Quoting: Ehvis[...] Seems to me that Steam Linux users are fairly stable at just above a million.

Maybe but improbable. There are new Linux users every day registering on forums, asking stack questions and getting counted in the linuxcounter.net project. It would be weird of none of them were gamers. Even weirder if none of them had Steam account. I can agree as long as fairy stable means growing slowly but otherwise I just can't believe it.

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Give me the API access! I want to code one smart ass pseudo-AI! :)

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Quoting: Comandante ÑoñardoThe gift will be in my inventory for 30 days before send it...
Will the purchase be counted as Linux sale?

I don't know how they count the sale in this case but no, currently while buying a gift you have to select a friend and it's being sent directly to their library, nobody gets an inventory item.

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I don't get it. Why are they lynching the guy? His responses make perfect sense.

He brought a design unit that isn't a final product and isn't meant to work with other devices so he can't know what will happen if somebody tries to connect them. He's not at liberty to say what went wrong during launch, yet they keep asking what it was. He gets as close to the truth as he can by giving them an analogy that suggests it was one specific aspect that came out sub-par in final testing and has been improved since then but isn't in production yet and they bash him for comparing it to a rocket launch even though it worked perfect with both having issues coming out last second. He doesn't want to release specs because they try to keep them up to date and will update before public release so announcing now what they were going to launch before would just be outdated in a few months. He's frustrated he cannot answer them straight without possibly violating NDAs. When inviting them he said he has design models, which means these aren't meant to be run but to be touched, felt, to prove they keep working on the project and he explains it's because they don't have a UI yet. He says project has money to move forward. He says business negotiations with distributors are taking place.

And what they took out of it is they were invited to play a game even though nobody said so? And that nothing works even though the guy said PCB is functional? Basically, they wrote a bullshit article because they hyped themselves and misunderstood the intention of the whole thing. That's not journalism. It's like getting invited to see a brand new type of plates and complaining there wasn't any food on them.

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Ok, had some discussion among devs at work (no games, just software). It should be interesting to put against what antisol said because I felt bad responses to his super long post here were so short and few. :D

Quoting: antisol[...] Here are my guidelines. Note that the effect of all of these is increased if more people do the same:

Do we want to convince:

• new users?


• existing users?


• independent developers?


• triple A studios?


• publishers?

All of them care for different things like: ease of use, compatibility with what they have, stability and libraries, money, etc. Many people are mixing their strategies here and TBH I don't think the best strategy exists because different behaviours motivate some audience and put off the other.

Quoting: antisolVote with your wallet[/b]

Doesn't the majority of us already do that? I only buy Linux games, if I buy a game without Linux support it's because it was an HB bundle and I moved the sliders to support only Linux-sympathetic developers anyway. But yeah, it's what heavy- and middle-weight publishers like, as well as one-man studious.

Quoting: antisolIf you have the money, don't wait for a sale [...] Reward the devs

Guilty. I'm a sale wh*re. It's business, though. If publishers didn't want to give discounts, they wouldn't. Is dev's salary related to the publisher's income? Sometimes, probably. But I wouldn't bet it's universal. Most studios (small and big) pay their devs salary and if studio bankrupts devs just update their CV and find another job. Where they still get salary. It is rewarding the publisher, though. It's only directly rewarding a developer if it's a one-man studio.

Quoting: antisolToo many times, we've been promised a Linux client and then screwed over [...] The only way to discourage this is to not buy until there's Linux support.

It's an entirely separate issue. :dizzy: Besides, Steam has nice refunds policy, so does HB and probably every shop nowadays. Because LAW. As long as it's not a kickstarter-like service your money is fairly safe even if you invest up front.

Quoting: antisolThose huge steam threads with hundreds of "+1 Linux" posts are equivalent to hundreds of lost sales.

Not that simple. "+1 Linux" threads are often considered bad PR, not only because of the trolls but because these appear before the publisher or the developer even mentioned Linux. Somebody asks whether they even consider to support it and suddenly moderator has a headache. That's before anyone involved even replied. Besides, people "+1" multiple times. Why? IMO don't "+1" at all and wishlist instead. Platforms are shown in wishlist statistics. Post only if you have something meaningful to say.

Quoting: antisol[...] tell them about Ryan C Gordon, aka icculus

Agreed. Did that several times. Didn't work yet but hope prevails!

Quoting: antisol[...] I send the developer a personal email saying "I love your game. Thanks so much for the Linux version!"

Again, dev or publisher? Indie or AAA? For one-man studious these are great! On the other hand if you're a corporate CS or PR person who has to sift through hundreds of e-mails every day, "thank-yous" are considered empty content and nuisance.

