Quoting: deadlinux...as well as the newest DOOM, but it's pc only thus far

A PC is what you run Linux, Unix, Windows or any other kind of OS on. :P

As for games, well, mostly sticking to console lately. Got in a bit of a bind and need to sell some console games. Planning my last "so-bad-its-good" playthrough of Star Fox Adventures with my roomies. ^_^ Also played some of the Challenge Levels of Pikmin 2 for the first time, not sure I'm having fun with being timed... :/ Tried to remember how to get the All-Night Mask in The Legend of Zelda: Majora's Mask, but I think I fucked it up already.

Also a bit of Dungeon Crawl: Stone Soup recently. Been trying to work with Ru as a god so far, but haven't really settled on what race/class to be with it yet.

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Quoting: iiariThis is how you know that Linux gaming has arrived... When the genre, odd, off-beat, WTF games arrive. I remember the Windows freeware scene and shareware gaming scene of the late 80's and early 90's and it was filled with titles like this.

The "scene" this game belongs to is actually quite old [External Link]. One of the reasons Dating Sims and Visual Novels are getting more attention is that more of these games are on Steam now. The Ren'py engine also helped to put these genres on the map for Linux. Ren'py engine games were capable of being easily ported to Linux, Mac and Windows from the first public build because of the Python 2 base.

There are hundreds of these games out there already, free to download from repositories like https://games.renpy.org [External Link]. For a long time these games weren't thought of as potentially profitable, even amongst the fans and creators, but once a few people found success with selling their games, it took off from there.

... And I miss late 80s/90s PC gaming. They were some of the best. Thank goodness for Wine, DOSBOX and SCUMMVM!

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Quoting: ajgpI cant quite work out if this is therefore a genuine attempt at satire of the genre.

This is probably a part-serious/part-satire kind of game. There are more of them than you'd think for English-language Sims or Visual Novels.

And yeah it's a big, fat fetish. 2D characters can't husbando/waifu themselves, y'know! ^_-

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Quoting: Purple Library GuyBut the problem is not the lack of trust--the problem is that many of the technocrats and experts really are untrustworthy, that they have served money and power at most people's expense.

...

Blaming the amateurs for things falling apart is misplaced. The amateurs are a failing attempt at salvage of a situation that was falling apart anyway.

Sorry for the late reply, but I'm hoping IPFS would help this situation:
https://ipfs.io/ [External Link]

IPFS may help the situation in the future. ;)

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I can make a good guess why this happened. PewDiePie (Felix Kjellberg) recently got into trouble with a game developer, Campo Santo, who didn't like that he said n*gger on a livestream out of temporary gaming rage. The guy wasn't even *playing* a Campo Santo game at the time! PewDiePie also apologized on stream quickly, even so far as to make an entire EXTRA video on his YouTube channel to apologize, *and* voluntarily removed any Campo Santo gaming videos from his YouTube channel.

The *real* issue, though, is that the co-founder of Campo Santo threatened DMCA takedowns (meant for taking down videos that are infringing on copyright) for PewDiePie's videos that contained Campo Santo gaming footage. The Campo Santo co-founder, Sean Vanaman, said on Twitter that he'd issue DMCA takedowns to those videos in bad faith, out of hating what PewDiePie's said on that livestream, not out of any real copyright infringement of Campo Santo's games. Sean was going to explicitly misuse U.S. law for his own uses, even though Campo Santo's own Firewatch page says that they WILL NOT penalize ANYONE for streaming their games for money.

This is directly from Firewatch's Official Site [External Link]:

Can I stream this game? Can I make money off of those streams?

Yes. We love that people stream and share their experiences in the game. You are free to monetize your videos as well.

Whether or not you agree with saying taboo, offensive words at other players when playing PVP games as part of demoralizing them or to yourself when you're angry, whether or not you like YouTube streamers, this was a case of a developer going out of their way to unjustly punish a gaming streamer, which makes no sense at all. The devs, too, have benefitted from PewDiePie playing Firewatch, even if he'd said every oft-censored word in the book while doing so, it would have given a developer's game attention and therefore more sales.

Urgh, that's the gist of it. I don't think the Firewatch review bomb was wrong, people did it because of the developers willingness to blatantly misuse DMCA takedown laws to censor someone they didn't like anymore. That's petty and threatening to someone's source of income. If it had been a lesser YouTuber who had been in this situation, at the worst their entire channel could have been removed.

It would be like if Psyonix (devs of Rocket League) threatened a DMCA takedown on GamingOnLinux's Rocket League YouTube videos because someone in the stream said a "bad word"... in a TOTALLY DIFFERENT GAMING VIDEO. Yeah, I'd review bomb Rocket League on Steam if they said something stupid like that, too.

Regardless of how good their games are, a developer abusing the law is always wrong. We shouldn't give money to developers like Campo Santo or trust them to give us good games.

