GOG: Linux "the next major frontier" for gaming as it works on a native client
(xda-developers.com)720 points by franczesko 2 days ago
720 points by franczesko 2 days ago
> I guess it'll stay closed source.
It's a DRM implementation. It has to stay closed source.
There is no DRM on GOG.
https://www.gog.com/blog/what-exactly-is-drm-in-video-games-...
I guess depends what you consider DRM, some games appear to have problems
https://www.gog.com/wishlist/site/label_the_games_that_have_...
Yet the standalone offline installed games won't run without libgalaxy.dylib (Mac) or Galaxy64.dll (Windows) which is responsible for outbound connections to https://galaxy-log.gog.com and https://insights-collector.gog.com?
To be clear: if you buy Disco Elysium on GOG, download the "offline game installer" without using Galaxy, install it, and run the game on a desert island, it will work (the network requests fail open). But if you try to run the game after removing the bundled dylib/DLL, it will not.
Why do Galaxy-free games ship with a mandatory dependency on Galaxy?
Try checking on the facts first. GOG famously has a slogan that says they have no DRM. They are lying in their slogan.
If we have DRM with some private key, then I guess your idea is I download the game files and some private key and that allows me to run the game.
If I can send you the private key and the game and it allows you to run the game with no further inputs, then the DRM is trivially broken (even without open source).
If it does some online check, then if the source is open we can easily make a version that bypasses the online check.
If there is some check on the local PC (e.g. the key only works if some hardware ID is set correctly), we can easily find out what it checks, capture that information, package it, and make a new version of the launcher that uses this packaged data instead of the real machine data.
If you use a private key to go online and retrieve more data, having it be open source makes it trivial to capture that data, package it, and write a new version of the launcher that uses that packaged data.
Basically, DRM requires that there is something that is not easy to copy, and it being open source makes it a lot easier to copy.
literally the only two reasons I still have windows on my laptop currently are fusion360 and apex legends. I was happily playing Apex Legends on Linux for years until EA decided to disable Linux support due to "cheating". While I understand their concerns, I can't say as a regular player the cheating problem is any better or worse than it was before they removed Linux support.
As for fusion360... Freecad is getting mighty good these days...
It's not free but...zw3d has full* native Linux support. You'd be forgiven for not knowing this because they only offer it on their Chinese website, even though it comes complete with a fully localized English version that you just have to switch on in the settings.
* Integrations with online parts libraries don't seem to work (don't know why they didn't bother, as it looks like it just spawned a web browser anyway), and the simulation add-ons aren't available either, but the main program itself is equivalently functional.
Go, GOG, it's so close for me to migrate.
The last obstacle will be the most working mostly effortlessly with my Nvidia on Fedora / Ubuntu.
One of the reasons I have not touched GOG more seriously is probably because they have no native presence. I hope they consider making it open source, so anyone from any distro could contribute to it. I feel like it would be the healthier choice for GOG.
If we didn’t have Kernel Anti Cheat in Windows, it would be a godsend for Linux gaming.
It’s literally the only issue missing (and some games not available under Xbox game app but I mean it’s Microsoft as publisher so no intention for Linux version)
That's also one thing Galaxy gets right. You can turn off auto-updates and that won't stop you from playing the game (unlike with Steam, which will just replace your "play" button with "update"). They also support rolling back updates, but I never tried that and I'm not entirely sure if this works for every game, or if this is something a game developer has to actively support.
Why is the launcher not at least public source? GOG's value add is the service it provides, not the specialness of its launcher.
Hopefully they will pursue a container/Flatpak native system but probably not!
Oh wow FINALLY. the main reason why I stopped buying from gog is this. I can now buy there again.
Friendly reminder that GOG ignored and downplayed the GOG Galaxy 0-day privilege escalation bug CVE-2020-24574 [1] for literal years. They tried to brush off the security researcher who reported the issue by rotating keys and claiming it was fixed. Their non-serious stance towards security means Galaxy isn't really software I want running on my system anymore.
Based take little dude. Gamers all care very much about "openness". Did you forget that in 1985 Nintendo created the first hardware-based security system designed to prevent unlicensed and low-quality games from running.
Gamers used to own the games they purchased via cassettes, disks, and later even digital copies. Now through platforms like Epic and Steam you are provided a digital "license" to play the game.
ALL of this speaks to the "openness" of gaming and it is ALL important to gamers.
