Had this publisher on a shitlist for some reason I couldn't remember - had to google it. It was the "shout out to Mark" debacle, when they hosted an AMA event on 8Chan, famous for its bigotry and links to child pornography.

https://www.gamesindustry.biz/thq-nordic-holding-ama-on-imageboard-known-for-child-porn [External Link]

I mean, c'mon. Absolutely inept.

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Fond memories of playing Super Monkeyball on the last ever Nintendo console I owned, the Wii, with its gyro controller. I actually completed that game - probably the only rage-quit game I've ever completed, and probably also the last rage-quit game I ever bought!

Well, that's not true, cos I bought Elden Ring. But games like Celeste can definitely get in the sea!

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I just hope they don't shove all that garbage into my library like they did with that one charity bundle for Gaza.

I'm the opposite - I hate that it doesn't appear in my library. Indeed, back when I used Itch, I actually bought a game I already owned from a bundle... twice. No warnings until payment was taken. These bundles feel like good value, but the tedium of hunting through whether you own something or not. Nah. I gave up.

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The three I went for are:

1. The Invincible
2. Star Wars Bounty Hunter
3. Bionic Bay

The first is an absolutely beautiful walking simulator with a hard-scifi (meaning: the science tries to be realistic) story. Great voice acting, and some nice interactive elements to break the illusion of being a walking sim.

The second I haven't played yet, but it's a Star Wars FPS shooter and gets good reviews.

The last I started last night. It's a side-scrolling puzzle and action adventure, in the style of Limbo, Inside, Planet of Lana, or Planet Alpha. Really enjoying it so far - excellent graphics, smooth animation and clever puzzles that aren't too mind-bending.

And yeah, there's Skyrim and Fallout 4, but I've done those to death.

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I think the "official" way to install Steam is just from the Valve website. That said, Canonical had a big push to fix various snap issues with Steam a year ago:
https://www.gamingonlinux.com/2024/08/canonical-bring-more-steam-snap-improvements-also-hiring-more-desktop-software-engineers/

Pretty sure the snap version of Steam is better than the flatpak at this point, but if you want to avoid container issues entirely, then the website version is the way to go. You'll get any updates quickest that way too, as you don't have to wait for Canonical to update the snap after a new Steam release.

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@Jeffool

I keep telling myself next update (a year or two) I'll dual boot. But we'll see.

I dual-booted for nearly a decade before making the jump. It was a sudden realisation that I hadn't booted into Windows for nearly a year. When I finally did, the update process failed and blue-screened and instead of trying to fix it, I went back into Linux, cut a live-USB and blasted the whole system, installing Linux fully. Very cathartic. I haven't had to deal with Microsoft's or Apple's bullshit since 2013.

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They might be actively blocking Linux on their anticheat, but I recently discovered that I'm actively blocking myself from buying anything made by EA.

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This isn't about genres. And it's not about free software either. This is brand protection. As I said earlier, if you make a mario-clone, that's fine - plenty of them around.

But if you make a game with assets, storyline, art style and marketing so close to an existing brand that people will likely become confused about your brand, then that's when lawyers will get involved.

There is absolutely no mistaking the intent here. Tencent are trying to cash in on HZD's success, and they're clumsily copying every aspect of the game to do so. I don't particularly love Sony, but they should win this. Easily.

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@Bach: did you delete the PFX folder and give Proton 10 a fresh stab at it?

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Intellectual property theft is standard business practice for Chinese companies.

The word "Chinese" can be safely removed.

But this is absolutely blatant and should be a simple win for Sony who won't care about the money they win - they'll want this blocked from sale on all markets, as it devalues their Horizon "brand" / IP.

Disagree with the Astrobot comparison. Yeah, it's a mario-clone. But there simply no way you could look at a screenshot of it and say so. They didn't make Astrobot an Italian plumber. Whereas here, a screenshot is all you need to see what it's (obviously) copying.

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