This is interesting... (personally, I would stick with the 132 number, but to each their own...)

I'd personally be more interested in the top 250 games being played. (I know you can see those games here: https://steamdb.info/graph/ [External Link] but I'm too lazy to go through and manually count them.) Its one thing to rate a game high and then eventually get bored with it... Its a bit different to be constantly played.

There do seem to be a bunch of linux titles on that (currently played) list anyway. Civ V & VI, Factorio, Don't Starve Together, 7 Days to Die, Oxygen Not Included, Terraria, Borderlands 2, Rimworld, Rocket League... (Of course I see a bunch of the "not linux" like PUBG, Fallout 4, Civ III & IV(

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Quoting: morbius... And since the games these days are generally pricier than few years ago and good bundles are rearer, I'm keeping a better watch over my wallet. I buy a monthly only if in the early unlock is the game I want (as happened with Civilization 6 and Rise of the Tomb Raider), but if the game turns out to be in the hidden part of the bundle, I trade for it afterwards.

I have the annual subscription, but I have been pausing it every month that I have not wanted the headline titles. And by default, in spite of proton, any windows title is a "not want." Looks like this month is a pause... Last month was a pause because I wasn't interested in Wizard of Legend. I did get Novemeber for "Hollow Knight" and was glad that I got "7 days to die" with it.

I have been linux only for about 10 years now. Early on, I did use WINE regularly. (The most recent use of WINE was for a MMO that I stopped playing 2 years ago.)

The mention of Denuvo, reminds me that titles that had heavy DRM always used to fail in WINE. 10 years ago, if a program failed in WINE, 50/50 chances were that a "CRACK" would allow it to work fine.

Even with WINE/Proton, DRM is one more reason why I don't buy windows games. (Not that it can't exist on linux, but steam based "online DRM" doesn't cause my games to regularly fail.)

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"Mostly Negative Reviews" can turn me away from a game; but that is not guaranteed. In the same manner that I do not always trust "Mostly Positive Reviews." I do use it as a rough estimate, but not the whole story in either case.

I try to actually look at some of the reviews before I make a judgement in either case. I try to judge a review based on how it is written and any insights they give me into the gameplay. I tend to ignore any review with only 2 or 3 words like "Game Sux" or "Just buy it"; on the other hand, well written reviews mean more to regardless of whether or not they are positive/negative. But if they have the look of being written by a 5 year old with horrible spelling and/or grammar, I tend to ignore them. (Even this is not always a immediate ignore, I will allow some leeway in this regard if it appears to be someone that does not speak the English language regularly.)

Though, there is one case in which Mostly Positive Reviews did actually make me buy a game, and I am happy that I did. It turned out to be on of my favorite games, Factorio. I had seen the game pop up on various lists and recommendations on Steam and Humble Bundle, but honestly I saw the trailer and was like "what kind of pile of garbage is this?" (It was the original trailer from 2+ years ago.) Then one day it was in my Steam Queue, and my mouse hovered over the Mostly Positive, and it said 99% positive reviews. Most people are more likely to be motivated to write negative reviews than positive ones, so I was shocked that so many took the time to write positive reviews. A few days later I noticed that one of the (very few) streamers that I followed did a let's play on Factorio so I watched it. I liked what I saw and ended up buying the game... I have enjoyed it ever since.

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Quoting: slaapliedjeYeah, I could be wrong. But I think the game engine is pretty much the same as Star Trek Online, they bithe work very well with wine.

Yes, Neverwinter Online started as a fork of Star Trek Online.

In fact, all the chat code was an exact copy even with the same server. This allowed you to see and talk with your friends in different games as well as get login notifications. I believe that Champions Online was also using the same chat code as well.

And with the same code base, people used similar settings in WINE for both games which allowed for decent WINE support at release.

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Quoting: slaapliedjeOh, I think it is actually D&D Online (is that still around?) that was supposed to be 4th edition. I actually recently got back into playing Neverwinter Online simply because they added Ravenloft to it! But you have to play through all the other crap first, so I haven't really been playing it more...

Really wish they'd release either more Ravenloft based games, or even Spelljammer, those are still my favorite two D&D settings (mainly because they're such a departure from the typical murder hobos.)

I think in the year 2019, I'm going to have to try to spend more time in VR :) Hopefully I can get Elite working so I don't have to reboot!

Yes, D&D online [External Link] is still a thing. I have never played it, but according to SteamDB [External Link], there seems to be about 300-400 players online at any given moment. (Of course, like Neverwinter Online, Steam users are probably only a small portion of the entire game as both of these existed standalone before getting on Steam.)

I never played D&D Online. The only reason why I played Neverwinter Online is because the group I play D&D with all joined and they researched ahead of time and showed me a website on how to get it to work with PlayOnLinux.

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It seems like everything that I have been playing is Early Access and not released yet, or older than this year.

Early Access: Oxygen Not Included, Factorio, and my friend wants me to start playing 7 days to die. (Still under 1 hour in 7 days to die now) My guess is none of the 3 will release in 2019 either.

