I was really waiting for this game, but since it was released on Windows it have had a lot of bad reviews. Granted, most of them are basically "Magicka 2 is good but Magicka 1 was better" or "it's missing this features I like in Magicka 1" but some of them like "unfinished game" and "lot of bugs" got me worried. I may end up buying it in the end since there is still a lot of good reviews but I will have to think about it.

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Quoting: Segata SanshiroI think that's essentially what happened with Expeditions: Conquistador and I suspect that's also why it's easier to just say "we support SteamOS, it may work on other distributions, but no promises".

Actually, Valve recommend to develop Linux games under Ubuntu and since you can't develop games on SteamOS (there is no tools) this is probably what they are going to use. And in fact, Steam for Linux only support Ubuntu officially :

The recommended Linux distribution is Ubuntu 12.04 or 12.10 LTS because they received the most testing during development of the Linux Steam client.
[...]
Steam for Linux supports Ubuntu 12.04 and 12.10 LTS (both 32- and 64-bit). In addition, we expect similar performance and stability with Ubuntu variants such as Kubuntu, Xubuntu, Mint, etc. Other distributions (e.g. Arch, Gentoo, etc.) have very active users who provide methods for installing the Steam Linux client. Valve approves of these efforts but does not officially endorse or support them.
Source (you need to login with your steam account) [External Link]

But the games are build to run on any distributions that can run Steam :

All Steam applications execute using the Steam Runtime which is a fixed binary-compatibility layer for Linux applications. This enables any application to run on any Linux distribution that supports the Steam Runtime without recompiling. As long as your development environment targets Ubuntu 12.04 LTS with the Steam Runtime, it will run without change on SteamOS.
Source [External Link]

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Quoting: boomanI can't imagine how much work it takes to support all the distro's out there and all the different hardware as well.

It was supposed to be impossible but the truth is that by providing the libraries you need directly with your build (or by using the Steam Runtime which is basically the same thing) and by not depending on what is installed you solve most of the problems. You can solve even more problems by not depending on bleeding edge graphics drivers (or ask people to update). And in fact, you can cover 90% of people with 3 distributions : Debian, Arch and Fedora.

The truth, I suspect, is that the developers have discovered Linux at the same time that they started porting the game and when you experience Linux for the first time simple tasks can take hours because you don't know what you are doing, you follow tutorials that are outdated or completely wrong (they tell you how to install X in 42 easy steps on the terminal when in fact you can just open a GUI and click install) and you make big mistakes that will take you hours to fix. With that and the fact that they had to learn how to use new tools because the tools they use on Windows are probably not on Linux, I'm not surprised that it takes them so much effort to support Linux, that why most companies will ask a third party to port the game. But it should get easier after a while.

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Quoting: axredneck

Did you use a Windows partition for gaming last month?

What have i to answer if i have a virtual machine with Windows on it and i use it for casual gaming?

It's on a virtual disk but still, it's a Windows partition.

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I've just restarted my PC by accident (walked on the power plug) and got the survey, the survey only appear when Steam start so if like me you rarely restart your computer and you never stop Steam it's not going to appear often. Also you need to be an active user to have the survey, so if you haven't played much don't expect to have a chance.

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This looks boring compared to a good old Sierra 3D Ultra Pinball. They're abandonware so you won't find them on Steam or GOG but you can find cheap CD on eBay (or download them like everyone else) and they run without any issues at all on Wine.

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Quoting: coesetaSkullgirls and Q.U.B.E. are still not working via steam, maybe it takes some more hours :/
and yes i restarted steam and tried to verify the integrity of the files ;)

It seems to be solved for Q.U.B.E. as I'm downloading it right now, Skullgirls files are still missing on Steam but they are working on it (https://twitter.com/Skullgirls/status/648941536860876800 [External Link].

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It's no surprise, there isn't a lot of games developers with multi-platforms related skills right now and there are still missing tools and documentation on the subject, so the cost of making a game that run on Linux and OSX is still very high (simply because you have to learn everything by yourself). As more and more games are made for a lot of different platforms, and more and more people have to learn to make games this way this problem will eventually solve itself.

Also the developer do intend to reuse the game engine for other games, so there is no doubt that it will reach profitability. I hope he will have more success with other games because I highly doubt he can make a living with Super Win The Game figures.

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Quoting: maodzedunGames should either have a flat global price - "it is what it is", or be priced per country. Grouping countries in regions is idiotic.

This is so true, people in Europe, don't have a better purchasing power than people in the U.S. but still we are expected to pay 5$ to 10$ more for every game (examples : GTA [External Link], MSG [External Link], PoE [External Link]. Already it's downright stupid but then look at this [External Link] and tell me how it make sense that all this countries with huge differences of average wage have to pay the exact same price of 60€ for GTA V [External Link] (which is 7$ more than the U.S. price).

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Preorder are not harming the video game industry, they are an expected part of the marketing strategy of any big publisher. What is harming the gaming industry is :
- People preordering games without any idea of what the game is actually going to be (because of some hype)
- Dishonest or corrupt critics
- Day-1 DLC

If you remove those 3 issues and make better preorder bonuses like :
- Discounts
- Soundtracks
- In-game developers commentaries
- Making-of documentaries
- Beta access
- Newsletters with artworks and informations about the development of the game
- And maybe a few cosmetics items

But never game content, then it would be perfectly fine to have preorder, and I would personally order a lot of them.

And I would like to add that this kind of fucked up marketing strategy happen not because those publishers are evil but because a lot of gamers don't actually buy what they want to play but instead buy what is going to be the next "thing". Blaming the publishers is not going to fix this.

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