First of all, allow me to say that I'm eternally grateful that almost a year ago Linux has finally received an official status of a supported operating system on GoG. As a full-time Linux user I'm happy to have several dozen games here on GoG that either run natively on Linux or come prepacked with configured wrappers and emulators that make the game work seamlessly. Thanks, GoG. Now, the problem and the related questions...

In my opinion there is currently a problem in the way GoG continues to treat Linux. Most innovations that happen on GoG and even certain newly released titles (that have the developer's support for Linux, mind you!) that come to GoG do not receive any official Linux treatment here. To name a few issues:

- GOG Downloader was never brought to Linux. The community, as I understand, is still making and maintaining their own third party scripts and utilities (and smart workarounds such as the one that uses wget with information from a GoG cookie) to mitigate this - scripts and utilities that break regularly, as I understand, because GoG changes the API from time to time.

- The newer development, GOG Galaxy, was also not brought to Linux (hopefully "yet") - there was an official note that eventual Linux support would happen but no further announcements or action since then. So, still waiting on this one, GoG.

- There is a worrying tendency with recent games that are released for Windows, Mac, and Linux on Steam or elsewhere to only be released for Windows and possibly for Mac on GoG (but not for Linux). To name a few examples: Age of Wonders 3, Victor Vran, Cities in Motion, the Metro series.

- What's even more worrying is that the GoG team seems to assume the "let's ignore it" standpoint on the questions that are being asked about potential future Linux support. My question from over a week ago in the Cities in Motion forum hasn't been answered yet, ditto someone else's similar question about Victor Vran. Now, I understand that there are probably many questions like that, but a simple "yes" or "no", better yet if as a part of an official announcement coupled with the game release, would have mitigated that miscommunication problem.

In other words, it's great that Linux is supported on GoG, but despite the fact that almost a year has passed since GoG started supporting Linux, the team's treatment of Linux as a second-class citizen hasn't changed and, as of right now, in the context of the lack of official announcements and updates the hope for this to change any time soon appears rather grim. Now, I was really holding off posting this. Every time I was about to post I told myself "ok, Linux support on GoG is brand new, I should wait a bit". Then I waited a bit more, and a bit more, and the problems seemed to only mount and become more pronounced instead of going the other way around. And suddenly I found myself looking elsewhere (on Humble Indie Bundle and even on Steam) for new Linux releases instead of on GoG.

As such, my questions for the GoG team are: are there actual plans for this to change or is the "Linux on GoG" project destined to be an afterthought, just something minor to hopefully please a minor group of geeks by giving them a manual package download (most of the time anyway, but not always)? Will Linux ever receive the status of a first class citizen on GoG, with the level of support comparable to at least the level of Mac OS X? And also, will there be an official word on any of those newer titles that are available for Linux elsewhere but are not available for Linux on GoG?

P.S. Please don't misunderstand me - I'm grateful for what we have and I'm really happy to see Linux games here on GoG since last August, it's just that I don't see much improvement in the Linux department over this year and I'm afraid this might amount to the customers taking their money elsewhere... So, hopefully, no hard feelings.

- Agetian

Your comments are on point. As far as GOG Downloader is concerned, it's being phased out in favour of Galaxy so no improvements for any platform are to be expected, but it does show the lack of Linux support in the past. Now, Galaxy is announced for Linux, but afaik they're waiting for it to become more stable in its current form before releasing it for what still sadly appears to be minor contender, which would also need additional testing of its own.

As for the games' support, I share your views, especially when it comes to ones being released by developers on other stores but not here. From what I've heard, Humble Bundle was actively involved in porting some of the titles to Linux, so maybe they have exclusivity for the time being. And Steam has ways of its own to lure developers into releasing games solely there (probably has to do with DRM as one way of preventing illegal copying), but that doesn't explain the case of only Linux version lacking from other stores, which might have to do with one of two things. First, GOG hasn't made successful deal with said publishers regarding Tux edition (which might need additional negotiations in case the game has already been released here for other platforms). Secondly, many triple-A titles are ported by independent publishers like Aspyr Media and Feral Interactive, so perhaps a new deal needs to be in place, apart the one with original developer/publisher, when it comes to this.

When it comes to forum participation, don't expect much official involvement. You might be better of contacting support directly.

All in all, Linux games that are present here have rather decent support, at least for deb-based systems. I would personally love to see GOG hiring developers and taking more active approach in actually helping more titles (particularly older ones) become available, at least through Wine, but that would include contributing to said project. It has to be said that packaging and testing they've done so far utilizing technologies developed by others (DosBOX, ScummVM, Wine) is certainly commendable. It's just strange to see that regular users managed to develop number of PlayOnLinux scripts to work specifically with GOG versions of games, while a big company with Linux aspirations didn't go down that way (of helping more games become available through their own efforts, not just more convenient to install with added testing). They could at least build upon community work if not extending it altogether.

To be fair, things are rolling but they certainly might be taken to the next level.