Quoting: Alm888

Quoting: etonbearsThis is, I suppose, why SteamOS seems to have failed. There was never really enough of a coherent plan to get people buying anything that came with Linux by default.

And at least part of the reason why: Valve did not promote Linux, it promoted "SteamOS" (or tried to do so) while forcefully removing the word "Linux" and even Tux icon from it. I bet half of the general audience hadn't got a clue about what OS it was.

That's rather the point I am trying to make. "Linux" or "GNU/Linux" is not a brand, and not a product; it is more of an architecture label. Brands/products are the named distributions of that architecture, such as Ubuntu, Arch, Red Hat etc, and, of course SteamOS.

Most distributions do append "Linux" or "GNU/Linux" to their formal name, but the "brand" is usually just the one or two word distribution name.

SteamOS does not bother adding Linux to the name for a number of reasons. Firstly, they were designing a distribution whose primary purpose is to play Steam games from an OS designed to replicate a console experience. Secondly, they really were not focussed on the general ( non-game ) part of the distribution at all, so using "Linux" would be a bit misleading. And finally, their "brand" is "Steam", and it is actually MUCH stronger as a brand than Linux. If "Linux" as a brand was ever going to draw people away from othe PC operating systems in the consumer space, it would long since have done so.

If a SteamOS console had ( or will ) ever been successful, Linux users ( i.e. other distributions ) would benefit tangentially. I can honestly only ever see PC users moving to Linux in significant numbers if market actors like Microsoft make the existing status quo unacceptable.

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Quoting: Kimyrielle

Quoting: Purple Library GuyIt is looking like the market share of Linux for gaming in specific may be less than 1%. I've been wondering about the difference; are Linux users mostly not gamers?

Given that for the longest time of Linux' existence you had to accept having no games whatsoever available for it, I guess that's a safe assumption to make. For all but the last 3-4 years (plus the short time when Loki ported some games), Linux was one of the few operating systems on Earth you absolutely couldn't game with. I guess it's safe to say that -nobody- here starting using it for gaming, and I suppose a OS you can't game with is particularly attractive to people who don't game in the first place.
In my (totally not representative) group of Linux users I know in real life, I am the only gamer...

The only Linux users I have ever known are IT professionals ( development or operations ). Some game, but most just liked having control over their PC.

The real problem with Linux adoption on the PC is that no-one is selling it. It has no brand, it has no retail presence. For the vast majority of all PC-like devices purchased, it is simply not an option that is presented.

Canonical have come closest to making the transition to a "brand" in the Linux PC space, but they have simply not had a good enough financial argument to get majo OEM interest.

In contrast, in the Smartphone market, several very large brands have made Linux in the guise of Android a dominant force; but this was in a void where there was no dominant alternative.

This is, I suppose, why SteamOS seems to have failed. There was never really enough of a coherent plan to get people buying anything that came with Linux by default.

No-one knows how much money Valve have spread around H/W OEMs and game developers, but whatever it was, it was not done in an effective manner.

let us hope we are spending enough to keep at least some games companies interested.

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Quoting: HoriI had the impression that most players didn't like this game too much, compared to the other ones in the series (both newer and older). Or was it only a problem at launch?

What do you guys think?

Managed to miss this, but better late than never....

Some people hated Rome II because ( apart from the bugginess ) it changed the entire way the campaign game worked.

Prior to Rome II, all cities were individual and could build anything/everything. In Rome II ( and Attila, and Warhammer ), cities are part of a Province, building slots are limited, and one designated city per province is "superior" in some way.

Similarly, prior to Rome II, you could build as many armies as you liked, but in Rome II/Attila, you have army and navy caps, which mostly means you can't actually defend all your territory, all the time.

Personally, I thought the changes were a good idea in principle, but the implementation was not well thought through, and somehow the play-testers didn't call out the problems.

Over time, the worst aspects of the changes have been fixed; but you will still find some who just hate that the series moved on from what they liked.

I bought the game when it was announced for Linux, and it works OK under Wine. If it does get a native port, I'll get round to buying the DLC as well!

