The Witcher 3 is something Linux users have been practically begging to have, but the problem is that it seems it will likely never come to Linux. An ex-Virtual Programming developer has taken to reddit explaining why this may have happened.
I should stress, for our own record here that this is not the official word from Virtual Programming or CD Projekt RED. This is the personal opinion of an ex-VP developer.
Here's the issue: The Linux version of The Witcher 2 was released in a poor state, it had poor performance and just didn't really work well at all. It was later fixed-up and last time I tried it, the performance was absolutely fine for me. The real problem, is the amount of hate that was sent towards the porters Virtual Programming and directly to CD Projekt RED as well. Even I personally saw some of the hate that was sent their way and it was downright idiotic and absolutely uncalled for.
I will absolutely hold my hands up as well, I made mistakes around it since I simply didn't know enough at the time, and to be honest three years ago I was still learning a lot about everything. I later corrected what I said, as I always aim to.
Writing on reddit, this developer said (source):
It seems we may have also seen a port of The Witcher 1 as well, as the developer also said (source):
There's also this post from another user, who said at the time The Witcher 2 released for Linux, CDProjekt apparently lost a fair amount on the Warsaw Stock Exchange. Apparently due to such a big backlash from the community about the initial release quality. I haven't verified that myself, but if true it would certainly make CDProjekt rather against doing another Linux port with anyone.
This is sad, really sad. I hope this makes a few people reconsider their attitude when talking to developer about the performance of ports. Performance can be worked on and fixed, burnt bridges are harder (and sometimes impossible) to fix.
This reminds me of the time the Blizzard President responded to a small petition asking for Linux ports of their games. The response to the petition was really nice to see from such a big company and truthfully the response I fully expected, but the original statement in reply to it from the petition author (now deleted by the author, but captured in my article) was downright childish and idiotic.
Yes problems are annoying, but throwing insults around helps no one and yes it does make us look bad. I get where people are coming from, to an extent, since some games do end up getting left in a terribly broken state for a long time and sometimes forever. However, in this case VP did good and continued working and now, as stated previously, The Witcher 2 seems fine. Their others ports are generally pretty decent too.
I just hope in future that this developer who got a massive amount of hate and CD Projekt RED can look past it somehow, for all the fans of their franchise on Linux.
Note: I personally spoke to this developer about publishing this with their approval, in the hopes that it might get a few people to re-think their initial attitude towards problems in games. Article taken from GamingOnLinux.com.
I should stress, for our own record here that this is not the official word from Virtual Programming or CD Projekt RED. This is the personal opinion of an ex-VP developer.
Here's the issue: The Linux version of The Witcher 2 was released in a poor state, it had poor performance and just didn't really work well at all. It was later fixed-up and last time I tried it, the performance was absolutely fine for me. The real problem, is the amount of hate that was sent towards the porters Virtual Programming and directly to CD Projekt RED as well. Even I personally saw some of the hate that was sent their way and it was downright idiotic and absolutely uncalled for.
I will absolutely hold my hands up as well, I made mistakes around it since I simply didn't know enough at the time, and to be honest three years ago I was still learning a lot about everything. I later corrected what I said, as I always aim to.
Writing on reddit, this developer said (source):
QuoteI agree, things were not right on release... but the vocality of people went way beyond that. It was an all out hate campaign against VP, against CDPR for "lying about the port being native". I attempted to help people out in my own time and got absolutely roasted and abused for it.
The community needs to realise it simply cannot justify this sort of behaviour if they want to convince devs and publishers to support them. There is no excuse.
It seems we may have also seen a port of The Witcher 1 as well, as the developer also said (source):
QuoteThe vitriol was unbelievable. Yes we messed up the performance on release but we put it right. However a huge hate campaign ensued. Both VP and CDPR got lots of vengeful hate mail sent to them. I cannot help but feel this damaged CDPR's view of the Linux platform irrevocably.
They certainly didnt blame us, because they had us work on a Mac port of Witcher 1 to replace the non-functioning Wineskin version. The same port would have ran on Linux too with very little extra work, but they were not interested in releasing it.
