Quoting: SolitaryValve doesn't get 30% cut for a game of this magnitude, they will get 20% only and I wouldn't be surprised if CDPR made extra deal for even smaller cut.

True, I forgot about that. That's not a bad thing though. Even though CDPR doesn't support Linux, at least they support DRM-FREE games and good practices within the business. So 20% for Valve isn't bad either. I just know that between CDPR and Valve I would like to support Valve more as they do alot more for Linux. CDPR haven't even shown signs of wanting to support Vulkan API, so that it becomes the industry standard, something I think isn't unreasonable to expect them to do.

Quoting: PhlebiacLet's not give undue credit; unless I am missing something, all that the developers did in this instance was make the game available to Valve in advance - which they also do for press reviewers and such. That doesn't sound like effort to me.

Are you sure they didn't make it available to Valve even sooner reviewers? In any case, things have to have a beginning. Next step, to expect from CDPR, is them making Vulkan renderer available for WINE.

Quoting: CatKillerThey did all the work to make a native version of the scale of Cyberpunk 2077 already: they developed it for Debian using Vulkan. They just won't sell it to us.

CDPR's involvement in "making it work on Linux through Proton" was bunging Valve a beta key, which cost them literally nothing. Valve wrote an extension for Vulkan to make it work, Valve contributed to Mesa to make it work, Valve hired developers to work on Proton to make it work; CDPR did absolutely nothing.

Developers should be rewarded for their support of Linux gaming, but CDPR haven't given any. Quite the opposite, in fact.

We don't know if Cyberpunk uses Vulkan or DXVK/VK3D for Stadia. There also the issue of maintaining the game after release, which isn't a easy task. I won't judge CDPR being unfriendly to Linux on basis of game not being released for Linux. I will judge them based on if they make Vulkan renderer available or not. There are likely reasons they haven't because on launch Cyberpunk won't have raytracing on nextgen consoles. That will come next year.

I'm rewarding Valve not CDPR because I intend to buy the game on Steam. I won't buy it on GOG unless they make Vulkan renderer available by time I decide to buy it.

However, by buying a game that doesn't support Linux, you are sending the message to the dev that they don't need to support Linux to get your money. Why should that dev support Linux if you're going to give them money either way?

One percent. One damn percent is Linux's market share. How are you going to sustain all developers a good share of money for their games if all of them decided to support Linux? The money that the combined one percent has to spend would be spread so damn thin that all games, even great ones, would sell poorly by Windows standards.

When we reach three to five percent market share, that is when we should demand more. We are not in a position to bargain for anything. The most we should expect is CDPR making Vulkan renderer available for the game so we have better compatibility. Depending on if they do or not should decide whether you buy from GOG or Steam.

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First off, any developer tries to make their game work on Linux through Proton is not against Linux. Regardless of how many people has wished for GOG Galaxy and Cyberpunk natively, you can't deny the market share. It's not enough to sustain native development of the scale that Cyberpunk is. This can't be stated enough. Proton is one of the biggest assets Linux has, besides quality native releases, to build market share.

On the subject of Proton and Stadia. I strongly believe Proton will always be the best choice if you care about gaming on Linux. Valve has poured so much into the ecosystem, and Cyberpunk being playable is yet another proof of that. You want native releases? Most if not all of Valve's games are natively available, including their big budget VR game Half Life: Alyx. And they haven't stopped improving Linux, their goal has been to make games as playable on Linux as on Windows. You may be buying a Windows game, but consider this..

• Buying Cyberpunk gives money to decent if not infalable developers


• These same developer are under GOG brand. GOG promotes DRM-Free gaming


• Valve gets 30% cut. They are clearly spending money to improve Linux. So why wouldn't you buy on Steam


• It counts as a Linux purchase when you play through Proton

Meanwhile, what has Google done as of late for Linux Gaming? Yes, Stadia is available on Linux but how can you be sure the reason it's on Linux is because their intentions are good? That they want to help Linux? I think they want to help themselves. Streaming does not seem like a difficult thing to provide for Linux. For any platform you need players for it to succeed. So it would be stupid of them to not support Linux.

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It's a little disappointing that they aren't using Vulkan (with RT). Little because if they use DXVK for Stadia too then it shows them not discriminating against Linux. Simply a business related decision. If you look at Metro Last Light, it's not a quality port. So I think we should lower our expectations in this case. Devs engaging with Linux is better than not doing. Remember Proton and DXVK are forces for good. End goal is to lay the groundwork for sustainable native releases.

