I'm very hopeful that Linux gaming will save the open PC desktop despite big tech is coming to destroy it. Or at least keep PCs alive for another decade. Gamers are still a huge factor as hardware customers.
GOG creating a Linux launcher and Steam Box with SteamOS coming out soon should benefit PC users in general not just gamers since Microslop sees Windows like a social experiment where they can test AI on unsuspecting lusers, as an ad platform and a store front now.
Most gamers don't give a shit about openness. A much more likely outcome is "big tech" following the numbers and slowly making Linux unusable by using EEE or any other tactic under the pretense of usefulness.
I don't think this is a given. I think most gamers so far haven't cared about openness because pragmatically, it didn't matter for them.
Now they're seeing the long-term effect of not caring about that though, which is why we're suddenly seeing a movement of gamers moving to Linux, and trying to get others to move with them, because they realize the importance now, as their desktops are slowly collapsing over Microsoft's decision to let AI do all the programming, and having zero QA before releasing stuff to the public.
Gamers generally game on PC because they like building their system. Otherwise they would use a PS5 Pro or whatever.
The PC is an “open” platform in that you can buy and choose your own hardware. Intel vs AMD vs Nvidia, Seagate vs Western Digital, etc….
Using open software isn’t really more than a few steps from that. Being able to pick how your system works and customizing it to your liking is basically the software version of picking your PC parts. Gamers also like to run all sorts of software to rice there Windows desktops and will install all sorts of abominations tha mess with the Windows desktop shell. Much easier and fun to rice a Linux desktop.
Linux enthusiasts need to just learn how to appeal to their sensibilities. Valve knows, and they are very effective at getting people excited for a Linux based gaming platform. They’ve also proven they can walk the walk, not just talk the talk.
Sure, they won’t give a crap about the source code but there is more to libre software than just being able to change the source code if you want.
We’re also at an inflection point where people are getting really really really annoyed with companies like Microsoft treating them like lab rats and shoving Copilot down their throat when they don’t want it. There is a chink in the armor; people are opening up to the idea of alternative platforms where you don’t have to worry about any of that garbage.
> making Linux unusable by using EEE or any other tactic
This will never happen because projects will just be forked.
> Gamers are still a huge factor as hardware customers.
They are but AI has fried the markets for RAM, SSDs and GPUs. Everything has gotten ridiculously expensive ever since the wash trading and the 100s of billions of $ worth of deals really took off.
Personally, I think at least one or two of the major GPU OEMs will go bust thanks to all of this, and I would be surprised if Framework, Pine64 and Steam's hardware line survive it. Hell, at the point we're at, I even have serious doubts the Xbox line survives.
My next GPU will be from AMD, not just because I'm in the process of switching to Linux but I have a gut feeling that Nvidia doesn't see desktop GPUs as their priority anymore and support might diminish faster.
A lot of hate in the comments, I think it's great that companies are in a position where they think it makes sense financially to support Linux as a target platform.
Companies don't support Linux because it's not widespread enough so it can't outweigh the costs. They don't give a rat's ass for the market's resentfulness or lack thereof. The Linux market was basically not a real market before because their market share was simply too small.
There are plenty of products made for resentful markets and as long as they keep being profitable they don't care.
They're just trying to ride the wave of Valve's deck (and they will fail). The fact is that, since I bought the Steam Deck, I bought less from GOG and more from Valve.
And this won't change a thing: it doesn't matter if they make a Linux-native frontend to the horrible GOG Galaxy. I just want my games to launch as seamlessly as they do from Valve's UI, not yet another launcher that I have to launch on top of Valve's system UI. I am already doing that with Heroic Games Launcher, which is far better than whatever they will concoct in-house and supports many other stores.
>I just want my games to launch as seamlessly as they do from Valve's UI
Valve integrated steam all the way down to the OS level to do all that. GOG galaxy meanwhile is focusing more on being an accompanying app to optionally use than centralizing everything under GOG. I think Galaxy trying to strive to be as "seamless" will break the very philosophy of GOG to begin with; being a store to grab games you truly own, not a platform to immerse yourself in.
