Quoting: BeamboomAnd nobody will jump to Linux for gaming just because we can emulate Windows. That's just simply not gonna happen.

I hold the view that nobody will jump to Linux because of gaming even if games run at parity with Windows, and even if they somehow ran better I think the gains would be marginal. I believe the state of gaming can dissuade people from coming to Linux, but not convince them to do so. There are many reasons for wanting to use Linux, but many of those reasons aren't popular, Linux isn't marketed to the mainstream and old habits die hard. Most people don't want to switch to something new unless they're properly fed up with what they currently have, and we can all see that their tolerance is mind-bogglingly high when it comes to some of the aspects that made us switch. So without being driven by some of those other fundamental reasons, someone who only cares about gaming will just stick to what's familiar as long as it's not greatly overshadowed by something else.

That being the case, I feel that it's not necessary to try and beat Microsoft as a gaming platform, but rather to emulate the Windows gaming experience the best we can so that people who want to use Linux for other reasons can get their fix to a satisfying level.

But I don't want to presume too much. I'd love to hear if anyone here uses Linux primarily because of how it does gaming, rather than tolerate its shortcomings with gaming because of their other reasons to prefer Linux.

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Quoting: tmtvlIf you're a fan of the classics, like Baldur's Gate or Planescape: Torment, this game blows PoE and Torment: Tides of Numeria out of the water.

I have an unpopular opinion I know, but what would you expect if I actually liked PoE better than BG?

Quoting: devnullIronic and perhaps paradoxical is the more invested you are in a field the more you gravitate to recognizing art within it.

How is that ironic? It seems pretty intuitive to me that experts in a field can better appreciate the subtleties of it and the meanings beneath the surface.

(Strange discussion to have in a Steam sale thread, come to think of it.)

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Quoting: morbiusNope. What I liked I would always buy afterwards. Depending on how much I liked it, I might even buy it on smaller discount, get special editions, DLCs, etc. And I would make sure to promote good games as well.

Oh, I get that approach. I do it a lot with music (although it's not always exactly piracy since it's often posted by the artists themselves). I can't imagine buying an album without listening to it first. At least you have Steam's no-questions-asked refund policy under 2 hours if you want to sample games before judging whether the price is fair.

Quoting: tmtvlI would definitely recommend Pathfinder Kingmaker to any RPG fans, most problems have been fixed, and it's a massively addicting game.

That's interesting to hear. I heard only about the weird difficulty balance/progression. Has that been fixed and what else has?

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Quoting: morbiuspeople are ruining a good thing here by getting greedy.

Quoting: morbiusHonestly, I might as well go back to piracy.

Double standards?

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Quoting: BeamboomBut as of right now, my main concern isn't really the number of big games released, but rather that it all hangs on one line: Feral. They are all we got left, to put it a bit simple. And they seem to have their regular 2-3 publishers as sources for their games.
And if they drop us? Who else can we turn to? It's that vulnerability that really really bothers me.

I understand the feeling. When it comes to porting AAAs, it does feel like Feral are the only ones pulling their weight and the rest are just dipping a toe in the Linux water at this time. Fortunately I don't personally care too much about AAAs, although you're certainly correct that they play a major role in platform attractiveness at large. And in that light, what I do find reassuring is that we still see a high number of developers releasing on Linux natively on their own. And indie or not, many of those are high-production, original games (A? AA?), not just GameMaker clones and pixel-art rogue-likes and platformers (not hating on those genres, but holy shit there's a lot of them and they're usually not blockbusters).

They may not be as prestigious, but there's something to be said for being a good ecosystem for the low- and mid-range productions. Those companies often have less shitty practices than AAA studios when it comes to DRM or data collection, if only because they don't have the means to implement them or the clout to get away with them, and as such are more in line with FLOSS philosophies even if they don't go as far as open sourcing their games. Honestly, even if EA or Ubisoft did make Linux versions of their games, I wouldn't want to put on the shackles that come with them, and I'm no Stallman.

I guess overall I prefer slow growth with more reasonable companies than Linux becoming popular with the masses by shedding off some its core values and becoming "Windows with a Linux kernel." I think we're treading a reasonable middle ground at the moment by accepting some proprietary software and DRM in our entertainment but preserving the "sanctity" of the OS and core applications. That's just my opinion, of course.

So I guess my short answer to your question would be: it doesn't really bother me if we end up losing all the AAAs as long as everything else keeps going well and better. I think we can continue to grow without them, if slower.

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This brings back memories of Elasto Mania. I don't think I would have the patience for this anymore :)

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How does one find the tournament in-game? I might go and give someone an easy win if I don't forget ^^

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Quoting: BeamboomI'm the first to feel sorry for saying so, but to be honest I feel this is one of the weaker years in Linux gaming so far. It feels like we're taken quite a few steps back to the first years of Steam, with mostly indie titles coming our way.
Let's just say it like it is: Without Feral we would have had practically nothing in the pipeline now. Like we did back then.

So this is not something to be too cheerful about. Rather we should worry if the top was already reached.
Maybe Steam Play in fact is the only way forward after all. Forget games developed for our platform, forget ports even, we now need to emulate our way to the bigger games.

I'm just theorizing, but maybe this makes more sense than what we had been seeing. We got some of the biggest games before we had the market share to justify it. How many companies would port their games to a console that has a 1% market share? Isn't it pretty amazing that Linux got that treatment in the first place? Something like Steam Play can help us grow our market share demonstrably and feels less like putting the cart before the horse, in a way. Once devs and publishers see that our numbers have grown, thanks in part to us having access to dramatically more games and Windows having less of an advantage on that front, it will make more business sense for them to invest into Linux sales with better support and, for some, dedicated ports.

And that's one of the key but easy to underestimate strengths of Steam Play in my opinion: not only can we play Windows games through Wine, which is hardly new, but now game devs can see that those sales come from Linux users and that Linux users are actively playing their games on this OS in spite of the lack of official support. That sends a more powerful message than a bunch of +1's in a forum thread.

That said, the pendulum can definitely swing both ways and make some devs lazy. "They're already buying and playing my game and I didn't have to lift a finger." I think it will boil down to their individual philosophies. We already have companies that made the effort for a tiny 1-2% extra sales and have kept doing so despite the additional support overhead. And others that are so big that they could definitely afford the upfront cost of porting because the absolute number of sales would certainly offset it, yet choose not to. Just like a lot of users reject Linux purely because of their mindset rather than because Linux wouldn't serve them well/better, the choice to support Linux for a developer that has the resources to seems mostly to depend on the management's opinion of Linux. I think it's in the long game that we benefit, because it makes Linux adoption easier, which in turn makes us a more attractive target for those who are only after profits once that growth has become significant enough.

Lastly, even if some devs get lazy, Proton can be a positive for consumers and publishers alike. Suppose you don't want to port your game but you hear reports that it runs on Proton with the exception of one thing that you could fix by switching a library or rewriting one component of your engine. You do that one change and suddenly there's nothing stopping Linux gamers from buying your game, and you still don't have to give them any sort of guarantee or maintain an additional version of your software. That could be appealing to some, and foster a good habit of using Linux-compatible components from the start.

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Quoting: liamdawehere’s a small slice in no particular order

I'm on to you man, that list is clearly sorted alphabetically ;)

Happy holidays and thanks for all the coverage. GoL is the only place I go for gaming news altogether :)

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Gameplay looks interesting enough, but the writing sounds atrociously out of place. The original French sounds a little less cringeworthy, at least, but keeps alternating between present and past tenses. Disappointing. I'm not sure I would want to suffer through that.

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