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General discussionGOG GALAXY 2.0. All your games and friends in one place.(1019 posts)(1019 posts)
(1019 posts)
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This is my favourite topic
Posted May 22, 2019
There are two things that matter to all of us gamers: the games we play and the friends we play them with. But as more titles come with dedicated launchers and clients, our games and gaming buddies become scattered in between them. With GOG GALAXY 2.0, you’ll be able to combine multiple libraries into one and connect with your friends across all gaming platforms!

“As gamers, we need to juggle between multiple clients to access our games and see what our friends are playing,” says Piotr Karwowski, Managing Director at GOG. “We believe gamers deserve a better experience, and this became the driving force to redefine GOG GALAXY client,” Karwowski adds. “GOG GALAXY 2.0 is designed for all gamers and extends well beyond existing GOG.COM users, into both PC and console platforms.”

Once you connect GOG GALAXY 2.0 with other platforms, it will import all your games into one library. You will see your friends activities and online status across connected platforms. All new library and friends features apply to your GOG.COM games and enhance your experience. And it’s designed to protect your privacy – your data belongs to you and will never be shared with third parties. We see it as an all-in-one solution for the present-day gamer.

Experience GOG GALAXY 2.0 yourself — sign up for the closed beta at www.gogalaxy.com and be among the first to get access to it!

***
Learn more about our vision.
Main features and what to expect once GOG GALAXY 2.0 officially launches.

Your Games.
Import all your games from PC and consoles, build and organize them into one master collection. Install and launch any PC game you own, no matter the platform.

Keep track of all your achievements, hours played and games owned.

Customize your library by filtering, sorting, tagging, and adding your own visuals like game backgrounds or covers.

Follow upcoming releases and discover games popular among your friends and the gaming community.

Your Friends.
Bring together your friends from all platforms and see their online status.

No matter on which platform your friends are, you can chat with them.

See your friends’ cross-platform achievements, game time milestones and recently played games.

See who’s the master collector, completionist or spends the most time playing.

Your Privacy.
Your personal data will never be shared with third parties.

We’re not spying on data from your computer.

With a single click, you can remove imported games and friends data from our servers.

Your GOG Client.
All new library management and friends features take your experience to the next level.

The best way to run and update your GOG games.

Use features like cloud saving, in-game overlay, multiplayer & matchmaking, rollbacks and more.

The client is not required to play your DRM-free GOG games.

More
Connect more platforms and add new features with open-source integrations.

All customizations and changes to your library are saved in the cloud and synced between all your devices.

Save any view like a customized library or favorite games and friends to access them instantly.

GOG GALAXY 2.0 will be available for Windows and Mac for free.
Sign up now at www.gogalaxy.com for the closed beta access.
Post edited May 24, 2019 by elcook
Posted May 24, 2019
I will note that this whole thing has led to a decent bump in the already very popular wishlist entry: https://www.gog.com/wishlist/galaxy/release_the_gog_galaxy_client_for_linux
Posted May 24, 2019
With the amount of Linux users on here it really must be the year of Linux desktop. The stats must be wrong and Linux must have the most amount of PC users.

Does this mean GoG is now Sauron with making one launcher to rule them all?

I am finding all this very interesting with what all is going on in the gaming background as whole. There really does seem a push for more centralisation on the content and platforms becoming more and more agnostic. By the looks of it the Windows Store is on board with the Forza, GoW and Halo being on the screen. Does this mean Microsoft is on board with this? If it does will the client pick up if you have Gamepass and any Gamepass games you have or will you have to do this manually? Will the windows new game bar also interact with Gog Galaxy 2.0 and have you been playing about with that in your closed tests? Will i get dinged from both the game bar and galaxy? Are you working with Microsoft directly with this?
Posted May 24, 2019
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Johny.: We're not saying GOG Galaxy for Linux will never come.
I think everyone understands that, but what we are asking about is ETA. It's been dragging along for years now, and surely you should know if Linux work is planned for specific time (or after specific milestone, like Galaxy 3 and such), or you don't even have any plans for that.
Post edited May 24, 2019 by shmerl
Posted May 24, 2019
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Kristian: I will note that this whole thing has led to a decent bump in the already very popular wishlist entry: https://www.gog.com/wishlist/galaxy/release_the_gog_galaxy_client_for_linux
Not only is this the highest item on the Galaxy wishlist, if you compare it to the feature wishlist it's number 8 on that list.
Posted May 24, 2019
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JAAHAS: So it seems that we can finally add non-GOG games to the client and possibly divide them to custom groups even, but is there any plans to allow us to create additional launch buttons for GOG games so that source ports could be launched from the same "view" as the the original games?
This looks like a cool idea, but... take Doom for example. You're going to want something more robust as a launcher for that to load WADs, like Doom Explorer or ZDL. This would be great for ports that don't need that interaction though, like Quake 3, RCT2, or those people who still have Re-Volt.

