It's a pretty terrible name, and Ubisoft have historically been not good to work for, but this

Work with the rest of the engineering staff to help them expand their cross-platform mindset

is how all developers should be thinking.

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Quoting: F.UltraThe most likely scenario to me is that it is the very same that happened last time, aka that this is Internet Cafe data, people using a rented machine at such a Cafe would have no problems from any of my above mentioned reasons to just click OK on whatever they get since it is not their machine.

Not just "last time." There's something like 18 months of uncorrected data, which is why that had to be scrubbed from Liam's Steam tracker, and then the same thing happens every 3-4 months and does get corrected. The double-counting problem isn't an easy one to solve - you can't keep track server side because a whole bunch of machines behind one IP address is what you'd expect to see from a cafe, and you can't keep track client side because it's standard practise to roll back the machines to a standard (no malware, no cheats) image, so the client "forgets" that that machine has already participated in the survey. So every now and then we get a massive apparent spike in Chinese users and people ("Chinese is now the most used language on Steam!") pretend that the data are valid.

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Quoting: elmapulyeah, sony tried to turn playstation in an pc (remember Ps2 linux or the otherOS option on ps3?)

It wasn't just Sony; the Dreamcast also had an Internet connection (and could run Windows). And now the consoles are x86 machines, and you definitely don't need Windows to watch media, or access the Internet, or play games. And the Xbox was just after Microsoft had successfully killed Netscape (if everything is on the Internet, there's no particular reason to use Windows over some other OS) by including IE with Windows (exactly as they do with the Windows Store and the requirement to have a Microsoft account now). Exploiting dominance in one area to crush any competitors coming from a different area is a standard pattern for Microsoft, and the only times they've really failed at it - Android and Chrome - were simply because they weren't willing to outspend Google. They can outspend everyone in the gaming space, as can be seen by them being able to throw 70 billion dollars at ActiBlizzard.

they failed at it and gave up, there werent any pressure to improve windows for gaming since then.

Until Valve.

im not saying microsoft didnt had any incentive to improve directX, but to improve the windows version of it, they fought playstation with xbox instead of with windows, until valve came with steamOS, sundelly microsoft started to talk about dx12 in public, ported their xbox exclusives to windows pc and did many other moves like that.

It was DirectX 11 that got a boot up the bum from OpenGL. It had been just sitting there since 2009 till that point. Then it got a whole bunch of point updates. DirectX 12 came about because Mantle (which formed a basis for Vulkan) was clearly better, so they made a DirectX version of Mantle (DirectX 12) just like Apple made an Apple version (Metal).

but linux will never die,

Microsoft can't kill it, although they gave serious thought to how they might try (see, for example, the Halloween Documents). All they can do is try to marginalise its use and support, and keep developers dependent on Windows-only technology.

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Quoting: elmapulwhy would microsoft improve directX for windows, if they already have an monopoly on OS for desktops, and dont make money directly from games being sold for windows?

DirectX is one of the moats protecting Windows' market share and Microsoft's control of the desktop. If game developers switch to OpenGL (or Vulkan now) that moat is breached.

why would microsoft improve DirectX for Xbox, when they DO make money on each game sold for it?

DirectX is the whole point of the Xbox. It's literally a "DirectX box." Consoles doing general computer things as well as games would mean that consumers might do all their gaming and computing on something that doesn't come from Microsoft. This is unacceptable to Microsoft, so they poured loads of money into making a console that used Windows and DirectX so that game developers and consumers couldn't ignore them. And now that they have that additional moat, they can use that to get people to use the Windows Store - Game Pass.

Quoting: elmapulthe question is:
it will run xbox and it subset of games? or it will run windows and all it games?
if it runs windows, valve still would make money since steam is king there, not to mention they would incentive their own audience to use other stores by doing that.

on the other hand if they try to lock it to xbox games, then steamOS will still have more games (not that the ammount is more important than the names involved)

To protect their monopoly it would run almost all games from all generations of Xbox (Xbox games run in a VM already, so the hardware is abstracted), and all games from the Windows Store, and have access to Game Pass. Then they'd flood the market, since they've got more than enough money to absorb loses from hardware costs (exactly as they've done with Xbox). Control over game developers is re-established.

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Quoting: 04ELYNo way Valve and Linux scared Microsoft to put effort, we're going good! :grin:

It's not the first time. As alluded to in the article, Microsoft had allowed DirectX to languish until Valve plugged their own game through their own DirectX to OpenGL wrapper on Linux and had it run faster than DirectX on Windows. Then suddenly DirectX was super important to Microsoft again. Liam covered that incident in his retrospective article.