No. Please don't. Contribute to something like Heroic Launcher instead. Don't create something new just for GOG. Help make the existing tools better. It'll mean GOG has to do less work, and the programs people are already using will get better. Or even just sponsor Heroic so they can send more time we can working on it themselves.
GNU/Linux gamers are always decrying GOG, saying they won't buy stuff from them because Galaxy doesn't run on GNU/Linux, now we're getting people saying GOG porting Galaxy to GNU/Linux is bad!? By Taranis, GOG just can't get a break, can they?
Yep, luckily they represent a very small, albeit loud, minority of Linux users.
The vast majority of Linux users are very happy to get an official GOG Galaxy for Linux. I hope they will plug into Proton and collaborate with Valve, but we really need official tools and brands on Linux for common users to feel comfortable enough to come over.
They're not creating something new. They're taking their existing tool (which - for all its flaws - is still far ahead of Heroic in many ways), improving it further, and changing it to also work on Linux.
If they then go add additional features like wine integration to that tool to make it overlap more with Heroic is something we're all assuming, but not actually a given.
Alternatively, work on developing protocols for game launchers instead. Get the Heroic Launcher devs and devs from other launchers to work on a common interface.
GOG's launcher team is presumably already familiar with their codebase, already has a checkout, already has a codebase that's missing 0 features, has a user interface that already matches their customer's muscle memory, and presumably already has semi-decent platform abstraction layer, considering they have binaries for both Windows and OS X. Unless they've utterly botched their PAL and buried it under several mountains of technical debt, porting is probably going to be relatively straightforward.
I'm not giving Linux gaming a second shot merely because of a bunch of ancedata about proton and wine improvements - I'm giving it a second shot because Steam themselves have staked enough of their brand and reputation on the experience, and put enough skin in the game with official linux support in their launcher. While I don't have enough of a GOG library for GOG's launcher to move the needle on that front for me personally, what it might do is get me looking at the GOG storefront again - in a way that some third party launcher simply wouldn't. Epic? I do have Satisfactory there, Heroic Launcher might be enough to avoid repurchasing it on Steam just for Linux, but it's not enough to make me want to stop avoiding Epic for future purchases on account of poor Linux support.
Hopefully they'll somehow support Proton and Valve devices. Trying to run older windows-only games bought on GOG with launchers like Heroic is a bit of a hit or miss, despite the Steam releases of the same games having somehow a bigger chance of working out of the box. I guess there are some weird differences between the default Proton Runtime and the proton-ge/wine-ge builds.
I use proton experimental to run most windows tools with no linux support. Small script in the script nautilus folder and there you go "run-win.sh" for all (util a native tool emerges).
I like Steam as a user. It syncs game saves between computers. It takes care of game updates. It has a decent launcher UI that I use on my living room computer so that I can launch games using an xbox controller. It makes Windows games work without any fuss. And when I play with friends, it lets me join friends' games without having to deal with in-game lobby systems. It lets me show FPS counters and system info in a unified way even in games without built-in support for that stuff. That is all stuff I want.
Game launchers are a good idea that lots of people want. A good game launcher needs both deep game integration and an online account, to provide save game syncing, joining friends and updating games. So far, it's mainly Steam which has been able to do this on PC. If GoG wants to compete, which it does, it only makes sense for it to provide the same.
Having a downloader is a bit more convenient for getting game updates (you can always download the update manually and run it of course) and also for big games where you have to download multiple files to install. So it makes sense to want to have such a tool, as a big part of getting and retaining customers is convenience. But been there, I have done it, and it is doable, and sometimes preferable. Eg you may not want to install gog in a machine to play a game, or I may want to play a game through crossover but not download gog through crossover to get the windows version: with steam, I cannot do that. But even if you download the game through gog client for convenience, you do not need to run the gog client to launch the game anyway.
