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GOG Joins European Federation of Game Archives, Museums & Preservation Projects

246 points by LorenDB 2y ago

freedomben 2y ago
Just a high level comment on GOG, I am immensely grateful to them for existing and for sticking so strong to their principles against DRM, and for maintaining great customer service. I have bought a lot of games from GOG and have been very happy. As an exclusively Linux user, I also appreciate how well GOG works with Lutris et al and that they aren't making life harder for those devs. I love the offline installers and I deeply appreciate their availability. I'm not a big gamer but after watching the industry and Linux/open source in general for many, many years, I'm more convinced than ever that it's the gaming community who will save general purpose computing (that's also a nod to Valve for everything they've done for Linux as well, which has been major).
- surgical_fire 2y ago
  I second that. I normally buy games on Gog when I have the option.
- ykonstant 2y ago
  Unfortunately, it is (very) hard to make non-native games from GOG work on Linux, as someone who just doesn't "grok" Wine. This is especially painful for me, because I have supported and want to support GOG, but my obscure point and click adventure games work out of the box with Proton on Steam, which is more than I can say about GOG games. To this day, I have exactly one game that I have not managed to get working on my linux system: GRIS, bought from GOG. I tried everything suggested online, nothing worked. Since then (I still have not played GRIS), I tend to get stuff from Steam.
  - PostOnce 2y ago
    I usually just go Lutris -> install windows game from exe -> done & working. Lutris handles the wine config for me, works 99% of the time.
    - freedomben 2y ago
      Seconded. There are some games that still won't work, but for the most part they do.
  - sydbarrett74 2y ago
    What distro? Have you spun up a SteamOS VM?
    - ForOldHack 2y ago
      I spun up a few Linux VMs, tryin to get wineing... some would not even boot. ( ubuntu server ). Had a suggestion to try... Zoltan. Hmm... Installed perfectly. Ran dx9 installer next. Not even a hint of problems... Ran dxdiag like it was windows XP. ok... on to Dungeon Siege 1. Full on ran first try. Ran every GOG game I had. So.. if you need windows/wine compatibility... spin up a Zoltan Linux VM.
      - freedomben 2y ago
        I've not heard of Zoltan Linux before, and am not finding it. Could you provide a link to it?
        sydbarrett74 2y ago
        Same. The only thing I can find is the Zoltan load-balancer at Sandia Labs.
      - sydbarrett74 2y ago
        Do you mean Zorin?
  - izacus 2y ago
    GoG games work just fine when installed with Heroic in Linux. Demanding that a small shop fighting DRM now also funds support for your rare operating system is some massive entitlement, especially since there's plenty of ways to make them work now.
    - ensignavenger 2y ago
      Nobody is demanding anything. They simply stated what they value as a consumer, and if GOG wants more of their business, what they need to do to earn it. This is valuable feedback to any company.
postepowanieadm 2y ago
I wish I liked GOG, but they ignore Linux users, while Steam's Linux support is the best thing that's happened to Linux gaming.
- aeurielesn 2y ago
  As a SteamDeack owner, I'm really looking forward to see AAA games be Linux-first. Windows gaming really needs to stop.
  - tombert 2y ago
    Proton has gotten so good now that this is less of an issue to me. I buy games on GOG and just load them into Steam with Heroic. I actually will often get better performance doing it this way; Jupiter Hell, for example, has a native Linux port, but I almost exclusively play the Windows version on Linux. I'm not entirely sure why this is, maybe performance issues with OpenGL compared to the D3D->Vulkan pipeline. Linux has so much fragmentation between distros and the like, the Windows API is ironically one of the easiest ways to get stuff working consistently on Linux. If you're playing games on NixOS, for example, you have to do extra work to get Linux versions working a lot of the time because NixOS kind of breaks dynamic-linking by default. If you play the windows versions on NixOS, it's often as easy as `wine myGame.exe`.
  - thesnide 2y ago
    I was thinking that way in the past. But then, the only stable ABI is the win32 one. The linux kernel one is very stable, but the libs ones isn't. As soon as the dev ensure and cooperates with wine/proton to make it work nicely, i'm game. Needing those old libs in linux is rather cumbersome, if at all possible. So having wine doing the translation layer is a really good thing. As it frees the devs to be able to focus on 1 plateform. I also noted that the switch enabled a lot of linux native ports. That's also a nice side effect.
    - braiamp 2y ago
      > the only stable ABI is the win32 one TBF, that's also true when compared to Windows. The only actually stable ABI in all major OS's are Linux Win32 via Wine.
beretguy 2y ago
One would think GOG would participate in helping to spread the word about this game preservation petition in EU: https://eci.ec.europa.eu/045/public/#/screen/home https://eci.ec.europa.eu/045/public/#/screen/home They could put a permanent banner on their website, I'm sure that would bring in some signatures.
- Pooge 2y ago
  I never heard about this petition... Signed and shared to European friends!
mig39 2y ago
Now if only GOG could fix their Mac client so that you can actually quit it. Maybe someone at GOG will actually read this and let a project manager to let a programmer know to fix this. Because they keep doing everything else other than fixing a really really annoying bug. We shouldn't have to force-quit apps! https://www.gog.com/forum/general_beta_gog_galaxy_2.0/macos_sonoma_gog_launcher_dont_closes_correctly/page7 https://www.gog.com/forum/general_beta_gog_galaxy_2.0/macos_...
snvzz 2y ago
Valve should step up and do the right thing here.

