GOG plan to look a bit closer at Linux through 2026

Too little, too late.

They'll try again.
Brave.
Lets see them compete.
I really hope it's a success.
It might inspire other stores to follow.

* sigh *

Okay, okay, if they need my help, I will make myself available

Even without Linux as a factor, Galaxy by itself *barely* feels like something you can put much trust into in terms of functionality. I hope they can get developers that are capable of actually fixing it up, possibly redoing it as a whole, and take that as a basis for Linux support.
One can dream I guess, but I don't really count on much from GOG, just that their installers will be convenient someday.

That, and GOG Galaxy does not support Linux.

I would vastly prefer for gog to spend the resources on officially supporting existing open source efforts such as heroic, minigalaxy, and lutris.

Last edited by emphy on 14 Jan 2026 at 2:22 pm UTC

They could just contribute to Heroic in some way

On the GOG YT channel he's talking how Steam ain't all that great (<cough> Galaxy <cough>) and how it's time to start... nibbling at the competition, primarily Steam. He's not wrong, but if Linux support is supposed to drive said nibbling I envision another failure. Valve is the funding/driving force behind mainstream Linux gaming, GOG can - at best - reach remora status to Valve's shark... ness here. Not that I'd mind solid, actual competition.

That aside... for starters, Galaxy needs a rework. Even with that rework, I don't see how it can touch Steam with these oldies that are hacked together to somewhat function on a modern OS. It's a lot of work to not really get that much closer to the Steam (imperfect, sure) ecosystem in that regard. And that's the spine of GOG's business. Indies, then? They've already tried that.

On a more personal note, the guy strikes me as a poser with a mid-life crisis... and with the ability to secure not insignificant funding, and some contacts in CDPR.

According to an insider from back in the day he wasn't playing that many games during CDP's later publishing times already, then he had a fairly publicised mental breakdown in the CDPR days (which was a tough time, yeah) complete with soul searching in The Ancient Orient etc. Now he's securing (apparently) external funding for some new retro toys and he's wearing retro t-shirts to convince people he is totes of the hood, dawg, yo.

I dunno. It's a fundamentally niche business, so let's see what's next in terms of "competing" with Steam.

Quoting: emphyI would vastly prefer for gog to spend the resources on officially supporting existing open source efforts such as heroic, minigalaxy, and lutris.

I would prefer that, too. We all learned not to have Galaxy available and relied on other solutions instead. Lutris in my case. I have no desire for another game library management tool. I got Steam and Lutris, and that's enough for me.

I think I've heard this song before. Several times in fact, and it didn't go well any of those times. 🤔

GOG, don't look. DO.

Zoom Platform is the store to support for DRM free needs. They really embrace Linux.

In my experience, Heroic is so effortless and versatile that I don't think I'd use Galaxy even if it had native Linux support.

Quoting: suchValve is the funding/driving force behind mainstream Linux gaming, GOG can - at best - reach remora status to Valve's shark... ness here. Not that I'd mind solid, actual competition.

Why can't GOG work with Valve on this? Why do they need to compete? Perhaps I'm suggesting too radical a change in mentality for contemporary business thinking...

Personally, I'm all in on the idea of working with existing open source game management tools. It would be the wiser approach for them to take.

While I've gotten used to their DRM-free script-based Linux installers, I would love it if they moved the Linux offline installers to AppImage, with all of the dependencies incorporated.

Offering up something like the Steam Linux Runtime libraries for the open source tools to use would be great too. Lutris has one of their own and Heroic taps Steam somehow (not sure which one they use but it's not Runtime 4) but neither are as comprehensive as Steam themselves. That would really help, I think.

Last edited by Caldathras on 14 Jan 2026 at 8:00 pm UTC

In my experience, Heroic is so effortless and versatile that I don't think I'd use Galaxy even if it had native Linux support.

Agreed. And it's to the point where I actually don't know what they could contribute to the likes of Heroic. Every GOG game I have is click Install then Play.

Is there some sort of missing features and integrations they could help with ?

Quoting: Caldathras

Quoting: suchValve is the funding/driving force behind mainstream Linux gaming, GOG can - at best - reach remora status to Valve's shark... ness here. Not that I'd mind solid, actual competition.

Why can't GOG work with Valve on this? Why do they need to compete? Perhaps I'm suggesting too radical a change in mentality for contemporary business thinking...