There's also this post from another user, who said at the time The Witcher 2 released for Linux, CDProjekt apparently lost a fair amount on the Warsaw Stock Exchange. Apparently due to such a big backlash from the community about the initial release quality. I haven't verified that myself, but if true it would certainly make CDProjekt rather against doing another Linux port with anyone.
This is sad, really sad. I hope this makes a few people reconsider their attitude when talking to developer about the performance of ports. Performance can be worked on and fixed, burnt bridges are harder (and sometimes impossible) to fix.
This reminds me of the time the Blizzard President responded to a small petition asking for Linux ports of their games. The response to the petition was really nice to see from such a big company and truthfully the response I fully expected, but the original statement in reply to it from the petition author (now deleted by the author, but captured in my article) was downright childish and idiotic.
Yes problems are annoying, but throwing insults around helps no one and yes it does make us look bad. I get where people are coming from, to an extent, since some games do end up getting left in a terribly broken state for a long time and sometimes forever. However, in this case VP did good and continued working and now, as stated previously, The Witcher 2 seems fine. Their others ports are generally pretty decent too.
I just hope in future that this developer who got a massive amount of hate and CD Projekt RED can look past it somehow, for all the fans of their franchise on Linux.
Note: I personally spoke to this developer about publishing this with their approval, in the hopes that it might get a few people to re-think their initial attitude towards problems in games. Article taken from GamingOnLinux.com.
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The comments on this article are closed.
The Internet is a reflection of the ( mostly ) global society, so unfortunately it includes those that are hateful, stupid and immature, as well as those that are polite, helpful and reasonable.
Without significant effort, you can't always tell whether an on-line persona spouting vitriol is genuine, or is acting as if a member of a group to tarnish that group's reputation; certainly, issues like GamerGate, and the direct abuse that jaycee describes suggest there are some individuals out there with profound mental problems.
Nonetheless, I have doubts that Internet ranting would have, in itself, caused the cancellation of TW3 on Linux; although if there were doubts about proceeding, it might have tipped the balance or strengthened the negative arguments.
Neither do I see the stock price related argument Liam linked to as credible. Firstly, you do not construct a balance sheet by including stock price movements, secondly TW3 on Linux was still a possibility a year later, and finally, there were actually no significant stock movements for CDPR on the Warsaw exchange in 2014. It was a quiet year in their dev cycle while they were ramping up for TW3. TW2 for Linux boosted revenue in a year when they actually reduced headcount in Poland, presumably to control costs in a low revenue year ( these are based on Warsaw stock exchange public data and filing ).
However, I do see parallels between TW3 and another significant Linux under-achievement. Both CDPR and CA seem to have had good discussions with Valve and made early positive statements about supporting SteamOS/Linux.
In the case of CA, older Total War games were already available on the Mac through Feral, and we now have almost all of the back catalog available for Linux. However, CA promised to update the "current" iteration of their engine ( Rome2 and Attila ) without seeming to realize how hard it would be for them to do this internally. Two years later, we have Attila but not Rome2, and ( for me anyway ) it is the least playable Total War game. It also seems they are not maintaining a Linux branch of their engine as Feral have provided the Total War-Warhammer versions for Linux.
The parallel with CDPR is their apparent intent to provide TW3 for Linux by making RedEngine cross platform and provide development tools for 3rd party use. For whatever reason ( likely the cost vs predicted revenue ), they abandoned the RedEngine port, and it is my guess that with it went TW3 for Linux.
The lack of a Linux version of RedEngine also probably means no Linux version of Cyberpunk 2077. As Cyberpunk 2077 is already in the asset and subsystem creation stage ( at a guess, 2H 2018 release ), and they are using a multiplayer-enabled version of RedEngine with additional capabilities like vehicles, I would be surprised if the engine also adds Linux or Vulkan support.
This does not mean TW3 will never be ported as a stand-alone game; just that there is not enough justification at the moment. And they could yet surprise us and include Linux in the new RedEngine...
Without significant effort, you can't always tell whether an on-line persona spouting vitriol is genuine, or is acting as if a member of a group to tarnish that group's reputation; certainly, issues like GamerGate, and the direct abuse that jaycee describes suggest there are some individuals out there with profound mental problems.
