Nice to see GOG putting real effort into Linux support. Modernizing a native client is exactly the kind of work that actually benefits users long-term.
I don’t have the C++ experience but sounds like a cool project
imagine if they stopped using CEF.
Okay, in other words: I won’t be buying any more Steam games 🐳
Got enough stuff in my library to last until GoG starts working nicely enough on Linux 🐧
Okay, in other words: I won’t be buying any more Steam games 🐳
So far this is only about one person and none of the ecosystem contributions to Mesa, SDL, Wine,…
Definitively better than nothing, though!
If you care this much about not using Steam, why would this be the deciding factor? I can play GoG games right now on Linux.
I tried that some time ago, and at least at that point it needed configuration to get up and running. It was a hassle. I have family that needs a lot of my time at the moment. Between August and December I could find less than 10 days where I was able to decide by myself what I do after workdays or on weekends.
I’m not going to spend those precious minutes configuring any damn thing. Steam works out of the box. Now someone was just mentioning something called Heroic launcer. Sounds good. Wonder why Gog is not linking to it very visibly on its site if it works?
Yeah, I understand Linux gaming was not great until fairly recently. Heroic and Lutris have been around for a few years now as I understand it, though I admit I’m still new to the scene. Honestly though, in my experience, Steam still doesn’t just work in some cases, and I’ve admitted to myself that’s just going to be the Linux gaming experience. I check Proton DB before buying any game now.
You don’t need GOG galaxy to install and run GOG games. In fact you shouldn’t if you care about keeping your games.
Currently happily using Heroic to manage GOG games. But, I still welcome GOG putting in effort to make it a smooth experience.
You don’t need GOG galaxy to install and run GOG games. In fact you shouldn’t if you care about keeping your games.
Disagree. The fewer barriers to using a game the better. GOG offers full DRM free downloads regardless of Galaxy existing.
Not using a launcher equals fewer barriers. GOG installers work out of the box with Wine. The whole point of GOG is literally that you can do all of that without restrictions like say… Being forced to use a launcher. So it’s not a big deal if Galaxy for Linux isn’t around.
Yes and the DRM free part only matters if you keep a copy of the installer. Galaxy doesn’t do that.
the DRM free part only matters if you keep a copy of the installer. Galaxy doesn’t do that.
Why would that be relevant on Linux? WINE/Proton virtual environments are portable.
File compression, for starters. A dedicated installer is much easier to bring around.
tar -Jcf DIY-dedicated-installer.xz /path/to/wine/bottleNow you have a very portable, highly compressed file that is easy to move around.
wait. why? i use gog galaxy for gog games. and steam for those there. should i be dloading offline installers for gog ones and saving them aside too?
If you want the benefit of a DRM game, yes. Otherwise you still don’t own the game. GOG has removed games from libraries before and will again at some point in the future.
Which games have they removed from libraries? Typically, these storefronts (including GOG) will remove games from sale, but not from the libraries of customers who already bought them. For instance, they deep discounted WarCraft 1 and 2 before Microsoft requested their delisting, but I’ve still got them in my library.
That’s some kind of fallacy, I am sure. Just because I want to own my games I must not care about the hassle of installing them? False equivalence maybe?
Have you tried Heroic Games Launcher and found it to be a hassle?
I had been using Heroic Launcher to manage my GOG library on Linux. It works well enough, but an official Linux native GOG client would certainly be welcome.
Why? It’s already annoying to have to use steam and heroic. Why would anyone want a third app?
Heroic has some issues (i.e. Stellaris) that require some sort of annoying work around that doesn’t really work sometimes. GOG could not have those issues.
Heroic is limited to just GOG and Epic, while GOG Galaxy on Windows is already trying to be a sort of everything launcher. This means GOG Galaxy on Linux would be more like a replacement of Lutris (which is no longer being developed) than Heroic.
Because people want what they want, and it doesn’t hurt you.
I would imagine that you’d still be able to use Heroic for GOG
These are just wrappers for Proton. Why do we need one more? Just contribute those resources to Heroic. My dream is to not need steam either. I want to run games like we did before. Just launch an executable file.
Well it’s a start
Hell yeah!
I love this! I love that it’s getting more attention and cross-platform support.
I just wish it wasn’t yet another launcher, and that all these companies got together to develop the one Open Source version everyone writes adapters for. Galaxy, at the time it was released, promised to be a way to have all of them… and then I discovered playnite (which worked better and has more options) and I cannot help but wonder if GOG’s efforts wouldn’t be better directed that way. Specially since my understanding is that the tool is undergoing a rewrite for cross-platform support.
Yep, I guess the way you said it was more diplomatic than mine because with (I believe at least) the same message I’m getting downvoted for asking for more open source but you don’t. I’m clearly missing something.
Edit: my bet is that you mentioned Playnite thus demonstrating legit alternatives do exist, whereas I didn’t so maybe people imagined I just complained asking for something impossible because they didn’t not it already existed. I should have mentioned Lutris.
Upvoted because its gog. :)
i hope they join valve and fund proton.
I like Galaxy.
Curious though, modernise it? It’s pretty new as it is, did it come out the gate as old? Ha
It’s kind of sluggish. I don’t know if that is the case but it feels like an Electron application. Basically a website running in Chrome with an integrated backend.
I haven’t used the GOG client (might once they build a Linux one), but it can’t be worse than EGS, right?
