If gog could focus more on Mac and Linux, especially porting games to those platforms or fixing platform specific bugs, that would be a differentiator.
If gog could focus more on Mac and Linux, especially porting games to those platforms or fixing platform specific bugs, that would be a differentiator.
Wine/Proton integration like Steam has would be very useful and imho the first logical step. (I know that's a bit philosophical if games should ported or use wine, but personally I'm of the...
Wine/Proton integration like Steam has would be very useful and imho the first logical step. (I know that's a bit philosophical if games should ported or use wine, but personally I'm of the opinion that we need a solid userbase in linux and once we have that the native versions will come on their own).
I find it somewhat silly that people dig in on Wine not being good enough. I get it, it'd be nice if it worked on your specific blend, but then, get coding I guess because everyone has their own...
I find it somewhat silly that people dig in on Wine not being good enough. I get it, it'd be nice if it worked on your specific blend, but then, get coding I guess because everyone has their own bent and supporting that many combinations is driving people nuts.
My feelings mostly lie on the fact that WINE still ultimately relies on supporting around Windows, and windows can change the name of the game at any time. It's like relying on Brave or any other...
My feelings mostly lie on the fact that WINE still ultimately relies on supporting around Windows, and windows can change the name of the game at any time.
It's like relying on Brave or any other webkit browser outside of Chrome. it feels more secure until Google with their massive influence changes the rules. I desire full independence from Windows and some people become too complacent with stopgaps
At the API levels wine is implemented this isn't really that big of a concern. Anything Microsoft wants to change there means they need people to onboard on new APIs and methods. Something they...
and windows can change the name of the game at any time.
At the API levels wine is implemented this isn't really that big of a concern. Anything Microsoft wants to change there means they need people to onboard on new APIs and methods. Something they historically struggled with and takes a long time.
Microsoft would need to introduce something very compelling to have developers make the switch. And anything that predates whatever Microsoft introduces will still be able to work with Wine.
Something compelling or something completely BS that is hard/timely to replicate on WINE. I can definitely see the latter happening if any piece of Windows 12 "features" come to fruition. Most...
Microsoft would need to introduce something very compelling to have developers make the switch.
Something compelling or something completely BS that is hard/timely to replicate on WINE. I can definitely see the latter happening if any piece of Windows 12 "features" come to fruition.
Most software will be slow to migrate, but games tend to move fastest on tech, so it's always on the back of my mind.
Wine/Proton is the first step to full independence from Windows in the consumer space, though. We cannot force an entire, massive industry to just start supporting Linux. We need to make it either...
Wine/Proton is the first step to full independence from Windows in the consumer space, though. We cannot force an entire, massive industry to just start supporting Linux. We need to make it either profitable to support Linux, or unprofitable to support Windows. You do the former by having a significant amount of people playing games and spending money on games in Linux. More money than it costs to pay developers to support said games on Linux. You do the latter by having fewer people doing the same on Windows.
We are getting there. The fact that there are games out there right now that run comparably, sometimes better through Proton on Linux than natively on Windows tells you what an unoptimized mess Windows is. But that switch is never going to happen unless people are incentivized to switch. Linux is really good nowadays, but most distros still need a modest amount of tinkering. Said tinkering doesn't require an engineering degree and mostly just looking things up on the internet and following easy guides, but that is still too much for the average user.
I do believe that Microsoft is making things a lot easier by continously making Windows complete dogshit. But Linux is not at the it just works stage yet. It's also not at the stage where pre-builts with Linux installed are easy to buy. Microsoft is doing it's best though at breaking that really gnarly catch-22 of "no users" -> "no games" -> "no users" which is honestly astonishing, but their CEO is completely AI-brained right now, so it's not surprising, plus gaming historically has always been an afterthought for them.
The only sad thing about this story is that it took Gabe Newell and Valve taking the really long con and betting on Linux. Apparently this was a reaction Microsoft considering killing all other game delivery systems on Windows other than the Microsoft Store, but it could also just be that Newell runs Linux personally and tasked his developers with making games good on Linux.
This gets dismissed or otherwise lost in conversation around the topic online far too often. For mainstream appeal, the threshold of acceptable terminal use is zero, no matter how trivial that use...
Said tinkering doesn't require an engineering degree and mostly just looking things up on the internet and following easy guides, but that is still too much for the average user.
This gets dismissed or otherwise lost in conversation around the topic online far too often.
For mainstream appeal, the threshold of acceptable terminal use is zero, no matter how trivial that use may be. Command lines are intimidating for non-technical folk and even if some wanted to learn basic use, most don’t have the vocabulary required to research these things.
