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Does purchasing a game on GOG.com really grants ownership of the game and not a license to use it? (fedia.io)
submitted 7 months ago by to c/asklemmy@lemmy.world
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[–] 2 points 7 months ago (2 children)

The interests of Linux users and Valve merely coincide.

I'm not naive, I don't think that Valve is doing anything out of the goodness of their heart. But they're investing on something I care about, so me giving them money is an indirect way to invest in that.

As for me, with a 99% single player games library, the most important thing is no mandatory launcher and no updates. Click, boom, I’m in the game.
So using GOG when possible.

Mostly agree (except I don't mind updates, you can always play without updating if you want to), and the fact that that's my experience with Steam is a big part of why I buy from them. I can go from not owning a game to play it with just a few controller buttons, whereas with GoG I would have to:

  • Plug a mouse and keyboard to my gaming rig
  • Install a browser on that machine
  • Navigate to the website and download the installer
  • Figure out a good wine version to use and create a new profile for the game
  • Install any needed wine tricks to that profile
  • Manually create a shortcut for that game using that wine profile
  • Add the shortcut to some third party UI to be able to navigate to it with a controller

So yeah, the whole "click, I'm in the game" only works on Windows, which is why I said I can understand Windows users preferring GoG.

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  • [–] 1 point 7 months ago* (1 child)

    I should have been clearer, I don't mind the initial configuration, it's the subsequent launches I want to be instant. That's the feature I find most excellent on the Steam Deck: instant resume. You pick up your console because you have 15mn to kill and actually game 15mn.

    This has not been my experience with Steam on desktop however. I don't game everyday, and not all my games were on Steam (when I was still using it semi regularly), and I would invariably wait for Steam to update, followed by the various utilities and the games. And if it was a new machine, having to remember where to disable the damn ad popup ...
    With a fast Internet and playing often I'm sure it's way less of an issue.
    Oh and when I had network problems and it would take a long time before going in offline mode every time.

    you can always play without updating if you want to

    Can you? I never saw a straightforward way to do this.
    I still have a partition running Windows for modded Skyrim, and the cardinal rule is never ever run it from Steam in case there's been an update, which would mess up the modlist.

    My other issue is ideological: I don't think they do anything unethical but I don't like having this private company's always online closed source software running in the background on my computer.

    Clearly people are happy with Steam, and as far as companies go it's an okay one. I won't argue with the AIO buying, installing, and the myriad of features.
    However installing on Linux really isn't that hard anymore.

    1. Install the GoG (or Epic for the free stuff) game from Heroic Launcher
    2. Play.*

    Heroic is a better experience for installing, but I prefer Lutris, paired with lutris-gamepad-ui when not using keyboard and mouse. I made a little script to launch it when I turn on my controller, and turn off the controller when I quit. I'm in a game in a few seconds, even if I didn't play in a month - when bluetooth doesn't for some reason take 10s to connect

    Even if some tinkering was needed, for a game I play often I would have spend less time waiting compared to using Steam.

    *conditions may apply

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  • [–] 1 point 7 months ago

    I get your point, but here's the thing, GoG has never given a cent to Lutris, Wine or Heroic, I know about those and the many others that came before such as PlayOnLinux. But those are not useful thanks to GoG, they're useful despite it. If I have to use an open source tool to "emulate" a game, and another one to organize and manage my library, I'll give those guys money and pirate the games and get the same experience a lot cheaper. Because, like Gabe Newell said, piracy is a service problem.

    you can always play without updating if you want to

    Can you? I never saw a straightforward way to do this.

    I seem to remember a pop-up asking you whether you want to play without updating. Also I remember being able to stop a specific game from being updated by selecting the version to use in the settings, of course not all games use this, but the ones that accept mods usually do. I remember I had my CK2 pinned for a while because of mods.

    I don't think they do anything unethical but I don't like having this private company's always online closed source software running in the background on my computer.

    I get that, but I only open Steam when I'm going to play something, so it's not always online running in the background, and the vast majority of games I play are closed source so that's a moot point

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