The forum

Hi everyone! I just discovered PlayOnLinux and I love the concept. It definitely seems like it will simplify the process of getting games up and running under Wine (especially given all the variables for each game!)

I was wondering if anyone here has heard of the site Good Old Games (gog.com)? They sell older games (I've seen games as old as 1993 and as recent as 2006) and mostly they sell decent older games (hence the name). So far I sound like I'm plugging the site. I'm a fan, but that's not the point of this :)

The point is, the games they sell are all DRM-free, fully patched to the latest official patch, and a single install file for each game. This seems to me like a marriage made in heaven.

1. Games are DRM-free so they should run under Wine
2. Lots of great games available
3. Fairly trivial to install (compared to a CD/DVD based installer)
4. A great way to show that the Linux community is perfectly willing to pay for good content as long as it can run in Linux

The challenge is, the games still have to be matched to the right version of Wine, and all the required config file patches still need to be done. Also, GoG.com modifies the default install paths for games, so existing scripts for the same game will have to be tweaked.

If there's interest from the PlayOnLinux community, I think maybe the next step is to approach GoG.com and see if we can get their help/support and maybe get some links from their site to PlayOnLinux.

I guess the good thing with this would be that old games aren't patched anymore, so once PoL's script is done for one, it doesn't have to be fixed anymore. I'm not sure what kind of partnership could be made (that would be up to the admins), but it could be interesting.

It think it shouldn't be done to the detriment of newer games, however, since they are probably a greater driving force as far as getting people to switch to Linux is concerned.

I definitely agree that this is separate from new games. Since the scripts used by PlayOnLinux are community-provided I don't think there will be any shortage of scripts for new games :)

As an aside... Is there any technical/logistical/license reason that PoL doesn't have an Ubuntu Launchpad PPA? I definitely feel uncomfortable with the PoL packages being unsigned :) I'd be happy to help get a PPA set up for the project, I've done a few now. Pretty easy.

I've started a thread for this here:

http://www.playonmac.com/en/topic-4453.html