Steam is pretty popular on that though. I'm sure GoG did it following on their steps. Back when GOG started it was pretty much download from web and run.
Like it or not, a lot of people love a virtualization of their library. So the option is nice.
I like GOG's launcher because 1) it's open source and 2) it can show other gamijg libraries thanks to fan maintained plugins. Those aspects give me a sense that the goal here (outside of to lower the friction into GOG's store) is indeed to serve the user
And if that changes, it's easy to take my ball and go home. GOG trying to push hard on any DRM is basically them surrendering to Steam.
Going to a website's hardly massive friction is it ?
I've got tens of games through GoG and it's always my first port of call if I want a game. Because it keeps out of the way.
If it's got value to people, fair enough, it's got value to people. That's just my opinion. All I want you to do is sell me games. But we all know about enshittification and MBAs trying to round the wagons.
That's very nice to hear.
But diffuclt to beat valve here, they are actively contributing to drivers and wine. When you buy even just windows software from steam you are helping funding that.
I don't think they are trying to beat valve. GoG has been like those airlines that fly where no major airlines want to fly. Filling a underserved but large market.
I have a hunch that the currently sole owner just wants to do this until retirement. GoG is financially stable so there's no pressure to increase revenue.
I see no simpler explanation why someone would buy out a subsidiary like that.
All in all, GoG thrives on people being sentimental and it's totally in character for the owner to be sentimental as well.
This is one thing that's been puzzling for me ever since I switched to Linux full time a few years ago and so also started gaming on it.
In my experience GOG bought games handled by Lutris/Heroic/Mini Galaxy trump Steam in convenience almost every time. There's been quite a few deal breaking issues with Steam client and/or Proton that went unaddressed by Valve for months that just never happened to me on the GOG+game manager combo. (Remember the most recent Steam rewrite that made certain UI elements not work on Linux and which still needs a workaround option in the client years later?) All that on top of another application requiring full browser engine under the hood eating resources just to be able to launch a game. I don't know if I am just extremely unlucky to get hit with every Linux related issue on Steam and notice its drawbacks or if people are offering Valve unreasonably high leniency, because they see then as some sort of champion of gaming on Linux, while not giving enough to other players like GOG.
The Steam client was always flaky as hell - on Windows as well.
I've always wondered were problems on Steam's side or on the side of game devs implementing its APIs?
Anyway I personally experienced scaling issues, but chalked that up to my DE being unreliable. I also occasionally can't click on certain UI elements, but I recall this being a problem in Windows as well.
I'm very excited for this. GoG is a DRM-free platform (for the most part) and I see it as the only positive competition Steam has. Imagine how bad the gaming landscape would be if a company like Epic soundly defeated Valve. They would enshittify at record pace. GoG doing well would only put positive pressure on other players. Ideally, you want your opponents to be healthy and sane, in case they win. And sane opponents drive the market towards better outcomes. I'll definitely buy some classics from GoG with their Linux client.
exactly and in case of free software it is not even competition with financial incentive and (not always) so many projects can live long without a good output because of this. i think many people do not appreciate the usefulness of 'non-useful' things
One of reasons why I buy games exclusively on GoG is clientlessness. I don't like when clients messing with game updates, because of modding incompatibility.
Unfortunately modding is reason, why switch to linux for gaming is not easy.
That's also one thing Galaxy gets right. You can turn off auto-updates and that won't stop you from playing the game (unlike with Steam, which will just replace your "play" button with "update"). They also support rolling back updates, but I never tried that and I'm not entirely sure if this works for every game, or if this is something a game developer has to actively support.
"GOG GALAXY is a long-lived product with a large and complex C++ codebase." Also known as a shitshow. Hopefully the new engineer(s) will be encouraged to at least add some tests and refactor things to stay sane.
No mention of a license, though. I guess it'll stay closed source.
In my experience, Galaxy works no better than a web app, unfortunately. Similarly laggy and lacks the snappiness you'd normally associate with a native app.
