GOG games run just fine on Linux, some native and some under Wine\Proton (almost entirely on the game’s devs, but GOG does have their support program to get Wine working on older unsupported games).
GOG Galaxy, their launcher app, does not have a Linux version. You have to download games off their website directly or use Lutris, Heroic, or some other third party management platform to manage them. The advantage of using a game manager–aside from easier monitored game downloads, automatic updates, and community features–is that they’re usually set up Wine for you as well, which can be annoying to set up and use correctly.
I did not at all like using launchers back when I gamed in Windows, but I really got around to liking Lutris now that I game in Linux - it integrates with my entire games collection (including older titles from physical media), is not trying at all to push me to buy, buy, buy and it doesn’t get in my way when all I want is to start a game and have fun (i.e. no waiting for store app or game updates).
Also I figured out how to configure it to run my games sandboxed with networking disabled, so that’s my default game launch config now. Can’t do that at all with Steam.
Finally, it’s way more flexible when it comes to force the more stubborn Windows games to run in Linux (including the funny and more extreme case of a certain game that wouldn’t run in Steam no matter what I did, but the pirated version wasn’t that hard to get to run fine in Lutris).
Yes and no.
GOG games run just fine on Linux, some native and some under Wine\Proton (almost entirely on the game’s devs, but GOG does have their support program to get Wine working on older unsupported games).
GOG Galaxy, their launcher app, does not have a Linux version. You have to download games off their website directly or use Lutris, Heroic, or some other third party management platform to manage them. The advantage of using a game manager–aside from easier monitored game downloads, automatic updates, and community features–is that they’re usually set up Wine for you as well, which can be annoying to set up and use correctly.
I did not at all like using launchers back when I gamed in Windows, but I really got around to liking Lutris now that I game in Linux - it integrates with my entire games collection (including older titles from physical media), is not trying at all to push me to buy, buy, buy and it doesn’t get in my way when all I want is to start a game and have fun (i.e. no waiting for store app or game updates).
Also I figured out how to configure it to run my games sandboxed with networking disabled, so that’s my default game launch config now. Can’t do that at all with Steam.
Finally, it’s way more flexible when it comes to force the more stubborn Windows games to run in Linux (including the funny and more extreme case of a certain game that wouldn’t run in Steam no matter what I did, but the pirated version wasn’t that hard to get to run fine in Lutris).