I guess the best way around that issue would be to assign the launcher in that spot so you could have a launcher inside of your launcher?
Post edited May 24, 2019 by Projectsonic
Posted May 24, 2019
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ticklingyou: With the amount of Linux users on here it really must be the year of Linux desktop.
The number of Linux gamers is gradually growing, which includes GOG I suppose, though GOG don't publish OS usage stats. And it's only natural then to see Linux users complaining, when our platform is ignored while being one of the officially supported by GOG.
Post edited May 24, 2019 by shmerl
Posted May 24, 2019
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ticklingyou: With the amount of Linux users on here it really must be the year of Linux desktop.
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shmerl: The number of Linux gamers is gradually growing, which includes GOG I suppose, though GOG don't publish OS usage stats. And it's only natural then to see Linux users complaining, when our platform is ignored while being one of the officially supported by GOG.
The problem is how much resources do you allocate to supporting a platform that has very low user base on your platform. This article is from January of this year which shows the Linux percentage of Steam users.

https://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=news_item&px=Steam-2019-January-Stats

According to the article, Linux Steam users account for .82%. That's less than 1% on a platform that supposedly supports Linux better than GoG. It's been seven years since Valve has rolled a Linux client and in those 7 years it still has not gotten over 1%. Don't you think GoG looks at numbers like that and then considering the fact that their development/support team is a fraction of what Valve's is, you can understand why they are not ready to put out a Linux client. Galaxy as a whole still has issues from time to time and that's for a client that's supposed to be for 95% of their userbase.

I'm not sure what the answer is there, I'm sure GoG doesn't want to alienate any of their customers but they are also a business as well and needs to juggle how they dedicate what they got.
Posted May 24, 2019
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synfresh: The problem is how much resources do you allocate to supporting a platform that has very low user base on your platform.
Shouldn't matter. It's simply wrong not to support all platforms that you already announced as supported, equally. Smaller stores (itch.io) and bigger stores (Steam) are doing that. So why can't GOG? Is it really resources issue?

It could be, that GOG is very ambitious with Galaxy, and possibly stretched thin on resources, but I don't think it's right to cut Linux support completely.

For example they could first provide backend and games integration, without working on the fancy client for Linux. That would already unblock developers who aren't releasing for Linux on GOG becasue of Galaxy lacking. I.e. have at least some pace of development even if slower, rather than no pace at all.
Post edited May 24, 2019 by shmerl
Posted May 24, 2019
Do we know the cost of porting Galaxy 2.0 to Linux? Does GOG? I see no reason to just assume that it would be an expensive endeavor. IMHO once Galaxy 2.0 launches GOG should not spend a single cent on any other feature until Linux support is achieved. One problem from the perspective of the Linux gaming community has been that GOG has seemed to prioritize almost everything above a Linux port while at the same time not even looking into making a Linux port. The wishlist entry for a Linux port was marked as in progress with 0 man hours puts towards it. What kind of progress is that?

Edit:

"The problem is how much resources do you allocate to supporting a platform that has very low user base on your platform. "

Could that not be used to argue against Linux support in its entirety? Why GOG's in between position? It just doesn't seem to make any sense.

Edit:

There is A LOT of a extremely irrational decision making out there regarding Linux. I have often seen programmers online mentioning their love for Visual Studio as a recent for not supporting Linux. Things like that. Another example is games using DirectX. I am almost 100% certain that games using DirectX are NOT more profitable than those that don't. The optimal amount of games using DirectX is 0. Indeed it should not exist in the first place. But a lot of programmers use it out of habit etc. Then that increases the costs of porting games to Linux and managers use that as an excuse for the lack of ports. When instead managers should forbid their programmers from using such technologies that lock them in to certain platforms.

Edit2:

In this way lots of biases, misinformation, personal preferences, habits and other such things stand in the way of lots of
Linux ports. An example of misinformation is the widespread view that there is some technical and/or legal factor stopping developers from using the Steam Runtime on GOG. This is incorrect. The Steam Runtime is a collection of libraries that are all under FLOSS licenses and as such are free to be used by Linux ports on GOG. But some developers have outright said that the reason they have a Linux version on Steam but not on GOG is because their Linux version uses the Steam Runtime. This is ignorance. Not rational, informed decision making.
Post edited May 24, 2019 by Kristian
Posted May 24, 2019
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Johny.: We're sorry if it's something important for you, and for others.
That came off as very condescending.
Posted May 24, 2019
An example of misinformation is the widespread view that there is some technical and/or legal factor stopping developers from using the Steam Runtime on GOG. This is incorrect. The Steam Runtime is a collection of libraries that are all under FLOSS licenses and as such are free to be used by Linux ports on GOG. But some developers have outright said that the reason they have a Linux version on Steam but not on GOG is because their Linux version uses the Steam Runtime. This is ignorance. Not rational, informed decision making.

