Nice ideas, thanks for that ;)

Hello!
I have a question about some aspects of the games. What does it mean? Is it not only just a Windows version in disguise, but not even containing a bundled (and guaranteed to work) WINE version, instead relying on system WINE (prone to breaking with updates)? How does it work? Is it just an ordinary Windows game packaged into MojoSetup and called "Linux Version"? Or, perhaps, an error in description took place and in reality ther is no need to install WINE system-wide?

I’ve yet to see a single Linux WINE game sold on GOG not including a copy of WINE.
My guess is that it is recommended to install your system-provided WINE just to get sure that all its dependencies are installed too.

I tried Septerra Core a few weeks ago, have to say the packaging is really good for a Wine wrapped game. I didn't have to install any additional dependancies, simply ran start.sh and it ran as well as a native game.

Must say I'm impressed :-)

Hi there, perhaps you can help me solve a bit of a common issues I see across multiple Linux distributions. Over the years backwards compatibly has improved drastically with Windows to the point that games from as far back as the early 90s can still work. (With a little help of course) However with Linux I noticed that deprecation happens a lot more often. Sometimes a game released not that long ago will no longer work due to packages no longer being available or supported. One example Is Trine 2. This game was released in 2013 and is one of my favourite games. That being said I actually find it easily to get the Windows version to work on Linux then the native Linux version due it it requiring packages which are getting harder to install with new releases.

In short what can be done to help prevent deprecation and preserve backwards compatibility?

try and plead with the linux distro of your choice to not unceremoniously drop outdated libraries and by that screwing over existing proprietary apps that don't receive updates any more.
Though realistically you have to say that long term backwards compatibility is simply not that high on the priority list for many linux maintainers (if it is on the list at all).
The prevalent mindset is that it is the developers responsibility to keep updating their app and deploy the updates to their users to keep it working. Or open source it and the distro maintainers may do that for you.
But if you ship a closed source app and stop updating it ... - then screw you

might also want to plead with some library devs not to break compatibility that often. While many projects are quite good at paying attention to that problem, some others seem to have no problem breaking the ABI every other wednesday :p

easiest solution: gog will just bundle the problematic library :)

what is the problem with trine2 ?

You used to be able to just install it and play, now you have to manually install all of this
libc6:i386 libasound2:i386 libasound2-data:i386 libasound2-plugins:i386 libwrap0:i386 libopenal1:i386 libvorbisfile3:i386 libglu1:i386 libfreetype6:i386 libgtk2.0-0:i386 libuuid1:i386

I did ask gog support to bundle the packages and they said no due to the way Linux works.
I studied Linux quite thoroughly for almost five years and still use it from time to time. I burned through all the steep learning and frustration so I could learn not only how it works but also what all the fuss was about. I didn't want to pass judgment until I learned how it worked. I can't understand why people love it so much (on the desktop) and talk about how we should use it instead of Windows. I've never found a more infuriating piece of software and community to go with it. What you said here "if you ship a closed source app and stop updating it ... - then screw you" I think sums it up. That attitude is the reason no one should use Linux at least any distros of it that don't respect backwards compatibility.

so just install them ?
that really is no problem, that's working as intended :)
this has nothing to do with the problem of backwards compatibility / deprecated libraries.

The problem is that I had to contact support to know the list of packages needed to be installed. These packages were part of the Mint 17 installation. So they were already there before you installed the game. Now, they have to be installed separately. By Mint 19 they'll probably be gone all together.

they are listed under the system requirements on the game page that's really unlikely
and if it happens, then GOG will just have to provide an updated installer that includes the libraries.

oh so they are. Never saw that, thanks. But maybe you can explain this to me in greater detail. Are there distros that are likely to have all 32 & 64 bit packages already installed?

Is there any WIndows version that comes with every existing sofware already installed?

No but Windows has system32 syswow64 and Windows side by side aka sxs folder in your windows folder. The dll files contained inside these directories will run most of your programs. With Linux the library files are located on the repository. I've heard people say that .so files are like dll files but library files are what you need to make things work. The problem is most of these are located on the server repository and you need a package manager and an index to get the files you need so no internet no software. This also makes it hard to back up and archive software since you need to keep track of all the files needed to make it all work.