>Competitive Salary – We ensure fair and attractive compensation that reflects your skills and experience: 18 000 - 27 000 PLN/month
I know it's eastern Europe but that's $5000-7500 a month, barely $90k a year. It sounds like a solo job too so a lot of responsibility for this salary.
$90K a year goes much further in most of Europe barring the centres of the biggest cities—let alone eastern Europe—than it does in the US.
NYC and Bay Area salaries are outrageously inflated, with much of the take-home being funnelled into four/five digit rents or mortgages for houses built out of matchsticks, car loans, health insurance payments, and more. None of this is necessary or costs as much in most of Europe, or the rest of the world, really.
That's in the 50k EUR - 77k EUR range which is senior-level pay in EU. Add to that it includes pension, tax prepayments and health insurance. They also seem to offer lots of perks in the office.
If you account for the fact that Poland is generally less expensive than the average and that the average monthly living cost is ~900 EUR ( https://www.numbeo.com/cost-of-living/country_result.jsp?cou... ), even the 50k lower bracket is in the higher range. You get ~2k EUR net/month in your account after pension and tax contributions, health insurance, rent and expenses (as a single). That's not bad at all. EDIT: (excluding rent)
900 EUR might be enough for student-like living if you own the apartment you're living in, or by sharing a room when renting, but it's not even close to acceptable level in Warsaw.
I'm very hopeful that Linux gaming will save the open PC desktop despite big tech is coming to destroy it. Or at least keep PCs alive for another decade. Gamers are still a huge factor as hardware customers.
GOG creating a Linux launcher and Steam Box with SteamOS coming out soon should benefit PC users in general not just gamers since Microslop sees Windows like a social experiment where they can test AI on unsuspecting lusers, as an ad platform and a store front now.
Steam developing proton was what made it possible for me to change fully. No dual boot or anything needed. It's great.
Funnily I also run GoG games through steam proton.. But looking forward to the GoG client working!
Most gamers don't give a shit about openness. A much more likely outcome is "big tech" following the numbers and slowly making Linux unusable by using EEE or any other tactic under the pretense of usefulness.
> Most gamers don't give a shit about openness
I don't think this is a given. I think most gamers so far haven't cared about openness because pragmatically, it didn't matter for them.
Now they're seeing the long-term effect of not caring about that though, which is why we're suddenly seeing a movement of gamers moving to Linux, and trying to get others to move with them, because they realize the importance now, as their desktops are slowly collapsing over Microsoft's decision to let AI do all the programming, and having zero QA before releasing stuff to the public.
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If we care about the future of computing, the future of consumer rights, we need to MAKE THEM GIVE A SHIT.
Cory Doctorow is doing a very good job of that, but there is only one Cory Doctorow.
Gamers generally game on PC because they like building their system. Otherwise they would use a PS5 Pro or whatever.
The PC is an “open” platform in that you can buy and choose your own hardware. Intel vs AMD vs Nvidia, Seagate vs Western Digital, etc….
Using open software isn’t really more than a few steps from that. Being able to pick how your system works and customizing it to your liking is basically the software version of picking your PC parts. Gamers also like to run all sorts of software to rice there Windows desktops and will install all sorts of abominations tha mess with the Windows desktop shell. Much easier and fun to rice a Linux desktop.
Linux enthusiasts need to just learn how to appeal to their sensibilities. Valve knows, and they are very effective at getting people excited for a Linux based gaming platform. They’ve also proven they can walk the walk, not just talk the talk.
Sure, they won’t give a crap about the source code but there is more to libre software than just being able to change the source code if you want.
We’re also at an inflection point where people are getting really really really annoyed with companies like Microsoft treating them like lab rats and shoving Copilot down their throat when they don’t want it. There is a chink in the armor; people are opening up to the idea of alternative platforms where you don’t have to worry about any of that garbage.
> making Linux unusable by using EEE or any other tactic
This will never happen because projects will just be forked.
