Quoting: Shmerl

Quoting: etonbears[But, when was the last time you saw a flashy ad on TV ( or anywhere else ) for Linux? "Ordinary" people are much more attuned to wanting things that are advertised to them as aspirational than as a matter of good sense.

What stops anyone from partnering with Dell, and making them provide Linux option on all their models, and not just on a couple of laptops? I agree though it requires money. I'd also like to see KDE used for such purpose.

The problem is the lack of a compelling business model. Eric Raymond's paper's notwithstanding, it is VERY hard to find a justification for spending money to promote Linux as the return is uncertain, and likely not worth the risk.

Even Valve, a company that seems to have a good reason to promote Linux, has very deep pockets, and requires the consent of only one person ( Gabe Newell owns over 50% of voting stock ), has really not spent the money necessary to move the market; possibly out of concern that Valve would get into a pissing contest with Microsoft.

View this comment - View article - View full comments

Quoting: g000h

Quoting: etonbearsLinux DOES have some advantages, to be sure, but generally not in the areas that matter to most potential users. Without the financial backing of a major interested party to sort out the "experience" problem, and to put significant marketing and advertising dollars into selling the result, it is difficult to see attitudes shifting.

You make numerous noteworthy comments, but one thing I'd say about it is this - All those non-technical people who buy Windows and Mac computers: They are useless at setting up an operating system for themselves. I have had a much more convenient installation running Linux, and then maintaining that same Linux computer with updates, than if it had been a bare computer with no Windows on it and needing to put Windows on.

But the vast majority of machines are pre-configured with Windows or Mac by the vendors. The non-technical user just needs to switch it on. If that same non-technical user was given a Windows install dvd and an empty PC, they would probably fail at the "please provide a driver for the network card" stage.

Recently I set up an empty PC with Mint Linux and it was a dream of an install. It did all the hard work, and at the end, a machine set up with default software, and package manager for installing additional software. The non-technical end user (with a bit of guidance) could install Steam client via Package Manager and then access all their Linux games. ;)

Yes, I completely agree. Particularly in the realm of updates, it is a much preferable experience; there is no reason not to use Linux now except that it is what it is; a collaboratively created OS that is as good as the one you have ALREADY got.

But, when was the last time you saw a flashy ad on TV ( or anywhere else ) for Linux? "Ordinary" people are much more attuned to wanting things that are advertised to them as aspirational than as a matter of good sense.

Similarly, most people don't even consider the data they hand out to Google, Apple, Microsoft, and worst of all, Facebook, because everything is marketed to them as aspirational and "in their own interest". It is astonishing to me that anyone would put so much information about themselves on-line that it would be trivial for a BAD person to know exactly where they live, and exactly when that address is empty; but they do!

View this comment - View article - View full comments

Quoting: Shmerl

Quoting: etonbearsIn normal circumstances, I would also expect CDPR to require their updated engine to always produce a working build of previous games as a regression test; it would certainly represent their most rigorous QA option.

From what I've heard from engine developers, way more often engines are thrown away (for the most part) with each new major version. Which would mean they won't be able to use CP2077 engine for TW3 without some huge effort.

But again, we have no info.

It probably varies from company to company, depending on what their development processes and history have been. Older games were often one-shot code, particularly where they included a lot of special-purpose techniques and use of assembler. Newer games tend towards modular reuse of code libraries where possible.

Sometimes I think the notion of an "engine" can get in the way, as often the "game engine" and "game executable" are synonymous. In that sense of a game being the engine, you clearly do discard it because it contains code that was only of importance to that game. But unless you drastically change your data structures, all your old library code still works, and it wouldn't make any sense to write it again ( although you will probably enhance it over time).

CDPR themselves describe REDengine as continuous-update, which implies to me that enhancements are not allowed to break existing code paths, meaning old games would continue to compile. But, as you say, who knows.

I did find the ( rather sparse, as they admit themselves ) 2016-2021 strategy document for the CDPR holding company to be quite an interesting read. For GOG.com they position Galaxy as an integral part of their strategy for releasing future CDPR games, while also having a goal of releasing multiple non-CDPR Galaxy-enabled games each year. Part of me can't help wondering if, as the owner of a digital distributor, they will go the direction of EA and only sell future CDPR games on their own platform. One might also speculate they pulled Witcher 3 on Linux and MacOS until they can release a galaxy-enabled version on GOG, and not have to pay Valve 30% of a rather small profit. Long-term, it would certainly be a little strange for a company to try to attract distribution business to GOG without their own games being available on all distribution platforms.

