GNU/Linux family of operating systems (including the Steam Deck). Potentially a $HOME away from home for disgruntled /r/linux_gaming denizens of the redditarian demesne.

This page can be subscribed to via RSS.

Original /r/linux_gaming pengwing by uoou.

Resources

WWW:

Discord:

IRC:

Matrix:

Telegram:

founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS
monolalia@lemmy.world