Quoting: denyasis

Quoting: scaineThat's why these devs, who got thousand plus sales before the algorithm change, suddenly...

Quoting: Purple Library GuyThat thing Scaine is talking about with the algorithm, that's terrible, and very real

While I agree with you, I think it's worth asking if the algo is really the main issue or is it control they have over a games potential success?

Valve basically can pick the winners and losers by what they decide to put on thier store front. Wether they use an algo or not to make those picks seems secondary. Would you agree that is more the core issue?

Valve sometimes uses an algo to put games on the store front. From what I can see they also handpick things as well (thier self promotion is pretty obvious to me). I'm curious how much active manipulation they do to the results beyond thier self promotion. I'm also curious how much extra a publisher or dev has to pay for that service. I'd expect it's the type of service that's only offered to certain clients.

I worked in the business and I can absolutely tell you that Steam sold ads on their home page because I have had developers tell me they did and ask if the gaming store I worked for did the same and we did not. Steam pulled underhanded shit all the time and absolutely picks the winners and losers on their store. Five Nights at Fredy's was not on Steam and Steam wanted nothing to do with them until they started to take off on other stores and then Steam allowed them on the system. That is just one example of many out there. I worked with devlopers and had deal with Steam and I know what they did. Steam/Valve are not angels. They screw developers they don't like all the time.

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Quoting: ArtenThere is one more think. 30% is a misleading. Valve has their cut only if they sell it. But if developer generate key and sell it elsewhere (humble bundle,...) key is free, game has full support of steam store but valve has 0 money from it. So in 30% is also calculated usage of infrastructure for "black passenger" whom did not payed it. Devs did note use this? How it is Valve fault? Devs have this option!

https://arstechnica.com/gaming/2019/04/why-valve-actually-gets-less-than-30-percent-of-steam-game-sales/ [External Link]

It would be nice if Steam actually supported that same stand with other companies but the reality is they don't. Steam/Valve gets really pissed off if you lower your price on every other store to match a sale running on Steam. I have seen this first hand and seen Valve make threats about free steam keys if a developer keeps doing it then no more or limited keys for Steam. Giving away steam keys to developers had ZERO to do with being nice. It was further efforts to lock users in to their store and get people locked in to their store to where it was too big a hassle to have multiple stores and multiple launchers. It worked beautifully for Steam. You see people all the time saying they have too many games on Steam and not enough games on other stores to bother running multiple launchers so they will just wait for it to show up on Steam. Steam has created virtual lock in with gamers. Shit like that should be totally illegal because they did it on purpose to undermine every other store out there any possible competition. They weren't stupid and it was planned.

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Quoting: lessster

Quoting: alkazarThere has been no developments yet in this area. It is not impossible to set this up though. You would need to install the OS and then modify `/etc/fstab` manually.

Modifying /etc/fstab is one thing, I guess I am able to handle that. But would that alone be sufficient? I fear there's more to do than that. Somehow Steam must be made aware of the additional filesystem to be able to use it as a game library folder. It is possible in Steam BPM (Big Picture Mode) to switch between several library folders, though, but somehow they need to be set up (created by making a couple of entries in some .vdf files) first, and as far as I know this is only possible in desktop mode, not in BPM, and this information should be persistent, even after performing any GamerOS related upgrades...

Why not use something like MergerFS or ZFS or BTRFS something with drive pooling and just put the mount point as the game directory for game installs.

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Quoting: Mal

Quoting: Nugrudwhen was the last time SteamOS was updated by Valve? Does anyone still use it?

If I were Gaben I wouldn't spend resources into SteamOs until Big Picture and Proton are polished. After all the deficiencies in those areas were the cause of failure of the Steam Machine initiative.

It will be interesting though to see if Valve will try another time to push SteamOs when the time comes or if they just leave it to community projects like this one. The advantage of community projects is that they might have less legal and commercial issues in integrating third party stores into their distro. Assuming any store other than Steam start supporting linux ofc.

GamerOS already supports Steam, GOG, Epic, Itchi.io and Humble Bundle with open source programs out there.
https://github.com/sharkwouter/minigalaxy [External Link]
https://lutris.net/ [External Link]
https://github.com/Heroic-Games-Launcher/HeroicGamesLauncher [External Link]
https://github.com/itchio/itch [External Link]
https://github.com/tkashkin/GameHub [External Link]

Really there are only a few stores left without Linux client support:
EA Origin
Ubisoft UPlay
Rockstar (Still available via Steam & Epic)
Bethesda.Net (Not sure how this will play out with Microsoft buy out)
Blizzard Battle.net
Guild Wars (Coming to Steam)

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Valve has never had the consumer in mind. It, like every other company out there, is all about what the simplest and easiest way for them to get boatloads of cash. Valve rarely even makes video games any more because it is easier and cheaper to run their online store and rake in the cash.

Valve did not take on Linux because they want to champion open source or because it was the right thing to do. Valve for the longest time had zero interest in Linux and said they would never make games for it. The only reason they shifted is because they freaked out that Microsoft was going to start locking things down like Apple and cut them completely out of the Windows market and lose more of the Apple market as well. So Valve did what any company would have done and looked for ways to protect themselves and their profits and started to advocate Linux as a bet against Apple & Microsoft and their stores. It wasn't charity it was a solid business decision and one they still keep doing.

