I think it is all about resources and choosing to allocate what resources are available to the most lucrative endeavors. It takes time to grow. There is quite a lot yet to do for the Mac market which is larger than the Linux market but that is taking time as well.

I think a good first step might be supporting Ubuntu only and sticking to native Linux releases only for openers and see what kind of return on investment that brings. This however assumes resources exist to do this much and that research is telling them the expenditure to do it is justified by expected revenues. It also assumes all other things considered that the funds to do this exist currently at all. We don't know GOG's internal financials, etc. so who here is qualified to make that assessment?

It is easy to be an armchair coach for a business from afar but in fairness those calling the plays from the forums here do not have the information to be accurately doing so like those working at GOG do. I'm guessing too that most of us are not holding advanced degrees in business management.

It all sounds good but the devil is in the details as the saying goes.

(...)
Hmm, thank you for correcting me. I don't like to spout nonsense. That means that Boxer has come a long way since I last tried it; good...
Core2 Duo & Intel GMA950? What a surprise, you must have a MacBook from 2007, just like I do :-)
I have increased the memory to 4GB (Apple said it wasn't possible, but apparently it is <grin> ) and have "upgraded" to MacOS 10.7 Lion in order to get security patches, ...well that is until Apple decided to publish Mavericks and thereby put Lion on the "Not supported anymore" list. Further upgrades are not possible, because of that weak GMA950.
For that reason, going online using your Mac (10.6) or mine (10.7) is a security risk...
I dual boot it nowadays (MacOS 10.7 strictly offline, Lubuntu 13.10).

Actually they are using Wineskin for their Wine ports. That's awesome because if you know your way around you can tweak the wrappers to your liking. For example in Alpha Centauri i found that they forced virtual desktop in fullscreen, which made it impossible to play the game in windowed mode. i simply set it back to automatic because it works without problems for me, and I can play in windowed mode.

Yes, in its original for Boxer was really just DOSBox on Autopilot. Starting with Boxer version 1.0 it became its own standalone application. here is the blog entry with the first preview for Boxer 1.0
http://boxerapp.com/blog/2009/11/29/a-taste-of-boxer-10/
it would still take more than a year for the release to actually happen:
http://boxerapp.com/blog/2011/03/25/boxer-turns-1/
And it was totally worth it, Boxer is so much cleaner and more pleasant to use, because it can focus on being perfect for one operating system alone. It's still using DOSBox for the emulation, but the higher level layers have been replaced. That was not without drawbacks, some features like the key mapper had to be dropped, but the foundation is there to replace them with something even better.

Right, good points. I'd love to see the actual figures of Linux sales on the Humble Store. During Humble *Indie* bundles, Linux users tend to be the most generous per customer and they make up a greater percentage of sales than you would expect based on the usage distribution of Desktop Operating Systems. Apparently for The Humble Store, their ROI on Linux sales is big enough to continue their support, or they would axe it. Then again, they *might* also be struggling to break even on their investment in Linux versions. I'm not privy to their internal business decisions or figures. Desura is in a similar position.

If you start to officially support Ubuntu, at least provide the other package formats as well, *if* they are offered by the developer. When I look at my Humble library, I see many different formats: .mojo/ universal installer, a simple shell script, rpm's, ..deb's and the venerable tarballs in tar.gz format.

For those complaining that Fallout won't run on their Raspberry PI, simply refer to the minimal system requirements, just like you would do with the Mac and Windows users/ customers. Imagine how GOG would react when I complain about not being able to Run Alan Wake on my Pentium III-600Mhz system with 256MB of RAM, running Win98SE ....
They would politely reply to me that my system does not meet the necessary System Requirements and rightfully so.
After typing that, that support agent would probably nudge one of his/ her colleagues and burst out in laughter about the fruitcake that seriously sent in that support request.

Besides, look at the top of the Community request for the addidtion of Linux games:
Added by JudasIscariot' <= That's right, one of GOG's own employees....
There's hope.

You are probably referring to the regrettable absence of a reliable LSB (Linux Standard Base) across the various Linux distributions, in addition to the comparatively small user base or am I mistaken?

I think that's the biggest thing people tend to not be thinking of and sometimes want to explain away in various ways. It costs a lot of money I'm sure to bring old games to new platforms. It isn't like just getting deliverables from a publisher that are ready to sell as-is.

I have to confess that I have had to learn patience myself and get real about what I can expect you guys to do with existing catalog classics Mac releases. I want them all right now, not later. Unfortunately for me, that is not a reasonable thing to expect or demand.