As previously stated though, game creators have been forced to choose the platforms they can create their games for. By the 90s the majority of personal computers were running MS-DOS and Steve Jobs had a base take on games being "toys" and did not belong on Macintosh products.
Fast forward to the early Oughts and you see games like Angry Birds and Candy Crush making millions by producing games on ARM technology which really pushed the entire industry forward to focus multi-platform gaming outside of the tradition routes of either PC or console or both.
Furthermore triple A studios led the charge and made big decisions that smaller studios would follow until around the release of Cyberpunk 2077. This in my opinion was the big turning point that gamers decides to act against large studios from all of the decision making that has turned a relative open system to a closed system.
The invention of the Proton protocol to allow gaming on Linux Machines is FORCING industry to ABIDE by the wishes of the customer. The gamers. The gamers are FINALLY winning!
This isn't just about openness on operating systems and being able to own the thing you purchase. Its also about efficiency. Windows is a bloat farm that has what feels like a million service hosts running in the background sending telemetry data to NOT me. Furthermore, if windows is not optimized to use your hardware efficiently, why would your favorite game?
Changes like the Proton protocol are bridges to re-align the supply/demand curve by forcing the customer and producer back to the negotiation table so the gamers voice can be heard.
In closing, gamers have had limited options due to technological limitations, vendor lock ins, corporate anti-competitive practices, monopoly exploitation, or predatory pricings.
With inventions like ARM and Proton protocol, gamers have a louder voice to force game makers implement "openness" in their products.
I have been playing Fallout: New Vegas on my ThinkPad T570 running Bazzite Linux for the last few weeks.
It's been... amazing. A good game, running at workable framerates, no more crashes than usual (it's a Bethesda game, after all), and the software was free as opposed to building out a new PC with Windows 11.
It's like rediscovering PC gaming after years of it becoming bloated and a cash grab.
Tons of libre game engines will work with GOG data:
Finally. The previous hate GOG showed towards Linux was absolutely ridiculous.
What is the story behind that? I would have thought GOG would be neutral at worst about Linux as a platform considering their anti-DRM pitch.
There's some great Linux gaming distros out these days,
https://bazzite.gg/ is based on Fedora
and https://chimeraos.org/ is almost like SteamOS for non-Steam hardware. It ships a console-like UI on top of an immutable Arch base.
It's not Electron, however it uses Chromium Embedded Framework underneath.
What a waste of effort. Just provide your current installers or even fallback to plain old tarballs.
>Competitive Salary – We ensure fair and attractive compensation that reflects your skills and experience: 18 000 - 27 000 PLN/month
I know it's eastern Europe but that's $5000-7500 a month, barely $90k a year. It sounds like a solo job too so a lot of responsibility for this salary.
> $90k a year.
$90K a year goes much further in most of Europe barring the centres of the biggest cities—let alone eastern Europe—than it does in the US.
NYC and Bay Area salaries are outrageously inflated, with much of the take-home being funnelled into four/five digit rents or mortgages for houses built out of matchsticks, car loans, health insurance payments, and more. None of this is necessary or costs as much in most of Europe, or the rest of the world, really.
That's in the 50k EUR - 77k EUR range which is senior-level pay in EU. Add to that it includes pension, tax prepayments and health insurance. They also seem to offer lots of perks in the office.
If you account for the fact that Poland is generally less expensive than the average and that the average monthly living cost is ~900 EUR ( https://www.numbeo.com/cost-of-living/country_result.jsp?cou... ), even the 50k lower bracket is in the higher range. You get ~2k EUR net/month in your account after pension and tax contributions, health insurance, rent and expenses (as a single). That's not bad at all. EDIT: (excluding rent)
It doesn't compete with the better local companies though. It's fairly in the middle of the pack.
900 EUR might be enough for student-like living if you own the apartment you're living in, or by sharing a room when renting, but it's not even close to acceptable level in Warsaw.
Yeah that's a good salary in Europe. It's only slightly less than I make in the UK as a senior.
Ditto. It seems like the graduate wage in the US is 2x my senior salary in the UK, which sounds very similar to yours. It seems massively inflated compared to other US jobs. Tech jobs in the UK seem to be more inline with other sectors.
In Eastern Europe, that's 1% level of income when measured against the quality of life you can have.
"GOG GALAXY is a long-lived product with a large and complex C++ codebase." Also known as a shitshow. Hopefully the new engineer(s) will be encouraged to at least add some tests and refactor things to stay sane.
No mention of a license, though. I guess it'll stay closed source.