Don't know about Valve, but Microsoft may very well look into EA, and ZeniMax.

MS need to make a shift away from Win32 to UWP, and since it's quite frankly as difficult as porting to Linux, they need to have compelling exclusives. EA is probably their best bet, as they've already worked with UWP games (such as PvZ). EA, being a huge company, would benefit from exclusive access to the backend source code (since they can produce better optimised games).

ZeniMax, probably not as likely, but still possible. And it would also explain quite a few things: like the reluctance to publish on competing platforms. Vulkan and OpenGL development is kind of hard to explain, but it will hardly cause any problems down the line.

View this comment - View article - View full comments

Quoting: KimyrielleI can honestly see no need for what really looks like a closed-source version of Lutris. I don't even use that. 80-90% of my games are on Steam, so that's where I launch them from. The only other launcher I am using is PlayOnLinux. The day when Lutris becomes the superior choice for auto-install WINE games with minimal hassle, I will switch to that. But I still can't see the need for another launcher, particularly not a closed-source one.

That's actually where its appeal comes from: it's a closed source project, that isn't inherently handicapped by the fact that it's running on an OpenSource platform. We don't get that many new coders: Feral interactive, Aspyr media, are both hiring, and at lucrative salaries, I might add. Still, one of the issues holding Linux gaming back is lack of people with proper software development experience.

Don't get me wrong, for you this isn't going to change much, not directly anyway. But this is going to the pile of evidence that Linux is a good platform to do business in. The more the peer pressure to develop for Linux the better. Even if the number of Linuxers doesn't change due to this piece of software, any Other developer of a similar launcher will have one more compelling reason to port to Linux. It's a market that they could be tapping, and aren't.

View this comment - View article - View full comments

I love this.

View this comment - View article - View full comments

Fantastic! We definitely need more devs like the man.

Is it openSource?

View this comment - View article - View full comments

Quoting: franksouza183An interesting post, because I am currently doing a couple of tests and comparisons between the native version and the windows (wine) one using mesa (radeonsi). I don't know why, but on wine, I get a much more smooth gameplay, and finally being able to maintain a 60fps rate without slowdowns, and beside that, now I can use some graphics mods (like sikkmod). I really was frustrated with this, the native version (smp and non-smp) gave me audio problems in addition to lower performance, using the same settings on both platforms. I do not understand, since based on this quote from here [External Link] :

"... This means that each call to an OpenGL function must be" translated "and can not be directly used by the Windows program."

... perfomance was supposed to be lower.

To get "fixed" frame rate I needed to disable vsync (game), set the option "com_fixedTic" to "1" (the game will be accelerated if your graphic card can exceed 60fps, so to fix this, I needed a limiter (the next tool)) and use strangle [External Link] to limit the frames at 60. The same process applies to both native and wine versions.

Another advantage in using wine is the possibility of using the virtual desktop, and open the game on the monitor I want (dual monitor here). It's 2018, and this fullscreen problem in dual monitors settings has never been appropriate for certain old native games.

I guess this has to do with the fact that Wine and SDL are actively developed projects with many contributors, while the game itself was taken down by ZeniMax. This means that you can potentially get higher performance than on Windows using a compatibility layer.

View this comment - View article - View full comments

Quoting: Grim85

Quoting: appetrosyanWhy, Zenimax?

I still can't figure out: why are they so actively anti-linux. Yes it constitutes a minority among gamers, still, wouldn't explain why aren't they publishing games that already have tested Linux support.

The only logical explanation would be a contract with Microsoft, but then why aren't they pioneering DX12 and blatantly supporting Vulkan.

Boiling Steam did an interview with Tim Basset [External Link], he seems to paint it not so much of a resentment, but lack of knowledge

Interesting podcast.

Not sure this answers my question. He didn't say anything pertaining directly to Bethsoft and its parent ZeniMax other than "they're more business conscious".

View this comment - View article - View full comments

Why, Zenimax?

I still can't figure out: why are they so actively anti-linux. Yes it constitutes a minority among gamers, still, wouldn't explain why aren't they publishing games that already have tested Linux support.

