Quoting: kuhpunkt

Quoting: Nevertheless

Quoting: kuhpunkt

Quoting: NeverthelessAnd once it's there, why shouldn't people buy Epic exclusives there? Why not purchase games cheaper on Epic? It will not defeat Steam, but it can hurt it.

Because of principles? :>

I was just thinking of a version of myself that had less principles regarding exclusives and OS. What would that person do?
I certainly would keep all my Steam games, and add at least some exclusives from other stores.
People generally seem to not like many stores, but install them nonetheless, if they think it's worth it.

I won't do that. Steam is my console. One friends list. One ingame overlay. One launcher for everything. One unified experience. I just want to boot my PC and play a game. Fragmentation isn't customer friendly. There are many examples for that.

Maybe the world is more stable than I think.. at least a little.

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Quoting: KristianThe thing that could be worrying would developers abandoning Stean(and GOG etc) due to Epic's 12% cut. If few or no new releases appear on Steam they are in trouble.

If Epic's store becomes dominant and it doesn't support Linux thatvwould be bad for the Linux marketshare.

It's not easy to ignore Steam, as they stll have the most users, but I think Valve has to reduce their cut in the long run, to avoid slow price induced erosion.

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Quoting: iiari

Quoting: NeverthelessWhy not purchase games cheaper on Epic? It will not defeat Steam, but it can hurt it.

Unless I've missed something, absolutely no one in this coming Store War has claimed Epic offerings will be cheaper for the *consumer*. Increased $ for the devs, yes, but no one has even made any symbolic lip service as to how the consumer benefits here. And usually, with exclusives, that implies higher prices too...

I would offer a little cheaper on Epic if were a developer, because I'd get more money of games sold there.
Edit: Of course, exclusives are always cheapest on the only store they are sold. ;-)

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Quoting: kuhpunkt

Quoting: NeverthelessAnd once it's there, why shouldn't people buy Epic exclusives there? Why not purchase games cheaper on Epic? It will not defeat Steam, but it can hurt it.

Because of principles? :>

I was just thinking of a version of myself that had less principles regarding exclusives and OS. What would that person do?
I certainly would keep all my Steam games, and add at least some exclusives from other stores.
People generally seem to not like many stores, but install them nonetheless, if they think it's worth it.

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Quoting: GuestLet's focus here. Software drives hardware (and OS to a 'particular' lesser degree).

- VisiCalc sold Apple II.

- Tomb Raider sold Voodoo and 3dfx cards.

- Halo sold Xbox (and XP and Vista)

- Steam, Valve, and Half-Life (i.e. Source games) sold nearly every enthusiast PC in existence today. (<--Prove this wrong, anyone.)

Discounting the PS4, Xbox, and six other "open" platforms, how much PC hardware is EPIC (Fortnite Battle Royale, Inc.) going to sell? ANSWER: Jack Shit! (and Jack just left town.)

After installing video drivers, EVERY user with an enthusiast-level gaming computer installs Steam — NOT Origin, NOT UPlay, NOT GoG, NOT Itch.io, NOT GeForce NOW, NOT PS NOW, NOT Google Project Stream ... and certainly NOT Epic Games. (Maybe Blizzard. Maybe.). No. It's OS, drivers, and Steam. That's PC gaming today. No exceptions.

Here's a weird thought: If people could buy a new enthusiast-level gaming computer and just install the latest video drivers and Steam, guess what they would probably do?

Sorry, B Group! You already lost. Welcome to the day before yesterday. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Software can sell Hardware, but it's no requirement to be successful. You cannot even begin to list all successful software running on i386 PC, after Wing Commander drove people to buy them.
Millions of people already installed Epic (and Steam for the most part, maybe even Origin and UPlay and Blizzard additionally), because of Fortnite. And once it's there, why shouldn't people buy Epic exclusives there? Why not purchase games cheaper on Epic? It will not defeat Steam, but it can hurt it.

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Quoting: Leerdeck

Quoting: Whitewolfe80Valve really does have Linux on lockdown doesnt it, look Lutris adding support for gog means i am more likely to pickup more games from gog. It would appear nobody is willing to bet on linux with the exception of Valve who are only investing in linux as a long term stratergy in case MS tries to lock down the next version of windows (well even more then now). I appear to be that guy that is actually concerned everyone else seem to be on the valve are the saviours of linux gaming. My biggest concern is valve looks at its balance sheet and goes well our investment is linux isnt panning out and gabe just going okay kill it.

