Quoting: TheSHEEEPIf a game just requires you to run Steam in order to run in, what's the big deal? You open Steam, start your game, done. Big deal. I don't see the problem here.

Well, you just probably haven't run into it, so you think it's not a problem. I was on a train fairly recently (before lockdown) and it was a five hour journey. I opened Steam, I had no internet, went into offline mode, and then discovered, infuriatingly, that several of the games I wanted to play wouldn't start, because it had been months since I'd played them on that device, and I didn't have any internet to "prove" I owned them.

It's by degrees, of course, but DRM pissed me off massively that day.

I won't go into the old "what if Steam goes under" argument, because I'm a realist and I don't think it's likely. Even if it happens, I have libraries on Humble, Itch and GOG, so it'll be a first-world problem no matter how much I lose.

Quoting: TheSHEEEPOf course, those Windows "kernel driver" things are a whole different subject, but that also goes into anti-cheating, etc.

Denuvo is a kernel driver for DRM, as well as anti-cheat. It's where I draw the line for DRM. Despite Steam pissing me off a couple of times in the nearly 16 years I've been customer, I can tolerate its DRM. But rootkits, kernel drivers, always-online (Steam needs a check-in every two weeks) checks and other blatantly anti-consumer crap like that can just do one. No money from me.

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Quoting: ShmerlImagine police placing surveillance cameras in yours and everyone's home "just in case", because someone might be a criminal. You get the idea why that's wrong. Exactly the same thing is wrong with DRM.

This is a great explanation of DRM. What a metaphor! The assumption that you're a criminal - the "just in case" assumption that no consumer can be trusted. Oof. Superb.

The crazy thing about this attitude is the almost barbara-streisand-effect it has on people who want to pay for a service but can't, because... DRM. You see it all the time.

I recently ran into it trying to play Driver: San Francisco on Steam. You can't, because Ubisoft have pulled the game from the internet in its entirety (no-one is really sure why). Even though I still have a Driver: San Francisco entry in Steam, it doesn't run, it fails with a "Failed to retrieve valid key" error. Turns out, the ONLY WAY to play this game now, is to pirate it!!

The same thing happens on Netflix, when they region-lock. People want to watch, want to pay, but end up either torrenting, or VPN'ing their way in. It actively creates "criminal" behaviour. Let's say that again - it ACTIVELY creates the behaviour that DRM is trying to prevent. You couldn't make it up...

Honestly, I kind of thought that with the death of DVD and then Bluray over the past decade, there would be a better attitude to all this (from Publishers) by now. But nope. I don't think it's getting worse... but it sure isn't getting better.

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This looks great - but every time I go to try it, I'm reminded that it's a build script that installs manually, and I'm really determined to keep my system as clean as possible and do less of this generally. Luckily, there's a chance that a PPA will be coming along for it (https://github.com/flightlessmango/MangoHud/issues/34 [External Link], so fingers crossed.

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Noticed this article in light of just having updated to a fully AMD PC. But, sadly, Mint 19.3 is based on Ubuntu 18.04, which isn't supported by CoreCtrl. You need to use the non-LTS Ubuntu 19.10, or LTS Ubuntu 20.04 to run this. I guess I'll have to wait another fortnight for Mint 20 to land.

Adding my PC details here:
!My PC Details

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Quoting: Liam Dawe

Quoting: mphuZ

..how in relation to DRM-free gaming that "98-99% of players don't care"

But it's true. Does anyone disagree?

If anyone agrees with DRM, they're insane. That's actively being okay with your rights being diminished. Convenience is a whole different argument remember, that should be entirely separate. There's also a big difference between not caring and not actually understanding how shite some DRM really is.

True - if you had to choose between a Steam with DRM and a Steam without, no-one (absolutely no-one) would choose the DRM version.

But of course, I do choose Steam over GOG, and that's because of convenience. I like the time tracking, the achievements, the friend notifications, workshop mods, chat, and easy voice integration, I benefit from their multiplayer framework. I value the auto-updates, integrated Proton and one-click installs. GOG has... none of that, but they're DRM-free, and they're better curated. Maybe if you're on Windows, GOG is a better proposition - you have the Galaxy client that at least offers some of the Steam features I just listed.

Itch is certainly miles ahead of GOG these days, for us penguins.

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Quoting: DesumThis dev aside, I tend to shy away from GOG even though I am highly sympathetic do DRM-free gaming. The reasons are that, as a Linux gamer, GOG is simply a bigger hassle than Steam. I have to sort out libfoo problems with 70% of the games in my library that have native support (frankly, I have less problems running ancient Win32 games in Wine often enough). GOG should also be looking to, at the very least, piggy back off of Valve and Codeweaver's work with Proton. But nothing has even been mentioned there.

And all of GOG's recent moves point to a deemphasizing of the DRM-free stance of the platform. We already have games like Granda 2 phoning home, for example.

This isn't about Linux though. He's removing the game from GOG. Completely.

But yeah, from a Linux perspective, GOG is just worse for everything. Worse support (do they refund?), no client, no Linux target for Devs, no multiplayer framework, no chat, no achievements, no trading platform...

It's just, worse. But hey kids, it's DRM free!

As minority (Linux gamers) of a minority (anti-DRM gamers) we'll be waiting a looooooooooong ass time for 'Good Old Games' to give a shit about us, let alone some lone developer who didn't do his research for his niche, if pretty, first person puzzler.

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This looks amazing! Like Noita had a baby with Dead Cells! Okay, it doesn't look it has Noita's terrain-altering "Everything Falling" engine, but the smoothness and pixel-perfect accuracy of the weapons look marvellous.

What's Tallomere 1 like, I wonder? Yep - interesting [External Link]! And only £2.89, you say?? Well, it would be rude not to at that price! :)

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Quoting: tuubi

Quoting: RafiLinuxGo the games you wanted in the bundle that you purchased - Click Download - Go to the bottom of that page and it says "+ to collection" - Click that and for me I only have 1 collection

Then refresh your itch.io client and it should be under your owned games.

I'm pretty sure it ends up in your owned games as soon as you click Download, so the step where you add it to your collection is not actually necessary. :)

Yep, as Tuubi notes, I hit the "download" button, but I don't bother actually downloading anything. Hitting that button has added it to my account (although you MUST restart Itch client to see the new games).

I'm not sure if wishlists/collections can be made public on Itch? If so, then, yeah, it would be cool to see a Linux-only collection of this that we could all "subscribe" to, or copy, or however it works.

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Quoting: dpanterA bit bummed that the bundle lacks integration with the itch.io client. :/

Yeah, it's not ideal. But if you go through your download page, hit the "Download" button for the games you like the look of, but then close the web page (don't actually download anything), you'll find your games listed in the client the next time you restart it. Then you can use the client to do the actual install/launch piece.

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I see that Mable & the Wood has been added now, along with another 200 or so titles. There's over 700 entries (games, assets, tabletops, stories) now - just amazing.

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