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Plus, the backlog of playable games is so awesome. I am working through things I always wanted to play that I can now throw on my steam deck.
> Gamers are still a huge factor as hardware customers.
They are but AI has fried the markets for RAM, SSDs and GPUs. Everything has gotten ridiculously expensive ever since the wash trading and the 100s of billions of $ worth of deals really took off.
Personally, I think at least one or two of the major GPU OEMs will go bust thanks to all of this, and I would be surprised if Framework, Pine64 and Steam's hardware line survive it. Hell, at the point we're at, I even have serious doubts the Xbox line survives.
Thing is, you don't need a GPU.
One of the major x86 manufacturers makes CPUs with integrated graphics that is good enough for gaming. It's in "Steam's hardware line" btw.
Oh yes, AAAs maybe won't run on that. But they're boring af anyway. And predatory. So not much loss.
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My next GPU will be from AMD, not just because I'm in the process of switching to Linux but I have a gut feeling that Nvidia doesn't see desktop GPUs as their priority anymore and support might diminish faster.
A lot of hate in the comments, I think it's great that companies are in a position where they think it makes sense financially to support Linux as a target platform.
I think this is a good lesson in why companies don't try to bring stuff to Linux: the market is incredibly resentful of products.
Come on... it's always the same reason: money.
Companies don't support Linux because it's not widespread enough so it can't outweigh the costs. They don't give a rat's ass for the market's resentfulness or lack thereof. The Linux market was basically not a real market before because their market share was simply too small.
There are plenty of products made for resentful markets and as long as they keep being profitable they don't care.
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Companies? gasp corporations? Using, spit, money? HOW DARE THEY!
They're just trying to ride the wave of Valve's deck (and they will fail). The fact is that, since I bought the Steam Deck, I bought less from GOG and more from Valve.
And this won't change a thing: it doesn't matter if they make a Linux-native frontend to the horrible GOG Galaxy. I just want my games to launch as seamlessly as they do from Valve's UI, not yet another launcher that I have to launch on top of Valve's system UI. I am already doing that with Heroic Games Launcher, which is far better than whatever they will concoct in-house and supports many other stores.
>I just want my games to launch as seamlessly as they do from Valve's UI
Valve integrated steam all the way down to the OS level to do all that. GOG galaxy meanwhile is focusing more on being an accompanying app to optionally use than centralizing everything under GOG. I think Galaxy trying to strive to be as "seamless" will break the very philosophy of GOG to begin with; being a store to grab games you truly own, not a platform to immerse yourself in.
No. Please don't. Contribute to something like Heroic Launcher instead. Don't create something new just for GOG. Help make the existing tools better. It'll mean GOG has to do less work, and the programs people are already using will get better. Or even just sponsor Heroic so they can send more time we can working on it themselves.
GNU/Linux gamers are always decrying GOG, saying they won't buy stuff from them because Galaxy doesn't run on GNU/Linux, now we're getting people saying GOG porting Galaxy to GNU/Linux is bad!? By Taranis, GOG just can't get a break, can they?
How is GNU/Linux different from Linux?
Yep, luckily they represent a very small, albeit loud, minority of Linux users.
The vast majority of Linux users are very happy to get an official GOG Galaxy for Linux. I hope they will plug into Proton and collaborate with Valve, but we really need official tools and brands on Linux for common users to feel comfortable enough to come over.
GOG needs to contribute 0-day fixes to the kernel, otherwise they’re not committed to Linux /s
They're not creating something new. They're taking their existing tool (which - for all its flaws - is still far ahead of Heroic in many ways), improving it further, and changing it to also work on Linux.
If they then go add additional features like wine integration to that tool to make it overlap more with Heroic is something we're all assuming, but not actually a given.
They could at least use Flatpak and containers instead of choosing a given distro or package manager.
A lot of words for "yes they will insist on fragmentation"
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Alternatively, work on developing protocols for game launchers instead. Get the Heroic Launcher devs and devs from other launchers to work on a common interface.
