Posted February 19, 2012
blackjudas: Why not put yourself through hell getting everything to work on linux? =) I gave up the Winbloze experience back in 2003 for good and that's when I got hostile. I've purchased every game ever made to be compatible with linux though unfortunately Loki etc never made it long enough for me to know about them. They went out of business before going 100% linux desktop.
I now find myself testing these games for the linux community anyway =). Man it's gonna be expensive ... heh.
orcishgamer: Umm, because, as you said, it's hell (and ultimately not valuable enough to me to spend my limited lifespan doing). Most people can already game for cheap, really cheap in fact. I'd rather spend time working on problems that don't have solutions, or at least not solutions that normal people have access to. I now find myself testing these games for the linux community anyway =). Man it's gonna be expensive ... heh.
That's me, I understand people disagreeing, that's fine. Win 7 works fine for gaming. I wouldn't want to develop software on it (and indeed, I don't) but for gaming it's really no big deal to me. I still support folks who release Linux games whenever I can, but it's been years since I realized that was a battle that I was never going to be able to fight and win.
Just to throw it out there, but if anyone actually knows the answer, I'd appreciate it. I've run through a few searches on the forums here and the topic has come up before, but no answers or coherent guesses have been given.
==== Oh weird, it munged two of my posts together... ====
Why does GOG insist on an installer? I _do_ understand that it reduces the support requirements and maybe it phones home with statistical data? Though if a ZIP option was given, then people on Linux/Mac wouldn't have to jump through another hoop to get things rolling. Why not track the downloads of zip files if statistical information is required?
If the installer simply provides a way to reduce support requests, then I can assume that making sure DRM free games aren't being distributed by pirates, if it _does_ track, then I can see the logic behind it.
Hmm, maybe I'll tcpdump it and see if it does...
PS. Yes, I'm aware that business can decide to do whatever they wish, yes I can understand that there are contractual agreements with publishers, but I'd like to know _why_ if at all the installer would be an issue apart from support requests.
Mojosetup would work just as nicely, it works on all three "major" platforms. Win/Mac/Linux, why not use that?
Post edited February 19, 2012 by blackjudas