CD PROJEKT RED replied to me about The Witcher 3 and Linux, flat-out denying to answer any questions

Hahahahahaha! Liam, the person you've reached - was that Robert Malinowski? :D I kinda know the guy. He has no say about Linux release, it's way above his pay grade. But reading into Polish mentality, this just probably meant there's no official decision, he doesn't know about any unofficial plans and currently the work on the subject stopped. I happen to know they're currently focusing on some card game promo so I wouldn't count on any other answer.

Quoting: cprnHahahahahaha! Liam, the person you've reached - was that Robert Malinowski? :D I kinda know the guy. He has no say about Linux release, it's way above his pay grade. But reading into Polish mentality, this just probably meant there's no official decision, he doesn't know about any unofficial plans and currently the work on the subject stopped. I happen to know they're currently focusing on some card game promo so I wouldn't count on any other answer.

Who would be a good contact to ask about whether they plan CP2077 for Linux or started any work on it already? And do you have any idea about this subject in general?


Last edited by Shmerl on 8 September 2016 at 12:10 am UTC

Quoting: ShmerlWho would be a good contact to ask about whether they plan CP2077 for Linux or started any work on it already? And do you have any idea about this subject in general?

My guess would be it's still undecided and might never be... I understand you, as a customer, are just curious and feel like you have the right to know. I do to. But then comes the bitter realisation of what rules the world, and it's money. Money rules the world. The answer to your question is just a tiny bit more complicated than this sentence.

There are old CD Project guys (cdp.pl for Polish market and GOG.com for the rest, informally called CD Project BLUE) who don't care about games development and are solely interested in earning money, publishing, etc., and there are actual developers (some of them split from the old CD Project as well) who formed CD Project RED. After releasing The Witcher 2 and earning all those millions, above mentioned companies grew into separate entities, each with its own third-party Public Relations, third-party Customer Service and in-house decision making staff. And, as you can imagine, it became the typical corpo-bullshit: the top level wants income fast, the lower levels want to get to the top, communication sucks. Any student can get a PR or CS position in RED. For bad money, with bad hours and with minimal benefits. Just to become a bar on some graph for the higher level executive. And the sad truth is these people are hired for you to talk to but they are interested in neither helping you nor answering your questions. They just want to look good on paper according to some silly scoring system that says they have to answer 20 e-mails a day and 10 calls or write 5 press releases regarding their newly design campaign per month.

You will rarely manage to talk with anyone higher and, of course, you would have to climb quite high on the ladder to get to someone capable of confirming a decision that had not been officially published or even the one that has been published, and when you somehow finally get high enough your question boils down to "Do you plan to postpone other probably way more profitable projects in favour of the remote possibility of earning 0.8% more income from this one?".

No, I don't think there's any good contact to ask about Linux in any AAA company unless they're already open about it. And even when they are open and you can read about it in the official press release, don't trust it unless you get a working copy because it might as well be the figment of some wannabe Director actual Senior Executive PR's imagination. ;)

Cheers,
Cy

Quoting: cprnNo, I don't think there's any good contact to ask about Linux in any AAA company unless they're already open about it. And even when they are open and you can read about it in the official press release, don't trust it unless you get a working copy because it might as well be the figment of some wannabe Director actual Senior Executive PR's imagination. ;)

Well, as I mentioned above, there was an interview with Marcin Iwiński (who according to this is the second biggest shareholder in CDP), and that's what he said (here at 1:29:04:

QuoteQ: In regards to the latest announcement Steam Box, SteamOS, Steam Machines, will you be poring your games to their version of Linux, will you support SteamOS and in general, this idea of home computer console?

A: First of all we have a lot of respect for Steam and we think they are very good business guys, and good gamer friendly guys. And it's really really important. We like what they are doing, and with the Steam Box, if they will be able to deliver a cool console, definitely we are interested in having our game there. One of the reasons why we have not released the Witcher on Linux is that you most probably have to address five different versions of Linux, and this is always terrible to support the quality of the games afterwards, the patches, the updates and everything. If Steam will deliver a constant Linux environment, call it SteamOS or anything like that, we would love to have our game there, because the more people play our games, the better for us.

So, may be it's all PR nonsense, but he didn't say "we aren't interested because market is too small".


Last edited by Shmerl on 8 September 2016 at 1:41 am UTC

Quoting: ShmerlWell, as I mentioned above, there was an interview with Marcin Iwiński […]

QuoteQ: […] will you be poring your games to […] Linux, will you support SteamOS […] console?

A: […] If Steam will deliver a constant Linux environment, […] we would love to have our game there […]

So, may be it's all PR nonsense, but he didn't say "we aren't interested because market is too small".

Well, he actually kind of did, didn't he? Loose translation: "For as long as Steam doesn't deliver a constant Linux environment, we'd hate to spend valuable resources on addressing all porting issues for such a small market." Don't worry, it'll change in few years. We're just not there yet. As soon as Linux hits over 1% on Steam charts it will grow exponentially, and when it grows above 3%, we will be getting most of those AAA titles, as well as exclusives.


Last edited by cprn on 10 February 2017 at 1:37 am UTC

SteamOS is based on Debian stable, so it's pretty constant even to very conservative tastes. I doubt it's their main blocker, since many already release games for Linux and cope well with the fact that there are many distros.

Naah, it was what he said back then. The blocker now is market size, I'd imagine.

Everyone was expecting great things from SteamOS... Great as in "Windows Exodus". We are not there yet. We will be, though.

Size of the market doesn't seem to bother them either, since they released Witcher 2 for Linux in the past, and since then Linux gaming market only grew in size. So I'm not really sure what's the hiccup they have with TW3 for Linux. Unless they simply changed their mind about Linux in general, which doesn't seem to be the case based on their responses until now.

STEAM OS ISN'T A CONSUMER PRODUCT YET.sorry for caps, late night.

Quoting: ColomboI don't understand it. If they said "There was miscommunication between our office and Valve" and "I am afraid that Witcher 3 will never arrive at Linux, we are using this and this middleware" then mystery is solved. But these kind of responses?

So I've been following this all, just like all linux gaming news. Here's my take on the situation.

Valve and CDPR probably had an informal discussion about W3 and SteamOS at some point, and CDPR was 'open' to the idea of porting W3. Somebody at valve got a big boner and did up a banner. The banner got included in (just one? Maybe two, can't remember) Steam promotions. CDPR I believe confirmed at one point that they had 'looked into porting' the title but at that time they didn't have the resources internally (aka linux/OpenGL knowledgeable programmers) to do so. This is probably where it all just stopped.

CDPR has moved on to another project. They do not intend to do the port internally, but are likely open to allowing a third party port of the title ala W2, if the conditions are agreeable to them. They may even be in negotiations to do so--hell a company like Feral may already have the rights and requested PR silence so people don't go snagging it on sale knowing a port will arrive sometime in the future (how many of us aren't actually guilty of this? I know I am.)

I think if they absolutely intended to not allow a port of the game they would say so. However, there aren't any definite plans OR they're contractually bound to not spill any beans so they're just being quiet about it. Hope isn't dead, but it's not worth dwelling over. Cay sera sera.