Quoting: Liam Dawethey've confirmed Linux multiple times, it has always been coming to Linux (original post and that quote is just the latest Timeline on when.

Aaah OK then, that makes sense. Thanks!

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"We will look into Linux after the console launches" is enough to get you on a list of games coming in 2019?? When I see a quote like that I read it as: "There is almost definitely not going to be a Linux port".

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Another Stellaris DLC?

This is now at the point where it's completely ridiculous. I just looked on the humble store and right now to buy the whole game it'll cost you more than $125! And that's not including this new DLC or the Galaxy/Nova Deluxe editions.

I'd really like to play, it looks like a great game, but for that kind of money I'd expect a AAA title that will give me about 500 hours of gameplay. As a comparison, Civilization V only cost me about $30 with all the DLC bundled. I think I spent about $20 on Kerbal Space Program and I have almost a thousand hours logged in that game. These endless expansions are madness, and I can't see why anyone would be suckered into buying yet another expansion for this game. Personally I'll just wait a few years until there's a complete bundle with all 497 DLCs included for $25.

I'd be very interested to hear opinions justifying how Stellaris represents value for money.

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Awesome. It's great to hear that I can now distribute my red shift games to people who don't own the game.

I broke my rule about never preordering games based on Zachtronics' track record - I was a huge fan of TIS-100 and Shenzhen I/O. Zachtronics have managed to get themselves on my "buy everything they release" list by releasing awesome games at a reasonable price and always supporting Linux. So I preordered the deluxe edition of exapunks and got the physical copies of the zines and the other goodies. I'm glad I did. It's a really cool game, though I think perhaps not as good as Shenzhen I/O. Still I highly recommend it, along with all their other games. If you're a coder you will adore all these games.

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Quoting: mirooh well, I am really not that happy as most people.

from now on I'm really afraid that too many publishers will use this as an excuse not to provide native linux builds in case it runs "well enough" with proton/wine.

since this is now to be built-in, most people will not have to understand what wine even is, they will take the running binary for granted. hence what is to expect is less performance and continuous direct x instead of opengl or vulkan

this would totally be acceptable for older/legacy titles, but I really think too many will jump on that train that it runs with proton and that there is no need to compile it for linux.
we'll see.

This is exactly how I feel. On the whole I'm betting it'll be detrimental - we'll see less ports as a result.

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I run a Steam curator called linuxgamer (https://steamcommunity.com/groups/games_for_linux) which only reviews Linux games. Devs are welcome to send me keys for games to review, and I review many of the games that I buy and play. Regular folks are also welcome to follow it and/or get involved.

Note that giving me a game for free only means you'll get a review, it doesn't mean you'll get a positive review. But I've only ever given one negative review and that was when I couldn't get in touch with the developer to see if issues were going to be fixed.

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Quoting: amataithere are FOSS fanatics that play steam video games and pay them :D

Indeed, and in my view that's a very reasonable position and one that I share. You'll note that I didn't say "All Free Software fans". I was talking about some of the more militant and extremist FOSS people.

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Quoting: cprnDo we want to convince:

• new users?


• existing users?


• independent developers?


• triple A studios?


• publishers?

All of the above

Quoting: cprnIt's an entirely separate issue. :dizzy: Besides, Steam has nice refunds policy, so does HB and probably every shop nowadays. Because LAW. As long as it's not a kickstarter-like service your money is fairly safe even if you invest up front.

The only reason steam has a refund policy at all is because Valve were found guilty of blatant violations of Australian consumer protection law. Their system is still not compliant with Australian law as it places limits on when a refund will be given.

If you buy a game on steam before the Linux version is out, you're trusting Valve to be act ethically and to comply with the law. Valve have demonstrated that they don't believe in ethics and that they think they're above the law. You'd be foolish to trust them.

Other stores like GOG have fairer policies and have demonstrated good faith, so it's less of a risk.

And what about the case of Unreal Tournament 3? My boxed copy is still sitting on my bookshelf, unplayed. I wasn't able to get a refund on that because it was only years after I preordered it that it became clear that no Linux version was going to happen. And I got what I ordered - UT3 - my order didn't say "UT3 Linux". Your order won't say "Linux version". I suppose I could have taken the UT3 thing to small claims court to get my money back, but who has time for that? You're taking a risk if you buy a game before the Linux client.