Distros need to put a disproportionate amount of work into polishing things, particularly anywhere two or more disparate surfaces meet. Rough edges need to be systematically hunted down, perhaps with the help of extended trials with users recruited off the street to reveal the pain points in real world use.
That, plus there being some ideological drawbacks on some of the distros. For example, I would easily recommend Fedora with Gnome to a normal user today. But crucially, it doesn't come with nvidia...
That, plus there being some ideological drawbacks on some of the distros. For example, I would easily recommend Fedora with Gnome to a normal user today. But crucially, it doesn't come with nvidia gpu drivers nor the HEVC video codec because both are propriatary. Both require pasting commands into the command line.
The HEVC codec is especially tricky because video plays, but you get audio only. There is no error message no nothing that tells you that you're missing a codec. At least Windows tells you and then also tries to sell you the codec for 99 cents, at which point you just download VLC lol.
There are distros that are better at this, in particular Mint and Bazzite get thrown around a lot now, but recently a friend of mine was running Mint until from one day to the other it uninstalled the GPU drivers and borked the system all by itself, making her switch to Fedora. These are rare issues, and similar horror stories exist, but the crux of the problem is that Linux is just not a normal user friendly OS. However, Windows nowadays sports so many different UX/UI styles that it's basically on the same level.
In some parts of the internet I'd get my head bit off for saying this, but I think ideological hangups have done an immeasurable amount of damage to the image of desktop Linux and act as a...
In some parts of the internet I'd get my head bit off for saying this, but I think ideological hangups have done an immeasurable amount of damage to the image of desktop Linux and act as a continual drag on adoption rates. The user doesn't care about the licensing of the software they're using, they just care that their UI isn't choppy, that their games run at a playable frame rate, and that their laptop's fans don't kick into high gear from playing a YouTube video.
We can't. But at the same time there's been very steady adoption for tools to support Linux. So steps are, or at least were, being made. Games is a tricky point because support on major tools is...
We cannot force an entire, massive industry to just start supporting Linux.
We can't. But at the same time there's been very steady adoption for tools to support Linux. So steps are, or at least were, being made. Games is a tricky point because support on major tools is technically there, but the devil's in the more fine tuned platform specific issues. How much is ln the to fix and how much is on the dev is the part to figure out.
You do the former by having a significant amount of people playing games and spending money on games in Linux. More money than it costs to pay developers to support said games on Linux. You do the latter by having fewer people doing the same on Windows.
But that's my issue. People aren't spending money on Linux, they are spending money on WINE. So the profit incentive is to continue working on Windows and test a bit on Steam Deck just in case. If it works well enough with WINE, why bother with native support? Just focus on Windows.
but most distros still need a modest amount of tinkering. Said tinkering doesn't require an engineering degree and mostly just looking things up on the internet and following easy guides, but that is still too much for the average user.
Yes, and I'd hope we get to that step instead of simply being stuck in Steam mode. People use a Steam Deck to accompany their windows builds, not as a substitute. And I'm not sure if the next batch of Steam Machines will push that needle either.
There will always be some friction configuring your computer and the only difference between windows and Linux is familiarity with its quirks.
It's also not at the stage where pre-builts with Linux installed are easy to buy.
I'm not really sure of that well be easy to fix ever. Pretty builts are mostly bought off of traditional stores, and traditional stores aren't catering to games. Maybe Linux moves the needle in the gaming space, but I don't see much hope of corporate america making such a change. Which includes the school systems who already are struggling to teach the next generation computer literacy at all (maybe there is such a thing as "too intuitive").
As long as enthusiasts sites let you pick an OS, I think we'll be going in the right direction.
But that's the catch-22 I was alluding to. You need to get people onto Linux first. And people are not gonna get on Linux if "all their games only run on Windows". We're getting as close as we can...
But that's my issue. People aren't spending money on Linux, they are spending money on WINE.
But that's the catch-22 I was alluding to. You need to get people onto Linux first. And people are not gonna get on Linux if "all their games only run on Windows". We're getting as close as we can now in the consumer space with the most important app being the browser and that running flawlessly on all operating systems.
Right now, developers are not giving a shit about running well on Proton, unless they're targeting the hand-held market and thus Steam Deck with a significant margin, and soon that Lenovo device that's meant to run Steam OS. Outside of Valve investing manpower, no one's doing much; adoption is still too low.
