I agree that the eON wrapper for Witcher 2 was pretty disastrous when first released, even with my nVidia card with the newest drivers. Virtual Programming, to their well-deserved credit, worked diligently on the wrapper to the point that the game runs very well indeed. I'm still wandering around Flotsam and environs, which is certainly still pretty early in the game, after the prologue (which is pretty long in itself), and I have had zero crashes or other problems. Once they got the wrapper fixed, they sent the updated, working, version to GOG.com (owned by RedProjekt, the developers of the game) and made the wrapper available to anyone who had already bought it. This is what I call good customer service.

The very worst "Linux" port lately has been Eador:Masters of the Broken World, which used a plain, untweaked wine wrapper, and has not (after several months) been fixed, and is not even listed as a Linux game any more on Steam. I give a lot of credit, after Eador:MOTBW's crapola "port," to porters who actually try to please the people who, you know, bought the game, and I have come to place VP in that company.

No, they aren't Feral or Aspyr, but they did do some serious work to fix their wrapper, and, if it means that Bioshock:Inifinte is playable on Linux, I'll be a happy camper. I bought it back when I was still dual-booting, and it is indeed one heck of a game, and I'd sure like to finish it. If the wrapper works as well as I think it does for W2, I will have no problem. I've played lots of games at ~30 fps with inferior graphics cards, and they were still playable.

So there.

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GREAT headline!

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Hmmm...I would hope that Maia runs better than when first released. I was all ready to test it when my new motherboard and CPU died, and diagnostics found after an hour of searching that it's probably the CPU. RMA back to Newegg...:><:

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BI did show up in my Steam library, having bought it in my dual-booting days. BTW, on a Phenom II 965 CPU and a GeForce 650ti, it ran very well at 1600x900, hardly max settings, but it ran very well.

I don't expect its full release until at least January, and I've seen "missing executable" before.

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I hadn't heard about the game before I saw it on Steam. Of course, the developers responsible for the much-mocked Ultima Online have probably learned the many lessons they needed to learn. I'm hoping this is as good as ULTIMA 7.

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Gads, but I wish I could help with programming. Perhaps manual writing...

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Keeping gold after you die is a nice touch. I really liked the way Don't Starve allowed other characters to unlock just for playing a certain amount of time. It would be nice if you got to keep your non-gold loot in Sproggiwood, I must admit.

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I had bought a bundle for Windows in my dual-boot days, and one day Painkiller:Hell & Damnation showed up in my Steam library. I had a nVidia card, and it ran for me the first day. ATI users had a b*tch of a time getting it to run. They had to wait for ATI to get their act together and issue drivers that would work with the game. One of the parts of ATI getting their act together was the developer contacting ATI and offering to help, and their accepting the help. I consider this to be service beyond the call of duty, and I have felt pretty nicely about Nordic since.

Yes, there are companies that have risked releasing a Linux version, and have seen sales from middling to nearly zero. Win some, lose some, if that doesn't sound too cold. I do know that Aspyr has been ecstatic with their sales, and Feral as well. I doubt that Paradox is sorry that they released versions of their games for Linux, either.

1.5% (or whatever) of Steam users is still a boatload of people. I certainly understand a tiny dev company working to create a Linux version, and then sell 539 copies, and say "f*ck this." That doesn't mean that developers shouldn't continue, it's just that when any game developer releases a game for any platform, it can be a crap shoot. Look at (for example) Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning, which was an epic fail despite selling 1.2M copies. I do also know that many of the games on Desura are frequently updated, as they are on Steam, so, if sales are good enough, games will continue to be maintained. We've certainly seen FOSS projects lose maintenance, as well.

I do my part; I buy games for Linux, although I do get games appearing in my library (X-COM and Borderlands 2) that I had bought in my dual-booting days. My library is full of games I bought for Linux, and I'm not going to stop buying them; what better way to show appreciation than buying a game you appreciate?

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After so many years in the gaming wilderness, it astonishes me to see the actual releases of AAA games, in perhaps a trickle to begin with (Paradox will always hold a dear place in my heart, for releasing as many games for Linux as they have, and for releasing Europa Universalis IV for all three platforms the same day), then the astonishing triple punch of Witcher 2 (I know, I know), CIV V and X-COM in a 6 week period, and then Borderlands 2, Waasteland 2, and more and more coming down the pike.

And to think I called 2013 The Year Of Linux Gaming. I think I was premature!

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I have seen a lot of slagging of C:BE from beta players, and some players have said that they prefer Pandora:First Contact, which I have, and, while it's not as polished as a Firaxis game, it does a lot with what it has and is highly recommended as a good new version of a classic. I still play Alpha Centauri from GOG with PlayOnLinux, and it certainly passes the time while I make up my mind whether to take that plunge. I've barely scratched the surface of CIV V...

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