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Quoting: PatolaX Rebirth is not an OK game, it is an ABSOLUTELY TERRIFIC AND AMAZING GAME. Really. I highly recommend it, I have even written a Steam Review [External Link] explaining why I adore it. The 4.30 update was out today (can you imagine a game that has updates 4 years after it has launched?), and the game performance is even better than it already was.

It is just different from X3 and the others. This is not a game where you are supposed to be changing ships to pilot them, just as The Witcher 3 is not a game where you will be changing characters. And just like The Witcher 3, where at one time you control Ciri, in the X: Rebirth campaign you also temporarily "change" (actually as a camouflage) your ship. But it is not supposed to be a choice as in X3 where you ejected from your current ship and "entered" another from your fleet. In X: Rebirth you still control a lot of other ships as a fleet, but you assign captains to actually fly them (and you can do that in a nesting fashion, to make a hierarchy), then you give orders to the captain. Actually this way it is much more realist, any of you know an owner of a fleet of airplanes, trucks or something else that keeps changing and piloting his/her own vehicles? I know he "could" and in the game you "can't", but in real life you "can" drink coffee and many games don't allow you to drink coffee and that does not make them bad, it's just not their scope.

Please take the time to consider X: Rebirth as a game worthy of your money. It is. The steam store page has a "Download Demo" button if you want to see it, or you can see the showcase at Egosoft site [External Link].

Disclaimer: I am in no way affiliated to Egosoft, I am not even german, I am just a brazilian fan that is binge playing X: Rebirth (214 hours as of today, though there are 50+ hours offline) and do not like the incredible badmouthing this game has. This game is so good and compelling that I kind of lost interest in all of my other games... Including the Witcher 3.

Note: but the Complete Collection -- X: Rebirth + The Teladi Outpost and Home of Light, they are worth it and add a lot to the strategy.

X:Rebirth's problem was really that it did not meet the expectations it raised in fans of the franchise. Prior to X:Rebirth, there was no "in-person" aspect to the game outside of cutscenes. Previous games were space-flight simulators with emphasis on trading and fighting, with quite a learning curve and difficult controls.

What fans of the franchise wanted was everything they already had, with better controls and the ability to walk around ships/stations etc. Trouble is, walking around is like adding a complete new game - it requires real thought as to what you are doing and why. Neither the player base, nor Egosoft really seemed to have gone through that thought process, so we ended up with cookie-cutter Space stations, with unmoving ( and rather odd-looking ) people scattered about, and nothing much to do ( other than be verbally abused by everyone you talk to ). We also lost access to multiple ships, because they would need internal modelling, and the universe shrunk dramatically; Egosoft are a small team, and they tried to do too much.

All that said, after many updates ( and Egosoft DO keep updating and adding to their games ), X:Rebirth is probably worth a sale purchase if you like space-sims. The next X game is expected ( 2018 if you believe them ) to fix the most obvious problems by being more like an updated X3.

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Quoting: Purple Library Guy

Quoting: etonbearsI probably find it even more disturbing to see the same sort of blanket influence/group-think behaviour where it crops up in the financial world. It is a root cause of the mass stupidity that gave us Tulip Mania, the South Seas Bubble, Collateralized Debt Obligations ( the result of which we are all still feeling ) and now looks like we will get it again with Bitcoin and other crypto-currencies...

Don't look now, but Collateralized Debt Obligations are back. I think they gave them a different acronym, but I read an article a while ago saying the same basic schtick is quietly making a sizable comeback. Gotta do something with all that Quantitative Easing cash.

Yep, that's the main driver; those few people that have huge piles of cash are struggling to find anything to do with it, since QE has trashed bond yields and "normal" debt interest. So they invent/reinvent dubious "instruments" and boost their prices until they can get the mainstream investors ( pensions, for example ) to think the "instruments" are worth buying at a higher price. Sometimes called the "Greater Fool Theory" of investing, but it seems to work if you have enough money and time to sucker people in.

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Quoting: Purple Library GuyIt weirds me out that with the thousands of games around, many of them really good, the statistics can be pulled around so much by one or two top-selling games. Clearly everyone's buying the top game because everyone else is buying the top game, not because it's one they will intrinsically find fun. The mindset unsettles me.

