Why do Lutris scripts require you to log in to GOG now?

First, can I just say its great and a massive relief to have the forums back!

I began using GOG because of its DRM free policy and me wanting to be free from signing in to anything before playing.

Then when I transitioned to Linux, I was relieved I could still play a lot of my games via Lutris.

However over the past few years, it seems all of Lutris’s installation scripts now require you to sign in to GOG. Why?

Case in point, I was looking through my library and noticed that there’s a Mark of the Ninja remastered version. I want to give it a go. The original one didn’t require Lutris as it had a native Linux installer, but the remastered one is windows only. Fortunately Lutris has an install script. Unfortunately it requires you to connect your GOG account with Lutris (again something I really don’t want to do, I might as well be using Steam then).

As someone with zero skills, are there simple edits I can do to the installation scripts? Is there anyway I can use Lutris without connecting accounts?

Firstly, I love Lutris. It’s a great front end for configuring Wine prefixes for installing games. It provides the runtimes you’ll need and settings to choose/enable/disable them etc.

However, those game installation scripts are bollocks! Unless someone is going to like test and maintain them every week, they are going to cause a lot of waaambulance calls.

My advice is to just learn how to use Lutris to manually configure a game’s Wine prefix and then simply run the downloaded GoG installers.

In this case, the problem you are running into is likely that the scripts are going to download the games through GoG Galaxy. I’m like you, I would NEVER want a stupid, unnecessary game client program for GoG games. That’s the whole reason I buy them there, I’d actually prefer Steam if I had to do it that way.

To get you started, in Lutris, click the + sign to add a new game. Choose “Locally installed game” (even though the game is not installed yet). Go through the tabs and supply the relevant info.

On the first tab, Game Info, all you need to do is give it a name and choose the runner, which is “Wine (runs Windows games)”

On the second tab, Game Options, leave the Executable field blank for now (you’ll fill it in after you get the game installed with the path to the game executable). You must specify the Wine prefix here though, the path to where you want it to be. Use absolute unix paths here, like /home/yourname/games/whatever

On the third tab, Runner Options, enable Advanced View so you can actually see all the fields (though most of them you won’t have to touch). Now, you must choose your Wine version from the drop list. Enable DXVK and VKD3D if not enabled. The latest versions will probably be the defaults.

Save the settings.

Now, in Lutris, click on the new tile and first, in the right hand drop list, the one with the wine glass icon, choose “Run EXE inside Wine prefix” and browse for your GoG installer exe.

After your game is installed, go back to the Game’s Settings in Lutris (in the left hand drop list beside the Play button, go to “Configure”) and on the Game Options tab, here is where you must now specify the path to the game Executable to play it.

I hope this is enough to get you started. Get onto this and you’ll have the freedom to get your games working how you want them to.

There’s more advanced shit like using Winetricks to install various Windows runtimes etc. into the wine prefix, but most of the time it’s not necessary.

@rrrsssttt

Lutris does not require you to log in to your GOG account.

However, if you do, you will have these advantages:

  • automatic download of GOG installation files
  • access to your entire GOG library
  • access to GOG automatic installers

To my surely unpopular point of view, Lutris should force users to connect their GOG account to play their GOG games with Lutris, to avoid piracy. But that’s not actually the case.

@Grogan

Lutris scripts installers wrote by Lutris community are very practice for Lutris users:
it makes their Linux gamers life easier, it automates games install, this avoid Linux users to loose their time in tinkering.
Some games needs special components to run on Linux, could be a nightmare for a Linux user to find the good reciepe.
Game installer scripts is one of Lutris’ main strengths compared to others launchers.

To say that would be an unpopular point of view would be an understatement. It would get me to drop Lutris like a wet fart in a spacesuit. At the end of the day, Lutris is just a convenience and if it becomes an inconvenience, it’s pointless. It’s not meant to be a gatekeeper.

Yes, I understand that those game installers make it easier for people to get games working. However, it’s only good when they work. Therefore, folks should be aware of how to set up a game manually, when the installers aren’t giving them their desired results. From what I have seen, they certainly do cause users problems when they don’t work, for whatever reason. When I first started using Lutris I had no luck with that. Lutris also makes it easy to set things up manually with drop lists and fields, instead of having to set environment variables yourself etc.

I’d say Lutris actually helped me understand how Wine works, and the relationships with the runtimes and stuff.

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@Grogan

Many game development studios have closed in recent years, and many developers have lost their jobs.

Therefore, fighting piracy should not be considered an unpopular opinion.

Game developers don’t work for free, just like you.