Hooh, this reminded me of some great custom maps for Unreal Tournament that some buddies and I played a LOT back in the days. Mad fun to be a tiny little tin soldier in MASSIVE maps with oversized interior.

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Valve brought back gaming to me. No less. I had a PS3 way back, but grew tired of console gaming. Without their Linux client - and Steam Play - I actually doubt I'd be doing much gaming at all.

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Quoting: NociferAs much as I hate the practice, your friend was probably only warned to not install an "unknown app" downloaded from the internet, which is a standard protection scheme on Windows.

Ahhhhh - you're probably right. That's something he'd not be able to differentiate, and sound very likely.

Quoting: NociferJust the other day I happened to check the browser market shares for the first time in years, and I was shocked to see that Firefox is down to ~3,5% on the desktop. Not 15%, not 10%, three and an effing half. Yup, we're in very deep sh-- trouble.

Yeah the Firefox decline has been going on for quite a while. Google has one major advantage for Chrome with their close implementation with the Google account, giving you all your bookmarks etc whenever you install Chrome on a new device and log in. That in itself is so convenient that for me that's the reason I just stick to Chrome.

I am tempted at changing back to Firefox, though. Just out of sheer principle.

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Quoting: slaapliedje

Quoting: Liam DaweIt's actually more popular than Firefox overall, going by multiple stats websites.

Sure, since MS has all but crammed it down the throats of it's users. With literal ads sprinkled into Windows to use it instead of whatever else you're using.

I've not been on Windows for decades now, but I have a friend who got a new PC just last week with latest Windows version on. He's not too computer literate (to put it mildly) but had a go at installing the apps he was used to use from before.
He called me the other day to tell me that he was warned against installing Firefox on his computer and felt he had to ask me if he could or should still install it.

Let me say that again. He were fucking warned, by an app installed with the operating system (Edge, I presume - I don't know) to NOT install Firefox. I haven't seen the message, but the way he perceived the warning was that Firefox was an unsafe browser to use.

My jaw dropped. The nerve of that company... The nerve!

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Oh ffs. Do even windows users use that one? What does the browser stats say?

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Quoting: GuestThe chosen terms are not very clear to me.
"Verified, Playable, Unsupported and Unknown"
Is "Playable" better or worse than "Verified"? What does "verified" even mean? It could mean it has been verified as not working.
"Unsupported", ok, but it doesn’t tell if it’s working or not.
"Unknown" is of course not helping much either.

I’m not asking for the answers, just saying they should choose terms that immediately make sense.

Aren't you a bit pedantic now? I thought it was pretty clear... Green checkmark -> Verified fully working. This is the status we want to see all around. "Playable" - how would a game be if you described it as playable? There's some issues but it's playable still, right?
"Unsupported" is unclear, I'll give you that. But "unknown" can't be more clear can it? The status is unknown to this curator, it's untested, not yet classified.

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Quoting: LightkeyThat is only true if you ignore Lutris, which exists without Valve's help. I was amazed when I tried it (now that I have a new PC) to install StarCraft through Blizzard's awful bloated launcher. It really was just one click and it just kept going through various downloads, error messages galore, and chained install process steps to a working play button.

Ah! You got a very good point there, LightKey. Lutris is absolutely a great initiative and would have been there regardless of Steam. One could argue it's not as smooth and "failproof" as Steam, but yes - without Steam it would have been the go-to client on Linux, no doubt. And indeed - for many it already is today.

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Quoting: GuestAll these things happened without Valve, it's just they were hurried along a bit by additional funding.

Absolutely! And this is also very much in the spirit of Linux, to build upon others work. And I fully applaud their choice of using existing technology instead of running a parallel run. Imho they've done everything right.

But let's be honest here: Gaming on Wine was and is quite the hassle and requires a good understanding of how Wine works - and even an understanding of the windows libraries. Not to mention the patience to configure and tweak a bottle for that game. You're bloody lucky if it "just works".

I consider myself to be fairly proficient on Linux, but of the few attempts I did I never got anything I wanted to play to run via Wine. And they all had top ratings on the Wine homepage. I was lucky if I got the installer running... :D It really is a tinkerers project, gaming on Wine.

So even if one *could* run the Steam client on Linux and tinker around to get stuff running it most definitely was not something most did - we dual booted into Windows instead, or had a console at hand.

I do notice you don't want to make light of Valves contribution, but even so: The contrasting reality before/after Steam on Linux is so, so dramatic that we really are talking about one major milestone for gaming on Linux.

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Quoting: tuubiBecause I think it matters. I often vote with my wallet.

I can respect that! I did the same, before Proton. Man I have so many barely played indies in my library from that period. :D

Quoting: tuubiBesides, even with that self-imposed "limitation", I can barely keep my wishlist below a couple of hundred titles at any given time.

If smaller indie games is your thing then strictly speaking you hardly need Steam Play at all? That's my impression.

Here's a snippet of my wishlist:



So yeah... Thank Gabe for Proton. :)

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Quoting: GuestAppreciation? Valve are doing this for Valve, to lock more into Steam, and build their own little walled garden.

Yes, Steam is the same on Linux as it is on Windows. Anything else would be weird.

But if we for once allow ourselves to talk from a pure gamer perspective and leave politics aside for just a brief moment, Valves efforts to add Linux to their platform - regardless of their economical or strategical incentives - opens up a world of effortless gaming we would simply not have without Steam. And I personally believe there's not a hint of probability that the Linux support would have improved from where we left before Proton were introduced. It was already declining at that point, and Valve saw that only too well. And Steam Deck would never have happened without Proton.

I really see no rational logic why Valve should favour one or the other - like you say, their focus is to recruit and keep gamers on their platform. If that means improving support for Windows games on Linux, then so be it. It'd be easier for *them* if devs ported their games instead. But they didn't.

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