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Microsoft is rumoured to be looking to buy Valve, EA and others
31 Jan 2018 at 9:41 pm UTC Likes: 1
Not that any of this is going to happen. I really don't see Gabe deciding to dump his career and his massive revenue stream (and for that matter, his superstar status in certain communities) for a lump sum.
31 Jan 2018 at 9:41 pm UTC Likes: 1
Quoting: PatolaAs Mohandevir said, such would be gradual. There's always ways to functionally make things unworkable without actually leaving your legal butt uncovered. And there's certainly no way to legally force MS to continue putting NEW Linux games on.Quoting: Mountain ManAnd is that really believable? Lots of Steam users already bought lots of games (me included) and have the legal right to continue using the platform on their OS and have the game updates. If they just shut it down, it would likely involve them in a whole amount of legal trouble, if not a downright scandal. Adding an OS to Steam is easy, stopping supporting it when you're already in legal ties with its users is not.Obviously if Microsoft somehow convinced Gabe and co to sell up, Linux gaming would change significantly..."Change significantly" is an understatement. It would cease to be. Microsoft would kill all support for Linux gaming and force all developers to support Windows exclusively.
Not that any of this is going to happen. I really don't see Gabe deciding to dump his career and his massive revenue stream (and for that matter, his superstar status in certain communities) for a lump sum.
Microsoft is rumoured to be looking to buy Valve, EA and others
31 Jan 2018 at 6:19 pm UTC Likes: 2
31 Jan 2018 at 6:19 pm UTC Likes: 2
Quoting: KimyrielleThe last thing this planet needs is more monopolies.This is way off topic and theoretical, but there can also be serious problems with meaningful competition. There was a group of economists in the 19th century called the "railway economists", now little known, who were grappling with the problem of why railways kept going bust. It turned out that the problem was that in a capital-intensive industry, because of debt service costs there is a gap between the price at which you make a profit from each customer and the price at which you break even overall.
I am generally curious when the world is going to realize that unregulated wild-west markets do not work, and the economy needs meaningful competition to function... *sigh*
Spoiler, click me
So, say you have two competing railways running passenger services between two cities. They have each borrowed $120 million for tracks, trains and whatnot. At 4% interest they owe 4.8 million a year, or $400,000 per month. They also have operating costs--fuel, maintenance, paying employees and such. This is also $400,000 per month, for a total of $800,000. But there are 20,000 passengers per month on average between the two cities. If the two railways split the passengers equally and charge $80/ticket, they break even at 10,000 passengers * $80 = $800,000.
But they don't want to break even, they want to make a profit--and they're competing. If one company could get more of the passengers it would make more money. Say company A drops its price to $70/ticket and most of the passengers switch to the cheaper option--it will get nearly $1.4 million per month. The actual cost per passenger is way below $70, so they totally make money dropping the price. But of course the other competitor will drop its prices to get business back, maybe even further--it can still make a bunch at $60/ticket if it can get all the passengers.
The railway economists concluded that such price wars go until the price charged to each customer is enough to barely make an operating profit--but not to service debt. At this point it's still better to carry passengers than to just stop; the revenue you'd lose by stopping operations is still more than the costs you'd eliminate. But you're losing money on debt service because of the sunk capital costs for all the equipment and eventually you go bankrupt. This in fact happened to a ton of railway lines in the 19th century and indeed seems to have been a problem for a lot of capital-intensive firms; eventually the likes of J.P. Morgan "solved" the problem by creating monopolies and trusts.
Nowadays I think this problem has been visible for some time in the airline business, with airlines repeatedly going under or amalgamating into bigger and bigger companies for survival.
But they don't want to break even, they want to make a profit--and they're competing. If one company could get more of the passengers it would make more money. Say company A drops its price to $70/ticket and most of the passengers switch to the cheaper option--it will get nearly $1.4 million per month. The actual cost per passenger is way below $70, so they totally make money dropping the price. But of course the other competitor will drop its prices to get business back, maybe even further--it can still make a bunch at $60/ticket if it can get all the passengers.
The railway economists concluded that such price wars go until the price charged to each customer is enough to barely make an operating profit--but not to service debt. At this point it's still better to carry passengers than to just stop; the revenue you'd lose by stopping operations is still more than the costs you'd eliminate. But you're losing money on debt service because of the sunk capital costs for all the equipment and eventually you go bankrupt. This in fact happened to a ton of railway lines in the 19th century and indeed seems to have been a problem for a lot of capital-intensive firms; eventually the likes of J.P. Morgan "solved" the problem by creating monopolies and trusts.
Nowadays I think this problem has been visible for some time in the airline business, with airlines repeatedly going under or amalgamating into bigger and bigger companies for survival.
Don't Sink, a sandbox adventure pirate RPG now has Linux support
31 Jan 2018 at 5:34 pm UTC
31 Jan 2018 at 5:34 pm UTC
Quoting: SebastianNigroFair enough.Quoting: razing32Sounds interesting.It has persistent saving but no permadeath. You just get returned to the last island you were on. So you lose at most, a few minutes of progress.