For this development, should Microsoft actually follow through after all, I think it's great. The Steam Deck comes with SteamOS, and will always come with SteamOS, and normal people use the OS that a machine comes with - that's why our market share is low. Those intrepid few that do install a new OS on their machine should have the least-miserable experience possible - just like those of us that have gone out of our way to install Linux on our machines.

The actual challenge to what Valve are trying to achieve with the Deck - casually turning their customers into Linux gamers - isn't Microsoft making Windows better - just like us making Linux better isn't sufficient to lift its market share. Microsoft releasing their own (Xbox-branded) handheld hardware would be the threat; they've got stacks of spare money, a whole bunch of games studios, and an established store that they're trying to juice. That's the way that a competitor could make the same pricing and platform play as Valve have done, and Microsoft doing it would be to try to sink Valve's lifeboat.

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We did have a previous shonky month where you gave up waiting and put the data on your tracker as the best option, and Valve finally got round to publishing the correct data after something like three weeks.

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Quoting: SuperV1234Could you please elaborate on why AFL might be a poor choice? Is there something bad about it that is not evident from the tldrlegal page?

There's nothing wrong with the AFL as far as I'm aware. It's OSI-approved and is probably fine. If you're unfamiliar with open source licensing, it might be worth having a chat with someone more familiar, so that if there's a particular aspect that you're after - whether your software is copyleft, for example, then maybe they'll be able to find a different licence that better meets your needs, but that part's fine. The odd thing is to license your software as open source, but then put additional EULA restrictions on it when people give you money; normally giving someone money gets you fewer restrictions.

Regarding the EULA, I added it only because it was recommended on several game development pages and forums I follow. I've read that without an EULA a malicious agent might resubmit my game to Steam with minimal changes, even as a paid product, and I wanted to avoid that.

Someone taking someone else's game and listing it on Steam happens rarely regardless of licence. An additional EULA won't prevent that, just like it won't prevent piracy: the people that want to do that will do it anyway. Should it ever happen to you, a ticket with Valve will get the other one de-listed.

I'd suggest having a think about why you want your software to be open source - whether you just want people to be able to study your work, whether you'd like other people to contribute, whether you'd like other people to use your work as the basis of their work, and so on. There is a wide range of different open source licences to achieve different aims; the AFL might be exactly right for what you're after, or there might be a different one that's a better fit. The extra EULA doesn't seem to me to be providing any function; the only people that will pay any attention to it are those that want to follow the rules already.

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That's some weird licencing. The version that's on github is under the AFL 3 [External Link], but the version that's on Steam has an additional EULA [External Link] on top of Steam's normal restrictions that says, amongst other restrictions, "Vittorio Romeo shall at all times retain ownership of the Software as originally downloaded by you and all subsequent downloads of the Software by you. The Software (and the copyright, and other intellectual property rights of whatever nature in the Software, including any modifications made thereto) are and shall remain the property of Vittorio Romeo." Open source stuff being dual-licensed by the copyright holder is fine, of course, but that second licence means that the project can't take contributions from anyone else. And it means that if you give the developer money then you get less of a product than if you don't.

I expect that the developer is worried that people are going to take the Steam version and pirate it for some reason, but the people that want to do that aren't going to not do that just because of his EULA. And the developer of ΔV, who's been quite chatty about their findings from doing game development, has found that people will pay for your game even when they don't have to [External Link], after they accidentally included the whole game as the demo: "But they still chose to pay me, because they want to. Not to get access - they already have that. "

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Quoting: EagleDeltaNo, it's not. Come on now.

The term you're looking for is "material misrepresentation."

From the Kickstarter Terms Of Use [External Link]:
"The creator is solely responsible for fulfilling the promises made in their project. If they’re unable to satisfy the terms of this agreement, they may be subject to legal action by backers."

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Quoting: Klaas

Quoting: CatKillerThere's some jank at install time and the text is tiny, but it otherwise works well.

Sleeping Dogs: DE or original? I've got the original version on Steam and the DE on GOG. The DE works after activating a virtual desktop without issues and the original apparently not.

Definitive Edition. The install-time jank was that whatever hooks games usually have to seamlessly pull in the redistributables this game doesn't use, so it popped up a Windows-style window that needed the touchscreen to get rid of. After that it ran fine.

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