> It'll mean GOG has to do less work
[citation needed]
GOG's launcher team is presumably already familiar with their codebase, already has a checkout, already has a codebase that's missing 0 features, has a user interface that already matches their customer's muscle memory, and presumably already has semi-decent platform abstraction layer, considering they have binaries for both Windows and OS X. Unless they've utterly botched their PAL and buried it under several mountains of technical debt, porting is probably going to be relatively straightforward.
I'm not giving Linux gaming a second shot merely because of a bunch of ancedata about proton and wine improvements - I'm giving it a second shot because Steam themselves have staked enough of their brand and reputation on the experience, and put enough skin in the game with official linux support in their launcher. While I don't have enough of a GOG library for GOG's launcher to move the needle on that front for me personally, what it might do is get me looking at the GOG storefront again - in a way that some third party launcher simply wouldn't. Epic? I do have Satisfactory there, Heroic Launcher might be enough to avoid repurchasing it on Steam just for Linux, but it's not enough to make me want to stop avoiding Epic for future purchases on account of poor Linux support.
I'm a happy Heroic user but I don't mind them porting GOG Galaxy. Makes for a smoother migration for people coming from Windows, for example.
If its open, heroic can include their code or solutions, as they do with proton. Rising tide lifts all boats.
Why they shouldnt develop version over which they have full control?
Agreed, I don't want yet another launcher.
And as the underdog it even makes sense for GOG to fully embrace cross-store launchers.
Meh, I use Lutris instead of Heroic.
I am happy that GoG will finally make its launcher available to Linux.
Hopefully they'll somehow support Proton and Valve devices. Trying to run older windows-only games bought on GOG with launchers like Heroic is a bit of a hit or miss, despite the Steam releases of the same games having somehow a bigger chance of working out of the box. I guess there are some weird differences between the default Proton Runtime and the proton-ge/wine-ge builds.
If you have steam installed on the same machine, you can use proton runtimes from steam already.
I use proton experimental to run most windows tools with no linux support. Small script in the script nautilus folder and there you go "run-win.sh" for all (util a native tool emerges).
I do wish more companies would bring their games to GOG.
That said, Square finally released some of their Final Fantasy games on it yesterday, so hopefully that's changing.
I always make sure to not use the GoG downloader just download the game.
I don't need a client with your branding all over it, that has socials and my library and all engagement bait like that.
I figure it's one step away from putting the DRM back on so you have to use the launcher to get a game from GOG.
Just let me buy games and then shut up.
I like Steam as a user. It syncs game saves between computers. It takes care of game updates. It has a decent launcher UI that I use on my living room computer so that I can launch games using an xbox controller. It makes Windows games work without any fuss. And when I play with friends, it lets me join friends' games without having to deal with in-game lobby systems. It lets me show FPS counters and system info in a unified way even in games without built-in support for that stuff. That is all stuff I want.
Game launchers are a good idea that lots of people want. A good game launcher needs both deep game integration and an online account, to provide save game syncing, joining friends and updating games. So far, it's mainly Steam which has been able to do this on PC. If GoG wants to compete, which it does, it only makes sense for it to provide the same.
It's not some evil scheme.
Having a downloader is a bit more convenient for getting game updates (you can always download the update manually and run it of course) and also for big games where you have to download multiple files to install. So it makes sense to want to have such a tool, as a big part of getting and retaining customers is convenience. But been there, I have done it, and it is doable, and sometimes preferable. Eg you may not want to install gog in a machine to play a game, or I may want to play a game through crossover but not download gog through crossover to get the windows version: with steam, I cannot do that. But even if you download the game through gog client for convenience, you do not need to run the gog client to launch the game anyway.
Can we not allow them to continue letting you buy games (outside the launcher) and not shut up?
Steam is pretty popular on that though. I'm sure GoG did it following on their steps. Back when GOG started it was pretty much download from web and run.
