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The answer more or less contained what many of us expected it to.

First they start off with trying to distract from what is actually being asked, they talk about indefinite online functionality, which is not what Stop Killing Games is asking for, they merely ask for the games to remain functional within reason and not be completely bricked. A developer or publisher can opt to release the server software, alternatively they can also add an off-line mode, if neither is possible they can release documentation on how the server software works to assist in reverse engineering, may solutions are possible, no specific solution is demanded. Whatever keeps the core game content accessible or leaves behind the game in a fixable state is reasonable.

Then in the 2nd paragraph they just proceed to argue against it on the grounds of content moderation and data security. Content moderation and data security on a community server is not their concern, it is up to the community to self regulate. Frankly, the average community server will not do anything shady with my data, these greedy publishers do, they'll just sell it to anyone who would like to use it for targeted marketing or to train their models on.

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This is really nice to seeKudos to the dev team for making this possible

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Private servers exist for MMOs for which no source code has been released to the public. What this tells me is that there absolutely is a way to do this in a reasonable fashion. And yes, it will require a degree of effort on the part of the publishers and developers - that's the point. Put some effort into not killing those games once you're done with them, please. Thank you.

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Cool idea! Even if I don't mind more crunchy pixels on a big screen myself

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What they said is nothing new. This is precisely why we sign the petition in the first place. We want the publishers to PUT EFFORT into ensuring games are not being disabled forever. Yes, this generates extra cost. I am sure they can manage if they funnel more money in the direction of game developers and less towards shareholders.

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This was an expected answer. Yet, I'm sure there is a way to implement a system that allows for private servers. And if it's LAN only. Via VPN we can have LAN only games also being played over the internet and yet it's not public. Sure there are games that are depending on big amount of players, like MMOs. But even here we've seen private servers (looking at e.g. WoW). So it is possible. I totally understand that servers are being shut down if the game is not viable for the developer/publisher anymore. Will it still be the same kind of fun when there are no players on servers that are build and designed for lots of players? Probably not. Does it mean this game should then be trashed? Imho not.

I still see a chance for a service/plugin/software that devs can use to implement multiplayer, gives them full control as long as they monetize their game, and then hand over control to the community or a community driven service.

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I have signed the petition. And I can understand some of the issues. For games with simple matchmaking (e.g. fighting games) it shouldn't be that difficult for them to provide alternatives. But for things like persistent MMORPGs... looks extremely complicated.

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Just bought BF3 during sale in case EA kills it, too. Will try this guide soon!

Liam, is it possible you can do a guide on older BF titles, too? I am trying to get BF2 to work, which I have sort of managed to do. But I cannot get BF2Hub to work at all. If it all can be done within Lutris, it'd be great.

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"We only follow the rules / we carry out orders." This phrase may sound familiar.

In many parts of the world, including Europe, it is very dangerous to be associated with the consumption of pornographic material. Anonymity is only theoretical, just like privacy. Being discredited at work or perhaps in court in a case of another nature (for example, divorce or child custody) can be catastrophic. I advise everyone against being identified and associated with adult material. Let’s also remember that based on the type of material consumed, it is possible to infer sexual preferences and trace a detailed psychological profile Too many risks for too little.

Honestly and without controversy, I find it safer for everyone and less hypocritical to completely ban pornographic content, as done by non-democratic authoritarian regimes.

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I went to ddg searching about RPG Maker and got a definition from the LLM assistant, attributed to you. So there's hope, despite Microsoft being what it is. I stopped using Mastodon but I still follow you on Steam, so I clicked on your ref link. That's how I learned about your birthday.

Happy birthday!

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I usually watch "adult material" behind a vpn using something like librewolf or privacy browser, and a few other tricks to make sure stray apps don't just send the new IP, this kind of privacy seems to be going away soon, and personally I find that uncomfortable and I probably will just opt not to watch anything like that at all. I don't want any government or corporation to be tracking my watch behavior then storing it permanently and running it through some AI 10 years later to generate a profile on me. The future of the internet is creepy.

