Well Gog can track then as they can know how many peoples download the Linux version of the games.

Well you can just download a tiny freeware that disable 99% of Windows 10 telemetry features.

No, having Linux on routers, headless servers or very specific technical uses is not "mainstream", the only mainstream Linux derivative you currently have is Android.

That's a little simplistic view it's not always that easy. Spending money and resources on something where you have no guarantee to ever get your investement back is a huge risk especially when said founds and resources could have been used elsewhere with a much better ROI. It's not "failling" to decide to not take that risk it's often a sound business decision.

Not to mention that Steam already spent quite a lot on Linux and, at least for the time being, with little significant results. Yes if GoG invested more they would probably have snitched a couple of percent of market share from Steam but it would have remained a very tiny fraction of the full user base.

No it doesn't but GOG decided to offer Linux support and is now not living up to that support. They want to offer it without investing anything into it and you can't have it both ways, that is doomed to fail.

That is subjective. Valve believes that Linux is key to breaking away from of Windows and is plan B for when Microsoft tries to lock down Windows which is beginning to happen now with Windows 10 S. The past 4 years they have increased Linux support for gaming tremendously and have gotten many publishers on board with supporting it. The amount of Linux games increases every year, with this year outperforming the previous significantly.

In that sense, it has been a worth while investment. Valve is more than willing to play the long game when it comes to Linux.

Playstation 4 is based on BSD. -_-

apt-get upgrade your brain contents already.
10% world-wide are Linux users.
In a recent poll on Kerbal Space Program - its 23% percent. The Mac's are at 10%.

And isn't Android Linux as well? But Linux in the context we're talking about is not mainstream and never will be.

Q: How do you know a Linux user is in the room?

A: He'll tell you.

A: The windows will be open and unlocked.

I can't disagree with that, but as a business owner myself I'll present the other side: while investing in the unknown does present the risk of a negative return, NOT investing guarantees zero return. If a lack of Linux-based Galaxy is increasingly a reason for "Then I may as well use Steam", then I think the decision is obvious.

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I'm not a Linux expert in any way, shape, or form. But isn't Linux really expanding into devices other than PCs? Like it's the OS for stuff such as, I dunno, routers, cloud servers, etc., etc., etc.? Could have sworn I read here and there that tons of things use some form of Linux OS or kernel or whatever-the-hell. While it may be something of an oddity for PCs as far as the numbers go, is it really still hiding under a rock when looking at the big picture of electronic devices and systems? And wouldn't that likely translate to the PC side over some period of time?

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Last, while I don't use that OS or this store's client, I hope that Linux is in the works for gOg and Galaxy. If it gives customers a reason to continue using this competing store, then overall it's a good thing for the marketplace - at least in some small way.

Not always. Sometimes we get fed up and make it ourselves.

Nope. As Windows users say, it is just a "vocal Linux minority"™ taking polls while "silent Windows majority"™ (Windows users are always assumed to be silent) just ignores polls. For Kerbal, the correct results should be 0.23% for Linux and 99.0% for Windows if we count those who did not participate (and we can answer for them however we want ^‿^ ).

Exactly this. Actually I sympathy with Linux users' hopes, but you can't claim an Internet poll with a sample size of 127 (which is already a sub-sample of "people who are registered in a certain Internet forum" and "people who are interested in voting in the poll") gives an accurate picture of the whole gaming world.

It is always easy to say from the outside that they should just invest some more money. But we don't know the financial constraints that GOG is operating under. The are situation where risking a failed investment simply becomes too risky. I don't think you can compare GOG to Valve, who are basically sitting in a pool of money and can invest time and money in whatever they find fancy at the moment. And when projects like the steam machines fail, then they simply shrug their shoulders and move on to something else.
Then you have to consider that there might be other avenues of investments that are more promising at the moment.
If you had to make a choice between expanding in the Chinese market vs. developing a Galaxy client for Linux, then you might argue that the former option will give you more user growth & ROI with less risk.

You can surely argue that not expanding into Linux is a missed opportunity, but since nobody here has any deeper insight into the company, it is really hard to speculate whether that is a bad management decision.

If you take their argument of constrained resources at face value (and considering how slow things move around here I'm inclined to believe it), then add the fact that Galaxy development goes way slower than expected with plenty of bugs left, then I have a hard time saying it is the outright wrong decision to concentrate resources on the windows/osx development instead of pulling resource away to jump start the development on Linux.

you are being unreasonable.
They still offer the exact same amount of Linux support that they offered the past years. Preparing Linux installers and providing tech support for Linux doesn't happen by magic, they still have to put money into that.
What they don't do is expanding their Linux support and investing _MORE_ into it. And it is absolute okay to criticize that.
But it is an overreaction to act as if they had just ditched all Linux support.

Aren't we all...

That may be true... but they seem to only be doing the bare minimal to offer what little support they do provide. It took years of asking for Linux support before GOG finally gave in (and only after Steam started to offer it by the way). CD Projekt also has a history with Linux users, not providing Linux support for Witcher 1 or 3 after 2 got panned for horrible performance at release.

My comment about "not investing anything into it" was in relation not providing equal support to all platforms so they aren't "living up to that support". But yes you are correct that they do at-least invest in installers and tech support.

I'm not acting like they have ditched Linux support, I'm acting like that aren't providing equal support when compared to other platforms to which they sell games because they clearly aren't.

Market share should have no influence on the amount of support a platform receives, not when you are taking money from consumers who expect that they will get equal treatment and developers who depend on that support to offer games for sale. In being a distributor that is GOG's job. Without Galaxy support on Linux, Linux users aren't getting the games other platforms are getting, they aren't getting access to new features, games may be released with missing features like online MP when compared to other platforms, developers can't utilize Galaxy features in their games on Linux, and consumers on Linux get slower patches because devs can't push patches to Linux users like they can on other platforms.

It creates a tiered level of support where Linux users are second class to Windows and Mac users.

I can't disagree with any of that. I was mostly talking about the "cost" of not moving the income needle by not even trying. Basically risk of loss or chance of gain, versus the guarantee of no gain (and no direct loss from a failed endeavor). As an outsider it feels like Linux is gaining exposure not just in PCs but also in other realms, so at some point it's going to be too big to ignore.

And yeah, we don't know. Nearly all of these conversations are speculation. "What they SHOULD do is..." haha - not so easy. And it's not an easy thing to pursue every single opportunity. Goodness knows I pass up potential profit avenues here and there, because reasons.

That said, I do suspect it's being worked on. gOg seem to be pretty mum on this type of stuff until they have something to actually show the customers, so I'm guessing the investment is being made now and it will be announced with great fanfare and a big fat sale, along with plenty of bitching by us - because that's what we do. ; )

But they are pushing it on developers. And in result we are missing Linux games here on GOG. I.e. Galaxy is causing a concrete damage already. Vikings - Wolves of Midgarrd is a recent example.

No one knows but GOG. They never published any numbers. But according to actual developers, overall Linux sales can be around 2-4% for their specific titles.

Where are those numbers from? I don't think GOG ever published anything of that sort.