Latest Comments by Mal
Valve have some serious competition, with the Epic Games Store being announced
5 Dec 2018 at 4:15 pm UTC
The money that developers save will be used for better and more games in case of small devs, will become revenues for larger devs.
The good about Valve was that a part of that money was redirected into innovation and openness instead of becoming pure profit.
5 Dec 2018 at 4:15 pm UTC
Quoting: elmapul4- are games cheaper, because epic just takes 12%? ubisoft games cost the same on uplay and steam.Games won't become cheaper just because market fees are lower. Digital non essential goods prices are not made taking into account fixed costs and by undercutting competition. They are sold at the highest price possible at each market. That's why prices in Russia or south America are lower and in Australia are higher. And that's why prices drop after a while: after I sold the game full price to everyone that wanted to pay that amount, I have no reason to not lower the price and sell to the people who only buys with lower prices. New copies are "produced" for free. People don't buy out of necessity so they can pass over a pricey game. But at the same time they have no alternatives (I buy apples instead of oranges) since every game is unique. Making game prices is completely different than making prices for stuff like cars or bread.
yes, ubisoft had an bad time with self publishing, still they are doing it anyway, most triple A companies are doing, epic may have a chance to compete because many companies will give up leaving steam if steam change their cut, the economics of scale will not compensate the cost of self hosting
The money that developers save will be used for better and more games in case of small devs, will become revenues for larger devs.
The good about Valve was that a part of that money was redirected into innovation and openness instead of becoming pure profit.
Valve have some serious competition, with the Epic Games Store being announced
4 Dec 2018 at 6:02 pm UTC Likes: 7
4 Dec 2018 at 6:02 pm UTC Likes: 7
Am I the only one to believe this more competition thing is going all wrong?
As a consumer what I want to see is less fees and more money in the pockets of indie developers since they can only do one thing with those pennies: better and more games.
For big publishers though I don't think, as a consumer, that leaving more money in their coffers instead of valve's will translate in better gaming for me. Valve has a very good record in investing in infrastructure and innovation for the whole industry, be it VR, steamplay platform, open source infrastructure for open source OSs (I keep the plural here, just to play Epic game). Whilst for the rest it's more for allowing shareholders to 'invest" in islands as Christmas present for their children.
Yet what's going to happen now is that fees are going to be reduced for large players whilst small keep the burden o the "innovation tax".
Then, as for Valve competitors, to often their contribute to the gaming world stops to a buggy launcher with some nasty DRM at worse and no DRM at all at best. Do these "perks" really justify, as a buyer, a 12% or whatever cut on what you pay?
I'm all for competition. But what I want to see is qualified competition, not just lechers that suck out money from the industry by lowering the quality standards. I hope that Epic, if and when it establishes its store ofc, will distinguish itself from the mass and play the game right. Valve has been left alone to push the industry for to long.
As a consumer what I want to see is less fees and more money in the pockets of indie developers since they can only do one thing with those pennies: better and more games.
For big publishers though I don't think, as a consumer, that leaving more money in their coffers instead of valve's will translate in better gaming for me. Valve has a very good record in investing in infrastructure and innovation for the whole industry, be it VR, steamplay platform, open source infrastructure for open source OSs (I keep the plural here, just to play Epic game). Whilst for the rest it's more for allowing shareholders to 'invest" in islands as Christmas present for their children.
Yet what's going to happen now is that fees are going to be reduced for large players whilst small keep the burden o the "innovation tax".
Then, as for Valve competitors, to often their contribute to the gaming world stops to a buggy launcher with some nasty DRM at worse and no DRM at all at best. Do these "perks" really justify, as a buyer, a 12% or whatever cut on what you pay?
I'm all for competition. But what I want to see is qualified competition, not just lechers that suck out money from the industry by lowering the quality standards. I hope that Epic, if and when it establishes its store ofc, will distinguish itself from the mass and play the game right. Valve has been left alone to push the industry for to long.
Europe Universalis IV: Golden Century will put the spotlight on Iberia come December 11
23 Nov 2018 at 11:30 am UTC
23 Nov 2018 at 11:30 am UTC
EU4 is a mature game. It doesn't need overhauls anymore, but there are ample spaces of optimizations when considering individual areas of the world. That's the reason why recent DLCs (not just immersion packs) are heavily area focused. Indeed Dharma sucks if you don't play in India but at the same time you can skip it with no real consequences.
It's worse when they make an area focused DLC and then add a global balance altering mechanic in said DLC like professionalism was in cradle of civilization. When that happens the game has to be balanced for stronger armies, but without the DLC you don't have access to this strength. Remain behind a few "mandatory DLCs" and your game experience deteriorates.
All in all the last ones, Rule Britannia, Dharma and Golden Century are just fine. They are DLC you can happily skip if you don't play that region. For Golden Century I would argue that it's only game changing if you play Portugal.
It's worse when they make an area focused DLC and then add a global balance altering mechanic in said DLC like professionalism was in cradle of civilization. When that happens the game has to be balanced for stronger armies, but without the DLC you don't have access to this strength. Remain behind a few "mandatory DLCs" and your game experience deteriorates.
