Quoting: Purple Library GuyGosh, read what you said, and think about it.

It doesn't change how many times I read it. Do you think it's rude to call you out on your false statements about something you (admitted) have no knowledge about?

Quoting: Purple Library GuyNow read what I said. Next time, ideally before you comment on it.

I did & your comment just confirms what I was saying. You're really a funny person, making the whole argument for me.

Quoting: Purple Library GuyWhether it is in this case or not, I do not know. But it's not unreasonable for people to entertain the possibility. Now, if you think that we should in each case extend the benefit of the doubt and assume the truth is being told because people shouldn't be mean to corporations and their PR flacks, that would be a stance that could be argued. But if you genuinely find the "paranoia" "baffling", that is just because you are unaware of or have not thought about the history up until now that has led to it.

No, I'm saying to apply common sense. You admitted yourself that you have no idea about the allegations the Roblox developers were making about Wine. But still, you spin your whole conspiracy for the fun of it. Just base your arguments on facts then they make more sense.

It's a fact that what the developers are saying about Wine is possible (sources provided in my first post). It's a fact that Wine does not implement the required APIs to run any kernel drivers (no source, but it's well known & mentioned in multiple anti-cheat related news here). It's a fact that the developers even helped in the past to get the game running with Wine ( Roblox support is coming back to Wine on Linux ).

So yes, I think it's very unreasonable to think it has anything to do but the incompatibility of their anti-cheat & Wine. All your allegations are just based on paranoia that everyone wants to harm Linux. But there are valid reasons to drop Wine support.

That their game-creation suite still works even reinforces the argument. There's no inherent incompatibility. It's just the anti-cheat which breaks everything. It's sad but it won't be the last time this is happening.

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Quoting: Purple Library GuyHow rude.

Sorry, how so? To quote you again:

Quoting: Purple Library Guy[…] I have no idea, so I'm hoping someone knows. [a lot of speculating why it doesn't work]

Quoting: Purple Library GuySo, you don't know either, eh?

Of course not, I never claimed such a thing. I'm not a Roblox developer or Roblox cheat developer. But I know some capabilities of Wine & I know (& provided sources) of what Wine developers disallow because it provides a lot more insight than what would be legal for a clean implementation. Obviously this could be misused.

Quoting: Purple Library GuyIt's not baffling at all. The fact is that corporate statements about why they are discontinuing either Linux or Wine/Proton support have often turned out to be simply factually false (as have corporate statements about, well, pretty much everything).

What are they lying about? Isn't it a fact that the kernel APIs are not & will not be implemented by Wine?

Quoting: Purple Library GuyLinux gamers' suspicions about the truthfulness of such corporate statements may often be mistaken, but they're certainly not unwarranted.

You just assume that Wine gets blocked for the sake of blocking. You don't have any insights into the development & just believe that they want to harm Linux gaming. Again: Isn't it factual, that the kernel APIs are not & will not be implemented by Wine?

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Quoting: Purple Library GuyAh, yeah, they did say that. Um, is that actually a thing? Does Wine itself help you do that? In a way that blocking just running the software under Wine will stop? I have no idea, so I'm hoping someone knows.
[…]
But presumably anyone using Wine as a tool for cheating will not be deterred by this issue and will alter the open source Wine software in whatever way they need to get it to work again, and distribute the altered version to the cheater community. Sooo, if Wine is actually used by cheaters to analyze the Roblox software, blocking Wine will probably stop legitimate use but not the cheaters. Um, congratulations?
[…]

That's a lot of speculation about something you have no idea about.

Quoting: pilkHowever, this does absolutely nothing, not a damn thing, to stop cheating. The idea that it does is completely asinine.
Most cheaters use Windows and software specifically designed for Windows. Disabling Linux support isn't going to magically stop them.

Even Wine in it's default configuration allows a lot insight into closed source code:

Never use +relay or +snoop with native DLLs! This will show you the implementation of those DLLs, which means that any code you write to implement them violates our clean room reverse-engineering rules.
https://wiki.winehq.org/Debug_Channels [External Link]

Don't
- Don't use +relay with native components. In general, try to avoid debugging with native components, as that leaks information about what function calls those components make.
https://wiki.winehq.org/Clean_Room_Guidelines [External Link]

I would imagine using an open source implementation of Windows APIs could have a lot of advantages to disassembly or using a Windows debugger.

Another possibility could be to fake the Wine environment under Windows if the anti-cheat is weaker due to missing APIs.

The paranoia of the GamingOnLinux community is really baffling. Why would they care anyone using Wine unless they have strong indication it's getting abused. I think you underestimate how big the cheating market really is.

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Quoting: RomlokI think it's entirely reasonable to desire ratings for all games, so people know what they're buying for themselves or their kids or whoever. But it rubs me the wrong way that their answer to unrated games is a sales ban, rather than just an assumption of the highest possible age rating, so that fully grown adults can make up their own minds.

I assume, therefore, that this isn't entirely about age appropriate labelling, but also about the German authorities' desire to censor media. Are Germans still blocked from looking at too much blood?

I think you're hanging out a bit much with conspiracy theorists…

What you're describing is exactly what's happening. Any game without a rating is (surprisingly) unrated. But unrated games require an actual age verification. Of course they could do that but since Valve doesn't care it'll never happen.

This is a prime occasion to introduce an account-level user age verification for Germany. Proven adults may buy unrated and even indexed (listed for non-public display or advertisement) games in Germany. There are even SSO solutions out there. Heck, Valve could even make Steam the go-to platform for online age verification with their own SSO.

