It depends and it is true to certain degree that it isn't universal truth. I have bought games without their Linux version here yet I'm at the point I'm asking myself if it's worth it. So far the result is that I haven't purchased:
- Frictional Games
- Double Fine games
- Expeditions: Conquistador
- Don't Starve
- Machinarium

There are games I was very hesitant to buy because of Linux absence and ended up paying for it at least 50% off instead of 100% (Faster Than Light or Alpha Centauri comes to mind). I regret buying Defender's Quest here instead of developer's store in the first place (I did later). And with upcoming release dates of Kickstarters suporting Linux, I have been considering where else I should redeem it for some time. Rambourg and Co. whines how customers don't want to pay full price while he offers inferior products and wraps reasoning in BS how they would have to become second Canonical.

Thanks to Ubuntu, Frictional Games followed by other indie makers and recently HB, I got used to native installers. Yes, this website gets my $$$ but the number of games I don't buy or plan to get it as a partical backup for a nickel is slowly increasing. I am developing a habit to check out other stores before clicking on Pre-order or Buy button if I know it has been released at least for Mac.

I don't say "I'd buy it now with Linux packages listed in details" on release pages anymore because it has been discussed so often without any result, I don't see a point. GOG doesn't perceive Linux owners as desirable customer base, I get it. It's a valid business decision.

How do you know the answer is no? GOG didn't claim so (that it won't be profitable). Because it will be profitable as other distributors demonstrated. So far GOG's reasoning for delay were the logistics, not the fear that it won't be profitable. GOG needs to spend time on research how to enable such support, they already said they won't do it in low quality format.

And there are many coming out with linux support straight from the developers. I mean, Wasteland 2, Eternity, Divinity Original Sin and Dreamfall come to mind. And Satellite Reign just funded. Larry already came out. There are probably lots of non-backers waiting for these so there's money to be made, on linux platform too.

Because GoG is a business, if they thought it was profitable they would already be doing it, like when they considered it was profitable enough to sell Mac games they started selling Mac games.

That's actually exactly what the "logistic" part in their explanation means, they consider/considered that it was too complicated (i.e. too expensive) to do it for now, not impossible, not that there wasn't technical solution (no matter how elegant or overkill'ish it might be), just that the hassle and the extra support cost it would generate wasn't probably worth the potential ROI.

My point is, you have no way of knowing that they decided either way. "Already doing it" doesn't happen instantaneously. They have their own schedule for deploying things. So even if they decided to do it, it might take them a year for example. Therefore, no point to speculate. All we know is what GOG reps said before - they want to do it, and they research the way how to. No one said they don't want because it's not profitable.

See http://www.pcgamer.com/2012/10/24/cd-projekt-red-interview-cyberpunk-2077-witcher-2-piracy-windows-8-and-more/

However I think it's time for GOG to come up with an update, on whether their "looking" actually resulted in some on-going effort, or they still didn't start anything.

Never said they will never do it, they might even already have decided to do it for all we know. I just said that no matter if they decide to do it or not, their main reason won't be whenever or not it is technically possible do it (given that it already is), it will be whenever or not they find a way to do it profitably.

You said that, but GOG never said that. So really all we can do is to review GOG's words. And those were - there are technical issues to solve in order to enable support. Nothing about no profits there.

GoG is a digital distributor, not a charity organization, they usually won't do something that will cost them time and money if it isn't in the end profitable, it's not an opinion it's just business 101.

That's not the point. You claimed that it's not profitable saying that's the reason GOG doesn't have such support already now. You have no proof of that (that it's not profitable). All we know - GOG were interested to work on it. They might even already work on it, planning to enable it next year. That's why it would be preferable for GOG to make a status update, but they don't like publicity anymore, so we won't know anything until the last moment of deployment.

Re-read the blue text in this very thread, what did he say : that it would mean a lot of time spent in testing, a lot of time spent in support, and a lot of time spent in maintenance, etc... The solutions they are looking for is not how to "do it" but how to limit the time and effort spent on all those things among others which for a business means find a way in which the time and effort spent is paid back by the extra money it would generate.

It would be different if there was no technical solution at all,here there are solutions available it's just that those solutions are either incomplete or require a non negligible amount of extra work (and let's not talk about extra support)

Once again, maybe they are already working on Linux support and will announce it soon, but if they do it won't be because they suddenly discover how to build a deb package, but because they decided it was worth it (i.e. profitable) to do it.

Gersen: You are using false logic to bring your point. It's called demagogy. You said - GOG doesn't have it yet, because it's not profitable. When asked how do you know it's not profitable, you say - because GOG doesn't have it yet. This is not a valid way to make a point. Try to demonstrate why it's not profitable, or don't speculate why GOG doesn't have it yet.

They said it's hard to offer support without coming up with a good method (deployment, bundling etc.). So that's what they were "looking into" (i.e. for example doing R&D). Again - nothing was said about profits or impossibility of enabling quality support while being profitable. The rest are your pure speculations.

You call that demagogy I call that business 101.

I only said : GoG is a business, businesses usually don't do things that cost them money unless it is profitable for them one way or another (at least business that wants to continue existing), supporting an extra OS will cost them money, any OS, and GNU/Linux is definitely not the easiest to support; so the question any sensible business will ask itself in similar circumstances is : will the ROI be worth the trouble, and most sensible business will most likely decide not to do it if the answer is "no".


Once again I never said that "I" thought it wouldn't be profitable, just that they, most likely, won't release games on Linux unless "they" thought they can do it profitably.

See the attachment. Old, but gold! In the image, you see 6.05 times as many votes for Linux as for Mac OS. At present you can observe 7.15 times as many votes for Linux as for Mac OS. The Windows 8 request has nowhere near the amount of votes as the Linux and Windows 7 requests as well. I really wish the folks at GOG would at least say how many votes it would take to convince them to get a move on.

I don't think they make decisions based on votes only. But I expect that there are more Linux gamers than Mac OSX gamers, especially amongst GOG users. So it wasn't really logical for GOG to start with Mac OSX first.

Except, that they had a side reason. CDPR released their Witcher games for Mac OSX, and they had to make them available DRM free through their own channels (GOG is owned by CDP). I think it played a major role in bringing Mac OSX support to GOG. So, if in the future CDPR will start making Linux versions of their games (and I hope they will), GOG will for sure get Linux support as well, no matter how "difficult" that would seem.