This should be summarized for every game as "if you buy the game when the GNU/Linux version isn't yet released you aren't buying the GNU/Linux version". So simple... It hurts GNU/Linux sales numbers and it may shoot you back too like this time.

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It's like a developer looking for love in the Steam forums and Steam users doing their thing. I don't get why developers need to heat up gamers with news about GNU/Linux ports when it's obviously too soon to share them. I guess it's a way to get more publicity and gain some early sales when the port is still far from ready. It's nice from Gran PC answering questions about how the port goes but don't expect typical gamers to appreciate it.

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I think the Steam rewarding system is sick. You get the games for all the platforms but just the publishers of the port you play the first week gets paid? Wow! How silly!

If you get the game for all platforms all porters should get paid. Though, in cases where ports are sold by different publishers maybe purchases should be done per platform.

You're all just worried that the porter gets paid but that's not the only important concern. If you buy a game that only has a Windows version and a promise to port it to GNU/Linux, the message they're getting is that's all you need to be happy. No need to really do the port or care much about it.

Besides, companies like to look at charts and decide what's best for them based on the revenue per platform. If you buy the game for Windows while waiting for a port, your purchase will be counted in the Windows total. Later you'll hear from that company that GNU/Linux sales were poor. Thank you fast buyers and Wine gamers. :(

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Quoting: HamishAnd that would change what exactly anymore? :S

Right. Hoping it's a bundle with DRM-free versions. My hope for games going DRM-free is the HB, it's been more successful at that than others.

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Quoting: HamishPersonally I would be more interested in some of their older titles than most of the new ones, although I doubt we will ever see an Aspyr release outside of Steam.

I'll be waiting for a Humble Aspyr Bundle. :S:

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No surprise. Notebooks were supposedly going to be a successful market for GNU/Linux, but the one I bought had a crippled Windows version instead. Why did vendors preferred to sell their netbooks with a barely usable crappy OS in their machines when GNU/Linux was a much better fit?

With Steam is going to be worst since Windows has all the Valve game releases and GNU/Linux has just some of them. Most gaming users don't care about what's running behind the games.

Getting us on par with Windows may take several years, SteamOS must survive until then and Valve has to convince game makers to port their games. By then, most probably SteamOS isn't event GNU/Linux anymore and not even half free. The fight between MS and Valve is for market control, MS has an OS but lacks the game catalog, Valve has the game catalog but lacks the OS. Whoever wins we will loose.

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Quoting: GuestI'm still brushing up on everything Mesa (only got into properly once GL 3.3 was fully supported), but it seems this is an attempted replacement for current parsers & Mesa shader stack. Well, LunarGLASS has been around a little bit, but for Valve to fund them over "generic" Mesa, I do wonder at something else.
They're doing this for business motivations, and I do recall some mentions from the Steam Dev Days about wanting to provide shaders without full sources. That's not a part of the OpenGL spec, so perhaps this is an attempt to side-step the issue. Or that could just be me and a tin foil hat.

If that's true then shame on Valve. Of all the things they could help improve, closing the shaders source code is the most shameful one. I'm sure they're doing this for their profit, but I hoped it was something that would benefit us all.

We should be concerned that Valve's getting a lot of praise lately while other companies that have been constantly pushing GNU/Linux forward aren't recognized enough (someone rightly mentioned RedHat but not the only one).

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I think Mesa improvements are good for EVERYONE. I'd like Mesa made propietary OpenGL drivers irrelevant and that manufacturers like AMD, Nvidia and Intel just distributed Mesa drivers.

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Quoting: SirBubblesTo be honest, my main interest is in the game working under linux, not how it works. It's a game I'd wanted to play properly under linux for a while, and now I'm closer, if not there entirely.

I think the same but I'm concerned that the games I buy may stop working next year or when I decide to move my gaming to a new GNU/Linux box I build myself. The complexity added by middleware wrappers like eON can make it difficult for me to run the game anywhere and when I want. Usually, wrappers add their own problems to the ones already in the game, and rarely, if ever, add any value. Of course, that's from a consumer's point of view.

I'm not demanding unlimited official support for any of this but a native and sane port will be workable to get working anywhere while insanity wrapped inside more insanity might be impossible. Indeed, that could work like some kind of (unintended) DRM.

Wine seems a better solution for me since it's opensource. This removes dependence from any company. Not saying Wine is perfect, I don't like it, still adds an unwanted layer of complexity and has its own quirks and problems, but I could get my hands in it.

The only way those wrappers would be good is they became bug-free and reduced game dependencies to a minimum without introducing any weird requirement or performance penalty. I don't see that happening. Rather see everyone starts developing games in Java.

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Quoting: DrMcCoyIn what way do you mean "crappy 8bit era game"?

1) You lambast a few specific crappy games
or
2) All 8bit era games are crappy

Option 1, of course, I couldn't even think about option 2. I had an Spectrum and loved it. :D

Quoting: omer666

Quoting: berarmamaybe it's just VP trying to demo and sell their product

Well if it's the case they won't sell loads of it :p

Our good, I think a closed wrapper is far from the best way to port games.

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