246 points by LorenDB 2y ago

Just a high level comment on GOG, I am immensely grateful to them for existing and for sticking so strong to their principles against DRM, and for maintaining great customer service. I have bought a lot of games from GOG and have been very happy. As an exclusively Linux user, I also appreciate how well GOG works with Lutris et al and that they aren't making life harder for those devs. I love the offline installers and I deeply appreciate their availability. I'm not a big gamer but after watching the industry and Linux/open source in general for many, many years, I'm more convinced than ever that it's the gaming community who will save general purpose computing (that's also a nod to Valve for everything they've done for Linux as well, which has been major).

surgical_fire 2y ago
I second that. I normally buy games on Gog when I have the option.
ykonstant 2y ago
Unfortunately, it is (very) hard to make non-native games from GOG work on Linux, as someone who just doesn't "grok" Wine. This is especially painful for me, because I have supported and want to support GOG, but my obscure point and click adventure games work out of the box with Proton on Steam, which is more than I can say about GOG games. To this day, I have exactly one game that I have not managed to get working on my linux system: GRIS, bought from GOG. I tried everything suggested online, nothing worked. Since then (I still have not played GRIS), I tend to get stuff from Steam.
- PostOnce 2y ago
  I usually just go Lutris -> install windows game from exe -> done & working. Lutris handles the wine config for me, works 99% of the time.
  - freedomben 2y ago
    Seconded. There are some games that still won't work, but for the most part they do.
- sydbarrett74 2y ago
  What distro? Have you spun up a SteamOS VM?
  - ForOldHack 2y ago
    I spun up a few Linux VMs, tryin to get wineing... some would not even boot. ( ubuntu server ). Had a suggestion to try... Zoltan. Hmm... Installed perfectly. Ran dx9 installer next. Not even a hint of problems... Ran dxdiag like it was windows XP. ok... on to Dungeon Siege 1. Full on ran first try. Ran every GOG game I had. So.. if you need windows/wine compatibility... spin up a Zoltan Linux VM.
    - freedomben 2y ago
      I've not heard of Zoltan Linux before, and am not finding it. Could you provide a link to it?
      - sydbarrett74 2y ago
        Same. The only thing I can find is the Zoltan load-balancer at Sandia Labs.
    - sydbarrett74 2y ago
      Do you mean Zorin?
- izacus 2y ago
  GoG games work just fine when installed with Heroic in Linux. Demanding that a small shop fighting DRM now also funds support for your rare operating system is some massive entitlement, especially since there's plenty of ways to make them work now.
  - ensignavenger 2y ago
    Nobody is demanding anything. They simply stated what they value as a consumer, and if GOG wants more of their business, what they need to do to earn it. This is valuable feedback to any company.

postepowanieadm 2y ago

I wish I liked GOG, but they ignore Linux users, while Steam's Linux support is the best thing that's happened to Linux gaming.

aeurielesn 2y ago
As a SteamDeack owner, I'm really looking forward to see AAA games be Linux-first. Windows gaming really needs to stop.
- tombert 2y ago
  Proton has gotten so good now that this is less of an issue to me. I buy games on GOG and just load them into Steam with Heroic. I actually will often get better performance doing it this way; Jupiter Hell, for example, has a native Linux port, but I almost exclusively play the Windows version on Linux. I'm not entirely sure why this is, maybe performance issues with OpenGL compared to the D3D->Vulkan pipeline. Linux has so much fragmentation between distros and the like, the Windows API is ironically one of the easiest ways to get stuff working consistently on Linux. If you're playing games on NixOS, for example, you have to do extra work to get Linux versions working a lot of the time because NixOS kind of breaks dynamic-linking by default. If you play the windows versions on NixOS, it's often as easy as `wine myGame.exe`.
- thesnide 2y ago
  I was thinking that way in the past. But then, the only stable ABI is the win32 one. The linux kernel one is very stable, but the libs ones isn't. As soon as the dev ensure and cooperates with wine/proton to make it work nicely, i'm game. Needing those old libs in linux is rather cumbersome, if at all possible. So having wine doing the translation layer is a really good thing. As it frees the devs to be able to focus on 1 plateform. I also noted that the switch enabled a lot of linux native ports. That's also a nice side effect.
  - braiamp 2y ago
    > the only stable ABI is the win32 one TBF, that's also true when compared to Windows. The only actually stable ABI in all major OS's are Linux Win32 via Wine.

beretguy 2y ago

One would think GOG would participate in helping to spread the word about this game preservation petition in EU: https://eci.ec.europa.eu/045/public/#/screen/home https://eci.ec.europa.eu/045/public/#/screen/home They could put a permanent banner on their website, I'm sure that would bring in some signatures.

Pooge 2y ago
I never heard about this petition... Signed and shared to European friends!

mig39 2y ago

Now if only GOG could fix their Mac client so that you can actually quit it. Maybe someone at GOG will actually read this and let a project manager to let a programmer know to fix this. Because they keep doing everything else other than fixing a really really annoying bug. We shouldn't have to force-quit apps! https://www.gog.com/forum/general_beta_gog_galaxy_2.0/macos_sonoma_gog_launcher_dont_closes_correctly/page7 https://www.gog.com/forum/general_beta_gog_galaxy_2.0/macos_...

snvzz 2y ago

Valve should step up and do the right thing here.