Devs would only need to fill out the questionnaire, if they specifically wanted to market games for ages under 18.

Our group (forUncut!) years ago sent Gabe a detailed documentation - adult users widely were ready to pay any one time fee (iirc up to 30€) to be age verified.

I'm happy to elaborate further, if any representative of Valve wants to reach out.

https://steamcommunity.com/groups/steamworks/eventcomments/4302697419069722403#c4302697419070308605 [External Link]

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Is now everything necessary included to disable the shader cache?
What are the requirements & what have I to do to enable the improved shader compilation (apart from Proton 8)?

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Quoting: BrokattI would guess that for the millions of Linux Steam users VRR is somewhat important.

More than 40% use a Steam Deck. Steam Deck doesn't support VRR (even the newest revision won't). It can't be that important if a gaming company omits it (on a device which would very much benefit from it).

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Quoting: benstor214You are doing the same mistake again. You are seeing words that aren’t there. Show me where I write about issues.

It's called context:

Quoting: Liam Dawe[Fixed issues in various launchers]

Quoting: benstor214

Quoting: CatKillerThat's a lot of work fixing other people's bullshit launchers.

Valve should charge them!

The amount of hoops you are forced to jump through as a modern gamer keeps baffling me. It is a sign that these companies couldn’t care less about the troubles their customers have to go through as soon as the credit card details landed in the inbox.

- ‘Won’t anyone think of the customers, please?’
- ‘No, we only care for what’s inside their wallets!’

Quoting: benstor214‘Hoops’ and ‘issues’ are different words, don’t you agree?

You should research how languages work.

But sure, it's absolutely my fault to think you would actually response to the news & the comment you quoted. I'll try to keep in mind that you don't react to anything at all but instead just randomly insult other people's work.

Good day

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Quoting: benstor214Maybe you could polish your reading comprehension skills? And while you're at it, you could learn some manners, too.

Start with yourself before lecturing someone.

You genralize in your comment about "modern" gamer but base all on issues specific to Linux gamer. I was telling you, your comment makes no sense because these issues do not exist on Windows, i.e. for the developer's customers. There's nothing to charge the developers for because they provide suppport themselves.

Quoting: benstor214It may be true that Sweeney published a few more games than me (Who knows? On the internet, no-one knows you are a meerkat after all.), but that doesn't mean that I (shall) take his word for gospel.

In other words: You don't have any insights at all & just make false claims ("false narrative", "undeserved scrutiny"). Thanks for clarifying that.

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Quoting: Purple Library GuyWhere have you been?

As expected, just badmouthing. Thanks for confirming my impression.

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Quoting: Purple Library GuyI don't think we're talking about issues that are specific to Linux, though?

Yes we are. Direct customers of game developers (Windows users) can expect direct support. That's why updates get tested & have less breakage. These problems are Proton specific & Valve's responsibility.

Quoting: Purple Library GuyEveryone hates all the launchers and shit.

I wouldn't say I hate Steam, it's just a really annoying software.

Quoting: Purple Library GuyBut Sweeney isn't saying it's a bad thing for that reason. He is offering a lower cut, talking about the higher cut being bad, and doing various other tactics, in an attempt to get his store to occupy the position Steam currently occupies, of dominant player with network effects that are functionally much like a monopoly. He has been willing to take considerable losses to push this attempt. If he succeeds, he will immediately jack the percentage back up, maybe even beyond 30%. He calculates that the losses he takes trying to boost market share will be well worth it when he is able to charge monopoly rents later.

Accusations based on what?

Quoting: CatKillerI recall that during the Epic vs Apple trial, there were Microsoft (pretty sure) documents released that estimated the break-even commission rates at 20-25% for game stores, with GOG's needed rate being higher than Valve's because of scale. I can't find the document now to cite it, so you'd be justified in saying that this is unsubstantiated.

[…]

These figures tally with the numbers we see: Valve's commission rate drops to 20% if you make enough money; Humble (~15% commission) has relegated itself to being a Steam key reseller; Epic and Microsoft's Windows Store (12%) are massively subsidised by revenue elsewhere, so they can afford to take a loss on the store itself; and everywhere else (including Microsoft's Xbox) is 30%.

Without a source I really doubt that value. All I could find are Microsoft's claims that they must take 30% with the Xbox because they take a loss on the hardware. They deny the necessity on "general purpose" devices (which they count iOS to). And Apple created a study to show that everyone takes 30%. But as far as I can see they don't talk about expenses & income.

Epic is not comparable since their expenses are not limited to running the platform. They invest (are they still?) more into give aways to draw customers into the platform. That this can't be sustainable is obvious.

How high do you estimate running & developing Steam (without any hardware projects, Proton or game development)? 10, 50, 100 or 500 million dollar?

Quoting: CatKiller[…] you need to make a profit for the endeavour to be worth doing at all, and you need it to be sustainable by reinvesting revenues into the business (all the value-add Steam services mentioned upthread, for example).

I'm pretty sure they're making a lot more than enough money.

But how & where Valve is investing their money is of no concern for third party developers. They don't have much of a gain through the Steam Deck, Proton or even VR (the latter is exempt for VR developers). In a GDC survey from 2021 only 3% of the questioned thought the 30/70 split to be justified (https://gdconf.com/news/gdc-state-industry-devs-irked-30-percent-storefront-revenue-cuts [External Link], I didn't register to see if the results change in 22 or 23).

I'm pretty sure if developers could choose between Steam Deck/Proton support or less commission the majority would choose the latter.

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