Quoting: Alm888snip

I can totally accept not being able to play PUBG, or EA/Ubi games. I consider them "platform exclusive" games that just aren't available for my platform. That's fine. What I don't (want to) accept is having no AAA games at all. As in zero, nada, nothing.

We -have- AAA games. The selection could be greater, sure, but we get enough AAA games that we don't -need- to boot Windows 100% of the time when we're in the mood for playing a game.

Yet.

But with your attitude, this picture might change soon enough, and it won't be only PUBG that makes you boot Windows (I hope you -never- use that either btw. - it's got built in DRM!). Paradox is currently supplying a very healthy portion of all AAA games released to Linux. And if they go, others might follow quickly.

Then it will be back to Tux Racer and cheap Indie games.

Well, for you that is.

Since I am not a knuckleheaded ideologist, I still have other options. WINE being one of them. Dual-booting the other. I'd -very- much prefer to see AAA games continue to being released natively on Linux, but apparently people like you are working really hard on putting an end to what might be remembered as the time when Linux got good games for a brief period in history.

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Quoting: Purple Library GuyI've never quite understood the big problem with Steam "DRM". As far as I can tell, I can play my games in offline mode without an internet connection. So, like, the games will play without phoning home. So what's the problem?

As I said above, it's an ideology for them. The ONLY time when Steam's DRM is actually getting in people's way is when they want to sell their games to another person, which would normally be legit, but is made impossible by Steam's DRM. The fun thing is that close to 100% of the time there is no solid desire to sell off used (=older) games, because old games tend to be dirt cheap on Steam anyway (sales...), so there is no real market for second-hand games.

I -swear- that a good approximation to 100% of the "Steam is so evil because DRM" crowd are in fact utter hypocrites that tolerate DRM anywhere but on Linux - but otherwise happily buy smartphones, gaming consoles, streaming or cable TV subscriptions, movies and E-Books. None of which come DRM free.

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Quoting: Alm888Sorry, Paradox, but DRM-free or it didn't happen. I won't give Valve a cent.

<rant>

You do realize that this attitude is part of what might make bigger publishers reconsider supporting Linux, yes? If you're not buying their games for purely ideological reasons (and that's what it is), they might oblige and stop offering them.

Am I a fan of DRM? Certainly not. But mildly intrusive systems like Steam's are still better than having no games at all. And as others have pointed out, Paradox doesn't even -use- Steam's DRM features, so this makes boycotting them extra-dumb in my book.

This Steam bashing coming from some zealots here makes me angry, in all honesty. Without Valve pushing us, we would have a handful of low-budget, garage-made Indie games and Tux Racer to play. In other words, nothing worth mentioning. I guess I wouldn't even BE here, because I'd still use Windows 99% of the time when playing games, instead of the other way around, which Valve had no small part in making possible.

If people like you would finally put their knuckleheaded ideology away and start buying games from Steam they would have bought from GOG without even thinking twice, publishers like Paradox wouldn't think about dropping support for us. In other words, yes, I think you're a part of the problem here.

PS: I hope you don't have any Android/iOS smartphone, any streaming subscription or cable TV either. All of these have built-in DRM, so you folks have to boycott them, too!

</rant>

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I bought every single one of their games, and will keep doing so.

But we need a bigger push from Valve's end, if we ever want to break through the 1%-2% ceiling. I am also afraid that publishers might get tempted to jump ship if they don't see actual progress with SteamOS anytime soon. Right now it's going waaaaaaay too slow.

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On Steam store, it actually says "Open Code", not open source. And they also say that it's ok to be used for modding purposes. Which is not -quite- open source, but still above and beyond of what close to 100% of all game developers do, who habitually tend to faint if you dare asking for the source code of games they stopped selling 20 years go.

And the game looks fairly interesting, too!

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Good to see Square Enix is still committed! After not seeing anything from them making its way to Linux for a while, I was getting worried!

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It -is- a sound strategy, and I think a lesson learned from their failed attempt to push SteamOS-based SteamMachines at a time when the product wasn't yet ready to compete with established systems. If you want to gnaw away at Windows/XBox's market share, you need to present customers a fully functional system that's -at least- on par with what you're attacking. We still lack a convincing argument for gamers currently (more or less happily) using Windows for gaming to switch to Linux. Every single game available for Linux is also available for Windows, so we need to beat Windows as a -platform-.

We have some things going for us - Linux is free-as-in-beer (if you're a system builder that's something you obviously like), open (no danger of it getting locked down), and arguably the overall better operating system than Windows. But we're still lagging behind in a few aspects as a -gaming- platform. Vulkan filled the most glaring hole and finally gave us the well-performing graphics API that OpenGL never was (although it seems game devs are much less keen on low-level graphics APIs than most people thought - so far they seem to stay away from both DX12 and Vulkan and consider DX11 "good enough"). Graphics drivers are another problem, and it's good to see that Valve is determined to improve that area (even if their efforts largely affect AMD users only, while the NVidia end will still be a mess). Distro-fragmentation and resulting support nightmares is probably the biggest problem overall - and SteamOS seems to be in no small part meant to remedy that and establish THE Linux gaming distro.