I'm not sure of the policy on links to other news sites, but I also have a TechDirt article that's done a brief, good write-up on this issue with more evidence of this drama than I can link to easily in a comment. Would that be ok?

EDIT: typo

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Quoting: razing32If you are unsure about a game that might be ported , I'd say just avoid watching gameplay vids...

But I wouldn't know when to stop avoiding those vids, either. For a fair amount of games I've become interested in from watching Jack's playthroughts, there's not even a rumour of Linux support, usually for months or even more than a year, and *then* something is reported. Considering how many games comes out, with Linux support from the start, it doesn't make a lot of sense to wait for something that may never come. :/

Call it impatient if you like, but Kindergarten isn't the only, quirky, ridiculous small game out there vying for my attention; it's also competing with the larger, longer, more well-funded games, too.

Quoting: Hamish...I would still buy it if you enjoyed what you saw and want to encourage future Linux development on their part.

Even if that would ultimately be helpful, I honestly don't have interest in buying it anymore. It would feel dishonest and almost pitying the developer to buy it now because of that lack of interest. It isn't even about money, it's about what value what I buy will ultimately have.

For instance, I never hesistated to watch Jack playing Clustertruck. That's a physics-based game that depends entirely on a person's skill and quick thinking to get through. I watched it because Jack's experience would never match any experience I could have by playing it personally, it's always different and also has no real "plot" to be spoiled on.

I'd *still* consider buying Clustertruck for those reasons, once I found out it would be getting a Linux port. I can't say the same for Kindergarten, though. The only unique experience I could get from Kindergarten now is just messing up the proper order of quest completion for experience's sake (funny quotes and such), and grinding for money. It just doesn't have the same value as a unique experience anymore.

It's the double-edge of gaming playthroughs. It's easy coverage for your game that requires little to no effort on your part, and will likely net you a lot of sales if the YouTuber/streamer is popular. The down side is that it can also put people off buying if your game's 100% experience takes a (relatively) small amount of time, and has fewer variations on the plot/gameplay than a longer (usually more expensive) game.

EDIT: wee typo. EDIT2: messed up on a quote.

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Ok, I have to comment about something that's been bothering me.

I watch Jacksepticeye, who is a YouTube gamer who is known for (mostly) complete video game playthroughs. I watch to spot new and interesting games on the horizon, as well as enjoying the commentary. But, the moment I see that there's plans for Linux on a new game that Jack's currently playing (because he plays on Windows), I stop watching the playthrough and make plans to buy the game instead (wishlist on Steam and such).

Becase Kindergarten's Linux release came later than the Windows release, I ended up watching Jack's entire playthrough of that game. This is especially bad when the game is quirky, interesting and has an actual plot, like Kindergarten. It's happened before too, for Scanner Sombre.

So, ultimately, I won't be buying Kindergarten, because I had enough time to spoil myself on the plot with YouTube. Not saying this is typical of Linux gamers, but it could be one possibility to explain some of the reasons why Linux sales on a new release can be lower than expected.

A day-1 release is preferable because then people won't get spoiled elsewhere and decide not to buy. I'm very disappointed, but do hope that the sequel to Kindergarten *will* have a day-1 Linux port, because I would not hesitate to buy it.

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Quoting: pentarctagonThe question is: Is it okay to send death threats to developers that release a poor Linux port.

The better question is: Do you believe that the volume of vitriol sent the developers' way during The Witcher 2's release played a significant role in a lack of a Witcher 3 port?

... I don't see people here saying more than that having horrendous comments/emails/tweets/posts thrown your way, when you have a publicly disclosed way of the public contacting you, may be inevitable, and to attempt to prepare or emotionally reconcile with that. That's all.

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Quoting: liamdaweWell it's tagged as an Editorial...

My mistake, it already was.

Quoting: liamdaweAlso, it's clearly stated right near the top of the article that it's the personal opinion of the ex-vp employee.

I think it's clear enough, if people don't take notice, that's their issue :)

Still not sure it's communicated well through the title itself. "Former Virtual Programming employee's opinion on the reasons for Witcher 3 port's difficulties" would be more conservative about what's fact and what's opinion...

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Liam, I think this article deserves an [Opinion] or [Theory] tag at the beginning to avoid more confusion. No matter how convinced or correct/incorrect jaycee is with what he's saying, he's one person, only one former employee. I don't believe it's wise to trust single sources no matter how central they genuinely were to an event.

It isn't logical to believe a single source, since it inevitably comes with bias.

While I do see things from your point of view now jaycee, your explanation doesn't convince me.

It's more likely (but as equally debatable) that the reason Witcher 3 didn't get a port was one of the more boring reasons: too little money budgeted to even start, too much investment of money or resources to make a profit from it, too much time to develop proficiency with new tools/languages/workflows/APIs/wrappers to make a deadline, or just feeling it's unprofitable to even consider doing a port.

EDIT: There's also the possibility that more important projects were supposed to come to fruition and ended up either being a higher priority or less of an investment.

EDIT 2: Removed a word for clarity.

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