Quoting: antisolIf you run into a bug, make a good bug report and send it to the dev.

That's already our strong point. Target the technical support only, though. A PR person will ignore those 9/10 times.

Two unrelated things to finish up nicely:

Quoting: antisolDon't pirate games. If you can't afford all the games you want, wait for a sale. You want your gameplay to show up in their statistics [...]

Who pirates games nowadays? :O Why!? Are there even cracks on Linux???

Quoting: antisolIf you want to be hardcore like me, don't play any games on windows or using wine, ever[...]

A group for you to consider assuming you don't mind publicly sharing playtime on your Steam profile: https://steamcommunity.com/groups/LinuxUsersExclusively [External Link]

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Quoting: liamdawe[...] Honestly, I'm still surprised at how cool the comments are here, good job everyone!

What did you expect? :D

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Quoting: GuestBerating the devs will get you one thing - a pulled Linux build, and no future support.

It might. I know this makes more sense when talking about software in general (because you have to be able to trust your software, games not necessarily) but do we even care if people who already failed to deliver give up on us? I personally don't. If they reiterate, take the feedback like men, fix the issues, probably learn something in the process - respect. If they don't? Oh, well. :huh:

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TL;DR: I think AAA developers don't like the idea of having to buy into our community the way some independent developers (and porters) did and want us to threat them differently even when they never did anything to deserve it because they're spoiled by their commercial success among their less demanding non-penguin audience expecting the reward before work and no consequence when the work turns out sub-par.

It's a nice, wishful and cosy article but it seems biased with notion of pulling big developers in. I spoke to several game developers on numerous occasions, some of them being Linux users themselves, some not. Truth said I didn't speak to many and all of them far from being a one A studios, not even thinking of three, but they seem to universally understand people on Linux aren't really gamers. They get it. Our choices aren't motivated by the desire to play game X or games in general. Sure, we enjoy the hell out of them but we aren't a bunch that goes into the first shop and buys just any computer to play games. We are Linux users first and while that brings some of the qualities mentioned in the article, it also brings expectations that had been conveniently omitted.

We've already made extra steps to make sure everything works the way we like it, we can work with our software the way we want, and we try to keep that standard wherever we go. I'm bolding we on purpose. Yes, we can submit bug reports that are nicely put together and sometimes resolve issues on our own directly helping the developer and cutting on their testing costs, often making Windows versions better in the process. It's awesome to be part of it. But at the same time we expect said developer to work with us as equals because we know what we're doing. The usual PR crap doesn't work on us. I will go as far as saying being more tech savvy we're on the pessimistic end of realistic and, while I can't see a reason not to keep it civilised and to the point rather than rude, not that welcoming to somebody who threats us as a second class citizen and doesn't keep their promises or releases a buggy port and stops supporting it. I think being a "do good by me and I'll do good by you" person is in the core of every Linux user already because it takes that kind of character to separate yourself from the Windows (and maybe even Mac) community. But "I'll be nice to you in case it's worth it" isn't. Saying things like:

• Always buy on Linux, but only once a Linux version is announced


• Buy direct from the developer if possible

is an equivalent of saying: "don't be realistic, trust the developer to deliver and cut yourself off from that easy to use refund system Valve offers so you wouldn't be able to punish them when they disappoint you". I don't know, man. I don't know. If this is the world you want to live in, with squishy people giving free hugs and saying nice things to everyone regardless of their behaviour, feel free, but I'm on Linux - I'm nice to people who earned my respect, to everyone else I'm civilised.

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Quoting: Phlebiac

Quoting: dosHumble post-IGN acquisition started to look and behave like dozens of other bundle sites.

The Humble Store has had "build your own bundles" with extra discounts many times in the past, long before IGN. Pretty sure I got a bunch of Daedalic and/or Telltale (run great in Wine) games from a previous sale.

Like others, I've got most of the (available for Linux) 2K titles already, but this is great for those who don't.

I think it's more about how they bundle same titles over and over. It used to be a rarity to see same game in the bundle more than once (I remember two or maybe three cases, depending on how you count it). Also, overall pricing was more like 200$ worth of games for 10-15$ highest tier, which was freaking amazing for full Linux bundles and still very good for those with only few Linux titles. Now it's more 150$ worth of games for 30$ which is meh, pretty standard for all game stores.

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Surviving Mars, please.

My favourite Linux joke:
:(){ :|: & };:

Also:

Quoting: sarlej[...]
question:
What is difference between chattr a chmod?
answer:
man chattr > 1; man chmod > 2; diff -d 1 2

Optimization, man (especially because process substitution looks like an ASCII penguin):
diff -d <(man chattr) <(man chmod)

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