Everyone having Proton on mind when they develop games for Windows is the prerequisite to some developers offering a Linux native version, but for that consumer adoption has to be in the double digits at least. Until then, Proton is the best thing we got, and I'm damn happy we do, especially with the shitshow that is Windows 11.
I guess I see it like this: you get people on Steam deck and you don't really get people into Linux, you get then into Steam. They have the option to change that stuff, but most won't. So you'll...
And people are not gonna get on Linux if "all their games only run on Windows"... Right now, developers are not giving a shit about running well on Proton, unless they're targeting the hand-held market and thus Steam Deck with a significant margin
I guess I see it like this: you get people on Steam deck and you don't really get people into Linux, you get then into Steam.
They have the option to change that stuff, but most won't. So you'll have this awkward sect of "Steam Deck Linux users" inbetween that don't really engage with "Linux". And given the history with Valve's marketshare, 90+% won't change their habits once they get embedded in such an ecosystem.
This is simply the way of the land for Windows, but in a Linux environment this feels a bit like centralizing a decentralized environment. And when you centralize, you inevitably get some point down the line where the trap goes shut once again. Valve won't be any different in the grand scheme of things.
I've seen this patrern in other spaces and I fear for the same road if we, once again, sacrifice being able to take our ball home by relinquishing control to yet another billion dollar corporation.
Getting people into Linux is wishful thinking. The overwhelming majority of people want their shit to just work. But if the base is broader, if money is to be made there, then all Linux users...
They have the option to change that stuff, but most won't. So you'll have this awkward sect of "Steam Deck Linux users" inbetween that don't really engage with "Linux".
Getting people into Linux is wishful thinking. The overwhelming majority of people want their shit to just work. But if the base is broader, if money is to be made there, then all Linux users profit.
I understand the fear of exchanging on whip-cracking corporation for another, but you simply need to boost adoption if you want game devs to give a shit about Linux at all.
I hear this a lot about Linux but I've rarely, if ever, seen or heard of software working with one distro and not another, packaging formats aside. It's usually just a question of having the right...
I hear this a lot about Linux but I've rarely, if ever, seen or heard of software working with one distro and not another, packaging formats aside. It's usually just a question of having the right dependencies and that can be installed in two seconds.
This is really not much of a concern, I think many devs just aren't familiar enough to know that. The real concerns come with engine development.
All I can say is I have a friend who's been in distro hell for the past 6 or so months jumping around trying to get SOMETHING working for more than a few weeks before it falls apart. To be...
All I can say is I have a friend who's been in distro hell for the past 6 or so months jumping around trying to get SOMETHING working for more than a few weeks before it falls apart. To be somewhat fair that appears to also be related to the motherboard and network drivers, but there's absolutely been software specific failures depending on distros.
That sounds like a hardware support question, which is very different! Drivers can be a complicated affair, but most things are suppoeted in the kernel directly. Software usually works regardless...
That sounds like a hardware support question, which is very different! Drivers can be a complicated affair, but most things are suppoeted in the kernel directly. Software usually works regardless of distro, so long as the right dependencies are present.
I think it gets a bit complicated on the Mac because of the different architectures involved. But since GoG specializes in old games whatever performance hit they’d get from having to run it...
I think it gets a bit complicated on the Mac because of the different architectures involved. But since GoG specializes in old games whatever performance hit they’d get from having to run it through a baked in emulator would probably be negligible.
Apparently the outbound traffic from Tildes was enough to be mentioned in their Week in Review, so if that leads to another sign up bump, I apologize in advance....
Apparently the outbound traffic from Tildes was enough to be mentioned in their Week in Review, so if that leads to another sign up bump, I apologize in advance.
Hooray I'm glad! I used to be GoG when possible, but I since I got a steam deck the added convenience and stability of steam has been too much to pass up. I have a love for/paranoia about...
Hooray I'm glad! I used to be GoG when possible, but I since I got a steam deck the added convenience and stability of steam has been too much to pass up.
I have a love for/paranoia about archiving which comes through my books/music, but I've had to cede to Steam as they are far and away the best in the game, and seem to actually want to treat their customers to great features and customer service. If I knew that would go ok forever I'd have no qualms, but companies go evil every day, and the idea of my 20 year gaming history going away scares me bad.
So if GoG can offer real Linux support (even if it's just making sure proton works easily with their games) I'll probably make the swap back as much as possible
Like others here, I was all in on GOG for a bit. Loved their DRM-free stance; loved that they supported older titles and got them running on modern hardware. There was a good year or two where...
