You can install GOG games on a normal Steam Deck already. What you want is better integration with their store but Heroic also works great on Deck and can automatically add your GOG games to Steam as well.
I like Gog and use Heroic, but that has not been a smooth experience on Steam Deck.
It’s slowly improving, though.
What's the issue? Its just an ultrabook with a screen and controller peripheral attached.
It’s a little jank to switch to Heroic to install the game but I haven’t had problems once it’s added to Steam (automatically, I might add, just tick the checkbox in Heroic preferences).
I might be crucified for saying this, but I actually have a Claude skill file for that. I have SSH turned on for the Steamdeck, I use Lutris so all the configs are in a database, so I just point Claude to the MD file and the game files and tell it to set it up for me. The main purpose of the skill file is really just to save the SSH, rsync instructions and give it lutris config examples like which version of proton works, etc.)
Wouldnt' crucify you for that at all, that's a clever setup and I'm gonna steal it :D
Meh I don't want another store app, I want an API that I can use from my store-agnostic open source game launcher / library. They should just officially support efforts like Heroic instead.
Why not an actual Steam Deck? You can install any software you want on it.
You can and it actually works ok. For the sake of the argument you would/could be more 'free to do with your games what you want', because GoG does not do DRM.
You can but having to hook it up to a mouse and keyboard and monitor every time I want to install new games from not-Steam would be a pain.
Not saying this is a great solution either, though it beats the trackpad + on screen keyboard. I like to VNC into the deck and do these things.
Out of curiosity, why not use desktop mode without an external mouse and keyboard for that?
You could write a game store interface that works on whatever its normal mode is.
Set up SSH!
They haven’t even made a Linux client yet. They are about 13 years behind steam
Do you really need a Linux client? just download the installers. They announced a Linux client, and I honestly can't see a reason I would want to install it...
I don’t want to have to go to a website and download every update manually. I want my saves synced between my PC and steam deck, I want achievements, I want to invite people from my friends list to games.
There’s such a massive list of things the steam client does that makes the experience better.