Literally the top requested feature in the forums, then they cleared it out and it became …the top requested feature in the forums
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?
Because people want what they want, and it doesn’t hurt you.
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.
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.
You wouldn’t be using Heroic in that case. Steam and GOG only.
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 hope they join valve and fund proton.
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. :)
Hell yeah!
imagine if they stopped using CEF.
Not to sound mean but that is a big ask for the small salary listed.
That’s a normal salary for a senior dev in Poland
Well that’s good to know guess I can’t base it on life where I live. That’s basically living paycheck to paycheck money where I’m from unfortunately 😭
GOG and MAGOG end of times biblical shit going down! /s
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
I know
at least partial source availible would be nice
not a programmer so idk if i’m talking blunders here, but i’d love it if gog just released their api so that people can make fully featured 3rd party clients. i’d love to have an adwaita gog client that looks native to my gnome system.
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).
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
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. Countless examples on https://itch.io/games/tag-open-source
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?
Privacy. Usability. Freedom. Performance. Compatibility. Memory footprint. I mean I could go on but…
Games are propietary. There are dozens of open source games, yes, but they all, collectively, by using reason, are propietary due to the exceptions being tiny and usually badly orhestrated attempts at games.
Realise that I hate capitalism just as much as anyone, but developing games with open code is (from a professional game dev viewpoint) a truly honorable exercise in futulity. You need to understand the ratio between making the hardest form of art possible to how the gamers view the medium and disregard any Impulse of changes to the design propagating and potentially ruin the fun in one of the abundant pitfalls is enormous. Rabid fans already disassemble every choice you make and your compiled code to “win” is not the best theater for making the code public. Add to that the intense pressure of the development cycle and you have easily made a torture device for the most passionate
Because it means more available games, and more options for gamers. Open source launchers would be great, but any launcher is better than no launcher at all, and first party support shows that GOG are taking Linux seriously as a platform that is worth investing time and resources in. This community is for people who A) Like Linux, and B) Like playing video games. Anything that allows you to play more video games on Linux is a good thing.
I like Galaxy.
Curious though, modernise it? It’s pretty new as it is, did it come out the gate as old? Ha
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.
We can see it if we use the API to extend the app. It’s not that bad, but the integrations are a pain for the user
The integrations are mostly all broken. I had to stop using it.
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.
Ah yes especially when you have no control over the popup and cannot scroll or hide it and the touch is disabled. Or when it opens webpages for no reason. Man I truly understand that their masterful backend is saving humanity but no, we should not pretend that the ui is laudable
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…
Great news tbh
I don’t have the C++ experience but sounds like a cool project
Incredible. It’s shocking how bad the application actually is 😂
