If you need all the online features you can run gog galaxy through wine, however I just use heroic launcher instead. And you can add any executable to steam, if I’m not mistaken I think heroic has a setting to do it automatically
Thanks. I don’t care about online feature so it doesn’t seem too complicated. I will probably grab a game to try this out and a few more and everything works without problems.
I tried installing The Witcher and Psychonaut. Both worked mostly seemlessly after prompting to install Wine-GE. The main issue I’m having is with controller support, but this may just be a result of trying much older games and mixing that with trying to use Steam Input through the Heroic launcher. I suspect this can be alleviated by using the “Automatically add games to Steam” option and launching the games through Steam, rather than Heroic. Alternatively, if you’re willing to map your bindings for each game, or you are on something other than a Steamdeck and use keyboard and mouse, you should be fine.
I recommend giving a game you already own on Gog a try and seeing how it works for you.
Super useful thanks! I was actually looking at psychonauts 2. I use a Steam controller so that controller thing is getting me a bot worried. I’ll do what you say and see how that goes. Cheers!
On all non-steam games added to my library, I always do a quick internet search for “+ steam deck control” to help with the layout. It’s not perfect, but I find a lot of useful info for starters.
The cool thing about the Deck is that you can push the Steam key and update those controller settings on the fly.
It’s pretty easy if you use a launcher that can manage Wine, DXVK, and the like. Lutris is good for that, and even has its own database of games with ready-made install scripts. I’m told Steam can register non-steam games and handle it, too.
One nice thing about GOG (in addition to being DRM-free) is that you can download games with a web browser. There’s no need to install their store app, ever.
I play all my GOG games on the Steam Deck. It takes only a very small amount of tweaking. Additionally, I add them as “non-steam games” in the library, update the artwork and icon, and have a very clean interface.
edit: actually im not even half way and I feel like every notable old game ever is on there at a huge discount, with some I am suspicious of with only the title to go off filling the space, except there is no space and its just packed. I need to sleep but I keep scrolling.
The witness 80% off working out to 10.89 irks me. significantly better games with more content are like 6 bucks. I guess when there are no achievements hinting at something being missed, you aren’t compelled to find and do the most bullshit timed challenge in any game I can remember, which increases its value… ?
disclaimer: I enjoyed the first 15-30 minutes or so of the witness then suffered through the slog of completing every last thing. Even my autistic friends that unintentionally did 100% speedruns didn’t like it which gave me the echo chamber I had desired the whole time playing.
Interesting. I never finished The Witness but I got some solid 10h of entertainment out of it before I stopped having fun. I’d say it is a brilliantly well designed game that’s well worth the price if you are into puzzles.
Oooh, finally a sale on the Shadow Gambit DLC. Time to get both, I heard a lot that while Yuki is of course the “cooler” DLC since well, it’s Yuki, the other one is mechanically smarter as the new unit is overpowered but also quite different.
On that note, cannot recommend Shadow Gambit enough. It’s the perfection of the Commandos / Shadow Tactics / Desperados formula.
Then just pretend it doesn’t exist. I don’t understand how this affects the GOG userbase. All that happens is people speculate about how GOG is out to kill DRM-freedom.
But I don’t? I don’t even use gog. I am simply giving you an answer to why the comments are negative about it. And no, no one is speculating the end of DRM, just sharing their opinion on the topic just like you and me. I think its a waste of resource and incorrect priorities personally but that’s just my uneducated opinion.
Luna you’ll be able to play every game that you already own on GOG (and that is also available on Luna). There’s absolutely no requirement to purchase anything twice
In other words, buying games on GOG will give you the best of both worlds – enjoying them on Luna’s cloud gaming service, as well as via offline installers or GOG GALAXY. All your DRM-free benefits of owning games on GOG will still be there, you’ll just have more ways to play your favorite titles.
