Linux support status?

[kneekoo]

It's November 19th, 2015, and Steam has 1635 Linux titles. At the moment I have 44 Linux titles and my library will obviously grow.

Are there any news about Linux support for Origin? With the newly released Steam machines there will be plenty of people buying them and Origin would be a nice addition at some point.

[Straatford87 · Accepted solution]

@kneekoo,

We currently have no information to share on the status of Linux support.

[Straatford87 · Accepted solution]

@kneekoo,

We currently have no information to share on the status of Linux support.

[kneekoo]

Aw, man... OK, thank you.

[Straatford87]

@kneekoo,

I know this is not the response you were hoping for.. sorry :-(

If we do have information about this, we will definitely immediately share it with our users.

Please have a good weekend,

--Tom

[kneekoo]

September 5th, 2016: Now I have 88 SteamOS + Linux titles in my collection (NOT counting expansions). Obviously, the total available is higher - I'm just not interested in everything. But while only a part of the new 44 titles I got were bought, some of them simply were ported or made to run on Linux. This makes Steam a good investment.

Then on GOG I have 60 titles that run on Linux, and only some of them I have on Steam as well. That makes for quite a lot of titles for Linux - more than half of the entire Origin catalog, and I'm not a big gamer, nor an avid collector.

The thing is the Origin client is built with Qt, which works natively on Linux. All you would need is a tweaked client for Linux and some DOSBox and Wine wrappers for a lot of old games and you'd have a decent start on a new operating system, satisfying the needs of a growing market. I know a 1% market share is not appealing to the sales/marketing/etc managers, but it's still a market of millions or users, which Origin not only misses, but also gets flak for it.

So, any thoughts or new info to share?

[Gorath_the_Elder]

You are writing to the game player community website's forum.  We aren't in the loop for every new happening throughout EA's many branches.  You have as good access to general information as we do.

[kneekoo]

The Origin section in Answers HQ has over 2000 pages. It makes perfect sense to me to publicly ask for answers here, where a lot of people stop by for information. Even if it's not the best place, it's still a pretty good one. What else do you suggest?

[EA_Nils]

@kneekoo Hi,

Unfortunately, I am currently not aware of any plans for a Linux client. Should this change in the future, we will let you know.

Cheers,

Nils

[kneekoo]

OK, thanks.

[kneekoo]

Status update

Steam has 3427 games compatible with GNU/Linux (not including DLCs/extras): +1792 since my initial post

GOG has 666 titles compatible with GNU/Linux (including DLCs/extras, because they don't have this kind of filtering)

My Steam collection now includes 135 games compatible with GNU/Linux (+91 since my initial post)

My GOG collection now includes 67 games compatible with GNU/Linux

Games I bought from Origin during the same period of time: 0 (zero).

I'm just a GNU/Linux user - occasionally switching distros -, not some free software/DRM-free purist. Otherwise my Steam collection would've stagnated. But I also bought Windows games occasionally, either because I really wanted them in my collection or because they run very well with Wine and I can easily play them in my distro of choice even if they're not officially supported for GNU/Linux.

The bottom line is: Origin is stuck in the past. When Nox was offered for free on Origin I grabbed it and I wanted to play it under Windows 7, but the mouse cursor simply ran all over the screen even on the slightest mouse movements. So no joy with Windows 7, but I could play the game just fine with Wine, under whatever GNU/Linux distro I had back then. Many older titles on Origin could be offered in Wine wrappers and along with an Origin client for GNU/Linux we could get the games we love and care about even from this store. But it's still impossible, and the perspectives also don't encourage me to invest in my Origin games library. And the same applies to others.

Times have changed, and there are millions of people using GNU/Linux-based operating systems, so there's a well established market, and the users who mostly/entirely spend their time in such operating systems prefer GNU/Linux compatibility for their ease of mind. DRM-free is much better, and extremely appreciated, although not yet something that most people care enough to prevent them from buying what they want.

// end of the status update