Quoting: ShmerlMarket share doesn't matter currently. Despite its growth, legacy publishers still don't care, because they are legacy and backwards thinking. So market share alone won't help (unless we get to some huge double digits I suppose).

C'on, there is no growth, or just minimal growth. Currently Linux needs all the help it can get to somehow reach 5% or 10% to get some attention of the bigger players. I can understand from your perspective that you don't like the big boys, but Linux needs them to become a serious gaming platform imho.

Quoting: ShmerlFeral and Co. will find something else to do. Like making their own engines or games :)

I'm less optimistic, they will just concentrate their efforts on Mac/iOS and leave Linux for good.

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Quoting: NeverthelessWine gamers will get no support for their platform, but count as Windows users. I think we should always be aware of that.

I'm completely with you here. DXVK is an astonishing project and I'm happy for all the people that can play something like TW3 on Linux, I guess half a year and the experience will be similar to Windows. That said, I'm anxious that Feral, Aspire and VP will just move away from Linux when most current Linux gamers will prefer wine/dxvk. Dunno if having support is enough for the average Linux gamer to buy a game from them and ensuring income. Even if some DRM-free fanatics wont care, loosing Feral and friends would hurt Linux as gaming platform in the long term. It will keep less technical gamers (the big masses) out of Linux because wine/dxvk does require some technical skills. No market share, no investments.

(Claiming that market share is irrelevant is just conspiracy thinking. I'n my opinion it is all about market share. Sure, the pride of certain CEO's do play a role, but in the end it is about money, about ensuring return of and controlling investments.)

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Nice that this one has finally landed in Linux land! I do play SP only, thus a perfect release for me.

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F1 2017 is really fun, assuming that one uses a steering wheel, highly recommended!

(It is also the last session with somewhat cool cars, the introduction of the halo device this year is the end of F1 n my opinion :(, hope they will find a loophole to get rid of this thing again)

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Quoting: ShabbyX

Quoting: jensFeral stopping supporting Linux is in my opinion the end of AAA games on Linux.

I can't say anything due to NDAs, but rest assured that that's not true.

Thanks a lot! I'm looking forward for what is to come :)

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Quoting: ShmerlThe difference is, that Linux users will more likely buy a supported game.

I hope so, though I'm less optimistic here.

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Quoting: ShmerlThe way it's all heading is, that porting would become easy enough that most will be doing it in house.

I very much doubt that we see more in-house porting. But let's see and hopefully I'm wrong.

Quoting: ShmerlAnd the rest will be using engines with cross platform support to begin with (i.e. native games).

I doubt this too, it is still a long way until studios will keep Linux in mind from the beginning on. This long way will be disturbed when statistics claim that earning money on Linux ain't possible (since Linux gamers will buy the windows versions of games anyway due to wine/dxvk progress).

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Quoting: ShmerlI wrote above. Officially supported version is still better than unsupported one, so there is added value.

Yes, but it wont be enough value to let the average Linux gamer wait for a Linux release when the Windows version is already available.

Quoting: Shmerl

Quoting: jensThere is simply no market anymore for (Linux-) games (wrapped or native) on Linux.

You can make the same claim about current closed wrappers from Feral and VP, i.e. they supposedly hurt the market of native games. Yet we see the opposite, major game engines are improving Linux support, and increasing amount of native games are coming out these days.

This is may be true for a few indie titles, but certainly not for the big productions.

We can stop here when you claim that Feral is hurting the market for Linux games :)

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Quoting: ShmerlAnd you are wrong, the progress is very welcome, since it actually makes porting (wrapper style one at least) a lot easier for developers. Feral and Co. can adapt to this shift in the technology. They can as well compare their wrappers to Wine and dxvk, and if the later are better (and I see no reason why they can't become such), they can just use them, instead of reinventing the wheel. That's the power of FOSS.

You are missing my point. Sure, porting would get a lot easier. But no game dev/pubslisher will do this anymore because they won't make any money with it anymore. Most Linux gamers will buy the windows version of the games when wine continues to progress in this rate. There is simply no market anymore for (Linux-) games (wrapped or native) on Linux. Like stated by others, devs will just redirect Linux questions to wine and community support. Very easy for them, they got the (windows-) sale and don't have to offer support. In the end this will only strengthen windows as a gaming platform. The only solution for this would be day-1 releases on Linux, but this is just wishful thinking, it will never happen with bigger titles for the current very small number of Linux users. For that Linux would need a much stronger market share, but this won't happen when nobody would buy (later-) ported games anymore.

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Quoting: HadBabitsHowever, I can't see that impacting porting decisions. Most Linux users probably don't use WINE on a daily basis. Most game devs probably won't even be familiar with it.

I think you are wrong here. I guess you are correct that wine is not used on a lot of Linux boxes, but I'm sure that most people that play games on Linux are familiar with wine. Every dev with common sense will first investigate how people play on a certain platform before investing resources into it.

I do use dosbox occasionally to fire up a retro game, I'm all in that wine should provide a way for people to move some of their loved games over to Linux or to play games that will never see the light in Linux land. Unfortunately wine is progressing a little bit to well, especially with initiatives like dxvk. I guess Feral will stop porting games to Linux once their (upcoming) games are somewhat playable on wine with the windows version before Feral's release dates:(. No matter if they offer support and a better performance, most people will then buy the windows version earlier.. Feral stopping supporting Linux is in my opinion the end of AAA games on Linux.

While wine (and dxvk) are technically astonishing I do share the anxiousness that we, the Linux community, are shooting ourselves in the foot when trying to compete with the few companies that are earning money with games on Linux..

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