Quoting: cRaZy-bisCuiTI don't get a few things: Maybe you guys could enlighten me?

1. Epic Store
Why do you get so crazy about it? It's basically a launcher that allows you to buy games. Nothing more, nothing less. Many publishers do have stores. Many of them have exclusives.

2. Valve exclusives
All of their titles are exclusives, aren't they? Why do you never complain about that?

My thoughts..
Don't get me wrong, I'd love to have freedom of choice where to buy and a FOSS API and launcher for every single store. Unfortunately it won't get any better then Lutris. I do appreciate their work, unfortunately the GOG feature did not even work for me.

Finally Valve do a lot of FOSS tools, DXVK, Mesa developement and much more. Still they have exclusives and a store honoring DRM.

1) Because Epic right now has a ton of money, somehow their latest game is the biggest thing in gaming, and there is a lot of publicity (and even press coverage) of this store. For some time Liam also thought they would support Linux, which made it relevant to this website.

2) I don't know, those games are already old enough that it isn't news anymore? They are exclusive to the store, but not to an arbitrary platform (neither Windows, nor a console)? They are very integrated to Steam features like the marketplace, so it seems justifiable? Because its only their own games, they don't go out of their way to make deals with other publishers? I agree that any games being exclusives is bad, but I don't see people complaining that much about Blizzard games or League of Legends or other games that you can only get from the developer.

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An interesting part of the article:

QuoteWe also took what we learned about mitigating denial-of-service attacks on our own games and made it available to some non-Valve multiplayer titles in a private beta. And since you ship your games on multiple platforms, we made the GameNetworkingSockets[github.com] library open source and Steam agnostic. The Steam version of your game can take advantage of our private network and get the same DoS protection that Dota 2 or CS:GO have. This means that we'll relay all your game network traffic, which keeps the IP addresses of your game servers and clients anonymized, and safe from the script kiddies. In the coming year we're planning to let you use our private network for the non-Steam version of your game as well.

While many stores, publishers and hardware vendors are trying to push exclusives, Valve is open sourcing some of their tools so that developers don't have to make their games Steam-exclusive.

Valve has its many flaws (their hands-off approach to curation or their subpar treatment of indies for example). But they are still so far ahead of the competition it's just hard not to support Steam.

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Quoting: elmapul"Again though, this only highlights some of the dangers of using proprietary game engines for your projects. "

unreal engine is kind off open source...
i'm not sure about their licence but the code is

It is source available, not open source. The license is the important part, much more than being able to see the source code: you are signing a contract that severely limits your freedom to use that code, and could come back to bite you in the ass in the future.

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Three terrible companies causing a lot of damage.

One is trying to abuse the already bullshit copyright laws to limit how people can make games (with the probable purpose of pushing its own services). One is trying to use software-as-a-service to take control of how games are run both from users and from developers. One is trying to create a closed store full of exclusives, and opportunistically partnering with the second company to sneakily push their own products using the controversy.

Yeah, this is why software needs to be FLOSS, and also why software-as-a-service is bad. Don't make your games rely on stuff that some company may take away from you because of its new "business interests". And of course, developers shouldn't do this same stuff to your game and players (at the very least, no DRM).

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Quoting: Guest

Quoting: Nevertheless

Quoting: eldakingI am not very interested in this game in particular (completely opposite style of RTS for me), but Stardock has plenty of strategy games I would love to see on Linux - GalCiv and Fallen Enchantress/Sorcerer King don't run well on Wine.

Also, good to know that the industry is excited about Linux right now. It isn't just us. :)

Yes, but let's rejoice carefully! Google was also excited about Linux when they created Android...

I didn't want to dampen enthusiasm either, but if "the industry" was doing something, it wouldn't be super secret. Perhaps Stardock and some they internally talk with are, but that doesn't represent the (gaming, presumably) industry as a whole.
Don't get me wrong, Stardock doing this work is great, but just keep expectations in check. Ultimately, nothing was really said.

If some developers are excited, it is probably due to stuff we already know, or at least stuff we suspect. Vulkan is looking good, Valve is pushing Linux again, this kind of stuff. If there are any "secret plans" (NDA stuff), it probably isn't that big, at least not yet.

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I am not very interested in this game in particular (completely opposite style of RTS for me), but Stardock has plenty of strategy games I would love to see on Linux - GalCiv and Fallen Enchantress/Sorcerer King don't run well on Wine.

Also, good to know that the industry is excited about Linux right now. It isn't just us. :)

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QuoteIt's interesting, since their original announcement mentioned the store was coming to "other open platforms" besides Windows, Mac and Android which we presumed would mean Linux.

You were reading too much into a vague sentence. Yes, interpreting it strictly seems to indicate Linux, but I doubt they meant it to be read this literally, and it is far from a "clear" confirmation. Someone less interested in Linux gaming than us here would read it and not even think if it could mean Linux or not.

And frankly, it makes the most sense. They are trying to grow fast and take a market share out of Steam, focusing on the fastest avenues to bring a lot of players: exclusives, giving free games, bringing publishers in by charging less, etc. Linux most certainly isn't going to have the same short-term impact. Sad, but I also disapprove of their use of exclusives for example.

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Epic has less than a promise of supporting Linux. Discord gave us a very solid promise, but still didn't deliver. I personally think we should refrain from supporting them (especially Epic) until they show something concrete... and even then, it should depend on how good their support is. GOG for example has some decent Linux support, but it is still severely lacking compared to Windows and their promises in this direction didn't mean much.

Those stores want to compete with Steam? The bar is set quite high, even with Valve's many flaws. Competition could be good, having options could be good... but only if those options are any good. Frankly, Steam losing space to stores that don't support Linux would be a quite bad thing for us.

Regarding SteamPlay, it is impressive and has a lot of potential. I am expecting new steam machines at some point, though not necessarily soon. Hopefully Steam can cut itself a good share out of consoles, which have super-terrible practices, while being forced to improve by competition on PC.

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Quoting: mylka

Quoting: eldakingThat is great (much better than Epic). Particularly good to hear that they already have working versions and that they use Linux. Makes up for the delayed release and no word so far. Now we just wait until it actually happens, because by now we are already too used to promises without results (GOG, cough cough).

doesnt Tencent own discord?
they also own 40% of epic

discord = epic ??????

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tencent_Games

so maybe epic comes for linux, as they said they will support a free OS

Well, that's capitalism for you. Even when you have "competition" (still an oligopoly even if they manage to get a good share of the market) it ends up that the same people own everything. And due to network effects and other barriers, there is no chance to get a competitor who isn't already a giant monopolistic corporation that will use exclusives or screw its users as needed.

But in this case, "owning" doesn't mean they control both stores. They will get a share of the revenue regardless of where you buy a game, and they might even influence some policies on occasion, but it isn't like they are setting up two competing stores or they are coordinating both stores for their interests.

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That is great (much better than Epic). Particularly good to hear that they already have working versions and that they use Linux. Makes up for the delayed release and no word so far. Now we just wait until it actually happens, because by now we are already too used to promises without results (GOG, cough cough).

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