Hope it isn't built with permadeath , or they at least make it optional.Quoting: SebastianNigroIf you play the game for yourself and experience some of the late-game combat, you'll understand why the minimum specs are what they are.
Quoting: Purple Library GuyYou need to put some of that stuff in the trailer. Nobody goes and buys a game about piracy on the high seas because they were impressed with the squeaky-clean shops in the towns.Unfortunately since the game is in early access the current trailer reflects how the game looked/played on day one release. Once again manpower is a huge limitation. I can produce another trailer but it would require another 6-8 hours which is an entire work day. We plan to update the trailer soon but for now we aren't entirely focused on sales as much as we are on the game's development. We want to further improve the game for now and when we feel it is ready for a bigger audience we will absolutely create a new trailer.
At worst right now you are purchasing a game that runs better, has more than 6x the content, supports Linux, and has some improved features when compared to the current trailer.
Don't Sink, a sandbox adventure pirate RPG now has Linux support
30 Jan 2018 at 4:44 pm UTC
You need to put some of that stuff in the trailer. Nobody goes and buys a game about piracy on the high seas because they were impressed with the squeaky-clean shops in the towns.
30 Jan 2018 at 4:44 pm UTC
Quoting: SebastianNigroIf you play the game for yourself and experience some of the late-game combat, you'll understand why the minimum specs are what they are.Thanks for stopping by.
You need to put some of that stuff in the trailer. Nobody goes and buys a game about piracy on the high seas because they were impressed with the squeaky-clean shops in the towns.
Feral Interactive are teasing another Linux port, so that's two titles not yet announced
30 Jan 2018 at 4:31 pm UTC Likes: 4
30 Jan 2018 at 4:31 pm UTC Likes: 4
So, was there ever a game done for the SF show Babylon 5? Because that's what "Garibaldi" means to me.
Don't Sink, a sandbox adventure pirate RPG now has Linux support
30 Jan 2018 at 7:30 am UTC
30 Jan 2018 at 7:30 am UTC
Graphics questions aside, I wonder about this. Maybe it's just a lousy trailer, but it doesn't look like there's a ton going on. You go into shops, you sail off to not obviously do anything in particular, you find yourself in combat for reasons that are unclear but with no obvious tactical options--your ship just stays at one edge of the screen lobbing cannonballs at the other ship which lobs them back. No maneuvering, no boarding, no nothing. And there's no real indication that you loot any fat merchant ships, seek any buried treasure, maroon anybody, fall victim to any black treachery by piratical rivals (or commit any) . . . in general, do anything piratical.
Hopefully this bland feeling is just the trailer giving the wrong impression.
Hopefully this bland feeling is just the trailer giving the wrong impression.
Don't Sink, a sandbox adventure pirate RPG now has Linux support
29 Jan 2018 at 9:46 pm UTC
So then if you have a game whose graphics are simplified with mostly static environments, in short a game whose look could have been readily produced 15+ years ago with the computing resources available then, why does it not imply using less computing resources? It's distinctly counterintuitive.
29 Jan 2018 at 9:46 pm UTC
Quoting: liamdaweThat strikes me as weird. No doubt true, but weird. The history of computer game graphics is marked by a tendency to use increased power to reach for more and more photorealistic and "busy" (eg explosions, lots of light sources, many moving things) environments rendered faster and faster.Quoting: Purple Library GuyFrankly, looking at the graphics in that trailer I find it kind of bemusing that it needs any options to let lower-end computers play it smoothly.This line of thinking always makes me laugh. A graphical style doesn't really have that much to do with how much computing resources a game needs ;)
So then if you have a game whose graphics are simplified with mostly static environments, in short a game whose look could have been readily produced 15+ years ago with the computing resources available then, why does it not imply using less computing resources? It's distinctly counterintuitive.
Don't Sink, a sandbox adventure pirate RPG now has Linux support
29 Jan 2018 at 6:24 pm UTC
29 Jan 2018 at 6:24 pm UTC
Frankly, looking at the graphics in that trailer I find it kind of bemusing that it needs any options to let lower-end computers play it smoothly.
Depraved, a city builder with survival aspects set in the Wild West will have Linux support
28 Jan 2018 at 10:26 pm UTC
28 Jan 2018 at 10:26 pm UTC
All fairly straightforward seeming . . . so why is it called "Depraved"?
The developers of game launcher 'Launchbox' on porting it to Linux, due to Windows 10 privacy issues
26 Jan 2018 at 4:42 pm UTC Likes: 1
26 Jan 2018 at 4:42 pm UTC Likes: 1
On the Big Box thing . . . frankly if I were them I'd wait until the code was rotting and it was time for a rewrite anyway and just make sure that rewrite was cross-platform friendly.
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