Quoting: Eike

Quoting: tuubiDo you have a problem with that figure, or are you just annoyed about now knowing for sure?

Where I'm coming from is the discussion with F.Ultra, who based his/her argument on the claim that the agreements of publishers/developers with Valve were all open. The share is an example that they're not fully open.

That's true. They're not fully open. Nothing exceptional there.

Quoting: Eike

Quoting: tuubiSome developers have hinted or outright said it's (about) 30%, but don't expect them to publish their agreements. Why would they? That's a contract between two companies. There's no requirement these deals need to be in the open or even that Valve's cut should be equal in all contracts. It's very likely bigger publishers with enough clout can negotiate a better deal, but a 30% royalty seems very believable for the rest of them.

Why would they publish it? If you've got one strong part - Valve - and many weaker ones - most develeopers and publishers -, it's IMHO in the interest of the smaller ones to share information. It might strengthen their position.

Developers might very well discuss these things with each other, I wouldn't know.

Quoting: EikeAnd I'm curious personally. 30% sound realistic, but I find it quote a big share compared to what Valve (or Apple, Google, ...) is doing.

Yes. It is a huge cut, almost unfair. Of course it's not only access to the storefront, but the download servers and bandwidth as well. In any case, it's apparently what developers are willing to pay to get their games into these stores.

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Quoting: Eike

Quoting: F.Ultra

Quoting: Eike

Quoting: F.UltraWhich is why I included the fact that all agreements you have to sign with Valve in order to publish on Steam is public in my previous post.

What's the share Valve takes off the Steam price?

Paradox claims that it's 30% in their Annual Reports which match what others have said the cut is. Seams to be a magic number since that is what Google/Apple et al also seams to take in their stores.

If we've got full access to all agreements you have to sign with Valve in order to publish on Steam, shouldn't we have that information first-hand?

What I'm getting at: It seems we don't have that full access. And I wonder if they're under NDA, because it's not like a lot of game makers are telling us clearly what the share is.

Some developers have hinted or outright said it's (about) 30%, but don't expect them to publish their agreements. Why would they? That's a contract between two companies. There's no requirement these deals need to be in the open or even that Valve's cut should be equal in all contracts. It's very likely bigger publishers with enough clout can negotiate a better deal, but a 30% royalty seems very believable for the rest of them.

Do you have a problem with that figure, or are you just annoyed about now knowing for sure?

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Quoting: YesmanI'm on Ubuntu 18.04 and the launch option you posted doesn't appear to work for me either so maybe the issue isn't completely resolved on Debian based distributions.

I think the problems on 18.04 might be a different issue. People have had trouble launching the game on Nvidia as well. Check this forum thread. I'd reinstall and test on Nvidia but downloading >30 gigs for a quick test is just too much.

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Quoting: Purple Library GuyA game called TUNG that twists your brain. So it's a . . . TUNG twister.

Ok, that's it. Henceforth you shall be known as Punny Library Guy.

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Quoting: liamdawe

Quoting: GuestHow could you leave out oddworld in that list? how could you? :(

Unsure how it is now, but last time I tried gamepad support on Linux was awful which ends up being a deal-breaker for me in such games. They did numerous updates to it though, so it's likely improved but didn't have time to test.

I had the same problem the first time I tried, but I gave it another go and completed the game around Christmas last year. I don't recall having trouble with the controls this time. Fun platformer, if you can handle a bit of trial and error. Well worth the sale price.

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Quoting: Alm888

Quoting: tuubiAnd immediately you do something silly. Why would you not use the distro provided packages instead?

Please, stop discussing other's silliness when you do not have all information at hand, OK?

I didn't mean to upset you. Sorry about that. I'll do my best to avoid inflammatory language.

Quoting: Alm888

Even if the previous isn't the case, often distro-provided software is not up to date (this is true with basically every distro for some package or another) and manual downloading from developer is the first solution;

I'd argue that this depends on distro. On Ubuntu the first solution is to look for a trusted PPA, and on Arch it might be to look for a suitable AUR package. Package quality can differ, but at least it integrates with the package manager. And of course, it's usually us more experienced users who'd even care about having the latest version of software. Common stuff like browsers tend to be kept up to date in supported distro releases anyway.