Nonetheless, I have doubts that Internet ranting would have, in itself, caused the cancellation of TW3 on Linux; although if there were doubts about proceeding, it might have tipped the balance or strengthened the negative arguments.
Neither do I see the stock price related argument Liam linked to as credible. Firstly, you do not construct a balance sheet by including stock price movements, secondly TW3 on Linux was still a possibility a year later, and finally, there were actually no significant stock movements for CDPR on the Warsaw exchange in 2014. It was a quiet year in their dev cycle while they were ramping up for TW3. TW2 for Linux boosted revenue in a year when they actually reduced headcount in Poland, presumably to control costs in a low revenue year ( these are based on Warsaw stock exchange public data and filing ).
However, I do see parallels between TW3 and another significant Linux under-achievement. Both CDPR and CA seem to have had good discussions with Valve and made early positive statements about supporting SteamOS/Linux.
In the case of CA, older Total War games were already available on the Mac through Feral, and we now have almost all of the back catalog available for Linux. However, CA promised to update the "current" iteration of their engine ( Rome2 and Attila ) without seeming to realize how hard it would be for them to do this internally. Two years later, we have Attila but not Rome2, and ( for me anyway ) it is the least playable Total War game. It also seems they are not maintaining a Linux branch of their engine as Feral have provided the Total War-Warhammer versions for Linux.
The parallel with CDPR is their apparent intent to provide TW3 for Linux by making RedEngine cross platform and provide development tools for 3rd party use. For whatever reason ( likely the cost vs predicted revenue ), they abandoned the RedEngine port, and it is my guess that with it went TW3 for Linux.
The lack of a Linux version of RedEngine also probably means no Linux version of Cyberpunk 2077. As Cyberpunk 2077 is already in the asset and subsystem creation stage ( at a guess, 2H 2018 release ), and they are using a multiplayer-enabled version of RedEngine with additional capabilities like vehicles, I would be surprised if the engine also adds Linux or Vulkan support.
This does not mean TW3 will never be ported as a stand-alone game; just that there is not enough justification at the moment. And they could yet surprise us and include Linux in the new RedEngine...
6 Likes, Who?
Quoting: GuestQuoting: ShmerlQuoting: GuestYep, ballot stuffing is really going to help you. CDPR and Valve would be able to quickly identify the votes, what they are for, and remove them.
GOG pay attention to their wishlist. CDPR can too.
I was more talking about the negative/positive reviews thing. What you suggest is more appropriate. People being a bunch of assholes on reviews is just going to reinforce the negative side of things.
So what's the positive side of this situation? There were promises, a little bit of communication, and the banner, but what's now, there is nothing. Welcome to the earth
1 Likes, Who?
elbuglione Jul 5, 2017
Quoting: ShmerlQuoting: elbuglioneWe could organize a boycott where we would massify hundreds of negative notes for The Witcher 3 on Steam, claiming for the version of SteamOS that never came ...
See the results of similar campaigns, such as "GTA V" and its MODs.
At the same time, we could organize a positive rain on The Witcher 2 on Linux, because its current Linux Port works perfectly.
Quoting: elbuglioneI think @Liamdawe and @Shmerl are the ones to organize this massive complaint on Steam.
I'm not using Steam. Anyway, instead of negative reactions, it's better to provide positive ones. See here:
* https://www.gog.com/wishlist/games/to_cd_projekt_red_bring_witcher_3_and_your_other_games_to_linux_please
* https://www.gog.com/wishlist/games/cyberpunk_2077_on_linux
So vote, and spread the word.
10k claims ... and not a single official response.
The time to try to be nice and expect "the best", clearly ended long ago ...
It was when they released the definitive version of The Witcher 3 and no news of TW3 for SteamOS/ Linux.
Especially in these times, where there are companies as serious, professional and fast like Feral Interactive... who would manage to launch TW3 without problem in less than a few months without taking any risks.
At present, CDPR and GOG are shining for their shameful performance towards the Linux community... SEE CASE OF GOGGALAXY
I think we should take as an example the reactions of other communities (like the example of MODS GTA V), if we try to expect the same treatment as they...