The downside of playing the long game is that it takes...well...long. What I am personally afraid of is some of the larger studios currently supporting Linux with the few AAA games we have, will lose patience if they don't see at least -some- progress going on. We had some tremendous momentum when Valve entered the Linux market, but it -did- slow down a little. We're getting the odd AAA game, but it almost feels as if we're getting fewer overall and fewer meaningful ports than two years ago. And we didn't have a NEW larger studio starting to support us since...Square Enix, if I am not mistaken? And even they didn't throw anything our way lately (no Rise of the Tomb Raider, no FF game...). The last true blockbuster we got was...Civ 6, in early 2017? And Aspyr quietly faded away as a driving Linux factor since then. I don't want to be a Negative Nancy, but right now we're -losing- momentum, not gaining any.

In short, I appreciate what they are doing, but if they are still committed to establish SteamOS as a competitor to Windows/XBox and PS4 in a few years, they could and should be a bit bolder, IMHO. One developer more won't change the overall picture all that much. I don't know how many people are working on SteamOS, but I think they need to hire a few more if they want to keep this thing going in a meaningful fashion.

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No matter how many devs they throw at it: On the NVidia end, people always will have to use the proprietary drivers, unless some sanity returns to NVidia management (which is highly unlikely), no?

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Let's face the reality - open systems are an aberration. The ONLY reason why we have an open PC platform today is because IBM totally underestimated the importance of software in general, and happily outsourced that part of their business to Microsoft, leaving their hardware platform open for them to install the software that nobody at IBM thought would ever be relevant for business.

Open systems have happened absolutely nowhere else in business history. Let that sink in for a moment! Every other system is tightly controlled by the manufacturer, because control is obviously more profitable than no control (*points at Apple for proof*). Nobody but IBM has ever made a dire mistake like this, and chances are close to 100% that it will never happen again.

So is that really so surprising that MS is trying to correct what from their perspective is a historic mistake?

If people think they aren't trying to lock down Windows for fun and profit, they need to stop smoking whatever they are smoking. I bet that this has been the hottest topic in MS board meetings for the past decade: "How can we push a closed platform to our users and hold our hand open every time somebody wants to install anything on it, like Apple does?"

Their first attempt - building a closed mobile platform to compete with Apple and Google - failed horribly. Now it must have occurred to them that they can also just lock down Windows and throw the key away. I wonder why it took them so long, really.

Now - here comes the problem (both for them and us): Locking down Windows won't do them much good all by itself. Windows is a different platform than iOS or Android, because a very large portion of installations are in enterprise environments, not consumer. Fat-cat corporations and governments will not accept having to purchase SAP and Photoshop in Windows Store. Good thing for MS is that they don't have do much except waiting for cloud services to become the norm and selling these instead. Which is what they do.
As for the consumer PC segment, it's shrinking on a daily basis. People buy mobile devices rather than PCs, and in that segment Microsoft's market share is almost non-existent. Gaming is one of the few remaining reasons for people to buy desktop machines these days, and MS cannot lock down Windows unless they control enough games retail market share allow them to make that move without upsetting users. But they don't. Valve does.

If Valve feels threatened by Microsoft, then rightfully so. Steam is the only thing that keeps them from locking down Windows and generate a lot of extra profit. Which is why I don't understand why the rumors that MS is looking to buy Valve were dismissed so quickly by us. The move makes absolutely perfect sense. It's -exactly- what MS needs to do to give Windows Store the critical mass it needs if they want Windows S to be the norm installation on consumer machines. If they can integrate Steam into Windows Store, they'd suddenly control a healthy portion of all Windows software online sales.
And yes, I know that Valve is privately owned, but hey, everybody's got a price. How many billions would they have to pile in front of Gabe until he gives in? They paid a billion for Minecraft. One game. They won't care about how many billions Gabe asks for. He will get them and an extra one or two for good measure. The guy's just human. Bioware's owners sold their company to EA, in full realization that EA would turn it into a soulless producer of uninspired games, just as they have ruined every other studio they ever bought. They sold anyway. Outrageous offers can do that.

And no, don't expect the government to pull the anti-trust card. Not with a government that habitually dismantles every regulation and consumer safeguard any large corporation disagrees with.

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Quoting: Mountain Man

Quoting: chepatiParadox is well aware of the issue but they couldn't care less about it.

Do they really not care? Or is it simply that there's no trivial solution? Remember, Crusader Kings II was released before 4K was even a viable option for PC gaming, and the Clausewitz engine at the time didn't support anything greater than 1080. The current version does, but porting Crusader Kings II to the latest version of Clausewitz would probably be a major undertaking.

In defence of the person, but CK2 isn't your typical old game they stopped selling years ago and can't even find the source code for anymore. It is a game they are still actively developing on and selling new DLCs for. From that perspective, it's not too outlandish to ask for updating it to more modern specs people might have, at least I don't think so. That and 4k screens have been around for a while now.

But I agree that it's probably less than trivial to do.

Personally, I run CK2 in 2500x1440 with the "better font" mod, and it works quite ok. UHD resolution is indeed a no-go for this game, though.

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