A combination of herd instinct and effective marketing, I suspect.

On the whole, we have a strong recognition/memory of what we have presented/marketed to us most often; marketing has also become extremely sophisticated in its use of psychological triggers, and very good at generating aspiration in unwary minds.

With well funded games like Fallout 4 ( and, similarly, GTA V ), the publishers were willing to build up anticipation for 6 months and spend the equivalent of the entire development budget on marketing. Even when you know how marketing works and are a jaundiced, cynical, old curmudgeon, it can be difficult to remain completely uninfluenced in the face of blanket coverage. So consider how well it works on the main target audience - social youngsters with less world experience, and who strongly influence each other.

I probably find it even more disturbing to see the same sort of blanket influence/group-think behaviour where it crops up in the financial world. It is a root cause of the mass stupidity that gave us Tulip Mania, the South Seas Bubble, Collateralized Debt Obligations ( the result of which we are all still feeling ) and now looks like we will get it again with Bitcoin and other crypto-currencies...

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Quoting: appetrosyan

Quoting: jens

Quoting: appetrosyanI don't care anymore. Steam doesn't care about Linux, no surprise that the statistics drop.

They do care, but unfortunately they can't do magic.

I'm not asking for magic, I'm asking for some effort.

Incentivising developers to engage in their platform is not particularly difficult. I understand that they can't force any developer's hand to do as they want, particularly since Linux is mostly uncharted territory for Game devs. Why not encourage developers to go the extra mile and support Steam OS, by for example collaborating on Linux ports.

Or giving games with Steam OS support more exposure: bring them to the featured list, as would Mirosoft, Sony or Nintendo.

Make using wrappers like Wine easier, by maybe letting people use Windows executables directly without a massive amount of publisher effort going in. If they'd done that, the list of Linux-supported games would nearly triple: Deus Ex:Human revolution runs on Linux better than on Windows, yet there's no official icon.

These small differences make a huge impact. Why don't we have more Linux ports?
a) Because it's hard. Feral and VP are about the only studio that does this commercially. Valve stopped game porting after all of their titles were available. These guys have massive experience. Share it! Make it so indie developers have an easier time starting on Linux: make tutorials, release developer tools for your engine.
b) Because it's expensive. Right now if you wanted to publish on Steam OS you need an SDL wrapped version of your game which costs money and often is worse than the wine version. If the choice was a simple "Do you want me to ship your game with a compatibility program, and let you access an extra audience for no extra time or money", we would have lots more games.
c) Because there's no benefit in having a Linux version. If publishers knew, that there's a "Featured Steam OS game" on the Steam front page we'd have some more penguins. It takes little effort, it's morally justified within bounds of what Valve is doing and I don't know why has nobody done it.
d) Because giving the platform a middle finger has no consequences. Bethesda soft-works sits on top of a bunch of games that have Native Linux support, not available on Steam. Yet their games consistently show up on the top trending lists. If I were in Valve's shoes I'd kindly ask Beth to fix this, and since hey have no excuse not to do this, ban them and their games from Steam. Yes it's ugly. Not nearly as ugly as online DRM, Microtransactions and Lootboxes, which Valve, incidentally, introduced to the Gaming world.

If you have better insight into these issues I've raised, I'm interested to know.

Valve's use of Linux is purely business-driven.

They could do more to promote in the shop front, certainly; the fact they don't suggests they are content with the current situation.

Wrapping old games is a good idea, but automation would not be trivial to do reliably; and with the number of products on Steam not practical to offer on a manual basis.

I have not seen anything beyond speculation as to how much persuasion they are attempting. Wielding a stick at someone like Bethesda ( who provide a significant chunk of revenue ) would probably be both counter-productive and damage their standing in the industry.

Ultimately the reasoning is financial; they are clearly spending money on Linux and using what influence they have; presumably as much as they think reasonable ( how can we tell? ). I think the progress has been good, so far, given the size and nature of the task.

The acid test, to my mind, will be how many developers move to a more multi-platform outlook with their whole development process. It's likely to be a long slow journey for many of them, if it occurs at all.

