Supraland, the colourful and inviting first-person puzzle game from Supra Games is now going to be removed from game store GOG after less than a year being there.
Looking at the dates: it released on Steam in April 2019, then came to Linux in July that same year and then onto GOG in that same month. Today, June 9 in 2020 the GOG team posted on their forum that Supraland will be delisted from their store at the developer's request but it will stay in your GOG library. That's not long to be on a store to then ask for it to be removed, so why?
The developer has been quite vocal about it all, as it turns out. Back in July 2019, we posted an article about the developer saying some strange stuff about both GOG and Linux and it seems their opinion didn't change after being live on GOG for some time, as they said on Steam in May this year:
Going onto GOG I expected maybe something like 10% of Steam, but it's more like 1%. Same with releasing a Linux version. It's all worth so little for us that it's rather annoying to have to do the extra work all the time and carry that weight around. I wouldn't do it again.
Sounds like a case of heavily inflated expectations, mixed with some naivety. Still, it's better to request removal than to leave it up and not support it at all, so it sounds like they're doing the right thing overall.
In other posts they also mentioned how in relation to DRM-free gaming that "98-99% of players don't care" and that if there's any "crying about DRM stuff in the gamer scene, it must come from a really vocal but tiny minority. 1-2% tiny". That's some pretty tough words for the DRM-free crowd.
As for the Linux build of Supraland, it appears to have been suffering a few issues lately as posts on Steam will show and the developer isn't sure what they will do so the Linux build may be pulled too see: #1 and #2. They've never been particularly confident about it either as they said before a few times, and it appears they don't know how to support the Linux version. If they do announce a decision on that bit, we will let you know.
Article taken from GamingOnLinux.com.
Jun 11, 2020
Quoting: ShmerlDRM doesn't trust you and treats you as a potential criminal apriory. So even from basic security perspective, you should treat DRM as a malware apriori in return. Trust can only be mutual.
Do you trust random people?
Do you leave your door or car open?
Quoting: fleskDoes GOG have the infrastructure to split sales between multiple publishers, depending on the platform a game is downloaded to? If not, that could explain why.
They could still do it as Steam did some years ago for a couple of games, like selling "Shadow of the Tomb Raider" and "Shadow of the Tomb Raider (Linux)"
Quoting: EikeDo you trust random people?
Do you leave your door or car open?
Random people don't come to your house to spy on you or to restrict what you can do. And if they try - they should be treated as a security threat.
DRM comes to your private digital space to do just that (it runs on your computer, on your OS and etc.), because some control freaks decided that you are a potential criminal. So DRM should be always treated as digital adversary, aka malware and security threat.
Idea of DRM proponents was summarized very well here:
QuoteThe industry will take whatever steps it needs to protect itself and protect its revenue streams... It will not lose that revenue stream, no matter what... Sony is going to take aggressive steps to stop this. We will develop technology that transcends the individual user. We will firewall Napster at source – we will block it at your cable company. We will block it at your phone company. We will block it at your ISP. We will firewall it at your PC... These strategies are being aggressively pursued because there is simply too much at stake.
That's the mentality behind any DRM - invade your space and control you.
Last edited by Shmerl on 11 June 2020 at 3:12 pm UTC
Quoting: ShmerlQuoting: EikeDo you trust random people?
Do you leave your door or car open?
Random people don't come to your house to spy on you or to restrict what you can do.
That's neither what I was taking about nor what the quote from you was about.
You complained that "DRM doesn't trust you and treats you as a potential criminal apriory." - and that's what you're doing with random foreign people as well, and for a reason. There's bad people out there.
So, you cannot demand trust from companies (or other foreign people).
I don't know what to do with this. It doesn't mean that DRM is good and even less so that every measure of DRM is ok. I just wanted to point this out.
Quoting: EikeYou complained that "DRM doesn't trust you and treats you as a potential criminal apriory." - and that's what you're doing with random foreign people as well, and for a reason. There's bad people out there.
I explained the difference. DRM is doing it in your private digital space, preemptively. That's unacceptable. I.e. imagine police placing surveillance cameras in yours and everyone's home "just in case", because someone might be a criminal. You get the idea why that's wrong. Exactly the same thing is wrong with DRM.
Quoting: EikeSo, you cannot demand trust from companies (or other foreign people).
I can totally demand them to get lost with trying to preemptively police me in my private digital space.
Last edited by Shmerl on 11 June 2020 at 3:42 pm UTC
Quoting: ShmerlImagine police placing surveillance cameras in yours and everyone's home "just in case", because someone might be a criminal. You get the idea why that's wrong. Exactly the same thing is wrong with DRM.
This is a great explanation of DRM. What a metaphor! The assumption that you're a criminal - the "just in case" assumption that no consumer can be trusted. Oof. Superb.
The crazy thing about this attitude is the almost barbara-streisand-effect it has on people who want to pay for a service but can't, because... DRM. You see it all the time.
I recently ran into it trying to play Driver: San Francisco on Steam. You can't, because Ubisoft have pulled the game from the internet in its entirety (no-one is really sure why). Even though I still have a Driver: San Francisco entry in Steam, it doesn't run, it fails with a "Failed to retrieve valid key" error. Turns out, the ONLY WAY to play this game now, is to pirate it!!
The same thing happens on Netflix, when they region-lock. People want to watch, want to pay, but end up either torrenting, or VPN'ing their way in. It actively creates "criminal" behaviour. Let's say that again - it ACTIVELY creates the behaviour that DRM is trying to prevent. You couldn't make it up...
Honestly, I kind of thought that with the death of DVD and then Bluray over the past decade, there would be a better attitude to all this (from Publishers) by now. But nope. I don't think it's getting worse... but it sure isn't getting better.
I have played the game and finished it. It was an amazing game so I heavily recommend it. If as I could read he only "compiled a linux version with unreal engine", I got to say that it doesn't suffer from any bugs. Slow for some people ? Maybe, I can't tell.
Quoting: scaineLet's say that again - it ACTIVELY creates the behaviour that DRM is trying to prevent. You couldn't make it up...
Yep, that's well known. DRM only increases piracy causing only more lost sales to those who use it. DRM itself also encourages some to crack it for sport.
Quoting: zilotI have played the game and finished it. It was an amazing game so I heavily recommend it. If as I could read he only "compiled a linux version with unreal engine", I got to say that it doesn't suffer from any bugs. Slow for some people ? Maybe, I can't tell.
So did I, 100%ed it without a single issue. Yes, performance is not that great, but it really isn't that great on Windows either. It's just that the basic double fps on dx11 makes it generally more playable.
However, at some point the dev must have changed something because it currently doesn't run at all. I suspect this is not a "Linux" issue, but a real bug that just happens to trigger (more?) on Linux. Solving this would be what multiplatform development is good for, finding problems with you code by running it through multiple systems. But it appears that just dropping it is easier for now. Until it fully breaks of course.
Quoting: EikeYou complained that "DRM doesn't trust you and treats you as a potential criminal apriory." - and that's what you're doing with random foreign people as well, and for a reason. There's bad people out there.I don't know where you're from, but here in France if a shopkeeper starts being suspicious towards his clients, they just leave the shop and never come back.
So, you cannot demand trust from companies (or other foreign people
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