I completely agree that having to have galaxy to play online is just another form of DRM, in disguise. I hate it, but at the same time it doesn't affect me as I never play games online apart from World of Tanks.
What worries me is when, not if, they push galaxy for everything, including single player. At that time yes, I will stop buying from GOG. I don't react well to blackmails or taking back promises.

I have well over 1000 games on GOG. The day they force DRM/Galaxy, I am out of here and I will go back to piracy.

Well, unfortunately I found this thread too late. I wasn't an idiot - I googled it first "Is Master of Orion Conque The Stars available for Linux?" And of course, google results all told me "Rejoice! For MOO-CTS is available on Linux!". So all excitedly I logged into GOG, bought the game, went to download it... and, well, here I am, feeling a little bitter about the whole experience.

I've asked GOG for a refund, and I have no doubt they'll grant it. It's just a real shame that it's available on Steam but not on GOG. I made a point of that on my refund request - maybe, just maybe, they'll wake up and see they've overlooked something here. Or, maybe, it'll turn out wargaming and steam have a deal to only provide the linux version to them in order to promote steamos.

Sad day, fellas. Sad day.

Me too,i asked for a refund on my Wallet...
But i bought the game a long time ago.
If i cannot be refunded,it's with sadness that i will move on Steam mainly.

This.

I hate the way GOG appears to be going and if they do force GOG Galaxy on us, then I will walk away and won`t even look back. It will be no better than Steam. They seem to think that if they can get us addicted enough to something I will be too invested to leave it when it goes against its original priniciples.

They assume very wrong.

Saddens me to even have to say this, they were the one light in gaming when Steam was rulling everything like the Borg.

There are fine points some of you guys are missing, hopefully I am not blowing air and somebody from gog can enlighten us further.

1) Developing games is no joke, it is hard.
2) Netcode is a b**ch

Here comes in steam/galaxy. It helps devs add multiplayer, achievements and other modern gimmicks that take ages to make & are expected. All is well and fine up to this point since more games can now have MP and are not dependent on some random 3rd party servers.

The problem here is that utilities provided by galaxy/steam should allow us to direct-ip connect regardless for example and that is purely doable. I do understand that STeam sells itself as a DRM tool and will never do that. But GOG could do that with galaxy. Galaxy could provide much more and one of those features is direct-ip connections. With 0 effort from devs!

We just need to get some words from GOG staff now.

-> p.s. seems I will have to ask for the refund too. I also got suckered and now I cannot run it at all, not even in wine. There is also no ETA for linux version@gog... very sad.

I was so happy to find GoG in 2014.
I don't want a Steam Bis... I loved to get my games DRM free ^^
Alas,a lot of games are released here without Linux support and i refuse to switch to Crapware 10.
So,i don't have the choice...if i want to play the next years,i need Steam T_T

Me too: I'll leave instant when GOG forces the download over Galaxy. And I think sooner or later this day will come. Until then I'll look after good titles and classics here to be played without enforced DRM. And I hate it when GOG handles Linux-customers like second class. Just have a look on FEZ: There was an update to the version 1.12. The version at the Humble-Store has it and of course, Steam also. But here? No sign of the native Linux-version until today and the developers said they sent over the version. Where is it? Just the information about the so-called "red band to be cut". What "red band"? The news about Galaxy for Linux? Come on, please let this never happen. No client, not even an optional one. I can handle my installation on my own and I want it stay that way, GOG. Put your client aside and if developers / publishers want this from you, deny the publishing because your own prinicples and policies are that way.

I am tempted to give Linux a try. I have issues with WinX, but I don`t know enough about it to make the break.

Oh you can give this a try: I've done this step about four years ago. First a so-called dualboot with Windows that time and after some tests a complete change. What should I say? All my favorite games are working: The classics with Wine, the newer ones are most native or there are good ports like OpenMW (http://openmw.org/en/) for Morrowind. Yes, depending on what you are using also Linux can be some kind of harder experience, but most things are possible. For the first start I'd recommend just a look with some Live-demonstration of Ubuntu - better to use the concurrent LTS (= Long Time Support). But you should also keep an eye on other distributions and you could find your own way into Linux. If you have questions: No problem, just ask. Ah and for the start in Wine: You can use some wrapper like PlayOnLinux (https://www.playonlinux.com/en/). :-)

Thankyou. Some good help there.

You make some very good points!

That's the advantage of not being a fan of the typical "AAA" games that are all the same- almost all games that I would be (potentially) interested in run on Linux anyway or there's a game that fills the same niche by a better company. It's just a fricking shame about the Witcher 3, the missing Linux versions on GOG and a few other games.

Yes correct: The favorites are in fact games like Thief, System Shock 2 and SpellForce. Running almost perfect even modded. But there are also other possibilities with Linux like setting up a hypervisor like Xen for installing and booting up Windows directly. With VGA- or PCI-Passthrough you could even reach almost 95% native performance so even a restart would not be needed at all. :-)

Yes, getting a rig that will allow me to run pcie passthrough soon, will report on how it goes. Still, this means I will have to run windows and I would really like to avoid that if possible.

The thing about people trying linux : power users try it and give up. Why? They are used to having complex problems solved by rote and suddenly they cannot do that anymore. It somehow feels harder. Well, they have 10+ years of windows tinkering in their fingers and ofc it is simpler when you have years of experience. If you are such a person and want to try linux - do not give up after a mere few months:

You might want to have some alternative way to get windows as mentioned above, either dual boot or a VM with windows. Virtualbox is free and simple enough to use for example (also vmware might be but no experience there).
For starters do not go full crazy on customization or if you do - be prepared to format a few times :) BUT there is a slight difference here, as you get more experience, linux install can be salvaged almost always while windows cannot, so in due time you will not reinstall so often anymore.
Read read read (and try) stuff. In the past RTFM was a common response to newbies asking seemingly basic and stupid questions. Why? There is usually a lot of docs around, especially for commonly used things. Common distros have tons of gudes. wikis and helper programs. There are forums, there is stackexchange... at least read a bit before asking things that people from community were asked 10x already.
When you start shell - man is your friend (type man ln for example to get docs on ln command)...
Also just give up on some things, sometimes you don't need that exact program/game and if you can just shut it off your life will be easier.

Ah, I totally ranted there, sorry :) Also, it's GNU/Linux and there are so many games lately that I totally switched over (gaming was holding me back for years)

(The above is edited from the original)

Just a quick follow-up on my story. Within 48 hours GOG responded to my refund request and granted it. In my favour was the fact that I never downloaded the game, and I'm not certain but I suspect they can see that in their logs. They didn't mention anything about the issue, or whether or not they're even working on getting the linux version on GOG :/
For anyone else seeking a refund, note that in my favour I hadn't downloaded the game or any related material (not sure if they log that or not), and I requested the refund within about an hour of the purchase - not sure if either of those were factors.

I think sooner or later I'm going to install my old Windows 7 copy in a Virtual Machine or some other way and give the Witcher 3 a go. It's just that I think that this is the game that Linux has been lacking, so I'm pretty frustrated by the fact that no port is in sight and I'm very reluctant to buy Windows games. I'm not really familiar with the terms that you used so I can't say anything about that.