Quoting: Alm888

It was you who made a statement that "*.deb" distribution is totally intuitive and Quote "Last time I tried, deb files were handled correctly in both Ubuntu and Mint, as their default "software stores" and (my preferred alternative) the gdebi-gtk helper application are both perfectly capable of checking and downloading dependencies." End Of Quote (Remember those words?), so I showed an example where it is totally not the case.

I do remember those words, and you seem to have misinterpreted them. I just tried again and installing debs manually using gdebi seems to work just fine. Trying to install one that has broken dependencies gives a clear error message and prevents installation, and installing the dependency first makes the error go away as expected. I wouldn't go as far as to say this is all perfectly intuitive of course. But neither is downloading and extracting a tarball or downloading an .sh installer, marking it executable and so on until the user has a basic understanding of Linux and their desktop.

Quoting: Alm888First, a terminal! For a newbie, yeah, that should work just fine!

Did you miss this part in what you quoted from me: "Sure, the install process is needlessly user-hostile (if you consider going to the terminal a big no-no), but that's entirely up to them, not the package management system." Like I said, nothing to do with apt/deb, just the way the libreoffice packager decided to do it. Maybe they didn't expect a new user to look for and try a manual install. Fair enough I guess. You don't sound like a newbie to me.

Quoting: Alm888Second, I did exactly as was described!
What was your point in calling me doing silly actions or looking for trouble? This somehow was meant to prove your point of "DEB/RPM" distribution being intuitive and user-friendly? Or are you thinking I am stupid? Sorry, I do not get the point there. And I am not amused! :><:

I do not think you're stupid or silly, just pointed out that you picked a bad example. And you didn't follow the instructions to the letter if you tried to install an individual package by itself. Though I still don't see why any normal user would install libreoffice manually on Ubuntu when the system packages are fairly recent and there's even an official PPA.

Quoting: Alm888

Quoting: tuubiCan't decide, huh? You imagine games would keep updating their libs if they provided their own?

Yes, they would. I see no technical difficulties for software to download and overwrite its own components, like this is done by Firefox and (was done while it was active) "Battle Worlds: Kronos", for example.

Whether there are technical difficulties or not has very little to do with the fact that game devs tend to stop updating their dependencies at some point. And if they want to, they can just as easily override Steam runtime libs with their own local ones as needed. These approaches are not incompatible and use of the runtime is not enforced.

Quoting: Alm888

Quoting: tuubiThe runtime was a semi-successful attempt at providing a stable target "standard library" for games to rely on. The implementation is far from perfect, but game devs are not forced to make use of it so why not.

It was never successful. One of the most common solutions on Steam to launch the game that does not work (because of the Steam Runtime libraries are incompatible with current kernels and system libs) is to run Steam in "Native" mode. And developers time and again acknowledged in their interviews that while at the beginning they were trying to target SteamOS™ (with its software) at the end they found out it was easier to just target Ubuntu.

Ubuntu is an officially supported Steam target platform so this makes perfect sense. I've never bypassed the runtime myself btw, but then again my gaming box is Nvidia/Intel and runs Mint, so I'm not exactly in the minority. Also, I said semi-successful, not successful. There's a difference. I have seen the problems this can and does cause for some users, especially on unsupported distributions.

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Quoting: Alm888

Quoting: tuubiLast time I tried, deb files were handled correctly in both Ubuntu and Mint, as their default "software stores" and (my preferred alternative) the gdebi-gtk helper application are both perfectly capable of checking and downloading dependencies. And of course they won't let you install a package with broken deps. They also check and notify if a newer package is available in the default repositories. I haven't given a proper chance to rpm-based distributions in years, so I wouldn't know if their usability is worse these days.

That would be ideal, but we are not living in the Ideal World.

I wasn't talking about ideals. I was telling you about my experience with installing third party debs. But of course third party packages might be all sorts of broken, which is why they should be avoided.

Quoting: Alm888For the sake of research I tried to download LibreOffice.

And immediately you do something silly. Why would you not use the distro provided packages instead? You're just looking for trouble here, even going for a huge piece of software that's bound to get complicated, then failing to follow the install guide [External Link] provided by the developer. Sure, the install process is needlessly user-hostile (if you consider going to the terminal a big no-no), but that's entirely up to them, not the package management system.

Quoting: Alm888

Quoting: tuubiSure, a user can mess up their system if they install third-party packages, but if you're an admin to a bunch of users you can't trust, just don't let them install software.

