Supraland, a highly rated open-world puzzle adventure, has now removed mentions of Linux on Steam as the developer is unable to actually support it.
This comes shortly after the developer asked for Supraland to be completely removed from GOG, after being there less than a year citing lower sales. If you read that previous linked article, this news likely won't come as much of a surprise. Checking on SteamDB, it seems they removed the note of Linux support earlier in June. Looking around, the developer mentioned this in the official Discord, "I stopped direct linux support. Using the windows version with proton gives much better results like a much higher framerate.".
This quite likely means Supraland 2 that was funded on Kickstarter, which mentioned Linux as a planned supported platform, won't support Linux either if this is how the developer plans to go forwards.
We've seen how the developer has repeatedly mentioned before that they actually "know nothing about linux". A shame but if you're going to sell your game on a platform, that you don't test it on and don't support in any way, what's the point? It's not good for anyone.
A repeating problem too, the weird expectation that clicking to export in a game engine is enough to sell the game without testing or supporting it, which needs to stop. No one would do the same for Windows or Consoles but as usual, it comes down to the low market share cycle of doom. Developers don't support Linux directly with the lower market share, so less people use Linux and repeat. We're at least seeing a clear upwards trend right now, so perhaps one day we can see more direct support when the user share is big enough.
Article taken from GamingOnLinux.com.
While I like the article and being updated with the information, I don't like the actual information itself. Supraland is such a good game too.
appetrosyan 27 Jun, 2020
I myself struggled to enjoy Black Mesa Source, by stubbornly ignoring the obvious option to use Proton + win32 binary. Him reducing the bite to what he can chew is a good thing....
Except... If you have a Linux native version as a selling point, you should be decent-enough to offer refunds for the people who (rightfully) feel like they've been hoodwinked.
Today all computers run on x86 architecture, all you need for testing your game on Linux is to install the damn distro.
Quoting: omer666It's more of a monopoly problem than a low market share problem. Back in the days, porting a game on 4/5 different OS was the norm.
Today all computers run on x86 architecture, all you need for testing your game on Linux is to install the damn distro.
Ignoring the main topic a little, "back in the day" games were also far less complicated to write. Game engines could likely be maintained and ported by a single person, or very small teams. It's far more complex these days.
...not to say that I don't think you're right. I do think you're right. They could just install GNU/Linux (and by now it's fairly easy to find the most popular) to do at least basic testing for a version they're asking people to pay money for.
Quoting: mirvQuoting: omer666It's more of a monopoly problem than a low market share problem. Back in the days, porting a game on 4/5 different OS was the norm.
Today all computers run on x86 architecture, all you need for testing your game on Linux is to install the damn distro.
Ignoring the main topic a little, "back in the day" games were also far less complicated to write. Game engines could likely be maintained and ported by a single person, or very small teams. It's far more complex these days.
...not to say that I don't think you're right. I do think you're right. They could just install GNU/Linux (and by now it's fairly easy to find the most popular) to do at least basic testing for a version they're asking people to pay money for.
Counter counter point: If "back in the day" means the 80s, porting a game meant using assembly language on vastly different hardware. Budgets were way lower, and yes, usually it was 1 person doing it, but I don't really think relatively speaking it was easier.
Whitewolfe80 27 Jun, 2020
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