Quoting: sarmadValve failed to market SteamOS as a competitor to consoles and instead marketted it as a competitor to Windows. They also failed to convince AAA studios to target the platform. Finally, they failed to convince retailers to carry Steam Machines in their stores. As a result, studios didn't take SteamOS seriously and didn't find it to be worth it to hire a Linux developer to do the porting.

But they did encourage Tripwire to hire a Linux dev? The problem is, he left, and Tripwire are struggling to recruit a replacement.

SteamOS was never touted as a competitor to either Windows or consoles, true, probably because doing so would be both suicide and (in the case of Windows) hurt their relationship with their primary source of income. A fine line had to be tread. It didn't work out in the way we were hoping, but while you're welcome to cast that at the feet of Valve, doing so would be disingenuous given that we wouldn't be having this conversation about SteamOS in the first place if they hadn't given Linux gaming an steroidal shot in the arm in the first place by supporting Linux when so few others actually did.

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Glad I was sitting down when I read this! ;) I though they were still in EA hell, and from the sounds of the comments on the release page, it sounds like they still are, but they've decided to release it anyway and be done. I doubt we'll ever see this on Linux.

The original game remains the game I've played most on Steam (about 60% on Windows and 40% on the graphically glitchy Linux version), so my pessimism cuts me deep. But after two and a half years of Early Access drudgery and added microtransactions, my hype and excitement for the sequel is dead and gone.

To announce PS4 support while STILL in Early Access AND after announcing day-1 Linux support is a huge slap in the face to fans who are buying to help shape a PC game too. Tripwire have lost my faith.

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Stunning graphics. Amazing level of detail. Instabuy for me, although I'm a wuss when it comes to horror.

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Quoting: CorbenBut then there are coming big titles to Linux, thanks to all the hard work of all the porters and porting companies, so I cheer again. Just to realize, how much you have to fiddle around with those games, to make them work. There is always something you have to fiddle around on Linux, and it feels like it's a lot more than on Windows. Of course Windows also has its problems, but in general, it have to admit to get the impression, it's more stable in general. Even though it's running on even more different hardware setups.

The occasional indie game might be badly packaged, but it's rare. Windows requires a lot more nit-picky stuff to get games running than Linux. On Linux, you double click and the game launches. On Windows, it launches two, sometimes three, separate launchers - directX, .net framework at least. Then, if it's AAA, you might find that the game doesn't launch, or has terrible performance until you update your graphics driver. If anything goes wrong after that, the stock support answer is "update your graphics driver, update your computer" and until you do that, you're stuck. And until a few years ago, when they started asking for the directx output, they didn't even have an established way to get information pertinent to fixing your issue.

Sure, Linux gaming has less performance, and sure, we're missing a few triple-A titles, I might have bought. But it's a whole lot more reliable and consistent than my fifteen years experience of gaming on Windows.

I don't miss it at all, and luckily, no game will ever have the ability to make me reconsider Windows as an option. That ship has sailed.

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Quoting: lucifertdarkWell that saves me a few quid then.

Yeah, I'd have been up for this one. I loved Ziggurat, which is what this "clear a room then move on" format reminded me of.

Ah well. No great loss, at least.

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I've been lucky too - nearly 4 hours in, just at the canal crossing at the bottom of the huge elevator, but I've not had a single crash/issue. Very stable so far. Specs follow for reference:

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Quoting: WorthlessBumsDeveloper here ;)

First, thanks to everyone who said some kind things! Second, I'd like to clarify a few things.

Thanks for the detailed reply - superb stuff. Please do try to ignore a few bad apples in the basket... this is usually a very friendly community, honest guv. Thanks for setting me (specifically) straight too - I've always equated that 1% of steam users must mean 1% of direct sales, but clearly, it's not that simple. I hadn't, for example taken into account the overall game tally. That said, I still believe that a dev porting to Linux and expecting much more than one or two percent sales from us... particularly a year after Windows release is... optimistic.

I'm not a fan of the misconception that "if you build in Unity, you'll only have to hit the Export to Linux button to make it work", so while it's a shame you have a big list of Linux specific issues, I'm not at all surprised that it's not that simple. It's a tired line that "unity = Linux support" and that you must be lazy or incompetent to NOT support Linux.

I destroyed Bionic Dues, as I mentioned earlier, and loved it. So if you do manage to release on Linux (particularly if it's day one support), then I'll be very interested in Steam Marines 2.

Good luck.

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I paid $20 in August 2015 for Starmade in the Humble Space Boy Bundle and happened to get this with it. Looks alright, but I played Arcen's Bionic Dues to death just earlier that year and this looked too similar, so I haven't even installed this, let alone played it.

Agree with some of the above - great that he's supporting us, but disappointing to hear a Dev say that we're 'not worth it'... is that really true? What revenue was made against the port effort costs and tiny support burden?

And definitely odd that 2% of sales from 1% of Steam users is a bad result? What... was the expected outcome exactly?

Pretty weird attitude all round!

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Quoting: apocalyptechYeah, I personally don't really care much about the homepage itself - my most useful view is just my bookmarked 'recently-released-on-Linux' search. The one thing I still want is a way to exclude Early Access titles from there, and that's still missing. I have no idea why that's not just an option under "show selected types."

Yep on both counts. I use this link to access Steam's web page and ignore its useless front page entirely:
http://store.steampowered.com/search/?sort_by=Released_DESC&category1=998&os=linux
[External Link]
Still get Early Access games though, which is a royal pain.

The global O/S filter did work for me for about a week or so about a fortnight ago, then I started seeing Windows games pop up again, so back to using my search link.

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Well, that looked pretty horrific. I'm getting flashbacks to that scene in Prometheus...

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