Just what type of person are you? A tyrant???

No, just pointing out that you either trust your users to do the right thing, or stop them from doing the wrong thing. And of course I meant "stop them from installing system-wide", not that you should by some magical means stop them from installing stuff in their home directories. Nothing stops developers from creating installers or tarballs of course, but the benefits rarely justify the support hell, especially for FOSS software. It's easier to maintain packages in official repositories usually.

Quoting: Alm888Besides, a good app must not demand to be "installed", instead it should be usable from any directory (unpacked, of course) and contain every library it needs bundled with it (or use only common libs).

Quoting: Alm888Yeah, we all know about fabulous "Steam Runtime" dedicated to free us from "DLL-Hell"… eew… "Dependency Nightmare" while have not been updated since 2013.

Can't decide, huh? You imagine games would keep updating their libs if they provided their own? The runtime was a semi-successful attempt at providing a stable target "standard library" for games to rely on. The implementation is far from perfect, but game devs are not forced to make use of it so why not.

Quoting: Alm888But whether to use clients or not is entirely different topic.

Yes it is. And I remember very well how much you love Steam from previous comment threads. :P

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Can you work around the launch issue by adding a symlink to the game folder or setting the proper executable path as the launch command?

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Quoting: Alm888Wut?! I seriously begin to think that there is a "Package Approach" sect.

This might come as a shock, but for most of us, Linux is not a religion.

Quoting: Alm888From a user's viewpoint it is completely irrelevant what package system his/her distro is using. The user in question must see "xxx updates available. Update the system?" and click "Yea, sure!" That's all!

Yes, exactly. This is one of the strengths of a modern Linux distro. Updates are less intrusive than in Windows and mostly just work.

Quoting: Alm888Have you ever tried to install *.deb or *.rpm package manually? I have. It does not work! I mean, doudleclicking on it does not work. Best case, some dialogue window appears and asks permission to install, but if the package in question has dependencies then -- BAM -- the process fails. Because there are no mechanisms for dependency solving without repositories. "Command line" (terminal emulator) and manual downloading of required packages from some site like this [External Link] are in order. This is BS.

Last time I tried, deb files were handled correctly in both Ubuntu and Mint, as their default "software stores" and (my preferred alternative) the gdebi-gtk helper application are both perfectly capable of checking and downloading dependencies. And of course they won't let you install a package with broken deps. They also check and notify if a newer package is available in the default repositories. I haven't given a proper chance to rpm-based distributions in years, so I wouldn't know if their usability is worse these days.

Quoting: Alm888From an administrator's viewpoint it is serious security breach to install some unsigned (or self-signed with shady keys) software in system-critical portions of the filesystem ("/usr/bin", "/usr/lib64" etc.) probably adding third-party open keys as trusted in the process. This is total BS!

Sure, a user can mess up their system if they install third-party packages, but if you're an admin to a bunch of users you can't trust, just don't let them install software. And for the users who you're not in control of, let them do whatever the hell they want with their systems.

Package managers obviously solve more problems than they create. Giving up and making people manage their own software does not solve anything. Games are a special case of software, but this is why we have frontends like the itch.io app and Steam. Both basically only install a bare-bones setup system-wide and most of the actual client and all the games are installed in user directories.

Quoting: Alm888User oriented entertainment software should not be installed system-wide!

Agreed, but in the end, in a single-user gaming system this doesn't make much of a difference.

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Quoting: scaineOdd themes of this not clicking for some people. I'd love to dig into why. It can't all be an expectation of "more Bastion".

That's not it at all for me. I hadn't even played Bastion.

Quoting: scaine

Quoting: saturnoyo+1. I just couldn't play for long, I was not having fun and the sword was boring me to no end.

Whaaaa? The Transistor is endlessly customisable. Shoot, stab, explode, slow, launch, AoE, speed up, pull/gravity, clone, subvert, invisibility... the list of what it can do is insane. Pretty much the reason I love this game so much.

Maybe he meant the character, not the game mechanic. In general I found the writing competent and the voice acting excellent, but that's about all I can say. I didn't feel entertained by the chatter or the story in general.

I don't really feel comfortable giving critique here, because I don't think anything about the game is particularly bad. It just failed to keep my interest.

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