Steam uses Electron and manages to make it… Not great, not terrible.
EGS runs Chromium inside Unreal Engine 4. Yes, you heard that right. A browser inside a game engine just to run a god damn game launcher.
Steam uses Electron
Steam uses CEF, Chromium Embedded Framework, not Electron.
I stand corrected, but that is only a little bit better tbh. They’re still rendering everything as a website more or less.
Steam includes a browser for the store. But the user UI is native. And I think it’s fine.
Steam is completely browser based, if you scroll on your own games page, the “Steam Client WebHelper” uses all the CPU, the process steamwebhelper.exe sits in cef.win64, aka Chromium Embeded Framework.
https://developer.valvesoftware.com/wiki/Chromium_Embedded_Framework
While it embeds the browser, I don’t think it uses the web tech to draw the UI.
It bundled with a bunch of GTK and SDL libs.
I don’t think it uses the web tech to draw the UI.
Steam Big Picture / Steam Deck Gaming Mode is a fancy website.
Proof: At least on Steam Deck you can right click with your mouse and print it.
Damn, you’re right!
Now I’m not sure how to feel. I like the Big Picture UI, but hate when people use browser to draw UI in applications 😅
Steam is extremely not fine as a ui, and you know it. It’s just great in the backend (probably because it’s not Electron…)
I actually like it. Especially the big picture mode on SteamDeck.
The integrations are mostly all broken. I had to stop using it.
You have no idea what kind of technical debt is hiding below the surface. I don’t either, but any non-trivial application has some, and hasn’t Galaxy been around for a while? It tends to accumulate.
Either way, I see it as a good sign when a company takes the time to modernize a piece of software, and moving to linux sounds like a great opportunity to do that.
Myeah. Makes it sound like they built a new client quickly without future proofing it because the older client was hard to work with, only to create a new hard to work with pile of code. Rewriting software rarely works out to be the silver bullet you imagined it to be. In my experience taking something crappy and piecemeal make focused attempts at improving small parts at a time.
There are cases of “architecture by happenstance” where a rewrite is your only path forward ultimately. Developer understanding of the specific business needs often evolves over time and poor choices were made in the beginning. You can rearchitect it in place over 5 years or you can do it in six months. It helps to have a leader with a strong vision and sense of where things went wrong the last time, though. If it’s just a bunch of “this app sucks. We need to rewrite it in .Net/NodeJS/etc.” then you’re doomed to fail in all the same ways.
I
took place inbailed on a Java -> .Net migration where they were literally copying and changing syntax. It could’ve been a singular opportunity to fix a bunch of things, but was instead a waste of money and probably 60 developer years. I wonder if they ever finished…
No mention of open source though.
Steam isn’t open source either. Bringing GoG galaxy to linux will make it easier for linux gamers to buy and install DRM free games. The games won’t be open source either, that’s not the issue here.
just because a lot of stuff on linux is open source, and free… doesnt mean everything has to be in fact, i think that “mindset” is what have sorta slowed the overall adoptability of linux. (well, probably not but… if the users expect all stuff to be free, then why would a company like adobe move to linux?)
Hi. I don’t really have the juice to explain rn, but you should look up both “open source” and “free software”. Free as in $ isn’t mandatory, but transparent/extensible is kinda the whole point and adobe can fuck right off
Steam isn’t open source either
…and? I wish Steam also was open source but I don’t see how that’s relevant here.
We’re discussing about a position for someone who probably likes, or at least understand, open source because that’s the motivation for most people when they consider Linux. It’s important to highlight what it is and what it is not, unfortunately.
There are open source games too, just to give a random examples GCompris is quite amazing and it keeps on growing.
What is the point of this very community? Is it “just” to play (and if so, one can “just” launch Steam on desktop or their SteamDeck, BTW AFAIK Steam does not suggest DRMs, it’s up to the game dev) or rather is it to play better, whatever that might mean? I personally do not believe promoting proprietary software (especially when working ones already exist) helps go further but you might disagree. Can you please explain then WHY more proprietary launchers and games is good?
There are many many more motivations for Linux
I didn’t say it was the only motivation, but even if I did, can you please give examples and address the question I did ask?
at least partial source availible would be nice
not a programmer so idk if i’m talking blunder here, but i’d love it if gog just released their api so that people can make full featured 3rd party clients. i’d love to have an adwaita gog client that looks native to my gnome system.
If all you care about is installing and launching your games, then an GTK client already exists:
https://sharkwouter.github.io/minigalaxy/
Doesn’t have galaxy’s social features though
Things like heroic exist, so there is some form of open API.
Not a blunder, technically its possible. You just wouldn’t want to do it as company policy. The reasons off the top of my head:
- user account security (even if you do secure oauth, if you don’t control the client, you cant guarantee whats happening to the game files or user account data once it leaves your servers
- resource exploitation (3rd party clients can do anything… even keep downloading games 24/7, automatically, to degrade performance of your system)
- service quality (you can’t ensure a client not published by you will be able to download and provide all game files and updates correctly whenever needed. this pisses off your customers and your partners - even when you had nothing to do with it since you don’t control the client software)
This can all be tightly controlled and locked down, but you’ll just keep asking yourself why not just make your own client. Clients for product delivery are best left as something you provide yourself. Nothing is stopping them from allowing complete reskins from the community though (like steam used to have).
About time!
Great news tbh