Like others here, I was all in on GOG for a bit. Loved their DRM-free stance; loved that they supported older titles and got them running on modern hardware. There was a good year or two where they became my almost exclusive gaming platform, and I even re-bought a lot of games I already had on Steam from them.
But then Steam came out with Proton and I switched to Linux, and Steam won me back because it made gaming on Linux so frictionless. The Steam Deck further locked me in, and I ended up doing the reverse of what I did before: re-buying games on Steam that I already owned on GOG.
I still have a soft spot for GOG, and the issue of running things on Linux/Steam Deck is a lot better these days thanks to Heroic, but it would be great if GOG could finally tie its DRM-free core value to an official Linux-based implementation.
If they end up doing that and doing it well, I could see myself switching back to them.
If I understand the position description correctly, the windows GOG Galaxy client is a native one ? Like C++ WinAPI client ? Because day to day this doesn't feel like it. Steam is now using mostly...
If I understand the position description correctly, the windows GOG Galaxy client is a native one ? Like C++ WinAPI client ?
Because day to day this doesn't feel like it.
Steam is now using mostly an integrated chromium under the hood to display the Library tab and it still manages to be miles away better in input latency/navigation speed than the GOG Galaxy client.
It always felt very sluggish to use it, so I wonder what choices made them have this result.
And while I will appreciate a client on Linux, third party clients will still have a good justification even just for interacting with our gog libraries.
This is neat, things supporting Linux better in general should mean better things for everyone. But if this for a client, Heroic is already a thing, and the M series GoG Launcher has been kind of...
This is neat, things supporting Linux better in general should mean better things for everyone.
But if this for a client, Heroic is already a thing, and the M series GoG Launcher has been kind of ass, it’s better to just download the Mac pak files to install, so here’s hoping that the client would actually have some polish behind it.
If this is to keep games compatible with Linux long term, isn’t one of the issues that Proton/Wine solves with Linux is that you don’t need to worry about a game 10~15 years ago being unable to run due to never being updated and because of changing Linux libraries/standards?
A company keeping up with that would make it viable, I guess.
Cool! I gave up on GoG because they had so bad linux support compared to Steam. I hope this is a general linux push for them.
If gog could focus more on Mac and Linux, especially porting games to those platforms or fixing platform specific bugs, that would be a differentiator.
Wine/Proton integration like Steam has would be very useful and imho the first logical step. (I know that's a bit philosophical if games should ported or use wine, but personally I'm of the opinion that we need a solid userbase in linux and once we have that the native versions will come on their own).
I find it somewhat silly that people dig in on Wine not being good enough. I get it, it'd be nice if it worked on your specific blend, but then, get coding I guess because everyone has their own bent and supporting that many combinations is driving people nuts.
My feelings mostly lie on the fact that WINE still ultimately relies on supporting around Windows, and windows can change the name of the game at any time.
It's like relying on Brave or any other webkit browser outside of Chrome. it feels more secure until Google with their massive influence changes the rules. I desire full independence from Windows and some people become too complacent with stopgaps
At the API levels wine is implemented this isn't really that big of a concern. Anything Microsoft wants to change there means they need people to onboard on new APIs and methods. Something they historically struggled with and takes a long time.
Microsoft would need to introduce something very compelling to have developers make the switch. And anything that predates whatever Microsoft introduces will still be able to work with Wine.
Something compelling or something completely BS that is hard/timely to replicate on WINE. I can definitely see the latter happening if any piece of Windows 12 "features" come to fruition.
Most software will be slow to migrate, but games tend to move fastest on tech, so it's always on the back of my mind.
Wine/Proton is the first step to full independence from Windows in the consumer space, though. We cannot force an entire, massive industry to just start supporting Linux. We need to make it either profitable to support Linux, or unprofitable to support Windows. You do the former by having a significant amount of people playing games and spending money on games in Linux. More money than it costs to pay developers to support said games on Linux. You do the latter by having fewer people doing the same on Windows.
We are getting there. The fact that there are games out there right now that run comparably, sometimes better through Proton on Linux than natively on Windows tells you what an unoptimized mess Windows is. But that switch is never going to happen unless people are incentivized to switch. Linux is really good nowadays, but most distros still need a modest amount of tinkering. Said tinkering doesn't require an engineering degree and mostly just looking things up on the internet and following easy guides, but that is still too much for the average user.