It’s the best way they could have done it, just an extra way to play with no lock-in. I fail to see the issue with this.
buying games on GOG (directly on our service or via Luna) will give you the best of both worlds – enjoying them on Luna’s cloud gaming service, as well as via offline installers or GOG GALAXY.
This sounds pretty good but not really something I would use GOG for unless it is included in Amazon Prime.
Maybe neat from a technology perspective, but one of the reasons I buy from GOG is to play my games without surveillance. Making Amazon a middle man would be antithetical to that.
That would be nice, sure. I am just saying, it still wouldn’t give them a significantly better standing over Valve, in my eyes. Valve is currently kinda the Linux Gaming Savior. Hard to beat that unless they also start actively (!) doing something.
Surprised we haven’t seen launchers adding native support for Linux. You’d think they would want to take advantage of the millions of steam decks on the market.
Perhaps they are busy contemplating their own hardware investments, which will surely flood the market with cheap and poorly constructed knockoffs.
Nah, it doesn't just linearly double like that. If it takes 10 people to build, test, and support the launcher for Windows, it doesn't take 20 people to support Linux, since most of it is going to be the same across platforms. A 1.8% increase in sales also isn't the best prediction. On Steam, the vast majority of their players and revenue are accounted for by just a couple of the most popular games, and a lot of that is dictated by what games are allowed or successful in China. If your game isn't selling in China, your addressable market is actually much closer to being 4.5% Linux. That's not to pick on China, but China is a massive market on its own, and it's the difference between the case where you're selling microtransactions in Counter-Strike 2 or if you're selling a metroidvania.
Please give us Galaxy on Linux, GOG, so I can shop with you over Steam.
Buying games on Steams results in development of the Linux technology stack. No other game company funds open source upstream development like Valve. As nice as DRM-free games are, GOG is not a force for Linux advancement.
Steam Deck was reason I moved from GOG to Steam again. Installation process and getting the game running is so much more streamlined than using heroic launcher. And sync saves is spotty and I don’t think there is achievement support last I tried.
Wish they had a proper Linux launcher, but they don’t see it worth it.
Yeah I’ve had issues playing GOG games on linux using arch/gentoo because the libs that the game wants to dynamically link are often not where it expects. It’s possible to resolve it but the Steam approach where they distribute a static bundle of libs into ~/.local/share is much less of a headache.
Presumably Galaxy could solve this problem and make Linux more viable. The dynamic linking of the libraries has been more of an issue than the missing Proton integration for me. Often it is easier to install GOG games with wine and take the performance hit!
Yeah, but I want things like auto updates and cloud saves as officially supported features rather than something they can revoke from Heroic at any time.
Do you really want auto-updates for your games, or actually just want updates-on-demand? Or just a notification with a button to update the game?
Personally I dislike Steams auto updates, because I want decide when a game should be updated. I might have mods installed, only mobile internet or a myriad other reasons not to be forced to download and apply an update right at that moment and instead just play the old version.
For saves, I normally just use syncthing. I have regularly issues with GOG and Steam cloud saves, and syncthing works well enough,
I want auto updates for my games so close to "always" that you can only tell it's not 100% if you squint a bit. I use Syncthing in other contexts, like syncing emulator saves to and from desktop and Steam Deck, and it's not quite as easy as Steam cloud saves.
Setup is annoying, and feedback on whether or not it's working is a bit rough. I've lost data by misconfiguring it before. You have to run a background daemon on a device where battery life matters, so I tend to shut it off when I'm done. Syncing saves with SyncThing requires knowing where those save files are, whereas being built into the launcher client means they already know where those saves are, and that step is already done.
Neat. I was aware of Heroic before, but I haven't heard of this. This does change the equation for me, because now there's a data point that GOG can use to see where my money's going and how they can get more of it. What can you tell me about their refund policy? Are the results on ProtonDB just as reliable for GOG versions as they are for Steam versions of games? Does Heroic pre-compile Vulkan shaders the way that Proton on Steam enforces it? Whatever answers you don't have, I can do some of my own homework, but I'm intrigued now.
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