Quoting: ShabbyX

Quoting: CatKiller

Quoting: ShabbyXAllow me to clarify, IIUC, kokokk's point is that even if the developer truly wants to support the platform and even if they honestly will try their best, forcing them like suggested may scare them so much they would decide not to take the risk.

They wouldn't be forced to support anything. They'd just have to give the money back if they lied about providing support when they don't, rather than just keeping it.

To put it another way: if you've written on your store page that you're going to support a platform, to entice customers on that platform to give you money, but you are unable or unwilling to provide that support, why should you get to keep the money?

I get your point, but your assumption is that any developer who drops Linux support has a malicious intent, and they were trying to cheat people out of their money right from the get go. That's where the disagreement really is. I don't believe for example the developer in this article intentionally thought "let me boost my sales by 1% through lies and deceit". They simply bit more than they could chew.

Well, here is the thing. 100% of game developers who ever promised their game to run on Linux and it ended up not doing so, were either malicious or incompetent. There is no other explanation. All games can be made to run on Linux. 100% of them, 100% of the time. If your game does NOT run on Linux...that was your CHOICE. And if that was your choice (which it always was), and you promised otherwise...the only remaining explanation for your action is malice or incompetence. Take your pick.

View this comment - View article - View full comments

Quoting: CatKiller

Quoting: GuestAgain, the support i will give could not be dependent on my will, but on third party engine i've no control over.

As a developer it's your choice which engine and tools you use. As a developer it's your choice if you push an update that breaks your game for your customers, and as a developer it's your responsibility to see if that's going to happen before you do it. It's not your customers', nor Valve's, fault if you're just not very good at your job, and they shouldn't have their money stolen, nor reputation tarnished, because of it.

^ This.

Game developers need to start accepting responsibility for their promises, pretty much like every other industry out there. It's not too much asked for to think about which platforms you want to deploy on and then make sure that you're actually able to. If you're not sure if your finished product will run on Linux/Mac/Mobile, don't promise it. Easy as that. Then just say "Platforms other than Windows are not planned at this time", which is true and honest. Don't compel Linux users to pre-purchase your game if you can't say with certainty that they're able to run it when it's done. This is particularly true if you have no experience with Linux and haven't even decided on any 3rd party components to use in your project.

In short, developers who want to make money with selling games need to start behaving like professionals and not like amateurs.

View this comment - View article - View full comments

Quoting: TheSHEEEPGame developers suck at software development, despite doing exactly that - usually they only don't if they themselves come from "normal" software development and possess more skills than "how to do X in Unity".
It's the natural conclusion to having too-convenient tools like Unity available, I guess.

"struggle to reliably build and test".... wow, just wow.
Stuff like that wouldn't fly where I work.

I second that. Many game developers, even the ones writing code and not just the artists, indeed seem to have surprisingly narrow skill sets. They know how to boot Windows and can navigate whatever scripting language their engine of choice is using. The better qualified ones know their way around Visual Studio and DirectX, too. And only a handful ever seemed to have worked with an IDE -not- called Visual Studio, or is aware that DirectX isn't the only API of its kind out there.

If that studio isn't even able to make what really doesn't look like an overly complex piece of software run on a platform their engine is supporting quite well, I really wonder for how long these people have been "software developers".

View this comment - View article - View full comments

This is probably the last game I ever expected to go e-sports. It's strange, because Stardew Valley is about the most non-competitive game in existence. But humans have that tendency to turn really everything into a "I am better than you!!!" competition, so it's not totally surprising me, either.

View this comment - View article - View full comments

This is such a sweet game! I really need to play it again! I never tried it in co-op.

View this comment - View article - View full comments

Quoting: TermyAnother reason to put your money where your mouth is and support Linux-supporting devs instead of devs that don't care. (Personally, official support for proton is fine too)

To be fair, even Linux native clients are not guaranteed to run forever. While the risk of sudden breakage is admittedly higher when using Proton to run games that never were developed with Linux in mind, it's not zero even for native ports.

Also, you got to admit that for AAA titles, giving our money to Linux supporting devs is kinda hard, since there...well...aren't any out there not called Valve.

View this comment - View article - View full comments

The great thing about Proton is -exactly- that we no longer have to care about what people like him are thinking about Linux.

View this comment - View article - View full comments

I kinda liked the Windows 7 UI, but Win 10 is unbelievably ugly. I have seen only a handful of screenshots of Win 11 so far, but it seems to be only marginally better than 10. Not sure why anybody would want to pay to make Linux as ugly as Windows. If you want Linux to look and behave like Windows, there is always KDE, I guess?

View this comment - View article - View full comments

I do not care what makes a game run on Linux as long as it runs on Linux and isn't called Stadia.

I share the one concern about Proton not guaranteeing that a Windows game currently running on Linux will continue to run after the next patch (I am looking at you, Origin!), but as far as I am concerned, that's the ONLY downside of Proton compared to porting.
WINE/Proton has become incredibly good. What was barely able to run some legacy games on Linux only a few years back (and with a lot of tinkering) has become an almost invisible compatibility layer that makes even AAA Windows games run out of the box more often than not.
A tool that runs (almost) any Windows game on Linux in a way that's indistinguishable from a native client is just as good as any port, and Proton gives us (almost) that. They're still working on the "almost" part, and with anti-cheat issues soon to be a thing of the past: Who needs Linux ports of years old games anyway, if Proton allows you to play the Windows version from day 1? The last point actually makes Proton -better- than ports.

In the end, while I am grateful for Feral's past contribution to Linux gaming, I am not going to miss them much. Linux gaming has moved on.

View this comment - View article - View full comments

Will I buy one? Perhaps. I dunno. Console gaming normally isn't for me. The types of games I play typically cannot reasonably be played with a controller. I don't play platformers, racing games or shooters, so there is that. I also don't commute (thankfully!), or travel all that much, and if I do, it's mostly the odd car trip, so I am in no desperate need for mobile gaming. But maybe I will get one just because.

Otherwise?

Fantastic news, particularly the anti-cheat stuff, which has been a pain in our penguin butts forever. If this becomes a thing, and there is no reason to believe it won't - it's a MUCH better choice than the Switch, unless you love Super Mario really that much - developers will finally have incentive to prefer Vulkan over DX12, and actually test their stuff on Linux. This device might as well give us the push Steam Machines were meant to give us back then.

PS: Yes, it will force Linux gaming even more on Steam than it already is, but let's be honest: It never really happened anywhere outsides of Steam even without the Deck.

View this comment - View article - View full comments