I do believe that Microsoft is making things a lot easier by continously making Windows complete dogshit. But Linux is not at the it just works stage yet. It's also not at the stage where pre-builts with Linux installed are easy to buy. Microsoft is doing it's best though at breaking that really gnarly catch-22 of "no users" -> "no games" -> "no users" which is honestly astonishing, but their CEO is completely AI-brained right now, so it's not surprising, plus gaming historically has always been an afterthought for them.
The only sad thing about this story is that it took Gabe Newell and Valve taking the really long con and betting on Linux. Apparently this was a reaction Microsoft considering killing all other game delivery systems on Windows other than the Microsoft Store, but it could also just be that Newell runs Linux personally and tasked his developers with making games good on Linux.
This gets dismissed or otherwise lost in conversation around the topic online far too often.
For mainstream appeal, the threshold of acceptable terminal use is zero, no matter how trivial that use may be. Command lines are intimidating for non-technical folk and even if some wanted to learn basic use, most don’t have the vocabulary required to research these things.
Distros need to put a disproportionate amount of work into polishing things, particularly anywhere two or more disparate surfaces meet. Rough edges need to be systematically hunted down, perhaps with the help of extended trials with users recruited off the street to reveal the pain points in real world use.
That, plus there being some ideological drawbacks on some of the distros. For example, I would easily recommend Fedora with Gnome to a normal user today. But crucially, it doesn't come with nvidia gpu drivers nor the HEVC video codec because both are propriatary. Both require pasting commands into the command line.
The HEVC codec is especially tricky because video plays, but you get audio only. There is no error message no nothing that tells you that you're missing a codec. At least Windows tells you and then also tries to sell you the codec for 99 cents, at which point you just download VLC lol.
There are distros that are better at this, in particular Mint and Bazzite get thrown around a lot now, but recently a friend of mine was running Mint until from one day to the other it uninstalled the GPU drivers and borked the system all by itself, making her switch to Fedora. These are rare issues, and similar horror stories exist, but the crux of the problem is that Linux is just not a normal user friendly OS. However, Windows nowadays sports so many different UX/UI styles that it's basically on the same level.
In some parts of the internet I'd get my head bit off for saying this, but I think ideological hangups have done an immeasurable amount of damage to the image of desktop Linux and act as a continual drag on adoption rates. The user doesn't care about the licensing of the software they're using, they just care that their UI isn't choppy, that their games run at a playable frame rate, and that their laptop's fans don't kick into high gear from playing a YouTube video.
We can't. But at the same time there's been very steady adoption for tools to support Linux. So steps are, or at least were, being made. Games is a tricky point because support on major tools is technically there, but the devil's in the more fine tuned platform specific issues. How much is ln the to fix and how much is on the dev is the part to figure out.
But that's my issue. People aren't spending money on Linux, they are spending money on WINE. So the profit incentive is to continue working on Windows and test a bit on Steam Deck just in case. If it works well enough with WINE, why bother with native support? Just focus on Windows.
Yes, and I'd hope we get to that step instead of simply being stuck in Steam mode. People use a Steam Deck to accompany their windows builds, not as a substitute. And I'm not sure if the next batch of Steam Machines will push that needle either.
There will always be some friction configuring your computer and the only difference between windows and Linux is familiarity with its quirks.
I'm not really sure of that well be easy to fix ever. Pretty builts are mostly bought off of traditional stores, and traditional stores aren't catering to games. Maybe Linux moves the needle in the gaming space, but I don't see much hope of corporate america making such a change. Which includes the school systems who already are struggling to teach the next generation computer literacy at all (maybe there is such a thing as "too intuitive").
As long as enthusiasts sites let you pick an OS, I think we'll be going in the right direction.
But that's the catch-22 I was alluding to. You need to get people onto Linux first. And people are not gonna get on Linux if "all their games only run on Windows". We're getting as close as we can now in the consumer space with the most important app being the browser and that running flawlessly on all operating systems.
Right now, developers are not giving a shit about running well on Proton, unless they're targeting the hand-held market and thus Steam Deck with a significant margin, and soon that Lenovo device that's meant to run Steam OS. Outside of Valve investing manpower, no one's doing much; adoption is still too low.
Everyone having Proton on mind when they develop games for Windows is the prerequisite to some developers offering a Linux native version, but for that consumer adoption has to be in the double digits at least. Until then, Proton is the best thing we got, and I'm damn happy we do, especially with the shitshow that is Windows 11.
I guess I see it like this: you get people on Steam deck and you don't really get people into Linux, you get then into Steam.
They have the option to change that stuff, but most won't. So you'll have this awkward sect of "Steam Deck Linux users" inbetween that don't really engage with "Linux". And given the history with Valve's marketshare, 90+% won't change their habits once they get embedded in such an ecosystem.
