Quoting: GuestValve need competition against Steam. The reality is that it's the main place to get most games, and it's the primary point of purchase for just about anything. I've seen a good many comments on this very site that if a game isn't on Steam, they won't buy it. If a developer wants a game to be successful, they've practically no choice but to put in on Steam (exceptions exist of course, but for the vast majority this is quite true).

Valve have far too much influence as a distribution platform. It's not healthy for the gaming ecosystem. They can pretty much do what they want with impunity, and that's really not good.

At about this point I'm sure several people will be foaming at the mouth and already typing out something furiously, but at no point above did I say Valve were bad or evil. They've reached this position by being good at the business. My point is that the situation is bad, and the situation is harmful to gaming, particularly on GNU/Linux.

On a parallel note, the flood of crap on Steam is really harmful to developers, and customers too. Part of the reason I continue to support GOL is for discovering nice games. Something like Vaporum I'd never have seen were it not covered on this site. Valve's so-called "algorithm" is basically just a way for them not to have a hand in any sort of store curation. While there are arguments for and against that, if Valve don't have a hand in it, they shouldn't take money for it. That 30% cut of theirs is, I believe, too much.

The real solution is some competition to force the market to be a little more friendly. The problem with that now is being really difficult to get into the market: Epic did it by spending an awful lot of money to get exclusives, and personally I think they botched it (to say nothing of completely ignoring GNU/Linux).

In what way would a reduction of Valve's share change this situation? It would actually force remaining alternatives out of the market.

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Quoting: scaineThe point is how they get popular. If the algorithm was fairer for new titles, then indies would have a better chance at leveraging Steam and becoming the next big thing. But since it doesn't, they never hit the front-page and the same tired (but popular) games are constantly regurgitated on the carousel and in the discovery queues.

My carousel:

Total War: Rome - Ark - Rimworld - Under Leaves - Last Epoch - Poly Bridge - Rain on Your Parade - Space Haven - 7 Days to Die - Universim - Project Hospital

Quite a mixture I'd say...

Discovery New Releases:
Battle in the City - ADD - Lair Hockey - Neon Nights (Boooobs!) - Creatura - ....

An endless stretch of indie titles. And in all honesty: neither do I pay attention the carousel (never) nor do I care about the queues. Must have been the first time that I clicked through the first couple of entries.
Interestingly are all those successful indie titles not only successful but also f*cking good. Hundreds of them: Dead Cells, Everspace, Limbo, Factorio, Mindustry, Opus Magnum, Stardew Valley, Terraria, Among Us...
One could say: That's the reason. And not because they got a popular spot on the carousel.

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Quoting: scaineI follow a lot of indies on Twitter who genuinely despise Steam. Not just for taking a 30% cut, but for taking that cut and giving almost nothing back. They argue that the lure of the biggest audience for gaming is useless when Steam's algorithms are geared to only highlight AAA or "popular" content.

The same argument and frustration is often voiced around Play and Apple's store - they take their 30% cut but unless you magically put out the next minecraft, factorio or limbo, you're gonna languish with pitiful sales until you go out of business.

If you don't sell anything, you won't pay. And if you have to rely on the additional few percent per sale you can get on alternative stores you have been doomed from the get go.

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Quoting: PublicNuisanceI can't stand it when I see people on forums saying how "game x" has some issue on Proton or Wine and hopefully the developer makes a Linux version some day so they can play it properly. They fail to see that they have no more leverage, they already own the game and the publisher and developer has their money. If someone wants to buy Windows games then by all means do what you want to but it is delusional to think that buying the game without Linux support will somehow make a publisher change their mind about Linux support.

But it happens. Not often, but it does. Most recent example would be Metro Exodus. (OTOH we have publishers who drop their well established Linux ports.)

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Quoting: CyrilI didn't buy anything on Humble for a long time, and I'm pretty sure I won't in the future.
I hope a lot of people will simply boycott them...
And

Today we’re sharing some updates coming to bundle pages and how they will help us continue to support charity.

Yeah, sure! :sick:

Which other store out there supports charities at all?

As for the other posts here claiming their "disappointment with HS" - what did you expect? The first Indie Humbles (11 year ago) were the first time I could professional games for Linux at all. Nowadays I have a backlog of hundreds of games (quite a few AAA titles among them). Even a proper Humble Indie Bundle would hardly be exciting nowadays - you've seen it all before on Steam already.

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Quoting: Comandante ÑoñardoSO, no benchmark tool included?

There is one on the command line, but according to Phoronix [External Link] it's currently not working properly.

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Well, that was to be expected. The campaign ended in March 2017 and they wanted to deliver 18 months later in December 2018. They didn't reach any stretch goals, so feature creep was not to be expected. They delivered 4 years or 48 months after the campaign finished. Interestingly enough the somehow managed to finish a Mac version but it still reeks of incompetence on several levels.

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Had the same mouse pointer issue - for me it appeared some revisions ago: Had the game's own cursor and a system cursor on screen. The latter one never disappeared.

Though other issues remain:

• amdvlk gives abysmal frame rates (< 30fps) while radv racks up 100+ fps easily.


• After a few games overlay graphics (like messages, the progress bar, markers of bases, etc.) get messed up by partially disappearing and/or sporting rainbow-like background colors. This again is more frequent with radv than with amdvlk.


• Quite frequently the "checking files" period when launching the game takes ages despite residing on an SSD.

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Quoting: legluondunetI enjoyed playing the first opus: a video game with such quality: humor, reflexion, action, ambiance...
Is this second opus as good as first one?

I assume you have been living in a cave somewhere out there for the last ten years. A little heads-up: We've had a pandemic for more than a year now. Just in case you are wondering...
Back to Portal 2: It improves on the first one in every aspect - storyline, mechanics, content. (Naturally the whole portal idea was not new anymore.)

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Quoting: bubexel

Quoting: Ehvis

Quoting: bubexelIt reminds me people saying same at half life 2 because it had no software rendering and no everybody can afford a video accelerated card. When you play for first time 3D games with a good accelerated videogame you don't want anymore software accelerated games. Same feeling i have with VR. I have a problem with flat games atm to be honest.

Not the same thing. Hardware accelerated rendering was a better replacement for software rendering. However, VR gaming is not a replacement traditional gaming. It is an entirely different beast that needs a different approach to games. I would love to have more high quality VR games, but I don't want to give up the regular ones.

It's exactly the same thing. VR is a better replacement of Flat Monitors. 3D games was not replacing tradicional gaming, we still have 2D release gamings.

No, it is not. Quake II superseded Quake which superseded Doom which superseded Castle Wolfenstein. And in the case of Quake I and II you could still play the game without 3D acceleration. Slower and less attractive but otherwise still the same game.

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