On the note of AI the point is: In a couple of years (or so) it will be the AI that generates *any* adult content on demand and on the fly...

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Happy Birthday GOL!

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Happy anniversary!
Thank you for all the content and updates!
Cheers

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Happy birthday!

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Happy Birthday! Genuinely surprised you've been around since 16 years ago! Although I've been gaming on Linux for about as long, I only came across your site a few years ago - mainly I guess due to the rise of Proton, the Steam Deck and clones.

In any case, gaming on Linux definitely has come a long way along. I recall back then being able to play only older games like Age of Empires 2, Oblivion, Diablo 2, and emulated games like Crystal Caves (DOS). Attempting to play anything new/AAA was next to impossible. Since it was around that time that I switched to Linux for good, I missed out on a TON of good games that came out in the 12+ years that followed. But thanks to the viability of Linux gaming these days, I'm finally catching up on all the games that I missed out on. Literally every Steam sale, I'm buying something new. Only problem is that I no longer have the time to play all these games! So ironically, the games that I spend most of my time these days on are the (updated) classics that I used to play 16 years ago: AoE 2 DE, Oblivion Remastered, Project Diablo 2, Crystal Caves HD etc.. XD

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Couldn't get into the game. With whatever the default Proton was, I was stuck loading for Nexon Game Security or whatever it's called. I was able to run game on latest ProtonGE (10-8), but I got stuck when I got to the end of the tutorial (since I clicked guest account instead of immediately logging in to Nexon ID). Couldn't get to Main Menu at all, even after changing Nexon ID and changing which game id Steam should use on Windows.

Doesn't seem like it's working.

Oh well, back to the horse gacha game and the anime card game. Once again, Cygames continues to monopolize my attention and free time.

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A lot of people think about games regarding this topic, and for good reason (especially on this website), but most software in existence has been written for 32-bit and this goes way beyond games, and most of it is no longer maintained. How much of it is still in use, is anyone's guess, but especially in the case of closed source software there's not much that can be done about it. Even in the case of FOSS, porting 32-bit software to 64-bit is not just about recompiling.

Some people wonder about who's going to maintain the 32-bit support. It's been supported so far, so it's obviously doable. It is more work than not having to maintain it, but it's still very relevant and important. Proposing the removal of 32-bit support should be replaced with pursuing the right way forward to make sure 32-bit can work with less maintenance effort - a win-win.

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I usually watch "adult material" behind a vpn using something like librewolf or privacy browser, and a few other tricks to make sure stray apps don't just send the new IP, this kind of privacy seems to be going away soon, and personally I find that uncomfortable and I probably will just opt not to watch anything like that at all. I don't want any government or corporation to be tracking my watch behavior then storing it permanently and running it through some AI 10 years later to generate a profile on me. The future of the internet is creepy.

The only upside is that kids won't be browsing around looking at that stuff, until you realize they will probably just go to some worse site or try to view it via some other methods. :/

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I use the eBook as an example, but really, this should absolutely apply to anything with a digital license -- games, books, music, videos/movies, etc.

The underlying issue here is that the free market and competition as USA shaped it promotes vertical integration. So eventually a single corporation gets to control the whole supply chain, or at least the profitable layers. In digital but also outside. You buy a book on Amazon, you can only access that IP you bought there (the license is amazon license). That is what competition laws push for.

To make a system where you "own" some IP access regardless of who gives you this access, you need to make a legislation that forbids vertical integration. So if you buy "Lord Of The Rings" on Amazon, you own it also on Bookshop or Kobo. Or a physical bookshop too (in that case you would pay the print costs not the intellectual property that you already own). License market separated from license access market. The owenrship of the book is one market, how you consume the book another market. But for this to work it requires to separate ownership of the license from the servive of providing you the content (which now would not be free but become a monthly fee service I guess). But again, who will store the ownership of the license for you? The state? Another service? Well, if I were the lawmaker, I would say that is the quintessential use case for blockchains, which could very well be state regulated and then p2p operated. But ofc this is the only use case for blockchains that nobody care about since it solves actual issues and it's not speculative in nature.

