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In May it will be five years since the Carmageddon: Reincarnation Kickstarter. Linux support was a stretch goal they reached and we still have nothing to show for it.

Stainless Games Ltd are one of the major developers who made me lose faith in, not only crowdfunding but, generally trusting developers on what they say at all.

Nearly five years ago on May 24 2012, the developers promised Linux support for Carmageddon: Reincarnation if they stretched their Kickstarter funding out of ordinary people like you and me from $400,000 to $600,000!

That may seem like a lot, but $200,000 extra to produce a Linux and Mac version is...yeah insanity. Even with those extra funds, it has nearly been five years and all we’ve had is either silence or idiotic remarks from one of their team on Twitter (who I had to block).

The last we heard from that particular person is noted here in an article from February 2016 where we were supposed to get “a very clear statement on that in the near future”. Yeah, that happened — not.

The problem here, for me, is that they later did a revamp of the title called Carmageddon: Max Damage. This was to fix some problems, boost sales again and port it to consoles.

Carmageddon: Max Damage also never made it to Linux.

Fun fact, they actually released a trailer where they just run over a ton of penguins, make from that what you will:
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Not saying this was trolling the entire Linux gaming community, but it sure felt like it after their previous trolling attempts directed at our official Twitter account.

And now, they have announced that they are doing yet another Carmageddon title.

So, I contacted them via email and Twitter and guess what — no response.

Some developers are great, other developers like Stainless Games Ltd don’t deserve a penny from you. Sadly, this is a common case with crowdfunding and Linux and there are plenty of other examples. I actually keep a Wiki Page for this very purpose.

It's sad, very sad. I didn't realize it had been so long until their Twitter post about a new game. I looked it up and was really quite shocked.

Companies like this taint the waters for other more legitimate developers. This causes a knock-on effect for others, as I know plenty of Linux gamers who have been burnt by not only this Kickstarter, but others too. I myself got burnt and stopped funding anything on Kickstarter for about two years due to situations like this. Article taken from GamingOnLinux.com.
Tags: Editorial
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I am the owner of GamingOnLinux. After discovering Linux back in the days of Mandrake in 2003, I constantly came back to check on the progress of Linux until Ubuntu appeared on the scene and it helped me to really love it. You can reach me easily by emailing GamingOnLinux directly. Find me on Mastodon.
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35 comments
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rkfg Jan 21, 2017
Quoting: rkfg
Quoting: liamdaweWhat's the issue with Planetary Annihilation?
It had outstanding Linux issues with CoherentUI like freezing or crashing UI. The devs ignored the issue for years though it may not be their issue but middleware's one, they've closed their bug tracker so I have no proof now. Here this issue is mentioned as well. I don't know what the game state is now, I hope it's been fixed eventually but it was an issue for long enough for me to lose interest in the game (and my pledge was $95 or so). They're not hostile to Linux gamers but not quite caring either.
Oh, the wayback machine saves the day again. This issue is even on the frontpage when the old bugtracker was captured. So here you can check it:
Opened by DeathByDenim (deathbydenim) - Sat Oct 05, 2013 12:04
The latest comment points to this comment which states that the issue hasn't been resolved at least by August 2015. Which is roughly 2 years since it has been opened.

I just hate allegations so I had to find the proofs that all of this wasn't made up by me or someone. Issues like this make the game totally unplayable and that in turn means that the Linux version is broken and was broken for almost two years, if not longer, with no comments from devs (SXX is a moderator).

Edit: seems like in Titans it's fixed, probably in the vanilla PA as well. Mentioned a lot before Aug 2015 and never after that.


Last edited by rkfg on 21 January 2017 at 10:33 am UTC
razing32 Jan 21, 2017
Quoting: ZlopezAfter my experience with Kingdom Cone: Deliverence (where Linux version is now only possibility) and Warhammer 40k: Eternal Crusade (last statement from the developer is: "Linux community is too small, so it's not priority anymore." ) I'm now backing only games, that already have playable linux demo or the developers released Linux titles before. Like Universim, Jupiter Hell or Dungeons of Aledorn.
I hope, that Linux community will grow and the developers will be punished by lower sales in the future. :)

To be fair ,the company that makes the engine for Kingdom Come : Deliverence, Crytek, had some really big issues.
As far as I heard the company did not pay employees for a few months and a lot of senior talent left the company.
Also their latest push into free-to-play may be a final nail in the cofin.
themixturemedia Jan 21, 2017
I started to go to there youtube page and thumbs down there pages. I know it is not much but yeah I backed the game because of a linux version and nothing. I did do kickstarter but I will not anymore because of what companies like this have done.
DMG Jan 23, 2017
Interesting, that no one has enough money to sue them.

View video on youtube.com


Last edited by DMG on 23 January 2017 at 7:46 am UTC
Zlopez Jan 24, 2017
  • Supporter Plus
Quoting: razing32To be fair ,the company that makes the engine for Kingdom Come : Deliverence, Crytek, had some really big issues.
As far as I heard the company did not pay employees for a few months and a lot of senior talent left the company.
Also their latest push into free-to-play may be a final nail in the cofin.

This is a new information for me, but I had doubt in CryEngine from beginning.
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