I have played a lot of Rimworld, which actually did release this year. However, most of my playtime was before release. (Over 1000 hours, compared to under 50 since release.)

I did just buy Kingdom Rush Origins, and Island Invasion. Both of which are 2018 releases, but I have not invested much time in either yet. (Both are also Tower Defense games, Kingdom Rush Origins is well polished, Island Invasion is rough around the edges.)

I also have both Neverwinter Nights Enhanced Edition (bought it when released) and Pathfinder Kingmaker(bought during the Autumn sale last month.) Though I haven't played much of either, I will though, I remember playing the heck out of the original Neverwinter Nights. My interest is still in the game, but I'm spending too much time in other games... As for Pathfinder, It seems that whenever I am about to start it, a notice of a huge bugfix comes out and I'd rather wait for the fix. (I noticed the 1.2 patch being announced a day or two ago as I was about to start it up.)

For the record, yes, Neverwinter Nights is/was D&D 3(or 3.5), Pathfinder was based on 3.5 as well. As for Neverwinter Online (MMO) that really has no basis in actual D&D rules. NWO was the only game I have played on WINE in the last few years since it came out... and I have been clean and sober away from MMO's for 2 years now after Neverwinter Online. (It really burned me on MMOs.) Oddly, D&D version 3/3.5 was the only one that I only played on a computer, not pen and paper. I have played Basic, AD&D (v1), AD&D v2, D&D 4, and D&D 5 with friends. I still play once a month with friends.

As for older titles that I bought this year and have been playing... Don't Starve, Sky Force Reloaded, ...

Ok, I wrote a book and don't want to go on forever. But one other title I would like to mention is Liam's favorite that he won't admit... Meltys Quest. I did actually get it and play it after Liam's recommendation. WOW, that was more graphic than I expected. I restored the castle in game, and actually went and put a Steam trading card badge for Meltys Quest on my profile [External Link]. But, I am sure Liam will be happy to hear that the developer is in the process of making another title [External Link]. Perhaps Liam can reach out to the developer and get us some pre-release keys.

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Quoting: Purple Library GuyMinor pet peeve . . . none of the games literally flew off the digital shelves. You're thinking of games that figuratively flew off the digital shelves. :P

Maybe they literally teleported off the digital shelves straight to the computers. :P

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Actually, competition for Steam would alter the most played stats.

For example if people "leave" for Epic/Fortnite... As mentioned they will not leave Steam and their library that they invested in. However, there would be fewer people "playing" on Steam as they spend their time elsewhere. Assuming that it is windows people leaving for the new store (which works if the competition doesn't support linux) linux users would have a slightly greater percentage of the "playing" stats.

However, the stat I would most like to see is what percentage of sales linux makes up for games that support linux. I saw a comment the other day about a dev that saw 11% of his sales attributed to linux. I do not expect that much from everyone, but I would expect greater than the 1% of hardware share than the overall on steam. After all, fewer titles, linux users have fewer options on where to spend their money.

It would be nice if devs realize that supporting linux didn't just get them 1% of sales, but actually a little more.

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I agree with tuubi... WINE/Proton is not the answer. (and WINE Is Not an Emulator; but that is a bit off topic.)

To me, WINE is a tool to allow people to migrate to linux and not lose their entire game library. As great a technological achievement that WINE is, you will eventually get burned if you expect it to work with everything you want that runs on windows. Even if the app is working according to WINE's AppDB (or similar for Proton) that is no guarantee for it to work all the time. The big game publishers love WINE... They sell you their product and than don't even have to go through the facade of support... If you use WINE they will not support you at all, and they already have your money.

As for old games running on native linux. While this is a problem, I expect that eventually it will be solved with a flatpak type solution. Where a game is installed with all the libraries that it calls even if they are older libraries. This can also solve the multi-distro problem with flatpaks providing a compatibility layer of libraries.

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Quoting: SalvatosThey may not be as prestigious, but there's something to be said for being a good ecosystem for the low- and mid-range productions. Those companies often have less shitty practices than AAA studios when it comes to DRM or data collection, if only because they don't have the means to implement them or the clout to get away with them, and as such are more in line with FLOSS philosophies even if they don't go as far as open sourcing their games. Honestly, even if EA or Ubisoft did make Linux versions of their games, I wouldn't want to put on the shackles that come with them, and I'm no Stallman.

Well said. (The whole post but especially the quoted.)

There are plenty of titles coming out... It seems that steam adds 1000 native titles every year since it came to linux. What this means is that there are enough to satisfy practically every gamer regardless of their preferred genre. (Of course it means that there is plenty of crap to wade through as well, but that is a huge problem on other platforms as well.)

That being said, even with few AAA titles. there are plenty of great games out there native on linux. Many great indie games are out there if you bother to look (and that is what this site helps with in the multiple articles,) and there are quite a few publishers that tend to support linux as well with multiple titles... like Klei, Kalypso, and Paradox, among others.

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