I hate to say it, but after spending thousands of dollars on games at GOG, I've actually been thinking about making the switch to Steam. Keep in mind that I have been a hardcore fan of GOG for well over a decade, but recently I've been conflicted between two vastly different options ... do I want DRM-Free games, or do I want Linux support? To be honest, I've actually been leaning more towards Linux support, and I can't help thinking that GOG will never fully support this community.

I've actually been thinking about making the switch for a year or two, which is why I now have a massive backlog of games on my wishlist (well over 100), because I don't feel like spending any more money on this platform if I ultimately decide to go with Steam in the long run. I still haven't made up my mind yet, but if GOG continues to ignore the Linux community, I might just make the move to Steam. That being said, I hope it doesn't come to that ... but I think the writing's already on the wall.

I understand and share your unease. My hope lays with compatibility layers like Wine getting better and better.

Personally, I have more faith in the extended Wine community figuring it out then in Steam turning out to be benevolent and doing right by its users, but yes, I think GOG should definitely be jumping on that bandwagon and provide Wine support for its Windows installers out of the box whenever possible like they did with Dosbox.

Otherwise, I know some people would like Galaxy support in Linux. Personally I'd rather not. I'd much rather have better offline installers support in Linux.

It is great that the Wine/Linux community are stepping in the address the problem, but it really shouldn't be up to the customers to fix the problem. GOG really needs to dedicate [a small amount] of developers to address this issue. I've heard from multiple Linux developers that it's not that hard to make the changes to Galaxy, so I don't get their apathy.

Going with DRM-free makes it easier for Linux support to persist. Switching to Steam may short-term help you reinforce Linux release, but, long term, you're reinforcing DRM -- which is bad for Linux (both native and compatibility-layered).

Plus, isn't Valve working on bullshit like "rootkitting" Linux for anti-Cheat?

Not really surprising. I have had similar thoughts myself, but alas I am just too lazy to leave/boycott.

The community has stepped up and rescued the atrocious GOG experience (despite the fact we are paying GOG for a service), so it will have to do for now. Otherwise I would have given up long ago.

True, but at the same time you could say that supporting GOG is also supporting horrible companies like Microsoft, who spy on their users, sell their data and are actively trying to get you locked into a subscription based service (which they openly admit).

Doesn't steam do all that, but the subscription thing? At the end of the day, you are not safe even on Linux anymore. Tracking apps or software in everything like game engines, hardware, and stupid built-in launchers. I like Linux but will not be switching until I know all my games work on it.

About being track, well I work in the tech field. We use windows and Google for everything. So no hiding for me. lol

I say do what makes you happy mate.

It's always been an awkward paradox that a DRM-Free store (GOG) only really wants to support DRM'd OS's (Windows), whilst the largest DRM'd store (Steam) has the best support for the DRM-Free OS (Linux)...

Personally I think where GOG is going wrong is in not supporting Linux "because it's too much work for us" when in reality a lot of that work could be outsourced. When we have individuals on the forums here like adamhm and vv221 (play.it developer) who single-handedly create hundreds of easy to use installers even for Windows-only games, then I'm sure with a bit of common sense that could be expanded upon without the need for GOG to unnecessarily manually duplicate everything themselves. Certainly they could easily fix things like Baldur's Gate missing libssl file when GOG still hasn't.

Some "gaps" are inexplicably silly though, eg, for games like Flight Of The Amazon Queen, Myst Masterpiece Edition, Sanitarium, The Longest Journey, etc, that need ScummVM to run (properly) on Windows anyway, but have no Linux version for no apparent technical reason at all. Yet were willing to release that Daggerfall Unity mod pack which shows they can retroactively package source-ports into already released games when they want...

Whatever you choose to do though, all the best for the future. It would be a shame for GOG to lose another long-term member for "reasons"...

Edit: It's also another amusing paradox when "Does this game listed as 'W10 only' run on W7?" questions are met with snarky comments like "Don't be silly. GOG is all about getting old games to run on new OS's". Then you look at Divinity: Original Sin EE, and it's "Linux Support = Ubuntu 14.04, 16.04 and 18.04". What's the current version, 22.04? That's a bit like supporting XP, Vista & W7 but not W8-11 and feels more than a little bi-polar-ish for cross-platform users...

You made some excellent points!

I believe gog already said they stopped supporting linux. They only mention the other two platforms on their description for their website. It's a shame since drm free games on a drm free OS makes the most sense, no point getting drm free games when the OS has drm(windows).

So true. I really don't get why GOG doesn't see this ... DRM-free is a fundamental selling point of their platform.

Question: how come you Linux users don't ask/pressure the devs themselves who make Linux to stop slacking off all these years and finally to make their OS be compatible with PC video games?

Seems like the fact that Linux sucks for gaming is their fault above anyone else's. So surely they should be the ones to fix their own mess at long last?

It's understandable that Linux is "niche" and deemed too much effort for smaller stores to support (though it sure is interesting to see games like Embracelet that have Windows only versions here on GOG and yet itch.io has both Win/Linux support, that clearly isn't down to "the bigger store can throw more money at it" 'reason' people put out with Steam vs GOG...)

But I'm also sure there's more to Valve going full-on with Linux support than meets the eye (as in "a backup plan in case Microsoft does something dumb" like, eg, gradually deprecating older DirectDraw / DirectX API support or even deprecating the whole Win32 API in favour of another push for UWP down the line). It would certainly be interesting if in a few years, GOG was left with some serious identity crisis if people started wondering what the whole point of a DRM-Free game store even meant when the only OS it supports (Windows 12/13) 'evolved' like Office & Xbox Live into becoming subscription-only...

According to this dev blog post by the developers of Resolutiion from 2020 the GoG/Galaxy SDK integration for Linux is still a thing "soon-to-be":
https://steemit.com/godot/@cloudif/godot-engine-how-to-prepare-your-game-for-steam-and-gog

"For now, GOG only supports Windows and macOS. We are eager to get our hands on the soon-to-be Linux integration. Godspeed."

How they've worded it makes me think they might know more than us mere mortals and GoG is actually still working on it, although on a paraplegic snail's pace.

I don't understand this logic with the current generation of gamers. Like, getting married and divorcing from shops, or something.