Also interesting is that in the 2017-2021 period CDPR plan to double their development headcount, release 2 new RPG IPs ( CP2077 and one other ) and begin 2 other new RPG projects.

View this comment - View article - View full comments

Quoting: Purple Library Guy

Quoting: ShmerlI'd call it perceived lack of demand. Disprove them by flooding them with requests for Linux versions.

The problem is that it's not just perceived. We really need bigger market share. Man, the Linux desktop is really pretty damned good (I remember when it wasn't, but those days are gone) . . . I know there's a monopolist busily trying to keep it sidelined, I know nobody has figured a way to milk it for concentrated money, but there's a side of me that really can't understand why we're not growing much.

From the supply side, it's the same reason x86 dominates micro hardware and ARM dominates hand-held hardware; some monopolies ( Windows in this case ) are self-reinforcing, because the alternatives are too much of a financial risk for the big boys, and small vendors can't really shift the market.

From the demand side, most people that use any form of computer actively resist any notion of "technical superiority", because they are not technically-minded or interested. Linux does not suffer from as many problems as it used to, but, out of the box, it is generally pretty ugly and lacks the singular focus on visual and behavioral "experience" that Microsoft and Apple apply, and which the great mass of consumer and business customers respond to.

Linux DOES have some advantages, to be sure, but generally not in the areas that matter to most potential users. Without the financial backing of a major interested party to sort out the "experience" problem, and to put significant marketing and advertising dollars into selling the result, it is difficult to see attitudes shifting.

There have been several attempts at a worthwhile desktop Linux, of course, but it is like herding cats to try to corral open source development in a single consistent direction. And when a single entity tries to do it alone, the either lack the money ( Canonical ) or vision ( Valve ) to produce a game-changing result.

I wouldn't count on natural ( word-of-mouth ) drift on getting to more than a few percent share, which leaves the most likely route to desktop Linux achieving significance being some sort of negative "event" in the Windows world that persuades consumers, businesses, or both, to look for alternatives.

View this comment - View article - View full comments

Quoting: Shmerl

Quoting: etonbearsThe parallel with CDPR is their apparent intent to provide TW3 for Linux by making RedEngine cross platform and provide development tools for 3rd party use. For whatever reason ( likely the cost vs predicted revenue ), they abandoned the RedEngine port, and it is my guess that with it went TW3 for Linux.

The lack of a Linux version of RedEngine also probably means no Linux version of Cyberpunk 2077. As Cyberpunk 2077 is already in the asset and subsystem creation stage ( at a guess, 2H 2018 release ), and they are using a multiplayer-enabled version of RedEngine with additional capabilities like vehicles, I would be surprised if the engine also adds Linux or Vulkan support.

That sounds logical, except for one thing. Their current engine (used in CP2077) is a very major rewrite, and quite different from their TW3 engine. So any attempts to retrofit it back into TW3 would also be far from trivial. Their cancellation of plans to release RedEngine for the world came after TW3 was already released, so it affected more their current engine (CP2077 one), and not TW3 one, since there was no point to release TW3 engine, when they are making a much better one already. So while it could be the reason for TW3 Linux cancellation in other timing circumstances, I don't think it was one here.

And I don't think it has any bearing on them using or not using Vulkan. They can as well use Vulkan in CP2077 if they aren't stupid, even if they don't plan to release the engine for others. But they consistently avoided answering any questions about engine used in CP2077, so anything can be going on there.

Of course; we are both speculating based on what we read. You can infer quite a lot from reading the job adverts for CP2077; those adverts specify skill sets the candidate should have, as well as the job activities and responsibilities. You can make reasonable guesses both from what the adverts say, as well as what they don't. For example, I found no mention of Linux, Mac, Android, iOS, Vulkan, Metal or even OpenGL. All of these would be new to CDPR if supported, and you would expect their job adverts to include these as skills or activities somewhere. So, my conclusion is that they are not likely to support these platforms/technologies in CP2077, although that is still just speculation.

With respect to engine updates, as RedEngine remains an internal technology, the updates are probably continuous. By that I mean that new or expanded features are probably added all the time to support new projects like CP2077. RedEngine would certainly need a lot of new features to support CP2077 concepts that were absent in TW3, but equally, much of RedEngine is likely to be generic rendering, path-finding, physics etc that will be unchanged from TW3. In normal circumstances, I would also expect CDPR to require their updated engine to always produce a working build of previous games as a regression test; it would certainly represent their most rigorous QA option. ( This is why Bethesda were able to release Skyrim Special Edition; it is the Skyrim game compiled using the engine technologies updated for Fallout 4 ).