All in all the last ones, Rule Britannia, Dharma and Golden Century are just fine. They are DLC you can happily skip if you don't play that region. For Golden Century I would argue that it's only game changing if you play Portugal.
Steam Link hardware officially walks the plank, there's an app for that
22 Nov 2018 at 10:41 am UTC
22 Nov 2018 at 10:41 am UTC
Ok since I couldn't wrap my head around I tried to get literate about the app.
Apparently if your tv is not smart or the native app is garbage like in my Samsung case, in the post-link world you're supposed to go with an Android TV. The android app says it officially supports Steam and Xbox One S controllers but I bet it works also with all the stuff that is Android compatible (including m+k devices) as regular ones. I bet that for officially supported they mean controllers that work with steam API and give access to profiles and that kind of stuff.
On a second thought it doesn't look that bad of a decision. All the world wants to be android compatible to get in reach of the endless hordes of people playing microtransaction baked heavy farming android games out there. By jumping on android platform Valve devs should be free to spend less time on drivers (and hardware maintenance) and more on actual features which doesn't sound that bad. The Android TV itself may cost more than a link but it also includes the same features of a Chromecast, a Firestick, it's google assistant compatible and has all the android apps including games that every serious gamer should play daily like angry birds and the fans favorite Diablo Immortal. All in all it's better value I guess and much less cabling behind the TV.
Personally I'm sticking to my link until it lasts (I already have a Chromecast and since I'm not a serious gamer I don't care about angry birds or Diablo Immmortal :) ). Then again I guess privacy champions won't be happy to be forced to have a Google product spying their gaming achievements in the living rooms...
Apparently if your tv is not smart or the native app is garbage like in my Samsung case, in the post-link world you're supposed to go with an Android TV. The android app says it officially supports Steam and Xbox One S controllers but I bet it works also with all the stuff that is Android compatible (including m+k devices) as regular ones. I bet that for officially supported they mean controllers that work with steam API and give access to profiles and that kind of stuff.
On a second thought it doesn't look that bad of a decision. All the world wants to be android compatible to get in reach of the endless hordes of people playing microtransaction baked heavy farming android games out there. By jumping on android platform Valve devs should be free to spend less time on drivers (and hardware maintenance) and more on actual features which doesn't sound that bad. The Android TV itself may cost more than a link but it also includes the same features of a Chromecast, a Firestick, it's google assistant compatible and has all the android apps including games that every serious gamer should play daily like angry birds and the fans favorite Diablo Immortal. All in all it's better value I guess and much less cabling behind the TV.
Personally I'm sticking to my link until it lasts (I already have a Chromecast and since I'm not a serious gamer I don't care about angry birds or Diablo Immmortal :) ). Then again I guess privacy champions won't be happy to be forced to have a Google product spying their gaming achievements in the living rooms...
Steam Link hardware officially walks the plank, there's an app for that
20 Nov 2018 at 9:52 am UTC Likes: 8
20 Nov 2018 at 9:52 am UTC Likes: 8
Crap. I just finished to wire my link in my new Living Room.
So what's the alternatives supposed to be now? TV embedded apps? Honestly the link is just superior. It has all the connectivity in the world: from 3 usb ports to bluetooth with an endless list of drivers. I've got a Samsung TV. Samsung link app doesn't support xbox one S wireless controllers for instance. Or PS4 controllers. I don't like this guys, I don't like it at all.
So what's the alternatives supposed to be now? TV embedded apps? Honestly the link is just superior. It has all the connectivity in the world: from 3 usb ports to bluetooth with an endless list of drivers. I've got a Samsung TV. Samsung link app doesn't support xbox one S wireless controllers for instance. Or PS4 controllers. I don't like this guys, I don't like it at all.
Valve's digital card game Artifact releases this month with same-day Linux support
1 Nov 2018 at 6:49 pm UTC Likes: 4
1 Nov 2018 at 6:49 pm UTC Likes: 4
Wait. Collectible Cards? You meant collectible hat game didn't you?
Valve officially confirm a new version of 'Steam Play' which includes a modified version of Wine
31 Aug 2018 at 2:49 pm UTC Likes: 3
31 Aug 2018 at 2:49 pm UTC Likes: 3
Imho Lutris as a project is unaffected by these news. It will simply add support for Proton games in Steam Library like it did for all the other platforms and launchers and stay true to its vision. If you found it convenient yesterday you will also find it convenient tomorrow.
Playonlinux probably will see its audience greatly reduced since now Steam will do a lot of stuff that yesterday only playonlinux did. Which allows people to not use it if they don't want the complication. But since pol also uses wine and since all this proton stuff is open source imho the few remaining users in the end should see an improvement in what they can do and how easily they can do it. That's the whole point of open source right?
Playonlinux probably will see its audience greatly reduced since now Steam will do a lot of stuff that yesterday only playonlinux did. Which allows people to not use it if they don't want the complication. But since pol also uses wine and since all this proton stuff is open source imho the few remaining users in the end should see an improvement in what they can do and how easily they can do it. That's the whole point of open source right?
