14 DAY TRIAL // Digital distribution platform GOG.com has just passed the 100-title mark and they are well on their way to becoming one of the biggest providers of Linux games.
The community has been pressuring GOG.com to get into the Linux business for a long time and they have been really coy about it. At first they didn't say no, but they also didn't seem to really want it. Competing with Steam might prove to be a waste of time, but that's not entirely the case if we take a look at the libraries of the two services.
GOG stands for "good old games" and most of the titles in their library are really old ones. Most of them have changed publishers over the years and some of the studios that built them have disbanded. Getting some of these games to work on Linux could prove to be very hard, so the GOG devs have their work cut out for them.
More goldies will be arriving on Linux
Granted, not all of the games on GOG.com are amazing. Some of them entertained us when we were kids and we remember them fondly, but they might be disappointing 20 years later. Even so, there are many gamers out there who would pay for the privilege of playing a really old title in a new Linux distro. Interestingly enough, the technical problems that need to be overcome in this case have usually nothing to do with performance.
When new games are ported or developed for Linux, one of the main concerns is the performance, which can vary between the Linux and the Windows platforms. In the case of titles from 20 years ago, performance is no longer an issue. This problem has been replaced by a compatibility one, which can be just as difficult. In any case, GOG is having great success, and only a few months after the service has started supporting Linux, more than 100 games have been released for the open source platform.
"Not even two months ago we've rolled out a feature that you, dear GOGgers, have requested almost since day one of our service: support for Linux games. It took us some time to do it the GOG-way, but we managed to unite our ideals of how DRM-free gaming should be, with the idea of the truly free OS, so passionately loved by many."
"We've kick-started our Linux games catalog with a selection of 50 titles, old and new, many of them available officially for that OS for the very first time! Doing that, we've mentioned our plans to expand this offer to over 100 titles in the coming months. Well, the day has come. With today's 15 additions we've passed the 100-title," is noted in an announcement.
Some of the more prolific games that now have a home on Linux, for the first time, include Baldur's Gate: The Original Saga, Baldur's Gate 2 Complete, Planescape Torment, F-117 Nighthawk Stealth Fighter 2.0, and Silent Service 1 + 2.