It's interesting, especially here.

I mean, let's assume that GOG and Valve put in an equal amount of work, resources etc. Looking at it from a traditional business point of view Valve has the larger share of the market, so it will benefit more while investing disproportionately less. Effectively, GOG would be paying for Valve to make more. Of course, as this Linux situation currently stands GOG is basically choosing not to benefit from development that Valve is essentially giving out for free. It's right there, they just need to make the effort to pick it up and run with it. Even from a capitalist point of view that market is a growing one, albeit still small and probably not with the potential to overtake Windows. Maybe. Even that cost didn't seem to make business sense to GOG... up to now.

Maybe that's why business people are cagey about Linux support. It's got those weird "not everything has to have a price tag" and "long term plans over short term profit" things going on.

New GOG owner Michał Kiciński also mentioned in regards to Windows how "It's such poor-quality software and product, and I'm so surprised that it's [spent] so many years on the market. I can't believe it!".

that is HUGE!

Quoting: CaldathrasWhile I've gotten used to their DRM-free script-based Linux installers, I would love it if they moved the Linux offline installers to AppImage, with all of the dependencies incorporated.

eh, appimage isn't really the 'container format' that it seems to have initially been sold as. In many cases there are system dependencies and linked libraries that as per linux will get updated to a point where by the appimage cannot work at all, which then requires a full appimage refresh & update. it is also not sandboxed without firejail.

( anecdote incoming: i thought i was archiving programs originally, turns out 6 months is a long time in software, my favorite appimage was just a grey empt box with a gtk crash handler message.. and this was on linux mint not exact a rolling release.)


Now flatpak .. That is much more inline with a kind of 'bottled' instance of software, it too also needing to remain somewhat in step with the system but it has some other benefits of better system integration & is sandboxed. Plus flathub / flatpak is becoming the de-facto distro agnostic software distribution method so there is consistency of support via popularity.

imo ofc

Last edited by Lofty on 15 Jan 2026 at 12:05 am UTC

The Linux response just sounds to me like "yeah, if we have some free time and nothing better to do we *might* look at Linux." So, not likely.

The comment about Windows was far more shocking to me. I'd like to believe that after 30+ years the tide might be turning...but I'm not holding my breath. Seriously though, how is it possible that young people don't even question that they're running the same OS, just a newer version of course, that their GRANDPARENTS ran? Youth don't do this with any other product that I can think of. The unquestioning fealty to Microsoft is something I suppose I'll never understand.

Last edited by foobrew on 15 Jan 2026 at 12:55 am UTC

There is a lot they can do with gog galaxy; if they can make it more like playnite and then put in linux+proton/wine support on top, then they'd be quite set to sale.

However one of the big things steam has going is community features include fully fleshed out mod support!

Oh also VR support would no doubt help. Plus handheld support... Yeah Steam is a HARD nut to compete against, especially when your upper management only want to hoover off profit from selling games but don't want to put any effort into store functionality and compatibility (EGS and everyone else is a good example of this).

They continuously cry about Valve Steam monopoly but ABSOLUTELY REFUSE to ever even attempt to compete! There is more to selling games then just throwing them up on some horrible DRM store app!

Last edited by Gerarderloper on 15 Jan 2026 at 1:35 am UTC

Quoting: foobrewThe comment about Windows was far more shocking to me. I'd like to believe that after 30+ years the tide might be turning...but I'm not holding my breath. Seriously though, how is it possible that young people don't even question that they're running the same OS, just a newer version of course, that their GRANDPARENTS ran? Youth don't do this with any other product that I can think of. The unquestioning fealty to Microsoft is something I suppose I'll never understand.

Well, up until recently they might have not questioned it because they just didn't notice it. I mean, your OS (and where there's a distinction, your desktop environment) are kind of just a substrate you run your software on. And at this point the desktop environment is . . . sure, people innovate, but if you're not getting cute it's a pretty mature thing, so if it's done decently people are barely aware it's there. It's like how people don't rebel against how their grandparents used refrigerators.

On Windows, though, people are no longer barely aware it's there, because MS insists on making it get in the way. Lately it seems there are a ton of "I switched to Linux cuz Win 11 sucks so hard, so should you" videos on the internet. It feels like there's a shift happening.

Last edited by Purple Library Guy on 15 Jan 2026 at 8:35 am UTC