If there are enough people out there that use linux, won't wait for a distro to provide a package (some take a long time with updates), and won't compile the game for themselves, then I'll try providing a portable installer.

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In game play it sounds like the Democracy game, but now instead of being president of a country, you are a CEO. That could make have an interesting perspective if politics is a main game play feature.

Since it was claiming to be a business simulator too, I looked for details on how it worked, but the trailer and site doesn't explain much. The site said something about having ways on automating the business so the game doesn't get bogged down. I'm wondering if they are inspired by political culture more than the business management side of things then. There is the game called Capitalism, that you really do get down to running a company in very fine details, and the interface has a great amount of polish that it all flows smoothly after running through the excellent tutorial. The game Capitalism 2 (Labs) is still getting updates today being originally released in 2001, so there is already a pretty large game in this genre. So it'd be interesting if Plutocracy is going to be a business sim when completed.

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I played this in DOS mid-90s when it was new. Even played split screen with others. Definitely will hold up well today.

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Many of the games that do finish successfully out of early access do so because the game is already functionally complete in its debut. In early access, the successful devs are just trying to flesh out a complete game world, on top of an already working game. Fundraisers are just one aspect in the early access strategy.

That said, I find even among the devs that can code or produce content, have a hard time to develop a game that interests me using the early access strategy anyway. There's some talent to game design that very few up-and-comers that have no financing can actually pull off through grass-roots funding. I think the better people probably are more likely to get there independently and don't need to do early access.

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Quoting: benjamimgoisSaddly this is not new in the opensource realm. Duplicated efforts due to Gigantic egos always generate duplicated / triplicated efforts. This is the same old DEB x RPM, KDE x Gnome, upstart x systemv , Snap x Flatpak.... While opensource is fighting it self, closed source OS like Windows and OSX concentrate efforts in what really matter.

I take it you've never worked inside a large company. Duplication, pet projects galore. And corporate politics gets involved, and even so, gigantic egos too. At least in /traditional/ open source development, you can actually compete openly on technical grounds. In companies, it's possible to cover up ineptitude. So it's not a problem really about being open source as it is simply mismanagement.

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Guys, this talk saying, "Henri should understand how email works" is just off-track, as there is obviously more happening than Henri saying he reached out and Philip didn't respond. Henri did what he could by emailing and waiting multiple times. There was even an invitation extended for wineconf, which likely made as formal and direct as could be. When that all fell through, he raised the issue to management which is now handling it. It is very likely, based on the message, there has been some kind of communication between Wine/Codeweavers and Valve/DXVK, but it is becoming more clear that there is not a direct communication line to Philip. But Philip and his Valve manager should know what has been said by this point. That is what Henri is explaining. If he cannot communicate directly by this point (remember things aren't just fire off an email and then rant next day if you have any credibility as an employee), and it's been raised through management, then there is really a roadblock set up here by Philip or his Valve manager not just on how to communicate, but on extending a response to begin talking. They can't get anything done if they won't respond. It's now up to these companies to work it out. Henri is right by concluding cooperation works only with both sides participating.

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I read up a bit on what is going on to know why there is a problem. SpatialOS seems like it's a hosting infrastructure. This part is particularly concerning to an independent game dev:

Can I host SpatialOS on my own private servers?

You cannot use your own private servers to host the game – the core game simulation is hosted by us. However, you can host any ancillary services on your private servers and integrate them with SpatialOS using our SDKs.

So another words, you spend your time interfacing with and writing simulation code for SpatialOS, you are locked-in to their servers, and you'll be paying them when your users want to play together. If I had limited resource and time, I'd rather write one open, free to use network platform that I can host or my users can use it, rather than use SpatialOS or write in a second option. Granted Improbable is probably targeting the MMO crowd more than anything (that's why I am saying they best are described as a hosting service). But MMO is really targeting the medium to large company, and not the small or independent firm. So I don't know what independent game devs they are helping here.

Now here this part of the response from Unity:

In December, we made clarifications to our Streaming and Cloud Gaming Restrictions because we received requests for clarification as the industry is evolving quickly.
...
if you want to run your Unity-based game-server, on your own servers, or a cloud provider that provides you instances to run your own server for your game, you are covered by our EULA. We will support you as long as the server is running on a Unity supported platform.
...
However, if a third party service wants to run the Unity Runtime in the cloud with their additional SDK, we consider this a platform. In these cases, we require the service to be an approved Unity platform partner.

This sounds like that Improbable was trying to use Unity on the server in some fashion without paying them. This wouldn't be that Unity is making SpatialOS impossible to use with Unity, only that Impossible, the company is in breach of license.

Anyway, both companies sound a bit scummy. Unity for their licensing terms that are quite restrictive, and Impossible for pulling a PR stunt for their mistake.

For networking, it does require an experienced dev, but with cloud hosting pretty cheap, I would just do it myself and keep yourself free of proprietary entanglements and save yourself some money. Writing simulation code for 1000's of entities is not hard, probably not harder than SpatialOS. SpatialOS seems best if you are trying to outsource part of your MMO development, that they also fully manage your servers, but that's a business decision. Probably not cheaper and definitely makes it harder to move away later.

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Quoting: liamdawe

Quoting: the3dfxdude

Quoting: PatolaThe problem was not so much mentioning it as so openly choosing a side - which one commenter promptly exposed, like with the "dumb" adjective to refer to the tweet.

Actually, I don't see his comment as picking a side, and I apologize if I made it sound so.

I just think the article is atrocious, as it only paints a picture of GOG as dumb. But that is only a personal attack by GOG's detractors.

My article is atrocious for speculating on a single thing, that has as shown by another comment, caused another developer to withdraw their support for GOG? I would call that pretty on point.

If you think a single mention of something I deem dumb, well, you have an extremely low tolerance for anyone having thoughts of their own eh?

Liam, I was referring the the eurogamer.net article as atrocious. Not your article. That's all I've been intending to make a point on. You're getting off track completely trying to pull out a point "low tolerance for anyone having thoughts of their own". What is this supposed comment thread to be about now?

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Quoting: PatolaThe problem was not so much mentioning it as so openly choosing a side - which one commenter promptly exposed, like with the "dumb" adjective to refer to the tweet.

Actually, I don't see his comment as picking a side, and I apologize if I made it sound so.

I just think the [linked eurogamer.net] article is atrocious, as it only paints a picture of GOG as dumb. But that is only a personal attack by GOG's detractors.

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Quoting: liamdaweThe point is how they used it. They used it for nothing more than jumping in the timeline of everyone following a very toxic and sensitive hashtag, to promote their game store. It was a poor decision. It was not a positive message, GOG had literally nothing to do with it and no reason to do it other than get sales. It's a watering down of the meaning, for free advertising.

People have been using puns (which their usage of pun is exactly correct) to promote business for a long time before twitter and hashtags existed. I'd dare say that GOG has a precedent over the recent movement for having no-DRM, because as you know, DRM technologies really have erased people's legal access to works, and GOG has been a no-DRM front for a decade. In a twitter world, what are they going to say now that a more vocal, angry group, is telling GOG you can't say use a slogan that is very generic?

Lame alternatives
* Can't Disappear -- sounds too similar to the movement
* Stop the Delete -- still thinking there is a political bogeyman behind it
* No Locking Us Out -- now we are starting to hit some irony and still not too different

If anything the media-monopoly (a form of DRM itself) is locking out GOG from enjoying a potential presence online not because what just happened, but because someone already made the mistake in the past of delving into something sensitive.

If anything, it's the hashtags and twitter that is simply watering down the meaning of well, everything.

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