If you follow the news you will notice that Microsoft is going to totally redo their store and they are dropping their cut down to 12% just like Epic. (https://www.theverge.com/2021/4/29/22409285/microsoft-store-cut-windows-pc-games-12-percent [External Link]). They are working on a total redesign of the store as well in order to attract more developers back to the store. This is a threat that Valve can't ignore. Yes people will say Microsoft store sucks, but that doesn't mean Valve as a company can just ignore what Microsoft is doing or might do. Linux is simply a hedge for Valve to protect their store and their massive profits for doing very little work, at least compared to developing new software (games/apps/etc).

I have no love for Valve and they have gotten lazy and fat off their store. They have in my opinion abused their position as a monopoly. No you don't have to have 100% of the market to be a monopoly. Remember Microsoft was convicted of being an illegal monopoly and they didn't have 100% of the market either. Same for IBM back in the day.

Other stores have tried to compete against Steam but they are just so large and so entrenched that no one so far has been able to seriously challenge them. That makes them a monopoly and I believe they have abused their position. Valve has used their piles of free cash from their store to buy up other developers to help pump up the store as well. Same type of thing that Microsoft did for year. Microsoft copied everyone or bought out the small innovative startups and make them Microsoft. Valve is headed down the same road.

Remember Valve isn't pro-consumer or you would actually own what you bought from them and you would be able to sell it others once you were done. It being digital doesn't make it magic or unique. I can sell my DVDs and Blurays and books and sheet music and anything else I own, but somehow corporations think digital stuff is magical and you shouldn't be able to resell it. It is all about the greed for them.

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Quoting: fagnerlnI find interesting how Linux users which spread "freedom" loves a law to hurt the freedom of a corporation. Google, Apple, Valve...

Those three it's on a comfortable state because they make good services. Instead of make the state interfere, just praise the alternative one

How in the hell a large cut is bad for competition? Wtf? This means that the competition have a wider cut to work: 25, 20, 15...

Just go to another store there's a bunch of them: itch, GoG, EGS, Windows Store, Humble, Origin, uPlay...

Open Source has never been about corporate freedom. It has always been about individual freedoms. I have no love for corporations which try to screw the consumer over every chance they can get.

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Quoting: shorbergDid it always say "Publisher", didn't it use to say "Developers"? Because those are not the same thing.

I get the impression that Humble has moved beyond dealing with small indie developers and prefers to work with publishers instead. I mean just look at their store a huge percentage of it is Steam game keys not them working indie developers. Seems to me that Humble has lost their way.

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Quoting: 14The slider change kinda sucks, but who else is doing what they're doing? Don't boycott. What for, anyway? Then we have zero places like them.

That said, my game buying is lower than it was years ago. And their bundles are often weak on native Linux support. So, I find myself also buying more eBooks from Humble lately than games like mirv.

Amazon has offered for a long time the option to use their Smile program so everything you buy from Amazon, a percentage of it goes to the charity of your choice. So Humble Bundle isn't the only one doing this. Also with Amazon Smile it isn't some things, it is everything you buy from Amazon earns a percentage for the charity.

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I have pretty much given up on Humble. They are mostly selling Steam keys these days more than they are hosting their own DRM free stuff. It seems to me that they have given up on the whole DRM free thing and running a DRM free store. Seems like GOG does a better job at being DRM free than Humble Bundle does these day. I also don't see how this change makes them any different from Amazon. Amazon sells Steam keys and I can pick a charity where a percentage of all my purchases go to a charity of my choice. The Amazon Smile program or whatever they call it. So I don't see the point of Humble Bundle any more. Does Ryan Gordon even work there any more porting stuff to Linux for developers and Humble? I haven't heard anything about that kind of thing in a long time. So I rarely use Humble any more other than to pick up really cheap steam games. I think Humble has really lost their way.

I don't even buy ebooks from Humble because there are so many places these days to get DRM free books. DriveThru RPG has tons of DRM free gaming books and even some free books. Kobo and Baen Books have tons of DRM free ebooks and even free books with no DRM. There is Comixology has free comics and DRM free comics and there is also DriveThru Comics as well with DRM free comics. So for DRM free reading there are lot more options than waiting for Humble Bundle of books to roll around with something I might be interested in.

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Quoting: RafiLinuxParsec was good but no way to host on Linux.

Parsec talked about making a Linux server over a year ago but they never followed through and never released anything. I have repeatedly asked about it but seem they don't see my posts and messages or they are ignoring me asking about the status.
https://twitter.com/parsecteam/status/1189682101257482248?lang=en [External Link]

Parsec did work out a deal with Plex and released a Mac based server for Plex server but so far they haven't released the Mac server beyond their deal with Plex.
https://support.plex.tv/articles/plex-arcade-faq/ [External Link]
https://support.parsec.app/hc/en-us/articles/115002702331-Setting-Up-Hosting-On-Windows [External Link]

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