With Linux gaming clearly showing it’s becoming more popular, and with GOG under new ownership, there’s hope yet that GOG will improve their Linux support.
GOG does currently support Linux — well, kind of. They publish Native Linux packages for various games, which depends on the developer (just like Steam does without Proton) but they have a very limited support of distributions, which can cause problems installing Linux games from GOG due to dependency mess. That, and GOG Galaxy does not support Linux.
There’s easier ways to install games from GOG on Linux / SteamOS though, which you can check out in our GamingOnLinux Guide. You can even do it directly in Steam if you want to.
Ehhhhh.
I actually think the current model is what more stores should be doing. Have a solid web store/client with the ability to just download games without anything else. Provide hooks so that third parties (e.g. Heroic) can manage games for people.
Rather than assuming every single store needs to dedicate resources towards building out library management tools. Especially since EGS has shown that people will then just want social media on top of that.
Yeah, I wish there was a good way for third party clients to detect game updates, though.
Heroic seems to detect updates to GOG games just fine.
It’s against their interest to offer this as they have everything to gain by making you install their proprietary application and capturing you inside their ecosystem where they don’t have to compete fairly. Would steam be in the position it’s in if you didn’t have to install it to download your games?
GOG sells only DRM-free games and has usually taken a pro-open source stance (I don’t have a source for this sorry)
And… I don’t give a fuck about a corporation’s best interests (at least, not one I don’t own significant stock in).
But also: Epic have the financial backing of god, hollywood, and fortnite behind them. Valve make more revenue off their cut of everyone else’s games than many small nations have in annual GDP.
GoG is a recently spun off loss leader for a large regional publisher. And you don’t add these kinds of capabilities without a LOT of corporate investment… or management who decides “AI Can Do It”