You can only do a chargeback on your credit card within 3 months of the transaction. The time from announcement of Linux support to release of Linux client is usually longer than 3 months.

Buying before the Linux version is out actually incentivises announcing a Linux client and then never delivering more than it incentivises doing a Linux port - the least ethical devs who do it purely as a scam have the most to gain, because they can just say "we'll do a Linux version" and then do nothing and they'll get some extra sales.

Yes, you might be able to get your money back if the promised port never happens. You might only lose money 20% of the time. And if you make legal threats you might be able to get that down to 10%, and if you can be bothered with small claims court maybe you can get it down to 5%, though in practice it's not going to be this low because it's difficult to take legal action against a company which is overseas.

But if you don't hand over your money until the port is available you will be ripped off exactly 0% of the time.

Quoting: cprn"+1 Linux" threads are often considered bad PR, not only because of the trolls but because these appear before the publisher or the developer even mentioned Linux.

Uh... That's what these threads are for - to show the devs that there's interest in a Linux version. There would be no point in making such a thread after a Linux client is announced.

Quoting: cprnSomebody asks whether they even consider to support it and suddenly moderator has a headache. That's before anyone involved even replied. Besides, people "+1" multiple times. Why? IMO don't "+1" at all and wishlist instead. Platforms are shown in wishlist statistics. Post only if you have something meaningful to say.

Moderator headaches aren't my concern. That's their job. Wishlisting is also useful but this is not publicly visible. I'll agree that it's better to say something more meaningful, but "+1 Linux" serves a purpose.

Quoting: cprnif you're a corporate CS or PR person who has to sift through hundreds of e-mails every day, "thank-yous" are considered empty content and nuisance.

Yep, and they'll have to report to their boss what they've been up to. And they'll have to say "I've seen 360 emails today saying 'thanks for porting to Linux'". And the managers and devs will think to themselves "that's nice". I'm not concerned with being a nuisance to some support drone at a large company, sifting through emails is their job.

Quoting: cprnThat's already our strong point. Target the technical support only, though. A PR person will ignore those 9/10 times.

I'm not sure what you're trying to say... only send bugs to support, not PR drones? That seems pretty obvious to me, I'm not sure what gave you the impression that I'd advocate sending bug reports to PR people.

Quoting: cprnWho pirates games nowadays? :O Why!? Are there even cracks on Linux???

Some of the hardcore free software zealots who think that all proprietary software is evil have this weird ethical viewpoint where they think that pirating proprietary software is fine. Yes, there are plenty of pirated games available for Linux.

Quoting: cprnA group for you to consider assuming you don't mind publicly sharing playtime on your Steam profile: https://steamcommunity.com/groups/LinuxUsersExclusively [External Link]

Ooh! joined! Thanks! I'm also a member of the group "We Only Buy Linux Games" :)

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I've been advocating for Linux gaming for many years now. I'm pretty zen. I've put a fair bit of thought into it. Here are my guidelines. Note that the effect of all of these is increased if more people do the same:


0. Vote with your wallet

The single most important thing you can do is give money to the people who give you Linux games, and deny money to the people who don't. Both parts of this are important, as is communication, see #1.

BUY THE GAME. Don't pirate games. If you can't afford all the games you want, wait for a sale. You want your gameplay to show up in their statistics, and you ABSOLUTELY don't want to show up as a pirated Linux client on their servers.

0a. Vote with your wallet

If you have the money, don't wait for a sale for the game you want, pay full price. Reward the devs financially for supporting your platform.

0b. Vote with your wallet

Only buy games on Linux. Only buy games after the Linux client has been released, don't pre-order games on the promise of a Linux client. Too many times, we've been promised a Linux client and then screwed over (I'm looking at you, Unreal Tournament 3). The only way to discourage this is to not buy until there's Linux support.

If you want to be hardcore like me, don't play any games on windows or using wine, ever, and don't buy any game that doesn't support Linux, no matter how much you want to play it (Oh how I want the new Doom!).

1. Be vocal

If you want a game ported to Linux, get on their forums of steam discussions - preferably somewhere where the devs will see it - and say that you'll buy the game as soon as a Linux version comes out. My preferred phrasing is something along the lines of "I'd really like to give you my money, but I only buy games with Linux support". Do this for every game you would buy. Those huge steam threads with hundreds of "+1 Linux" posts are equivalent to hundreds of lost sales. Let's make it thousands!