Edit:

Something else to think about: If Microsoft announced tommorow that they would seize making future versions of DirectX but instead move to open API's like Vulkan, OpenAL, SDL etc. Would that have any ill effects on anyone(besides maybe Microsoft themselves)? No, not at all. They same could be said for Apple in regards to Metal or (atleast arguably) Nintendo and Sony in regards to their console specific API's.

Edit2:

Are games using open APIs more expensive to develop than those using proprietary API's? No. Do they make less money? No. Are they less fun? No. Do they perform worse? No. Do they have more bugs? No. Do they have more security holes? No. Are they less fun to play? No. Do they look worse? No. Do they have longer development times? No. Do they have worse stories? No. Are they pirated more? No.

I could go on...

But it is abundantly and obviously clear that something other than rational decision making is ruling the day.
Post edited May 24, 2019 by Kristian
Posted May 24, 2019
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synfresh: Don't you think GoG looks at numbers like that and then considering the fact that their development/support team is a fraction of what Valve's is, you can understand why they are not ready to put out a Linux client.
Speaking of limited resources, keep in mind that neither Itch nor Gamejolt have a problem providing their client on Linux. Meanwhile GOG announced Galaxy for Windows, Mac and Linux five years ago!. Not to mention, having effectively a relaunch in 2.0, at some point there had to be the question whether to go for additional features for 98%+ of their userbase or equal treatment of 100%. They chose the former.

Now if that's the direction GOG want to take, cool. I am quite happy for the majority that gets to benefit and I personally don't mean to shit on anyone's parade here.

That said, a small minority here are intentionally treated as second class customers. Can't fault anyone for getting a bit cranky over that, either.
Posted May 24, 2019
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lolplatypus: Speaking of limited resources, keep in mind that neither Itch nor Gamejolt have a problem providing their client on Linux. Meanwhile GOG announced Galaxy for Windows, Mac and Linux five years ago!. Not to mention, having effectively a relaunch in 2.0, at some point there had to be the question whether to go for additional features for 98%+ of their userbase or equal treatment of 100%. They chose the former.

Now if that's the direction GOG want to take, cool. I am quite happy for the majority that gets to benefit and I personally don't mean to shit on anyone's parade here.

That said, a small minority here are intentionally treated as second class customers. Can't fault anyone for getting a bit cranky over that, either.
itch.io aren't too ambitious with their client. It performs basic maintenance tasks - downloads, incremental updates and so on. No fancy multiplayer handling for some backend like Steam and Galaxy do. It would be great to get that at least, instead of nothing.

GOG instead of going iteratively (first match itch.io functionality, later match Steam one) decided to jump right into "let's be like Steam". That's quite a massive amount of work to cover. I suspect Linux support became the victim of them taking too much without going gradually and management pushing them "when are we going to match Steam?".

All or nothing approaches aren't good in general, when adding features.
Post edited May 24, 2019 by shmerl
Posted May 24, 2019
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Kristian: It seems they can answer a question about save games, fairly quickly even: https://mobile.twitter.com/GOGcom/status/1131332111707836417

But Linux? That gets ignored.
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Johny.: It's stated e.g. in the forum post: we aim for Windows and MacOS for closed beta.
That obviously means Linux is not supported currently... We're sorry if it's something important for you, and for others.
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Kristian: They have also not addressed if they mean that literally such that Galaxy for Linux will never come.
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Johny.: We're not saying GOG Galaxy for Linux will never come.

edit: Oh! My first post in this topic. I'm super excited for closed beta to go live soon! :)
It was coming soon for many years.
Posted May 24, 2019
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Fate-is-one-edge: Hi again.

It's not specifically the cloud saves service that concerns me. Cloud saves are obviously not vital to backing up files, but they are absolutely necessary to be had. It stopped being something "just wanted" to be an addition, the moment it became an irrefutably necessary feature of every game-integrated client.
Thus they can not be considered as a form of "aid", but an objective evolution of services. By all means, someone can stick solely to methods which where at their prime in the past, but I support it would probably be a matter of stubbornness, if they have laid in front of them the tools to "make their life easier".
I believe services of doubtable necessity are added to the client, while basic client features are being ignored and/or left to decay (or even opposed!), both by the GOG community and team (Saying this as a sidenote).
Again, my opinion trying to be as concrete as possible, in a civil conversation.

Cheers.
You make some good points.
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This is my favourite topic
Community
General discussionGOG GALAXY 2.0. All your games and friends in one place.(1019 posts)(1019 posts)
(1019 posts)