The only logical explanation would be a contract with Microsoft, but then why aren't they pioneering DX12 and blatantly supporting Vulkan.

I suppose Zenimax are run by Chimps, because partnering up with nVidia and then doing a 180 after the Ryzen launch, is not a sane business decision, but I'm guessing there's something at play here.

View this comment - View article - View full comments

Quoting: jens

Quoting: appetrosyanI don't care anymore. Steam doesn't care about Linux, no surprise that the statistics drop.

They do care, but unfortunately they can't do magic.

I'm not asking for magic, I'm asking for some effort.

Incentivising developers to engage in their platform is not particularly difficult. I understand that they can't force any developer's hand to do as they want, particularly since Linux is mostly uncharted territory for Game devs. Why not encourage developers to go the extra mile and support Steam OS, by for example collaborating on Linux ports.

Or giving games with Steam OS support more exposure: bring them to the featured list, as would Mirosoft, Sony or Nintendo.

Make using wrappers like Wine easier, by maybe letting people use Windows executables directly without a massive amount of publisher effort going in. If they'd done that, the list of Linux-supported games would nearly triple: Deus Ex:Human revolution runs on Linux better than on Windows, yet there's no official icon.

These small differences make a huge impact. Why don't we have more Linux ports?
a) Because it's hard. Feral and VP are about the only studio that does this commercially. Valve stopped game porting after all of their titles were available. These guys have massive experience. Share it! Make it so indie developers have an easier time starting on Linux: make tutorials, release developer tools for your engine.
b) Because it's expensive. Right now if you wanted to publish on Steam OS you need an SDL wrapped version of your game which costs money and often is worse than the wine version. If the choice was a simple "Do you want me to ship your game with a compatibility program, and let you access an extra audience for no extra time or money", we would have lots more games.
c) Because there's no benefit in having a Linux version. If publishers knew, that there's a "Featured Steam OS game" on the Steam front page we'd have some more penguins. It takes little effort, it's morally justified within bounds of what Valve is doing and I don't know why has nobody done it.
d) Because giving the platform a middle finger has no consequences. Bethesda soft-works sits on top of a bunch of games that have Native Linux support, not available on Steam. Yet their games consistently show up on the top trending lists. If I were in Valve's shoes I'd kindly ask Beth to fix this, and since hey have no excuse not to do this, ban them and their games from Steam. Yes it's ugly. Not nearly as ugly as online DRM, Microtransactions and Lootboxes, which Valve, incidentally, introduced to the Gaming world.

If you have better insight into these issues I've raised, I'm interested to know.

View this comment - View article - View full comments

I don't care anymore. Steam doesn't care about Linux, no surprise that the statistics drop.

View this comment - View article - View full comments

Quoting: jens

Quoting: appetrosyanMakes sense, but there's a problem. Red Hat are repeating their mistake with Gnome Shell. They released Gnome 3 when it was a torture device hardly suitable for occasional use, much less a full blown default.

Why not switch to CentOS or another LTS focused distribution? A project with the size of Wayland or Gnome Shell needs years with feedback from the field to mature. There are other distributions if you prefer not to be part of this process.
Though I agree that state and intention of a first release should be transparently and honestly documented.

Frankly, it hurts me very little. I mostly live in xmonad, and i3. And as far as I'm concerned, neither of them plan on Wayland support (they actually need most of that "Redundant" functionality in X).

That said, I occasionally dabble with KDE and Gnome, just to keep up with the field. KDE changes are mostly under the hood, and mostly improvements and additions. Its Wayland branch is surprisingly useable, sans a few scaling issues, which are easily fixed.

If you really want a full Wayland experience, you should try Gnome Shell. It's a mixed feeling. On the one hand, it runs better than it did on X, and for good reason. But, Much like Gnome Shell, it has insane defaults, and developers which refuse making changes to those defaults possible.

The direction they took is concerning, and I very much hope that it's going to go away. It's already a default for Gnome, and Gnome is a default on many computers. I don't want for Linux to try and become Windows or Mac. It doesn't have the resources, and frankly it means that I've wasted 10 years of my life, with nothing to show for it.

View this comment - View article - View full comments