Anyway, even if today it would be very doable (and very welcomed since it would mean the end of exclusives as a business practice in gaming as in video, and the possibility to get your IP wherever you want), it would require a massive education and mobilization campaign of the consumers in EU and possibly it would mean that EU and USA part ways all together since it's completely incompatible with how people think in other side of the Atlantic. It will never happen.

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16 years? Nonsense! I can't have been more than a couple of years right? I'm not old enough for it to be 16 years, right? Right?

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Congrats!! This site is a daily visit for me and many. Keep up the posting.

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When you purchase a novel, it is understood that you don't own the intellectual property rights to the contents of the book but you do own the physical copy (or container, if you will). Yet, if you purchase the novel in eBook format (a digital container), the publisher/reseller, more and more often, treats it as a one-time subscription that they can revoke at any time without compensation to the customer. The rules governing the digital license should be no different than those regarding a physical book.

I can accept that author and/or publisher own the IP rights. If this initiative leads to regulating the publishing industry so that it can no longer treat a digital license as if it is merely a one-time subscription, then I feel it will have accomplished something good.

I use the eBook as an example, but really, this should absolutely apply to anything with a digital license -- games, books, music, videos/movies, etc.

I don't live in the EU but, like replaceable batteries and the "right to repair", this has my full support.

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I have been experimenting with the AppImage version of Heroic. I can't get it to recognize Mangohud, which I installed from the GitHub .deb installer. So far, I've only tested with native or AppImage games. Neither work (AppImage never has, no matter what launcher I use). Anybody else have this problem?

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Fixed the "Browse Local Files" option not working for non-Steam games.

OMG, it took them ~10 years but they finally fixed this?

I'm glad for every new feature, device, hotfix, etc and I know they have an insane backlog to work through, but wow! Huge complex stuff in under a week, 10 years for a seeming 5min fix... ValveTime™ indeed!

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Happy birthday!

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Happy birthday!!!! 🐧

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"restricted_countries DE"

https://steamdb.info/app/3557620

While I don't care about this game, I wonder what else I'm not seeing (summer sale).

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I've already had success with both Steam's and Lutris' runtimes to get finicky native games to run. I assume this is what you're alluding to ...

Yes exactly. Plus Steam itself ships the Steam Linux Runtimes 1.0, 2.0 and 3.0 which also do bundle 32bit libraries in different versions which might be used by certain games. Sometimes you may need to switch the Linux runtimes to have any success in both flatpak or native Steam to get them working.

However there are some games which even by using all these wonderful runtimes (flatpak runtimes, steam runtimes) do not want to behave. Some of the older Feral Interactive Ports have all sorts of issues. More precisely the Feral launcher. While the game itself works fine the Launcher often times causes trouble and likes to core dump. But that is no difference if running said game natively or via flatpak.

As an example: https://www.pcgamingwiki.com/wiki/Tomb_Raider_(2013)#Launch_issues_on_Linux

Judging by my own experience and experiments I personally had more success to get old 32bit native Linux games running via flatpak than natively (as I still was running a distro which had 32bit support). Be it via Steam or Lutris to run my GOG games.

Concluding: Even on a Linux distribution still offering 32bit packages flatpak can be a game changer already.

Hence taking a step further and stripping old 32bit libs from the base OS isn't too far imho.

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This is one of two sites I visit basically daily! Thanks for doing this!

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I've made the full switch to Linux just a little over a month ago and already knew GamingOnLinux beforehand, but now it is my main Go To for everything, well, about Gaming on Linux :)

Directly decided to support you via Patreon since you're doing a great job!

Happy Birthday GamingOnLinux!

P.S.: I use Arch btw SCNR

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