Quoting: leillo1975I don't know if Shadow of Mordor was released in August,

It wasn't. July 30th.

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It's a close call between Shadowrun: Hong Kong and Crookz - The Big Heist for me.

S:HK was a game I knew I would like going in. I liked Shadowrun Returns and I loved Shadowrun: Dragonfall, so I had high expectations for S:HK going in. I'm likely about halfway through the game (I'm in no hurry) right now and I'm happy to report that it has not disappointed. This may be the most dialogue-heavy of the Shadowrun games, which is a plus for me, as I love reading. I also like how little combat there has been so far/how avoidable it is. This to me makes it play much like my own Shadowrun pencil & paper experiences from when I was younger. In the p&p game, at least the way we played it, combat skills were something you didn't use very often. Ideally, when you did a run, you broke into a place, got the information/items necessary to complete the job, and got out without ever tipping off security. The combat skills were there as a contingency for when a run went sideways. That's how I play S:HK, I try to avoid bloodshed as much as possible and ideally ghost missions. When that fails, I try to fast talk my way out. When that fails, I gotta pull out a shotgun and start blasting.

Crookz - The Big Heist sorta came out of nowhere. I remember a long time ago there was a live action trailer for it, then I didn't hear anything about the game and it became forgotten. Fast forward to a little over a week before launch and suddenly a wild free demo appears (something we don't see enough of these days), as reported on here. I played the demo and liked it enough that I pre-ordered the game (I like tactical games, I like stealth games, getting to play as a foxy black woman with an afro is a big plus too, I have no qualms about pre-ordering if I've physically played the game, since I'm making an informed purchase). My one fear after playing the demo was that the game would be too easy and too short. I'm about halfway through the game right now (again, no hurry, I play slowly) and I can happily report that the game is neither easy nor short. The missions have gotten progressively longer and more complicated. There are so many different moving (and stationary) parts to consider. The game is 80% planning and 20% execution, which is totally fine, as I very much enjoy casing a place and figuring out ways to bypass obstacles. The game works very much like a puzzle game in that regard. The interface is really elegant and user friendly, allowing you to set up long command chains and even adjust things easily on the fly when a plan starts to fall apart. I also like how there are usually multiple approaches to bypassing obstacles and how you can sometimes turn a mess up into an advantage.

It's hard for me to say which game I like better. I thought S:HK would be a slam dunk for my favorite release this month, considering how much I liked its predecessors, and it has absolutely delivered the goods, but Crookz is just so unexpectedly freakin' good. I can't choose between the two. It's a good problem to have. :D

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My bad, let me clarify. I mean MMORPG.

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It's always good to get more choice and this game looks pretty nice, a lot slower and less frantic than CS:GO (not a bad thing), which means someone like me might actually stand a chance... Who am I kidding? I'd still get 420 MLG BLAZE IT NO SCOPED again and again. :P

Now if we could just get a MMO, I mean a big time AAA one. We have zero choice in that department, and I don't even really play MMOs, I just recognize it as the most glaring hole in the Linux gaming catalog.

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Bummer, but game delays happen all the time, and for good reason too. Honestly, the rest of this year looks pretty packed with games for me to play, so this slipping to Feb 2016 isn't the worst thing in the world. Sucks for them that they miss the holiday season, though.

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I hope the port is good and it becomes a permanent thing. As for the game itself, I've always been very intimidated by the ARMA games, which will probably keep me from ever playing it.

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Quoting: Cybolic

Quoting: KeyrockI always get a kick out of replies like some in here, most of them likely from people that have never developed a single piece of software, much less something the complexity of a video game, in their life thinking they know the technical and business side of video game development better than people that have been doing it professionally for well over a decade, multiple decades in some cases. Ah, never change internet... Wait, actually, do change internet.

/facepalm

Fortunately, we have several commenting individuals on this site that actually _do_ have experience in development and specifically game development - Cheeseness being a prime example in this thread. I'm sure you'll find that most Linux communities inherently have more programmers than other OS-specific communities and that many of us who aren't necessarily in the business of games, have been or are involved in projects on the size and scale of most game development projects, as Linux is usually used in critical applications.

In any case, I'd welcome any counterpoint you may have?

Well, first off knowing what 1.5% of sales translates to in an actual dollar figure is barely educated guess work at best. Steam Spy can give a rough idea, but it's far from an accurate indicator. Plus there's Valve's cut of the sales, how many of those sales were full price, how many were on sale, how many were steam keys from 3rd party resellers, what price did they charge? There are a lot of variables here, most of which we'll never truly know.

Second is the engine. Had it not been for Mac and Linux, Obsidian would have likely used their own engine for the game, the one they used for Dungeon Siege 3, in fact they said so in one of the videos early in to the project. We can probably neglect the licensing fee for Unity, since it;s not all that expensive and that type of money is pocket change for a company the size of Obsidian, but there is the time and effort for them to learn an engine they hadn't used before, rather than using their own engine which they all knew well.

Next comes middleware and tools. A good chunk of middleware for PC development is specific to DX and Windows, given that it's the dominant platform. This is a situation that may change, maybe already has started changing, with Steam Machines arriving soon, but at the time Obsidian started developing Pillars it was likely still a very Windows/DX dominated area. So the choices then are to find tools that will do the job that will support Mac and Linux, which may or may not exist and may or may not be as robust or user friendly as the popular tools. Given that choice you then still have to learn to use the new tools. The other option is to port existing tools and middleware to support Mac and Linux.

Finally, there's the issue of Q&A that was brought up in the quote itself. How many people did Q&A for Linux? How many hours did they spend total doing Q&A for Linux (still are to some degree maybe)? What kind of salary do these people earn?

The point is, there are so many variable involved that it's practically impossible for anyone outside of Obsidian or a similar sized company that went through a similar situation (InXile) to have a good idea of what the costs and effort expended really were. Knowing the amount of money they made from the game off Linux is also a slightly educated guess at best, so trying to subtract an almost completely blind guess from another (slightly less blind) guess seems pretty ridiculous to me. I'm going to error on the side of the professionals at Obsidian know a hell of a lot better than I do what the costs were and whether the sales justified the costs.

As to the point of investing in the future, that may be valid. At this point, though, SteamOS is still a very uncertain quantity. I hope it succeeds, I hope it raises Linux marketshare high enough to convince most, if not all, developers and publishers that it's profitable to develop for Linux, but that's completely up in the air at this point.

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I always get a kick out of replies like some in here, most of them likely from people that have never developed a single piece of software, much less something the complexity of a video game, in their life thinking they know the technical and business side of video game development better than people that have been doing it professionally for well over a decade, multiple decades in some cases. Ah, never change internet... Wait, actually, do change internet.

/facepalm

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Hopefully when they do implement the Linux build it has controller support. No chance I'm playing this with m&kb.

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This looks interesting. I love the art style and the concept has great potential. As a fan of point & clicks, this is right up my alley. If there wasn't such an embarrassment of riches right now, as far as Linux games I have available to play, I'd probably be already playing it. As it stands, I'll file this one into the "To Do" list and check it out when my backlog thins out.

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