Quoting: Shmerl

Quoting: ScooptaYes but wine isn't a port. Feral might be doing some wrapping but they're not wrapping the entire binary. I'll take ports over wrappers any day even if the port has wrapper libraries.

I disagree with saying that Feral's wrapper has no effect on native gaming. It has. It reduces incentives to make native ports. It doesn't mean it's a bad thing, since wrapped release is better than no functioning option at all. But then your claim that binary wrapper somehow discourages native ports more doesn't make sense to me. It's IMHO completely irrelevant what kind of wrapping takes place if you are analyzing it as alternative to native port. It's all a shortcut that allows playing something without spending a lot on native rewrite. The only difference is that Wine allows it for anything, and Feral allow it for what they selected only.

So this whole argument is about marketing only (i.e. "viewed as Linux release" ), not about actual effect on native releases. Nothing stops developers doing what Topware did [External Link], and use Wine for marketed "official" Linux release.

This whole topic started as an answer to "Wine discourages native ports, while Feral are encouraging them". I don't see that difference. If anything, both provide non native options in different fashions, and one being a closed controlled by Feral product, while other is FOSS and can be used by anyone.

The difference is wine users = windows users. When you buy a game from feral you're quite obviously not a Windows user. Even if you argue feral is damaging wine is more so from that point alone.

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Quoting: Shmerl

Quoting: EikeThought from the other end, would you be happy being able to play all Windows games via WINE (and probably not getting any support by companies) and having no more games compiled to target Linux?

I personally will be more happy to have native games naturally. But playing them through Wine is better for me than "playing" through Feral's wrapper that I can't even access in my store at all (which means not playing at all).

Besides, Feral wrappers don't encourage native releases unlike some claim above. Actual support for Linux in game engines does, that's what we get from Unreal, Unity and the like who actually make native option available.

You make it sound like all feral is doing is wrapping the game. You do know they do real work right?

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Quoting: Shmerl

Quoting: ElectricPrism

Quoting: ShmerlWhat's the problem with strong FOSS competition?

In this case it reduces incentive for companies to natively support Linux.

Pumping as much cash into Linux supporting companies as possible is a big goal for Linux Gamers as cash is king.

I wouldn't argue with that, i.e. the fact that wrappers can have a chilling effect on making native ports. But that applies to all wrappers. By this logic you should see a problem with Feral too, since companies that use Feral's work cut costs and avoid proper native ports, using a wrapper instead. It's just cheaper for them. And on the other hand, if you are OK with some wrappers already, then you should be OK with all of them.

And see above, about what practical benefits Wine has in contrast with closed wrappers. Also, we as Linux users should support FOSS more, at least I'd expect that.

Yes but wine isn't a port. Feral might be doing some wrapping but they're not wrapping the entire binary. I'll take ports over wrappers any day even if the port has wrapper libraries.

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Quoting: Shmerl

Quoting: ScooptaBecause I don't think companies should rely on wine for their games and if wine gets that good that might start happening.

I agree with you that companies should strive to do proper native ports. But relying on Feral's wrappers for them isn't any better than relying on Wine, if native aspect is concerned.

In fact, Wine has advantages that closed wrappers don't. It gives you more freedom. Not only it's FOSS with available code that you can modify and run as you like, it's not tied to any distributor and can be used with any game you want. Compare it to Feral's wrappers that are available on Steam only and only for a few titles selected by Feral. I.e. personally I don't benefit form Feral's wrappers at all, since I'm not using Steam, while I can easily use Wine with GOG and other DRM-free games.

Yeah and while that might be true feral puts a lot of time and effort into their ports however that's not the biggest reason I prefer it over wine. First off I have a thing against binary wrappers. At that point it's not a port it's basically like emulation, even if it doesn't have the same overhead. But most importantly when companies collect stats on who plays their games wine users = Windows users. That is something that is not ok with me and I'll take DRM any day over that. Especially if it's just steam DRM which is barely even DRM compared to some of the crap that's out there.

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Quoting: Shmerl

Quoting: jensI don't think that wine will ever reach the level where wine gaming comes close to the quality of Feral like ports.
(And I sincere hope that I'm right about this, otherwise the Linux community would shoot themselves pretty badly into their own feet when wine aims to compete with Feral etc and takes paying costumers away from them.)

I think you are wrong. I see no reason why Wine can't reach same quality, even though it could take longer time since Wine needs to support general Windows compatibility, while Feral can take shortcuts for each title.

Especially with projects like vkd3d for DX12 and dxvk for DX11, Wine eventually will be strongly competitive with Feral ports. And what's the problem with strong FOSS competition?

Because I don't think companies should rely on wine for their games and if wine gets that good that might start happening.

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I hope Valve continues to support Linux as their recent activity would suggest. We need someone with as many resources as they have contributing to the Linux gaming world.

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Quoting: Guest

Quoting: Eike

Quoting: GuestIt's hilarious that there are people who actually give a shit what system the binaries are compiled on!

You really need to learn more about your (potential) customers.
We're not using Linux because we're ordinary.
Our specialties are of different kind, but you sure have to expect specialties.

The thing is, the games industry is not going to cater to your, quite frankly unreasonable whims. If you start demanding dumb stuff like this, they will choose to ignore you. Remember you are less than 1% of the market - you need them more than they need you!

And yes, I'm aware this is not going to be a popular statement... but it is the truth. If you burn them they will simply pull their hand out of the fire.

It's clearly not that unreasonable. Feral is a much more popular and widely used porting house who has never once shipped Windows binaries. There's also aspyr who doesn't port much but they have some big stuff like civ and again no Windows binaries. I'm not complaining too much about the libraries/layers used. I'm aware it's a port...not a rewrite but shipping binaries for a different platform is going too far especially seeing as the other two notable porting houses don't do it.

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Quoting: Leopard

Quoting: Scoopta

Quoting: Leopard

Quoting: ScooptaVP doesn't port...they just wrap. I won't be buying this.

Yes , but they gave us Bioshock Infinite and Witcher 2 which they are very high profiled games.

I didn't like the Witcher 2 and while Bioshock was good I can live without it.

Which ported game you can't live without it?

Shadow of Mordor , Life is Strange or F1 2017?

There is not a single third party ported game on Linux that you cannot live without it.

Tbh the only AAA Linux games that interest me are tomb raider and civilization. None of the other games that have been ported interest me. There's also only 2 games on my porting wish list. Skyrim and dark souls. I just play more inide games than anything else.

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Quoting: Eike

Quoting: Scoopta

Quoting: Luke_Nukem

Quoting: ScooptaVP doesn't port...they just wrap. I won't be buying this.

So? VP support Linux gaming, and bring us games we might otherwise not get.

Get over it.

Nah I'm good but thanks. If it's got windows binaries I'm not touching it with a 10 foot pole.

I don't get "Get over it." here either. Nothing to get over. All fine. It's not like there's starving if one chooses not to run Windows binaries. At least not me.

Yeah. I'd expect people on a Linux website to be a bit more understanding about people's ideological views even if they don't agree with them. Not seeing that right now XD.

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Quoting: Luke_Nukem

Quoting: ScooptaVP doesn't port...they just wrap. I won't be buying this.

So? VP support Linux gaming, and bring us games we might otherwise not get.

Get over it.

Nah I'm good but thanks. If it's got windows binaries I'm not touching it with a 10 foot pole.

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