This happens with most GOG games I install. If they ship with libSDL I most certainly have to delete that or the game won't start. Sometimes I have to delete others like libcstd.

I installed Victor Vran and ended up removing the entire lib folder because there were so many libs that weren't working, so I copied each lib back to the game directory one by one until the game ran correctly.

Whenever I install steam the first thing I have to do is delete a ton of libs from steamdeps or it will complain about incompatible graphics driver and whatnot.

So I wonder, if these games(and steam) ship with all these libs, why don't they work as-is?

Dependencies. If the are linking, they should use static libs for games, or have parts rebuildable.

I figured as much. But to be clear, you mean the libs in the game are linked against other libs that aren't installed? Then what happens when I delete these libs? Does the game look in /usr/lib or /usr/lib64 instead?

I'm just trying to understand what exactly is happening and also trying to wrap my head around the logic of shipping with libs when we have to satisfy their dependencies anyway.

More like libSDL.so is linked against older libraries that have been replaced.