2 Likes, Who?
elbuglione Jul 5, 2017
Quoting: ShmerlQuoting: GuestYep, ballot stuffing is really going to help you. CDPR and Valve would be able to quickly identify the votes, what they are for, and remove them.
GOG pay attention to their wishlist. CDPR can too.
ok... BUT
GOG Galaxy For Linux (+10K votes) has been at the top of the list for over a year ... never came ... and maybe never will.
2 Likes, Who?
Quoting: etonbearsThe parallel with CDPR is their apparent intent to provide TW3 for Linux by making RedEngine cross platform and provide development tools for 3rd party use. For whatever reason ( likely the cost vs predicted revenue ), they abandoned the RedEngine port, and it is my guess that with it went TW3 for Linux.
The lack of a Linux version of RedEngine also probably means no Linux version of Cyberpunk 2077. As Cyberpunk 2077 is already in the asset and subsystem creation stage ( at a guess, 2H 2018 release ), and they are using a multiplayer-enabled version of RedEngine with additional capabilities like vehicles, I would be surprised if the engine also adds Linux or Vulkan support.
That sounds logical, except for one thing. Their current engine (used in CP2077) is a very major rewrite, and quite different from their TW3 engine. So any attempts to retrofit it back into TW3 would also be far from trivial. Their cancellation of plans to release RedEngine for the world came after TW3 was already released, so it affected more their current engine (CP2077 one), and not TW3 one, since there was no point to release TW3 engine, when they are making a much better one already. So while it could be the reason for TW3 Linux cancellation in other timing circumstances, I don't think it was one here.
And I don't think it has any bearing on them using or not using Vulkan. They can as well use Vulkan in CP2077 if they aren't stupid, even if they don't plan to release the engine for others. But they consistently avoided answering any questions about engine used in CP2077, so anything can be going on there.
Last edited by Shmerl on 5 July 2017 at 6:35 pm UTC
2 Likes, Who?
Quoting: elbuglione10k claims ... and not a single official response.
The time to try to be nice and expect "the best", clearly ended long ago ...
Time to bring it to 100,000 and more.
4 Likes, Who?
elbuglione Jul 5, 2017
Quoting: ShmerlQuoting: elbuglione10k claims ... and not a single official response.
The time to try to be nice and expect "the best", clearly ended long ago ...
Time to bring it to 100,000 and more.
fair enough...
When you are interested on a different approach, you know what you have to do.
0 Likes
Quoting: elbuglionefair enough...
When you are interested on a different approach, you know what you have to do.
I had enough interactions with CDPR. Complaints won't really do anything with them. But I'm not claiming they are completely rational either. Some things they do don't make sense. Like quite major communication failures, or expectations that community won't react to stuff like "downgrade".
Last edited by Shmerl on 5 July 2017 at 6:54 pm UTC
0 Likes
Luke_Nukem Jul 5, 2017
Quoting: Mountain ManQuoting: Luke_NukemQuoting: Mountain ManIf that's the reason they've abandoned Linux then that seems rather petty.Not even close to the level of pettiness shown by that vocal chunk that spewed forth a wall of toxicity towards those who were trying to help us out.
That's just the background noise you have to put up with when doing business.
Absolutely not! We're a small enough market already, and when a seemingly large chunk of that small market is the most vocal about something then that ends up being what people/devs/publishers see AND ASSOCIATE OUR SMALL MARKET WITH.
Justifying and allowing this is not good. It's idiotic. It's harmful.
1 Likes, Who?
Quoting: elbuglioneQuoting: ShmerlQuoting: GuestYep, ballot stuffing is really going to help you. CDPR and Valve would be able to quickly identify the votes, what they are for, and remove them.
GOG pay attention to their wishlist. CDPR can too.
ok... BUT
GOG Galaxy For Linux (+10K votes) has been at the top of the list for over a year ... never came ... and maybe never will.
They have answered this;
https://www.gog.com/forum/general/gog_galaxy_biggest_update_yet_marks_the_end_of_beta_5e5d5/post525
There is no ETA, but its planned and worked on atm.
I would like some more feed back from the devs tho, dont like the silence, only makes me confused.
But thats the latest news we got from it, atleast what I know of.
Last edited by Zelox on 5 July 2017 at 11:14 pm UTC
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