Like it or not, a lot of people love a virtualization of their library. So the option is nice.
I like GOG's launcher because 1) it's open source and 2) it can show other gamijg libraries thanks to fan maintained plugins. Those aspects give me a sense that the goal here (outside of to lower the friction into GOG's store) is indeed to serve the user
And if that changes, it's easy to take my ball and go home. GOG trying to push hard on any DRM is basically them surrendering to Steam.
Going to a website's hardly massive friction is it ?
I've got tens of games through GoG and it's always my first port of call if I want a game. Because it keeps out of the way.
If it's got value to people, fair enough, it's got value to people. That's just my opinion. All I want you to do is sell me games. But we all know about enshittification and MBAs trying to round the wagons.
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That's very nice to hear. But diffuclt to beat valve here, they are actively contributing to drivers and wine. When you buy even just windows software from steam you are helping funding that.
I don't think they are trying to beat valve. GoG has been like those airlines that fly where no major airlines want to fly. Filling a underserved but large market.
I have a hunch that the currently sole owner just wants to do this until retirement. GoG is financially stable so there's no pressure to increase revenue.
I see no simpler explanation why someone would buy out a subsidiary like that.
All in all, GoG thrives on people being sentimental and it's totally in character for the owner to be sentimental as well.
They don't need to beat valve. The contribution made by valve is going to benefit GOG too. That's the power of open source.
On the upside, this might mean I'll buy more stuff from GOG again. Steam+Proton is just so darn convenient.
This is one thing that's been puzzling for me ever since I switched to Linux full time a few years ago and so also started gaming on it.
In my experience GOG bought games handled by Lutris/Heroic/Mini Galaxy trump Steam in convenience almost every time. There's been quite a few deal breaking issues with Steam client and/or Proton that went unaddressed by Valve for months that just never happened to me on the GOG+game manager combo. (Remember the most recent Steam rewrite that made certain UI elements not work on Linux and which still needs a workaround option in the client years later?) All that on top of another application requiring full browser engine under the hood eating resources just to be able to launch a game. I don't know if I am just extremely unlucky to get hit with every Linux related issue on Steam and notice its drawbacks or if people are offering Valve unreasonably high leniency, because they see then as some sort of champion of gaming on Linux, while not giving enough to other players like GOG.
Pardon my rant.
The Steam client was always flaky as hell - on Windows as well.
I've always wondered were problems on Steam's side or on the side of game devs implementing its APIs?
Anyway I personally experienced scaling issues, but chalked that up to my DE being unreliable. I also occasionally can't click on certain UI elements, but I recall this being a problem in Windows as well.
> made certain UI elements not work on Linux
... and on Mac OS. For a while i had to play games with what control has focus to PAY them.
I'm very excited for this. GoG is a DRM-free platform (for the most part) and I see it as the only positive competition Steam has. Imagine how bad the gaming landscape would be if a company like Epic soundly defeated Valve. They would enshittify at record pace. GoG doing well would only put positive pressure on other players. Ideally, you want your opponents to be healthy and sane, in case they win. And sane opponents drive the market towards better outcomes. I'll definitely buy some classics from GoG with their Linux client.
The so-called fragmentation people criticizes in the comments is also a strength for free software systems in long term.
Fragmentation means competition, and competition is usually good as long as it lasts
exactly and in case of free software it is not even competition with financial incentive and (not always) so many projects can live long without a good output because of this. i think many people do not appreciate the usefulness of 'non-useful' things
[dead]
One of reasons why I buy games exclusively on GoG is clientlessness. I don't like when clients messing with game updates, because of modding incompatibility.
Unfortunately modding is reason, why switch to linux for gaming is not easy.
That's also one thing Galaxy gets right. You can turn off auto-updates and that won't stop you from playing the game (unlike with Steam, which will just replace your "play" button with "update"). They also support rolling back updates, but I never tried that and I'm not entirely sure if this works for every game, or if this is something a game developer has to actively support.
