And I've been holding off on 580.126.09 because someone here mentioned problems with XFCE.

View this comment - View article - View full comments

Annoying that the only way it is available on Ubuntu Linux derivatives is flatpak, snap or compiling. None of which I am going to use. I don't need a DEB file, but what about a binary?

View this comment - View article - View full comments

Quoting: TheSHEEEP

Quoting: CaldathrasThat's your opinion (one that I happen to agree with, mind you) but that doesn't make it right or wrong -- which is, after all, a value judgement.

Eugh. Spare me that relativistic stuff.
Having an opinion does not make that opinion valid.
There is such a thing as correct and such a thing as wrong.
Is 1+1 2? Are there clouds in the sky? Would fulfilling minimal end-of-life plans be expensive for publishers/developers? Etc.

Most opinions around this topic can be rather easily proven right or wrong - and honestly have been, plenty of times. Certain people just choose to ignore that and continue doubling down as if their opinions had not been proven wrong dozens of times over.
Maybe some day this will be known as PirateSoftware syndrome.

Quoting: CaldathrasHe may feel strongly that their strawmen have validity. Can you show him how those strawmen are not valid?

Engaging with strawmen or even validating them is pointless. They may well be valid, but their entire substance is not even being relevant to the actual topic.

The classic here is the "it would be too expensive for publishers to keep the servers infinitely".
Is that a correct statement? Yes.
Is that statement relevant to the initiative? No.

So, basically, your comments about his reaction to the cool-aid snip could just as easily be applied to yourself. Showing how they are irrelevant to the actual topic would be addressing their validity. Your example did this brilliantly (although more details would clarify it further).

As to the first half of your comment, a response would stray to far into esoteric philosophy than I suspect either of us would care to pursue. 😊

View this comment - View article - View full comments

Quoting: SlayerTheChikken

Quoting: eggroleAs everyone has said, I see no issue with the 30% cut, but I think the more important part, that has a bit of merit IMHO, is the off-platform competition restriction. If my game is for sale on steam for $50, why can't I sell it direct on my website (or any other platform for that matter) for $40?

This *feels* very anti-competitive, but what do I know.

This part is true, I can agree on that.

I disagree. It is hardly "anticompetitive". Sellers are free to take their product to any other online store if they don't like Valve's policy. Contrary to apparent belief, Valve is in no way a monopoly. Other online retail options exist. The seller just won't get the level of exposure that Steam can offer.

Maintaining price parity on all stores is just good business. To paraphrase from my other post, if the seller is undercutting their own prices, it impacts their sales through Steam. This makes it somewhat pointless for Valve to provide their time and resources making the seller's product available on their store.

Besides, all evidence that I've seen is that price parity is not happening. The regular price is often very close ("Manufacturer's Suggested Retail Price", anyone?) but I have never seen a matching sale price across all digital storefronts at the same time. For example, Fanatical sold a game I purchased on discount for lower than Steam has ever discounted that game. Green Man Gaming has done the same. GOG too. So where is the forced parity?

View this comment - View article - View full comments

Quoting: TheSHEEEPEveryone who would actually give these things consideration would realize that the publisher's talking points are entirely wrong, with no basis in reality - because they are almost entirely strawmen.
Opinions are not equal - they can be right, and they can be wrong, and they can be in-between.

That's your opinion (one that I happen to agree with, mind you) but that doesn't make it right or wrong -- which is, after all, a value judgement. You may see the issue differently, but it does not follow that @Mountain Man not viewing the issue the same way is wrong. He may feel strongly that their strawmen have validity. Can you show him how those strawmen are not valid?

View this comment - View article - View full comments

Quoting: dren

Quoting: Frawo

Quoting: drenI love GOG because I can actually buy and own games, but they are still a corporation and corporate track records are pretty shitty these days.

You don't ever own games, neither on GOG, Steam, Epic or physical disk. You only buy the licence to use them. GOGs offline installers might give you the illusion of ownership, but you can more or less achieve the same thing by backing up your Steam common folder.

These are in no way remotely equivalent. GOG provides DRM free portable, self-contained installation packages designed to be backed up and installation can be configured. Steam backups are essentially snapshots of an already-installed, DRM-locked game directory. You don't have the freedom to install it where you want. Games used to be completey DRM free on installation media. Companies tried adding DRM to physical media but that met with issues for the end user. Steam made it easier for devs to lock down our software. GoG is the antithesis of Steam when it comes to ownership and user rights.

Couldn't have said it better myself.

The "you can back up your Steam games after they're installed" argument is spurious at best. It overlooks the fact that the game still requires the Steam client to install those games in first place. GOG's offline installers do not.

If it's an "illusion of ownership", I'll take it.

View this comment - View article - View full comments

@Mountain Man

It means blindly accepting direction and/or the status quo without giving it any consideration of your own. From what I've read, this does not seem to apply to you.

You are entitled to your opinion, even if others do not agree with it.

View this comment - View article - View full comments

I have started testing out Heroic recently. I find that it is not as feature-rich as Lutris but somewhat more stable. What features they do have, work and are well implemented. For example, custom categories. In Lutris, you can assign them but they are pointless. In Heroic, you can filter by them.

The only thing I like about Lutris, that I haven't figured out how to do in Heroic so far, is that I can create an "empty" wine prefix and I can do it without having to be online. I haven't tried this to create an UMU-based empty prefix in either launcher, however. Not sure it would work. UMU only seems to create the prefix once you run the installer.

I also like the idea behind Steam integration in Lutris, even if I don't use it. The idea of being able to track total gameplay time while offline is appealing. Having two launchers (Steam & Lutris) running in the background to do so, is not so appealing. If only Valve would enable tracking game time in offline mode ...

View this comment - View article - View full comments

Where I can avoid it, I prefer not to use a retail store launcher for game installation if I can avoid it. I have never used GOG Galaxy and probably never will -- even if they make a Native Linux version. I like the offline installers, play offline anyway, and could not care less about achievements or other social media features.

Frankly, I still think the best move on GOG's part would be to work with the existing third-party tools (which I do value and use) rather than compete with them. If you ask me, cooperation is the future ...

View this comment - View article - View full comments

This is not at all my kind of game, but I am continually blown away be the graphics quality, lighting and shading in the pictures GoL puts up.

View this comment - View article - View full comments