This is simply the way of the land for Windows, but in a Linux environment this feels a bit like centralizing a decentralized environment. And when you centralize, you inevitably get some point down the line where the trap goes shut once again. Valve won't be any different in the grand scheme of things.
I've seen this patrern in other spaces and I fear for the same road if we, once again, sacrifice being able to take our ball home by relinquishing control to yet another billion dollar corporation.
Getting people into Linux is wishful thinking. The overwhelming majority of people want their shit to just work. But if the base is broader, if money is to be made there, then all Linux users profit.
I understand the fear of exchanging on whip-cracking corporation for another, but you simply need to boost adoption if you want game devs to give a shit about Linux at all.
Yeah that is totally fair. I am more used to the dogmatic view of the problem.
I hear this a lot about Linux but I've rarely, if ever, seen or heard of software working with one distro and not another, packaging formats aside. It's usually just a question of having the right dependencies and that can be installed in two seconds.
This is really not much of a concern, I think many devs just aren't familiar enough to know that. The real concerns come with engine development.
All I can say is I have a friend who's been in distro hell for the past 6 or so months jumping around trying to get SOMETHING working for more than a few weeks before it falls apart. To be somewhat fair that appears to also be related to the motherboard and network drivers, but there's absolutely been software specific failures depending on distros.
That sounds like a hardware support question, which is very different! Drivers can be a complicated affair, but most things are suppoeted in the kernel directly. Software usually works regardless of distro, so long as the right dependencies are present.
I think it gets a bit complicated on the Mac because of the different architectures involved. But since GoG specializes in old games whatever performance hit they’d get from having to run it through a baked in emulator would probably be negligible.
Yeah, many older games basically require a baked in emulator to run properly on modern hardware anyway.
Reporting from the Bryant Review:
https://gardinerbryant.com/gog-job-listing-says-linux-is-the-next-major-frontier-for-galaxy-client/
Apparently the outbound traffic from Tildes was enough to be mentioned in their Week in Review, so if that leads to another sign up bump, I apologize in advance.
https://gardinerbryant.com/our-biggest-week-yet-week-in-review/
Hooray I'm glad! I used to be GoG when possible, but I since I got a steam deck the added convenience and stability of steam has been too much to pass up.
I have a love for/paranoia about archiving which comes through my books/music, but I've had to cede to Steam as they are far and away the best in the game, and seem to actually want to treat their customers to great features and customer service. If I knew that would go ok forever I'd have no qualms, but companies go evil every day, and the idea of my 20 year gaming history going away scares me bad.
So if GoG can offer real Linux support (even if it's just making sure proton works easily with their games) I'll probably make the swap back as much as possible
Like others here, I was all in on GOG for a bit. Loved their DRM-free stance; loved that they supported older titles and got them running on modern hardware. There was a good year or two where they became my almost exclusive gaming platform, and I even re-bought a lot of games I already had on Steam from them.
But then Steam came out with Proton and I switched to Linux, and Steam won me back because it made gaming on Linux so frictionless. The Steam Deck further locked me in, and I ended up doing the reverse of what I did before: re-buying games on Steam that I already owned on GOG.
I still have a soft spot for GOG, and the issue of running things on Linux/Steam Deck is a lot better these days thanks to Heroic, but it would be great if GOG could finally tie its DRM-free core value to an official Linux-based implementation.
If they end up doing that and doing it well, I could see myself switching back to them.
If I understand the position description correctly, the windows GOG Galaxy client is a native one ? Like C++ WinAPI client ?
Because day to day this doesn't feel like it.
Steam is now using mostly an integrated chromium under the hood to display the Library tab and it still manages to be miles away better in input latency/navigation speed than the GOG Galaxy client.
It always felt very sluggish to use it, so I wonder what choices made them have this result.
And while I will appreciate a client on Linux, third party clients will still have a good justification even just for interacting with our gog libraries.
This is neat, things supporting Linux better in general should mean better things for everyone.
But if this for a client, Heroic is already a thing, and the M series GoG Launcher has been kind of ass, it’s better to just download the Mac pak files to install, so here’s hoping that the client would actually have some polish behind it.
If this is to keep games compatible with Linux long term, isn’t one of the issues that Proton/Wine solves with Linux is that you don’t need to worry about a game 10~15 years ago being unable to run due to never being updated and because of changing Linux libraries/standards?
A company keeping up with that would make it viable, I guess.