"GOG GALAXY is a long-lived product with a large and complex C++ codebase." Also known as a shitshow. Hopefully the new engineer(s) will be encouraged to at least add some tests and refactor things to stay sane.
No mention of a license, though. I guess it'll stay closed source.
> I guess it'll stay closed source.
It's a DRM implementation. It has to stay closed source.
There is no DRM on GOG.
https://www.gog.com/blog/what-exactly-is-drm-in-video-games-...
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Why? Can't DRM be implemented in open source, and only have private keys kept secret?
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This is factually incorrect. GOG famously has no DRM.
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Why is the launcher not at least public source? GOG's value add is the service it provides, not the specialness of its launcher.
Hopefully they will pursue a container/Flatpak native system but probably not!
Finally. The previous hate GOG showed towards Linux was absolutely ridiculous.
What a waste of effort. Just provide your current installers or even fallback to plain old tarballs.
Geez, that headline was hard to parse.
There's some great Linux gaming distros out these days,
https://bazzite.gg/ is based on Fedora
and https://chimeraos.org/ is almost like SteamOS for non-Steam hardware. It ships a console-like UI on top of an immutable Arch base.
New owner means their disgust of Linux is fading.
Tons of libre game engines will work with GOG data:
https://osgameclones.com
Thankfully it seems to be not yet another Electron crap shell.
In my experience, Galaxy works no better than a web app, unfortunately. Similarly laggy and lacks the snappiness you'd normally associate with a native app.
Oh well.
It's not Electron, however it uses Chromium Embedded Framework underneath.
Oh, another desilusion then.
Electron is best crossplatform tech available
Oh, really?
GOG is now providing a 'correct' set of ELF64 binaries as a client? (I guess (wayland->x11, vulkan->cpu))
Hopefully, they will support self-hosted email servers not in the DNS, mobile phone numbers, and wallet codes.
>Competitive Salary – We ensure fair and attractive compensation that reflects your skills and experience: 18 000 - 27 000 PLN/month
I know it's eastern Europe but that's $5000-7500 a month, barely $90k a year. It sounds like a solo job too so a lot of responsibility for this salary.
> $90k a year.
$90K a year goes much further in most of Europe barring the centres of the biggest cities—let alone eastern Europe—than it does in the US.
NYC and Bay Area salaries are outrageously inflated, with much of the take-home being funnelled into four/five digit rents or mortgages for houses built out of matchsticks, car loans, health insurance payments, and more. None of this is necessary or costs as much in most of Europe, or the rest of the world, really.
That's in the 50k EUR - 77k EUR range which is senior-level pay in EU. Add to that it includes pension, tax prepayments and health insurance. They also seem to offer lots of perks in the office.
If you account for the fact that Poland is generally less expensive than the average and that the average monthly living cost is ~900 EUR ( https://www.numbeo.com/cost-of-living/country_result.jsp?cou... ), even the 50k lower bracket is in the higher range. You get ~2k EUR net/month in your account after pension and tax contributions, health insurance, rent and expenses (as a single). That's not bad at all. EDIT: (excluding rent)
It doesn't compete with the better local companies though. It's fairly in the middle of the pack.
900 EUR might be enough for student-like living if you own the apartment you're living in, or by sharing a room when renting, but it's not even close to acceptable level in Warsaw.
$90k a year before tax is a very very good salary in Norway, and even a decent developer salary. It's much better in eastern Europe.
Yeah that's a good salary in Europe. It's only slightly less than I make in the UK as a senior.
The standard of living is higher in France than in eastern Europe, and even in France that's considered a high salary.
Barely? It's more than twice the mediage wage in Poland.
Welcome to Europe!
That's a very livable wage in Poland. The wages are significantly lower, but so are the costs of living.
US devs are vastly over payed.
In Eastern Europe, that's 1% level of income when measured against the quality of life you can have.
Their lattes also cost much less than a Silicon Valley latte :)