> Valve are a lot more serious about Linux support though, going as far as employing graphics driver developers.
> GOG (and CDPR) on the other hand can't even be bothered to port their own client and games.
To be fair, I'm pretty sure GOG has a hell of a lot less money than Valve. They don't benefit from any of the gambling-mechanics or multiplayer game "bling" sales that bring in so much of Valve's money, aside from having a much smaller share of PC game sales than Valve does. Valve's got to be way more profitable plus have much higher income, so have the margin to play with stuff like this—which is in their interest, because the weaker alternative operating systems are, the more Valve operates only at the pleasure of Microsoft.
> Also, GOG is not 100% DRM-free anymore, even if they want to advertise themselves that way. [0]
I'm not happy about these features requiring an internet connection, but they seem pretty minor. The alternative would probably have been that those features were left out of the GOG versions completely.
I've bought many many games on GOG for years because of this. Lately, GOG games come in installers made out of 20 or so parts which take ages to download manually. The only real way to download their games is by using their GOG Galaxy Client. Not that much better than Steam, which on the other hand has fantastic Linux support, while GOG can't be bothered to port their GOG Galaxy client to Linux.
Luckily Lutris allows me to somehow compensate for GOG's lack of interest in Linux, but still, I feel they really do not care about the DRM thing.
I only have 12Mbps DSL and an offline game system that I use a FAT formatted microSD card to transfer to so I appreciate the split files, even though it does get annoying with the huge games.
I agree that GOG's Linux support is minimal; often they don't even provide Linux versions that are available on other stores :(.
Two of the isses on the list account42 links to are more serious, although most are fairly minor (there are also a few issues not on the list). Not to excuse those exceptions, however I don't know of any other store that is anywhere close. I have no inside info but my my suspicion is that many CD Projekt investors resent the DRM-free aspect of GOG and would like it to change, while the people running GOG realize it is the major unique aspect of GOG and trying to change it could sink the business. OTOH, I suspect the CD Projekt investors mostly see GOG as a way to get a better deal from Steam for CDPR games. Hard to say what will happen in the future.
Out of curiosity, which Linux games on GOG are so difficult to install? I have bought many games on GOG and refuse to install galaxy and so far experienced no problems.
I haven't used Galaxy but I'm almost certain the answer is yes since Galaxy doesn't have DRM like other store clients and you see Galaxy related dlls in the standalone installers as well so I'm guessing the integration is the same either way and doesn't cause trouble without Galaxy present. As of semi-recently you can buy games on Epic via Galaxy but if they are DRMed you still need the Epic launcher to play them since GOG won't add DRM to Galaxy.
Which I've always thought was weird since I'd expect a store with their stance on DRM would be one of the first in line to at least have a linux client.
I don't need it. I install games by clicking on the provided .sh installer, then click on their desktop icon to start them (or find the app using shortcuts) and all of this is seamless on Ubuntu.
This is also how we used to install and play games on Windows, before the Steam era.
If a company pretends to support Linux, they should have a Linux client, whether I need it or not. They basically offer no Linux support, and all the Linux clients that come on their store pages come from developers' willingness, not GOG's.
They sell games that work in Linux, what is there to "pretend"?
I disagree that they "should" have a Linux client, for the reasons I explained. I don't have a use for such a client, and as such, I'm happy to ignore it (and love that it isn't mandatory, unlike Steam).
I've never received support from Steam for any technical issue. I'm resourceful and if there's a way, I'll make it work; but almost every help I needed with Steam games was taken from user's forums, within and outside Steam.
Case in point: I learned browsing Steam's forums that the Linux version of The Eternal Castle is glitchy and in many cases the keyboard input doesn't work at all; one user helpfully suggested just using the Windows version using Wine or Proton; this suggestion worked.
> Itch.io has a Linux client, by the way
Good for them! I hope it's optional, since I've no use for it.
What I love about Humble Bundle and GOG is that their games (mostly) don't try to take over your games collection, unlike Steam. I do use Steam and support Valve, but I'd prefer Steam was optional.