There might be hope for me yet TET but I have admittedly become a Mac zealot and I might be a little hard to reason with sometimes as such. I blame Apple for making the most wonderful computer I have ever had the pleasure of owning and using. :D

While I am at it here, I want to thank you again for all the Mac goodness today. This was a really big deal for me and I am sure many other Mac gamers, a lot of whom may never visit the forums. So I just want you to know that aside of my complaints for not fast enough and my demands for more, I am genuinely very appreciative of everyone's efforts at GOG that are bringing us so much goodness for the Mac.

I hope as time goes by it will become feasible for Linux users to celebrate too. I really feel for them being in a minority group myself. I can see that Linux gaming is growing so hopefully it is just a matter of time.

I know plenty of people still using their old Core Duo/Core 2 Duo MacBooks and MacBook Pros; they're still dependable machines for online and offline tasks, even for old gaming; for years I ran most of my GOG games using my Core 2 Duo GMA 950 MacBook.

They're also perfectly fine online, provided that you (a) use an up-to-date browser like Firefox, or Chrome, and (b) exercise common sense and due dilligence when going online. Much of Apple's security updates deal with holes exploitable by malware or trojans, which can be avoided if you, again, exercise common sense on the Internet. Flash updates are still being issued by Adobe, and while recent Java updates have been limited to Lion and above, you're not missing out on anything by not installing it or disabling it.

Hey, that's pretty awesome. I was talking from my experience with the Mac version of Ground Control 2, which didn't seem to have the pieces of a Wineskin wrapper that I was expecting to see when I peeked inside (i.e. the Wineskin app itself). I'll have to look more closely at some of the other Mac ports I've got on my shelf.

I would LOVE this. I only download native Mac ports. For all other games, I download the Windows/DOS version and install the game myself using Boxer or WINE.

I'm confused as to why these new Mac games require 10.7. Trine has a native Mac port and it only requires 10.5. And if the wrapper based Mac games do indeed use Wineskin, I don't see why 10.7 is required either since Wineskin works on 10.6. Strange.

I think this is fairly accurate. Like I said above, unless there is a native port, I run everything using Boxer and WINE. As long as the game is fully playable in WINE, I'm happy and don't necessarily need a Mac version. But it is great to see more additions since some people would rather just download the game and run right from the start, without going through the installation/config process.

I'm one of them! Some of the new games being released now on GOG I can't run, like Outlast, but this has just recently become more frequent. I'm using a MacBook Pro from 2008.

So the economics wouldn't support even you going after the most widely used Linux distro? (e.g. Ubuntu?)

God I love you guys...:) (in a platonic way!!!)

It's likely a support issue; GOG is talking about their system requirements from the standpoint of their test machines. While they do have a wide range of Mac hardware to capture as wide a variance as possible, they don't have the ability to test all of the old hardware configs out there.

With the case for indie games, I'd go by the recommended/minimum requirements listed by the developers or on other places like Steam; for classic games I'd go by the requirements listed on other places too. A case in point is System Shock 2; my old Core Duo MacBook running 10.6 shouldn't be able to run it according to the requirements, but if you install the Windows version using CrossOver or Wineskin it works perfectly.

I can't speak for all Linux users, but all I would like to see for games that have a Linux version is to also have that version available for download. They don't even need to have the GOG touch added to them. Just throw any available DEB, RPM or BIN on a Linux tab. Have a disclaimer that Linux software is supported by the developers. I don't think Steam or GamersGate actually provide support for any game they sell. They leave it to the developers/publishers.

Would I like to see all DOSBox games configured for Linux? Sure, but that is not what I am asking for. I've backed many Kickstarter games. Too many actually. Most provide Windows, Mac and Linux, and some are coming to GOG. I want to encourage those projects to distribute through GOG, but find I am now pushing for them to use Humble Store instead. Unfortunately that means I have to claim my games from another digital seller. My GOG library is quite large, but now my collections with other sellers is growing. I'm starting to not feel like every purchase I make has to be from GOG. Humble Store has really started filling a need. So has Desura, GamersGate and even Steam.

GOG should have been the store to claim the DRM free Linux, not Steam. Hopefully Steam will drive some sort of standardization that GOG can take advantage of.

Some things to consider. Linux user tend to love DRM free, and will talk about and promote it. GOG is the perfect fit for Linux and the #NoDRM movement. Also, Humble Bundle statistics have shown that Linux customers are willing to pay more than Windows and Mac users. Linux customers have been as high as 25% of total sale dollars with some bundles. Not bad for the supposed 1% of the PC market.

I suggest starting with just providing some developer Linux builds and see how it goes. Start with adding the Linux version of Wasteland 1 and some of the better selling indies you have here.

I truly want GOG to be my only store. Now if more of the AAA publishers would get on board with NoDRM and Linux.