Let's be real here. Valve doesn't support Linux because they believe that the year of the Linux desktop is coming. Nobody does that. Valve does this because of cloud-streaming gaming that someday in the far future will be a available alternative. Because if you run a big server farm you don't want use Windows licenses. Every major publisher will someday port their games to Linux but only for their own server farms. Valve will not stop supporting Linux infrastructure because they don't really care about Linux desktop end users. That we profit from it is just a really nice side effect and we provide test results + bug reports.

Let's be real here. What difference does it make to us if Valve really did all they did (Linux Steam client, SteamOS, AMD drivers, Vulkan, SteamVR, Proton...) just to stream games from Linux servers to anywhere (including Linux desktops), open sourcing their tech in the process?

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Here's Tim Sweeneys definition of "Open Platform" and "Open System".

https://twitter.com/TimSweeneyEpic/status/1078746920082903040 [External Link]

I asked him if he believes that additional launchers and stores reduce the likelyhood of Microsoft closing down Windows, but unsurprisingly got no answer...

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Quoting: iiari

Quoting: NeverthelessThinking about Feral... Maybe they push ports a bit to avoid beeing overtaken by Proton. Imagine they did port Hitman 2, and everyone in the target group already owns it...
It might be a good idea for them to specialize on games with anti cheat.

Interesting point. Given that almost 50% of the top 100 Windows games aren't gold or platinum even on Proton, I think they have a lot of candidates to choose from. Specializing in anti-cheat, actually, could be a windfall of games they could convert.

It was just an idea... not too serious.
A lot of the games on ProtonDB show bronce or silver because they did not run with an older proton version at all. It is completely possible they already run flawless with the newst Proton and few people cared to re-check yet.
That's also exactly the problem with choosing the right game to port. I suppose future proton versions might fill the gaps even faster than before, making more and more games playable, with the exception of certain DRM or anti cheat "protected" games...

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Quoting: mylka

Quoting: Nevertheless

Quoting: Eike

Quoting: BeamboomThis year... No titles that really tickles my preferences. Sure, Tomb Raider is a very beautiful game and I feel bad for not being more excited about it. I bought it, of course, but have yet top play it... I've also purchased a stack of small indies that was fun for a handful of hours, but nothing I couldn't live without, to put it like that.

I had never played any Tomb Raider before and was suprised how much fun I had when playing the reboot. Give it a try...
About the indies, I wonder what you're into if you didn't find any gems there.

Quoting: BeamboomSo actually, yeah when I think about it, this year does indeed feel like another step down, from a very subjective point of view. Overall 2018 feels more empty!

I guess it's mostly about how you you feel about Proton. If you like it (or have great hopes in it raising the Linux player numbers), it probably was a very interesting year. If not... not so much. But I do like that Feral seems to do the opposite of giving up lately! :)

Thinking about Feral... Maybe they push ports a bit to avoid beeing overtaken by Proton. Imagine they did port Hitman 2, and everyone in the target group already owns it...
It might be a good idea for them to specialize on games with anti cheat.

protobdb says that they cant play hitman 2 online. that menans no achievements and no events, like holiday hoarders
either a native version or ioi fully supports proton

I didn't know that, but isn't it funny that the new Proton version is said to fix those issues?

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Quoting: Eike

Quoting: BeamboomThis year... No titles that really tickles my preferences. Sure, Tomb Raider is a very beautiful game and I feel bad for not being more excited about it. I bought it, of course, but have yet top play it... I've also purchased a stack of small indies that was fun for a handful of hours, but nothing I couldn't live without, to put it like that.

I had never played any Tomb Raider before and was suprised how much fun I had when playing the reboot. Give it a try...
About the indies, I wonder what you're into if you didn't find any gems there.

Quoting: BeamboomSo actually, yeah when I think about it, this year does indeed feel like another step down, from a very subjective point of view. Overall 2018 feels more empty!

I guess it's mostly about how you you feel about Proton. If you like it (or have great hopes in it raising the Linux player numbers), it probably was a very interesting year. If not... not so much. But I do like that Feral seems to do the opposite of giving up lately! :)

Thinking about Feral... Maybe they push ports a bit to avoid beeing overtaken by Proton. Imagine they did port Hitman 2, and everyone in the target group already owns it...
It might be a good idea for them to specialize on games with anti cheat.

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