KEEP THAT PROMISE! If the game does get ported and a Linux client comes out, buy it ASAP, and send them an email saying thanks as per #2 below. The gamingonlinux RSS feeds are a great way to keep abreast of new games coming out.

DON'T. FEED. THE. TROLLS.

For every "I'll buy this when you support Linux" post on steam, there's a windows user who has nothing better to do than tell you that "Lunix is T3h SuXx00r!". I work on the assumption that these people are just killing time because they're waiting for one of their unskippable update/reboot/update/reboot/crash/reboot/update/reboot/reinstall cycles to finish. Don't respond to these trolls. If you MUST respond, keep it short, factual, and emotionless, citing your sources. But don't do it! Another option is to report these posts as offtopic/abuse. Don't be a zealot and don't get involved in flamewars, you just make us all look bad.

Value honest communication from devs. If a dev tells you "we're not going to support Linux, sorry", don't rage and fume, say "thanks for taking the time to reply and for your honesty". Raging and fuming will get you nowhere, but being nice might make them more likely to want to port their next game.

If a dev says "we'd like to support Linux, but it's not economical to port it", tell them about Ryan C Gordon, aka icculus, the elder god of Linux gaming (and a nice guy, too, just don't ask him about UT3). And tell Ryan about them. Ryan is making enough from patreon that he will sometimes do ports for free. Go give him your money.

2. Thank developers who give you a Linux version

For many of the games I play and enjoy on Linux, I send the developer a personal email saying "I love your game. Thanks so much for the Linux version!"

This is intended to give these devs a nice warm fuzzy feeling, which gives them a more positive perception of the Linux community. Hopefully that will encourage them to continue to support Linux in their future games.

3. When you have problems, don't be a jerk

If you run into a bug, make a good bug report and send it to the dev. BE FRIENDLY. Ask "Is there anything else I can do to help you track this down?". Don't call the dev an idiot or use words like "unacceptable", "crap", etc, no matter how serious the problem is and how straightforward the mistake is. Almost zero of these people are using Linux as their primary OS, and not many are familiar with it. They might make newbie mistakes. If they do, help them in a friendly way so that they can fix it, learn something, AND have a positive experience of the Linux community.

4. Stand up for yourself, don't let the dev be a jerk

Having said that, if the problem is major and you don't get any response to your bug report in a reasonable time (be *very* reasonable - I usually leave a few weeks, and I'll send 3-4 emails over that time), get a refund for the game, then send the dev an email saying that you got a refund due to the unacceptable support and maybe that you won't be buying their games in future (Hi, Phil Fish!). Having a horribly broken and unsupported Linux port is worse than having no port at all, do not support these developers. But realise that fixing Linux issues is probably not going to be their top priority and there might just be one person trying to deal with all the Linux-specific stuff - don't expect the support to be super fast. If it is super-fast, say "wow, that was super fast! Thanks so much!" (Hi, Running With Scissors!)

5. Be Excellent To Each Other

Help others if the opportunity arises. Even better, if you're bored, look for ways to help others. Just don't be a jerk. A lot of these points boil down to not being a jerk. You're the face of a community, act like it. We want devs to enjoy corresponding with us, and we want windows users saying "those Linux nerds are nice people, maybe I should give Linux a go". SO BE NICE, OR ELSE! ;)

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Microsoft.
Cannot.
Be.
Trusted.

Talk all you like about how they love open source all of a sudden, and I'll talk about how they've not open sourced anything we wanted and didn't already have. Get back to me when they open source directx.

Talk about how "it could be good for github", and I'll talk about how skype used to have end-to-end encryption and a usable Linux client.

Talk about how I'm a paranoid old curmudgeon who is clinging to the past and the 90s were 20 years ago and how Microsoft aren't like that anymore and they're now all warm and fuzzy and totally trustworthy, and I'll talk about the spyware built into their latest operating system.

Trust is something you have to earn through actions, not lipservice. If Microsoft started behaving themselves today they could potentially earn themselves a limited amount of trust by 2028. Until then...

Microsoft.
Cannot.
Be.
Trusted.

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