Valve officially confirm a new version of 'Steam Play' which includes a modified version of Wine
30 Aug 2018 at 5:04 pm UTC Likes: 3
On his part Valve is playing nice on both sides though. It contributes and started open projects and it made literally nothing to wall his garden off (one could argue it even encouraged competition at its own expenses by providing free keys to devs to sell on whatever venue they want even if, ultimately, Valve pays the bills of the Steam infrastructure these key leverage).
In doing that it showed that it sports the exact opposite of Apple core values. Its business model is more similar to what Google did with early Android, create and improve the infrastructure for free to increase the value of the platform in exchange of having its own market on the devices of the final users.
Personally I think too that SteamOs would benefit as a project from having other markets integrated as well. But as long as the competition is to stingy to re invest part of their revenues in the project (or the linux infrastructure in general) it's hard to make this a Valve fault.
30 Aug 2018 at 5:04 pm UTC Likes: 3
Quoting: GuestIf GNU/Linux desktop becomes more widespread, then it would be very, very bad if Steam holds dominance on gaming for the same reasons - and actually worse, because a core concept of GNU/Linux is to be open.Being open has nothing to do with monopoly. You can have one without the other, both or none.
On his part Valve is playing nice on both sides though. It contributes and started open projects and it made literally nothing to wall his garden off (one could argue it even encouraged competition at its own expenses by providing free keys to devs to sell on whatever venue they want even if, ultimately, Valve pays the bills of the Steam infrastructure these key leverage).
In doing that it showed that it sports the exact opposite of Apple core values. Its business model is more similar to what Google did with early Android, create and improve the infrastructure for free to increase the value of the platform in exchange of having its own market on the devices of the final users.
Personally I think too that SteamOs would benefit as a project from having other markets integrated as well. But as long as the competition is to stingy to re invest part of their revenues in the project (or the linux infrastructure in general) it's hard to make this a Valve fault.
Valve officially confirm a new version of 'Steam Play' which includes a modified version of Wine
25 Aug 2018 at 2:48 pm UTC
It simply means it is supported. You open a ticket to valve and they will surely look in to it. With games that are not in the whitelist instead they take no accountability: if they help it's good for you, if they don't you have deal with it since they never made promises (which doesn't mean they don't care, just they can't help if you on your own decided to spend money on it and in the end it doesn't work).
25 Aug 2018 at 2:48 pm UTC
Quoting: legluondunetTekken 7 is on the Steamplay whitelist and it doesn't launch with Proton...Valve should verify his Whitelist before to publish it.Being on the whitelist it doesn't mean it's bug free. Luckily I'd say (or there would be less job for us devs in general).
https://steamcommunity.com/games/221410/announcements/detail/1696055855739350561 [External Link]
https://github.com/ValveSoftware/Proton/issues/278 [External Link]
It simply means it is supported. You open a ticket to valve and they will surely look in to it. With games that are not in the whitelist instead they take no accountability: if they help it's good for you, if they don't you have deal with it since they never made promises (which doesn't mean they don't care, just they can't help if you on your own decided to spend money on it and in the end it doesn't work).
Valve officially confirm a new version of 'Steam Play' which includes a modified version of Wine
22 Aug 2018 at 9:43 am UTC Likes: 4
The fundamentalist half of me tells me exactly what you wrote.
But the pragmatic half invites me to look at reality: for linux now it's not an issue of technology anymore. It's very possible to develop new titles to be portable an native. Why is not happening then? You all know why. Market share. That cold heartless numbers that will convince the board dudes that there actually people out there willing to buy your linux version. Infact Valve confirmed that wine will count as linux.
If we have to deal with the devil for these numbers so be it. What has linux world to lose anyway? We're stuck in a limbo. If it works good. If it backfires screw it. I'll change hobby to bird watching,
22 Aug 2018 at 9:43 am UTC Likes: 4
Quoting: mirooh well, I am really not that happy as most people.I am torn.
from now on I'm really afraid that too many publishers will use this as an excuse not to provide native linux builds in case it runs "well enough" with proton/wine.
since this is now to be built-in, most people will not have to understand what wine even is, they will take the running binary for granted. hence what is to expect is less performance and continuous direct x instead of opengl or vulkan
this would totally be acceptable for older/legacy titles, but I really think too many will jump on that train that it runs with proton and that there is no need to compile it for linux.
we'll see.
The fundamentalist half of me tells me exactly what you wrote.
But the pragmatic half invites me to look at reality: for linux now it's not an issue of technology anymore. It's very possible to develop new titles to be portable an native. Why is not happening then? You all know why. Market share. That cold heartless numbers that will convince the board dudes that there actually people out there willing to buy your linux version. Infact Valve confirmed that wine will count as linux.
If we have to deal with the devil for these numbers so be it. What has linux world to lose anyway? We're stuck in a limbo. If it works good. If it backfires screw it. I'll change hobby to bird watching,