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@Mohandevir

Yes, the Cyberpower is most like an upgradeable PC, and least like a console in size and price. I don't know how well it has sold. I suppose it sits in the niche appealing to console gamers that want PC power but are too worried about fiddling? But then they probably wouldn't feel confident to upgrade it either.

I was always unclear as to the exact audience for Steam boxes; small/value doesn't sit easily with powerful/upgradeable, and how many would spend £1000-£1500 on something that only really runs Steam Big Picture well...? I struggle to visualize a mass market.

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Quoting: lucifertdark

Quoting: Boogiepop_PhantomYeah, grand scale conspiracy as usual.

No conspiracy involved, I'm just saying that I've had the survey more times in Windows in the last year than I have in the entire time that steam has been available on Linux.

For a while that was my experience too; then it flipped to more often on Linux.

It is still fairly rare for me to get the survey at all, primarily, I think, because I suspend my PC most of the time when I am not using it, so Steam is rarely restarted. About the only obvious part of the survey algorithm is that it only appears to trigger as part of the login/connect process. Without knowing the rest of the algorithm, it is difficult to judge if it is even-handed.

Beyond the even-handedness aspect, the other obvious potential difference is if Linux users, as a whole, are more likely to game in off-line mode, or act in some other way that bypasses the survey. Unfortunately, this is also an unknown.

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Quoting: Mohandevir

Quoting: etonbears

Quoting: MohandevirLooking at this:

https://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=news_item&px=Gallium3D-NIR-Link-Opts [External Link]

Valve still cares and is still investing in Linux. They wouldn't bother with that otherwise.

Something will happen regarding this, I'm not going to put all my faith in that, but it smells like an AMD based Steam Machine or something similar is on the way... Maybe... Hopefully...

How I would like to see Valve release it's own Steam Machine (no third party involved) with only one or two hardware specs (like PS4 Slim and PS4 Pro) along with a complete SteamOS overhaul.

I would not completely rule out a Valve-produced device, but it would be against their general reasoning regarding the value to gaming of an open market of upgradeable hardware.

To produce something compelling at a similar price point ( c.f. XBox / PS4 ), Valve would likely have to follow a similar route, contracting AMD to produce semi-custom designs. They could yet do that; it depends on where the market pressures fall.

Valve support Linux because it is the leading platform amongst those that are unowned and uncontrolled. Valve have clearly helped make Linux a more viable platform for gamers, but I think it would be a mistake to assume this means they view Linux the same way evangelical Linux supporters do.

Edit 1: I don't know why, it didn't record my comment... So here it is:

True enough, but I started to think it possible when Atari announced an AMD based custom hardware that is compatible with x86 platform for the Ataribox.

Couldn't Valve follow the same path with a more powerfull offer?

Edit 2: Removed my initial comment that was in the middle of quote.

Valve absolutely could produce a box of their own - and it would probably be good - and they still may do so.

But their original gambit with SteamOS/Linux was around uniting the many companies involved in the PC games industry in a collaborative open ecosystem for the benefit of all; and to avoid Valve becoming roadkill to proprietary lock-in ( specifically the threat of Windows store ). For this to succeed, they must not appear to put themselves in a position of advantage or control while encouraging developers to write games/software for SteamOS/Linux, and hardware manufacturers to offer console-like upgradeable games-friendly PCs.

So they work mostly in the background to push things along, while trying to get the ecosystem robust. Clearly, they are having some success with the software side, due in no small part to the main game engines supporting Linux, but there doesn't appear to be much traction in the hardware side. I think it is difficult for PC manufacturers to come up with anything compelling using off-the-shelf parts. The Dell/Zotac machines are no more than interesting, are no better value than self-build, and can't easily be used for other purposes than Big-Picture gaming ( SteamOS really doesn't do anything else well ).

Valve risk damaging what hardware industry support they have if they build a Steam PC themselves ( arguably Steam Link already caused damage by removing streaming as a Steam hardware selling point ). But, if they get to the point where no company wants to partner with them on hardware, that is when they are most likely to produce a box of their own.

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