Relying on Proton and DXVK will get them more experience with Linux ecosystem. Perhaps this time around their port of Exodus, even with DXVK, will be of far superior quality than their port of Last Light. Developers using DXVK/Proton will just accelerate the performance of games running through WINE.

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Quoting: GuerrillaFor me, Linux gaming is already here because I generally don't play online multiplayer games. I have literally one friend that plays games, so I rarely have anyone tugging at me to play a game online.

I can understand if you're into multiplayer games that the situation is disappointing, to say the least. But consider how far we've come; for example, I bought Yakuza: Like a Dragon last week and other than some minor annoyances/workarounds, the game basically works out of the box on day one. It's stunning to me to see a AAA game work day one, but here we are.

Hopefully there will be some solution to the anticheat problem that truly makes Linux a viable platform for gamers of all stripes.

It's wonderful to me as well. But it's been so long time since mentions of talks between Valve and EAC, and it's still far off. But we must also look at it from another point of view.

When Windows 10 was a mess, and alot of people fought against switching to it, there was a bigger opportunity for people to be persuaded to use Linux than now. These days alot have switched to Windows 10, and Microsoft has made alot of improvements that have made the OS attractive to gamers. Even Microsoft understood time was important when they decided to support developers in making their games run on Windows 7 with DirectX 12. I argue they did to prevent the developers considering Vulkan. One of those games was World of Warcraft.

I am very grateful for work Codeweavers and Valve have put in, but I wish we got more information on anti cheat. What's holding support back? What does "far off" mean? A year, two, or more? Windows 7 percentage on Steam is at 4.5%, and it's shrinking. The sooner Proton is more complete (anti cheat and mature DX12 support), the better likelihood of persuading these users to switch to Linux.

Also the sooner we get more users, the more desirable Vulkan as API will be. Consequently this will pave way for better native support.

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It's been what, a year or longer, since these "vendors" were working with Valve for anticheat support for WINE? And it's still "far off"? So it's unreasonable to expect anti cheat support to land (even in WIP state) a year or less from now. I am glad he clarified that, because that's disappointing to hear.

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Quoting: Liam Dawe

Quoting: Eike

Thanks to The Linux Foundation, I was able to attend and listen to the talk (the online event requires a ticket purchase)

That's nice, they're supporting your work (or at least did this time)?

I emailed them personally and asked.

You deserve more. I would have loved to see you interview CDPR. If you haven't I urge you to try :smile:

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Quoting: dubigrasuYep, more ammunition (as if it wasn't enough already) for Stadia detractors, I can see them buzzing with excitement for this new opportunity.

Equally so for Stadia community. I've seen so very few if any posts on Stadia reddit about implication Stadia can have for local play. There is plenty circle jerk too in there and misinformation. Like how if you got a great connection Stadia will be good and no waiting, but the fact that a great connection would also significantly reduce the waiting period for local installation too. Or fact consoles have a "update in rest mode" function, which many consoles owners have not turned on. Then a Stadia supporter posts a picture of "X Download" for console and uses that to talk about how great Stadia is.

If Stadia community wants everyone on board they should strive to preserve peoples wishes; that is local play being an option. It does not mean Google needs to provide local releases, but their Stadia business should in no way affect local play on other platforms. But I bet you Google would not listen to such request. So for gamers you are either Stadia or not. More dividing of gamers. We had console and PC, now we have Stadia too.

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Quoting: slaapliedjeNo one in their right mind that uses Linux would allow some of the rootkits that companies have been shipping with their software. The thing is that most Linux users are savvy enough to have things in place to prevent such things. That's why companies don't bother with porting it over. But at least it seems most publishers have been removing that crap after a few months of sales. Seems Conan Exiles finally did and so now it works great in Proton.

I don't have a issue against DRM that lasts six months to a year before it's removed. The anti cheat that's in Valorant I mind though. But it doesn't matter what I think, it will certainly not help with changing gaming on Linux. If marketshare grows, everyone can decide for themselves what software they object to. As long as Linux ecosystem isn't being harmed I don't care if people want to allow crap on their systems just so they can play a game. Alot people who don't use Linux don't care about FOSS principles but yet Linux needs them as users to change gaming landscape.

