IIRC galaxy could download installers. Maybe I'm confusing it with the older gog client

CDProjekt/GOG said the same thing about Cyberpunk 2077, their biggest product ever, and in the year 2025 I'm still running the Windows version of that through Proton because they give no fucks.

Ten years is plenty of time to implement a launcher, or at least give a planned timeline

Or to give literally any kind of update, like admitting it was never seriously planned.

Cyberpunk (and Witcher 3) already runs, and honestly way better then I expected, on my steam deck. They even have a specific graphics setting to accommodate for it's obviously limited hardware, so CDPR are also aware people play their games on the steam deck as evidenced by this graphics setting.

Steamdeck is linux. Obviously this proton translation layer that is being leveraged is very capable.

For all intents and purposeses, CDPR is already where they need to be for half-decent Linux support and honestly I don't understand why they didn't already draw that last sprint that would be required to fully support this.

Well it's not going to be the same engineering challenge as it was for Valve, because they only need to integrate proton, not develop it. If proton works on Lutris (via umu), an open source project with no corporate backing as far as I'm aware, surely CDPR can at least attempt it. This is probably the best time to do it, too. SteamOS has been well received and is likely to end up on even more handhelds, and Windows 10 is nearing its EoL. If GoG is one of the first storefronts to allow its users to play outside of windows it might generate a lot of positive sentiment in the community, just like they did with their anti-DRM stance.

"This river doesn't need a bridge because almost nobody ever crosses it."

Also is there a reason they can't just distribute proton? It's open under BSD, so they'd be free to do it.

Proton is open source, they could just use that. Valve would hardly complain as it helps more games run on steamdeck.

I want to use GoG more but they seem to increasingly not care about Linux. So I use Steam.

Heroic did it. Why couldn't GOG?

Also, it has controller support (slightly dodgy though)

It's also a nice way to use a single launcher to replace 2 / 3 (Epic Games, GOG Galaxy and Amazon gaming).

On Linux I only use Steam and Heroic.

And that's amazing work they've done, but really it's surprising that it's not already supported natively.

And Linux versions taking over a week longer to update than the steam ones. I refunded a game over that before and got it on steam instead.

I tried to push for GOG purchases too and then I just ended up with games that would receive updates late. I'd miss out on discounts and bundles that make future purchases cheaper, at some point it was cheaper to just rebuy stuff with DLCs on Steam than continue building up the library on GOG.

I also gave their galaxy client a try since it promised a united library for all platforms and then they did a horrible job managing the plugins for other stores - they constantly kept breaking or logging me out while even Playnite worked perfectly out of the box.

In the end I just stopped wasting energy on GOG, life is too short and complicated enough. If they have a good deal on old games I might grab it, otherwise I prefer anything else.