It can be fun to speculate when there is no concrete information, but I think that game development ( particularly on these large-scale games ) is such a fluid activity, that even CDPR could not tell you, right now, how exactly CP2077 will be delivered. That may also be why the bigger studios/projects are becoming wary of promising things they can't be sure to deliver ( and then getting pilloried for it ).

View this comment - View article - View full comments

The Internet is a reflection of the ( mostly ) global society, so unfortunately it includes those that are hateful, stupid and immature, as well as those that are polite, helpful and reasonable.

Without significant effort, you can't always tell whether an on-line persona spouting vitriol is genuine, or is acting as if a member of a group to tarnish that group's reputation; certainly, issues like GamerGate, and the direct abuse that jaycee describes suggest there are some individuals out there with profound mental problems.

Nonetheless, I have doubts that Internet ranting would have, in itself, caused the cancellation of TW3 on Linux; although if there were doubts about proceeding, it might have tipped the balance or strengthened the negative arguments.

Neither do I see the stock price related argument Liam linked to as credible. Firstly, you do not construct a balance sheet by including stock price movements, secondly TW3 on Linux was still a possibility a year later, and finally, there were actually no significant stock movements for CDPR on the Warsaw exchange in 2014. It was a quiet year in their dev cycle while they were ramping up for TW3. TW2 for Linux boosted revenue in a year when they actually reduced headcount in Poland, presumably to control costs in a low revenue year ( these are based on Warsaw stock exchange public data and filing ).

However, I do see parallels between TW3 and another significant Linux under-achievement. Both CDPR and CA seem to have had good discussions with Valve and made early positive statements about supporting SteamOS/Linux.

In the case of CA, older Total War games were already available on the Mac through Feral, and we now have almost all of the back catalog available for Linux. However, CA promised to update the "current" iteration of their engine ( Rome2 and Attila ) without seeming to realize how hard it would be for them to do this internally. Two years later, we have Attila but not Rome2, and ( for me anyway ) it is the least playable Total War game. It also seems they are not maintaining a Linux branch of their engine as Feral have provided the Total War-Warhammer versions for Linux.

The parallel with CDPR is their apparent intent to provide TW3 for Linux by making RedEngine cross platform and provide development tools for 3rd party use. For whatever reason ( likely the cost vs predicted revenue ), they abandoned the RedEngine port, and it is my guess that with it went TW3 for Linux.

The lack of a Linux version of RedEngine also probably means no Linux version of Cyberpunk 2077. As Cyberpunk 2077 is already in the asset and subsystem creation stage ( at a guess, 2H 2018 release ), and they are using a multiplayer-enabled version of RedEngine with additional capabilities like vehicles, I would be surprised if the engine also adds Linux or Vulkan support.

This does not mean TW3 will never be ported as a stand-alone game; just that there is not enough justification at the moment. And they could yet surprise us and include Linux in the new RedEngine...

View this comment - View article - View full comments

Quoting: Comandante Ñoñardo

Quoting: DisharmonicJust wait and see Steam get flooded with crappy games, unless they have some other deterrents planned. They're basically throwing open the floodgates.

I agree..

I think Steam will fall by its own overweight if this continue...

when I joined Steam back in 2011 (I did it as a requirement for the Mafia 2 Demo) it was much more curated...
Not all games were able get to the Steam store in those days.
I prefer an store with an small catalogue of highly curated games than an store with tons of crapp...

Yeah, most of the Steam "experience" is of questionable value to me. I remember reading an interview with GabeN where he said that they were learning all the time, from how people interact with Steam, and that they are often surprised by what is popular/wanted. From what I can tell this means that Steam responds primarily to the enthusiasm, intensity and engagement of the pre-adult audience.

I guess this is what drives the Steam trading cards, badges, in-game items and the market, as well as frequent game mechanics like achievements and collectibles. Similarly, I guess that for this core audience, wading through 15000 games or countless workshop items isn't so much of an issue, if they live and breathe the community.

Personally, I only go to the Steam store when I already know what I want; and I don't bother with Steam Workshops if there is something better available, like a Nexus mod site.

I know that truly usable computer interfaces are not easy to design, but Steam seems to be particularly poor in many ways. I think what sums if up for me is their notion that "curators" can help you find what their UI can not. Unfortunately there are now 2000 curators, so choosing between those is non-trivial...

View this comment - View article - View full comments

Quoting: scaine

Quoting: rudzhaAll this is fine and nice, but ffs, can we finally get 4k support, I mean it's not that hard.

Yeah, good point. I run my 4K screen at 1920x1080 because Steam is unusable at high resolution. Also, admittedly because games are silky smooth played at lower resolutions.

