Quoting: tuubi

Quoting: scaineTrue, but Feral are only the developer here. The publishers of the games they port will be the ones to decide what kind of DRM is in place. I'm honestly surprised that Feral managed to get Denuvo removed on the titles they ported. That was great to see.

Feral acts as both the developer and the publisher for their ports. Check the Steam store page for any of their games and you'll see them listed alongside the original publisher. That's why I mentioned Steam's ability to have different publishers for different target platforms as a possible reason they stick to Steam.

Sure, but my point is that they're only publishing the ports, and to get the rights to that IP in order to port it, they'll be beholden to the original publishers wishes. I suspect that your point about being able to discern sales by platform is the more likely reason they stick to Steam - nothing to do with DRM, which (I suggest) would be the original publishers decision.

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Quoting: sbolokanov

Quoting: tuubi

Quoting: Guest

Quoting: scaineHonestly, it's weird that you painted in them in that light? Do you have history against them, some minor grudge?

But it’s strange that you never read about Feral love for DRM, it seems to be common knowledge in most Linux-centric gaming communities.

It might just be conjecture based on the fact that they never sold their games outside of Steam. DRM might be a reason, but other plausible ones are publishing agreements with the IP owners, Steam being able to account for different publishers for different target platforms, and Steam reaching the largest audience by far.

Unless they tell us, we can only guess. But it does suck for those Linux gamers who avoid Steam. You might not be interested in the games, but I bought and enjoyed several of them.

Being on Steam does not require them to use Steam's DRM. Actually planty of games do not use Steam's DRM. They can be started fine with no steam client running.

True, but Feral are only the developer here. The publishers of the games they port will be the ones to decide what kind of DRM is in place. I'm honestly surprised that Feral managed to get Denuvo removed on the titles they ported. That was great to see.

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Quoting: EhvisWhile I'm in no way trusting Microsoft on what they would try to do with regard to privacy. I'm not actually sure I would trust Discord itself any more than that as it is now. There is a reason why I only run this thing in complete isolation. It doesn't even have access to snoop on my running processes. And otherwise I regard it as a public discussion forum.

The lack of isolation and its built-in process snooping is one of the key reasons I gave up on the fat-client experience. But while I'm sure they'd love to snoop processes on non-Windows machines, I suspect that this move is more to get rid of competition from Teams. And my god Teams is so bad, this is the only way it'll succeed (speaking as an 8 hours a day Teams user at my work).

They tried to buy Slack before. I wonder if they'll try again?

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I closed my GitHub account the moment that deal went through and I'll do the same if this happens to Discord. It's a shame, as I like the Discord experience, even though I gave up on their client (I only run it in the web now), but as an old, jaded long time techie, I won't have anything to do with Microsoft. Nothing they do absolves them of the hurt they bring to this industry day in and day out with their legal strong-arming, proprietary lock in, aggressive acquisitions and baffling licensing. They can "love Linux" all they want, I'll have nothing to do with them.

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Quoting: tuubi... Steam being able to account for different publishers for different target platforms

Yeah, that rings a bell - did Liam do an interview with one of the Feral devs who talked about this? Or did one of the devs leave Feral and was chatting on the GOL discord? I can't remember, but definitely sounds familiar.

And yeah, I bought nearly every Feral game. In fact, basically all of them, except the Total War series. I even bought the racing games although I'm not a huge fan of racing games. But Total War left me cold and they really pushed a lot of that IP.

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Quoting: Guest

Quoting: tuubiI enjoyed Feral's Linux port, but I don't think any of their stuff has ever been available on GOG.

I don’t think Feral has ever allowed the distribution of DRM-free versions of anything they have worked on. They’ve been kind of stuck for years on « DRM is good, and you’re all pirates! ».

I doubt that's true. I've never heard them voice a pro-DRM stance. It's more likely that in order to secure porting rights, they had to restrict themselves in how they presented the games. Great that they always managed to remove Denuvo from the ports they did, but sad they couldn't offer their ports on anything other than Steam.

Honestly, it's weird that you painted in them in that light? Do you have history against them, some minor grudge?

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Quoting: hardpenguinHuh! I think I played a similar game ages ago, possibly also by Apus Software. This brings back memories!

Judging by that last line in the article, you were probably playing the original!

i.e.

This is a remastered version of the original Astral Towers game released in 2011. It features improved interface, better graphics (was: 1366x768, now - FullHD/4K) and tuned balance.

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Cheap as chips and lovely artwork. It has an almost MtG (Magic the Gathering) feel to the gameplay. I reckon I'll pick this up.

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Don't really notice the audio distortion much - you must have been able to post-production it down a bit!

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Quoting: jordicoma

Quoting: KohlyKohlReplaced my Thelio order with this. Bigger case and open hardware certification is worth the extra $.

Adding a cupple of options it goes 3000-4000$. It could be good being open hardware, but what we need for the linux desktop are good prices. People that wants to pay that much has already apple.

Not sure I agree with any of that. If I spec this box to match the PC I bought last April, then take out the GPU, the price is about $150 more, sure, but then this has a more powerful 4th gen AMD cpu in it, and faster memory too. And that case! What's really bumping up the price here is the GPU, but that's largely out of System 76's hands.

As for wanting good prices - well, sure, I suppose we do. But I'm willing to pay extra for open hardware, not less. And those cases. My god, they're beautiful!

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