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Quoting: slaapliedjeRemember back in the days when the various computer platforms were around and companies still managed to release games for all of them? DOS, Amiga, Atari ST, Machintosh? They not only had a wide variety of hardware, but also of operating systems. People tended for some reason to target the minimal Atari ST spec, the upper spec on the Amiga, and DOS / Machintosh usually got CGA / EGA versions until VGA had a lot more users. But DOS devs had the huge task of trying to figure out which hardware was popular to add support for that. But they still did it, even though DOS was definitely not a gaming platform, and not friendly to it. But still a huge majority of games were made for it as that's what systems people had. Then the 3D hardware wars happened, where there were so many APIs for people to target...

It wasn't until Windows and DirectX that there was an abstraction layer for everything. We basically have SDL that is similar, but it took a long time for that to be a thing.

But now that we have it, and we have better drivers, and a free OS, you'd think people would flock to it. Nope, because we are historically a community that is against closed source, DRM, etc. And GAME developers are ALL about the DRM.

And this is the main reason I think most games don't come to Linux. That and 'well they won't even pay for their OS, why would they do anything other than pirate our game' mentality.

No, I got my first PC long time after those events. When it comes down to why games don't come to Linux it's simply because of marketshare. If marketshare was significant enough games would be developed with closed source and with Denuvo implemented into them just like with Windows.

Also it doesn't help the situation that industry has become in my opinion quite corrupt. We are at a point now where microtransactions are intertwined into a game's design and developers hold presentations titled "Let's go whaling" that explains how to maximize money siphoning from gamers using predatory practices. They don't treat Windows gamers right with these predatory practices, so I'd say it would be naive for one to think that these companies, who are releasing their games on Stadia, will be nice to us with a Linux release.

As much as I believe Stadia is a double edged sword, I believe it and primarily Proton, is chance Linux has to break free of the cage Microsoft continues to put platform in with DirectX.

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Quoting: ShmerlIt's not nonsense because you need to compare resources, not just the amount of work. Small developers have less of them than big companies. So it's a bigger risk for them because of that alone. It's harder to make profit for small developers. Yet they are the ones releasing for Linux, not the huge ones who are making way more money and have more resources for it.

Besides, the work and expenses point was addressed above. They already have invested needed effort and spent the money to make it work on Stadia,

I think it's safe to say that companies like EA and Ubisoft, two big Stadia partners, will not want to help Linux. They are big supporters of Games as a service business model and big offenders of bad practice within the industry. So them giving users more choice would possibly work against their profits, instead of one platform to get all the money they would have to accommodate for Linux too. With cross platform software they can overcome those issues, but a greedy company would not want to put in work to make change.

The reason I said it's nonsense is because I don't think releasing a game like Cyberpunk for Linux, and maintaining it over time, is as easy as a indie game. If a indie and AAA game gets equal resources to port game to Linux, I can see AAA being far more difficult. And even if both games are ported, I can imagine the AAA one breaking over time because of a dependency while the simpler indie game will have higher probability of not breaking because of less software involved. I didn't mean to sound authoritarian, I just am not convinced that referring to indies releasing on Linux is entirely valid when asking why AAA games aren't. Some software used for smaller games seems to be ubiquitous, which may explain one of reasons why indies are more prevalent on Linux.

Quoting: slaapliedjeI was wondering about Exodus the other day. In the discussion forums on Steam it sounds like they're still working on it? But I mean it's been on Stadia since forever.. so if the theory is it's just a direct thing to release a game on Stadia onto Steam with Linux support... maybe that's the one that proves it's not the case?

Sadly a lot of the 'do we port to Linux' is politically based more than financially based. Like Doom (2016) literally having a Linux port made for fun, but was never published / released.

Perhaps the holdup is 4A Games using good time because they plan to release a Redux with Vulkan raytracing. Metro Last Light port wasn't a great port. or perhaps Google has a NDA exclusivity contract with developers that prohibits them from releasing their games for Linux if they want to release for Stadia. Think about it, local play is a competitor to Stadia, whether you are on Windows, Linux or a device like Switch. A "insignificant" platform like Linux can be surely swept under the rug if a big company tries to undermine it through such tactics.

I think it's former, 4A taking good time to give us a good release. Afterall, after Epic exclusivity ended they released their game on GOG too. That must be a good sign.

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