Financially speaking, it is because 4k/8k are way ahead of the curve. Only about 1% of gamers choose to purchase those resolutions ( and, I guess the high-end GPU needed to drive it ). Even 2560x1440 is < 2% of gamers, and, as supporting higher resolutions doesn't sell more games, there is not much incentive to do so.

Practically speaking, most games that have a "3D world" actually scale that part well. This is because 3D rendering is typically performed to a "unit cube" ( x,y,z between -1 an +1 ), which is mapped to whatever screen resolution you have; so any resolution is theoretically supported.

However, 2D games, and any 2D element of a 3D game, such as the UI and overlay layers, are generally crafted specifically for the game, and each supported resolution/screen size combination may require significant extra work.

I think generally developers understand that a scalable UI is a good thing, but it is actually a non-trivial exercise, particularly where text is involved, to present a custom UI in a legible manner on all resolution/screen size combinations.

View this comment - View article - View full comments

This was the first TW game I did not buy, having got to the point in 2011 that I would rarely buy Windows software; so I look forward to playing it.

I would guess that CA, or more likely SEGA, have contracted Feral to do the whole TW catalog, either as work for hire ( a specific fee or fees ), or on a royalty basis, which obviously disappoints @fabry92! But it makes sense for porting houses to do several games that have similar technology, as it lessens the cost per title. All their work will be the result of negotiations that probably do not allow them to choose to release the title wherever they please; they are not likely to be in the situation where they can simply "pick" which titles they port.

I am not personally bothered about games using some form of revenue protection, so long as it is non-intrusive. Computer games have always used a variety of methods to minimise casual fraud. Early ones made you enter codes obtained from physical game content, or use difficult to copy "key" floppy disks of CDs; later ones used fairly nasty virus-like mechanisms. The encrypted binary method offered by Valve ( used only at the discretion of the developer, these games do not ... http://steam.wikia.com/wiki/List_of_DRM-free_games [External Link] ), has never caused me any issues, and is certainly a far better than the old copy-protection schemes.

Any easily copied product has had the issue that, if people perceive they can get something for free, many will do so. DRM and other forms of protection will not disappear until that problem becomes insignificant.

View this comment - View article - View full comments

Quoting: Guest@etonbears:
Thanks for your detailed reply. We probably shouldn't go into another pro-con discussion here (it's OT anyhow), but I think music industry has shown that the without-DRM-we're-dead paradigm isn't true after all.

Steam or not steam is not (only) a question of DRM. It's a question of monopoly. Having to have Steam to be able to play games (on Linux) is not a whit better than having had to use Windows for it (which I never did either). It's all about freedom and choice, which is why I started using Linux 23 years ago. (For me) no game is worth it to bespeak this conviction(*).

But I'm not enforcing my credo on anyone. I'm just mentioning it now and then, and keep pushing GOG, to have some alternatives around. Just like I've been doing with Linux the last 2 decades...

(*)BTW., part of this conviction is also no-piracy-period. In that respect, if more people had my attitude, DRM would just not be needed.... ^_^

@Pit
Hi there.
It's certain that if everyone took your stance on piracy, DRM would not be necessary, and probably would not exist. Sadly, most people don't think that way. It's not that most are intrinsically bad or malicious ( some obviously are, but not the majority ), it often simply doesn't occur to us look past our own immediate wants or needs to the impact on others.

Not quite sure what you mean with the music industry. Their stance ( good or bad ) was mainly about protecting their revenue and that of their artists. The failure to do so had exactly the effect they expected, and the royalty revenues for recorded music crashed. This has caused changes in industry models, reverting to a greater reliance on live music revenue streams; hence the current glut of Sexagenarian/Septuagenarian rock dinosaurs creaking their way around the world's stages. Not that I have much sympathy for them, or any at all for the music industry executives that lived well off their works. The main beneficiaries have been dishonest consumers that can basically get whatever music they want without paying, and companies like Apple who get music revenue from honest consumers. Not sure that's progress; personally I'll keep buying CDs.

Also not quite sure why you think Steam is a monopoly. It is the largest download service, but with the exception of content that is created with the Source engine ( a cost-free developer choice, not a requirement ) or other Steam-related tools, as far as I know, games can be freely sold in other digital stores, boxed, or indeed sold on other platforms if they are ported. I'm certainly wary or the potential for silos of control to spring up given the record of companies like Microsoft and Apple, but I wouldn't even class Valve along with them at this point...

...However, I wouldn't be surprised to be proved wrong on that in the end :)

View this comment - View article - View full comments