[HN Gopher] It's been 9 years since Valve rolled out the Steam L...
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It's been 9 years since Valve rolled out the Steam Linux beta
Author : underscore_ku
Score : 183 points
Date : 2021-11-06 14:05 UTC (8 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.phoronix.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.phoronix.com)
| DeathArrow wrote:
| >Steam on Linux after opening up access to everyone was seeing
| around a ~2% marketshare prior to falling with the setbacks in
| Linux gaming. But ever since Steam Play (Proton) was introduced
| in 2018, it's begun rebounding. This past month it set a new
| multi-year high with a 1.13% marketshare for Steam on Linux after
| surpassing the 1.0% mark this summer.
|
| From 1% to 1.13%. Isn't it glorious?
| indymike wrote:
| You have to start somewhere.
| MattPalmer1086 wrote:
| Since Linux only has between 1-2% market share of desktop
| operating systems in total, that 0.13% increase is a reasonable
| proportion of the Linux users out there. So not too bad I'd
| say.
| Sebb767 wrote:
| Quite a few people cite games (and software) as the reason
| they don't switch, so hopefully that 0.13% are converted
| people and not work-only users that started gaming.
| oblak wrote:
| Valve has proven to me that a wildly profitable company's
| interests _can_ very much aligned with my own. Guess I should be
| thanking MS for prompting this amazing development.
|
| Part of me can't wait for the winter to come so that I can start
| using my Index again without feeling like I am wasting my time at
| home instead of enjoying a nice day outside.
| mazone wrote:
| Play only on linux since the last year or so and got away from
| the dedicated windows machine i had to have for only gaming. I
| had some bugs in the beginning but with recent versions of proton
| it feels a lot more stable. I don't have any bugs anymore in any
| games and don't notice any slowdowns or degraded performance. It
| is quite amazing.
| EamonnMR wrote:
| Something I always told myself I'd get around to. I've been
| meaning to set up Ubuntu on my desktop so I can use it for
| development, anyone have a good tutorial for setting up
| steam/proton?
| smoldesu wrote:
| It's basically set-and-forget. Just download Steam from your
| preferred package manager, and all of the verified Proton
| titles should be playable without manual intervention. If you
| want to open up Proton to _all_ your Windows games, you have to
| enable it in Settings > Steam Play. ProtonDB is your best
| friend, but besides that it's fairly easy to get up and
| running. Props to Valve for removing the friction, here!
| mazone wrote:
| You basically just install steam from within your linux
| distributions package manager. I use and recommend some arch
| based distro but for Ubuntu it should be apt-get or some gui
| tool like synaptic.
|
| After you installed steam it will probably just work. You might
| need to go into settings -> steam play and enable proton.
| that's it.
| deng wrote:
| Yes, that's why you still have these 'ubuntu_12' folders in the
| Steam installation, since they have never updated this in the
| past 9 years. So in reality, native Linux development has pretty
| much failed, and they have put all their money on Proton. That is
| probably the right decision from a business perspective, but it's
| pretty much a defeat nonetheless.
| edflsafoiewq wrote:
| What's wrong with it? Having the Windows APIs turn into a
| portable abstraction layer is certainly amusing, but having
| wine sitting underneath the program is really nice (essentially
| for the same reason a VM is). For one thing, winedevs are way
| better at linux support than random gamedevs.
| pjmlp wrote:
| Check OS/2 and Windows compatibility layer.
| deng wrote:
| One has to remember what Valve tried to achieve. If I
| remember correctly, Microsoft back then announced that the
| Microsoft Store would be an integral part of the upcoming
| Windows 10. Seeing the huge amounts of money
| Apple/Google/Valve were making with their stores, they openly
| played with the idea to only allow application installations
| through the Microsoft Store, most importantly games.
|
| So Valve tried to break the Windows monopoly on games by
| creating a native Linux SDK and releasing the Steam Machine,
| which was based on Ubuntu. The goal was to make Linux a first
| class citizen as a gaming _development_ platform, not just
| something to run an emulation layer. The Steam Machine
| failed, because it simply wasn 't very good. Valve quickly
| lost interest in native Linux and let the native SDK rot away
| into obsoletion. Fortunately, Microsoft being Microsoft, the
| Windows Store was (and still is) a terrible platform, so
| pretty much nobody is buying games there (except for
| Minecraft), and you can still install anything you want on
| Windows.
|
| So of course you can say that you don't care if it runs
| natively or in an emulation shim. It would have been nice if
| Linux had become a game _development_ platform and not just a
| kernel with a Windows API layer on top. So in a way, Linux '
| success here is similar to Android's: Yes, it's technically
| Linux, but not really.
| georgyo wrote:
| > Fortunately, Microsoft being Microsoft, the Windows Store
| was (and still is) a terrible platform, so pretty much
| nobody is buying games there (except for Minecraft), and
| you can still install anything you want on Windows.
|
| Microsoft has the disadvantage of being the biggest
| platform and the most scrutinized.
|
| The Microsoft store is as good as the Apple and Android
| stores, but people using Microsoft are much more used to
| downloading something from the website they want to install
| something from. And developers don't have a strong
| incentive to send them to the Microsoft store from their
| website.
|
| And Microsoft being such a big player, even time they make
| moves, everyone else digs in to prevent them from taking
| over. An example of the is steam machine.
| pseudalopex wrote:
| > The goal was to make Linux a first class citizen as a
| gaming development platform, not just something to run an
| emulation layer.
|
| Was it? Or was it a strategy they ended up not needing?
| sangnoir wrote:
| > One has to remember what Valve tried to achieve. If I
| remember correctly, Microsoft back then announced that the
| Microsoft Store would be an integral part of the upcoming
| Windows 10
|
| Your recollection is incomplete. Microsoft was threatening
| to lockdown Windows app installations by requiring app
| signing for _all_ executables in Win10. In the worst case,
| it meant the Microsoft Store would be the _only_ store on
| Windows, and Steam simply wouldn 't work on Windows.
|
| Microsoft was toying with an idea that posed an existential
| threat to Valve. IMO, Valve's goal was to be unshackled
| from Microsoft's mercurial whims, and despite a slow start,
| they have finally achieved that goal in the last few years.
| Microsoft is still proceeding doen the TPM path, and has a
| turnkey walled garden - I think Valves call was the right
| one.
| gpderetta wrote:
| Yesterday my son wanted to play Overlord II that I had
| purchased ages ago. It has a native linux version, and I
| remember 3-4 years and a few distro/steam updates ago it
| worked fine. Yesterday it would hang on startup. I didn't
| want to spend an evening debugging it, so I flipped the
| proton override on steam. After a quick reinstall, it worked
| immediately and flawlessly.
|
| So, I don't care whether a game is native [1] or run on an
| emulation layer as long as it works and performs reasonably
| well and, most importantly, it is supported.
|
| [1] the reality of course is that many, but not all, native
| ports still run on some sort of buggy, proprietary
| translation layer.
| hn8788 wrote:
| I think it was Supergiant Games who said that because Proton is
| good enough, they're don't plan to provide native Linux
| versions of their games in the future.
| olyjohn wrote:
| Does the game run well in Proton? Then who cares if it's not
| native. What's wrong with using Windows APIs to run games on
| Linux? Let's take Microsoft's API, embrace it, and steal that
| sweet sweet gaming marketshare.
| smoldesu wrote:
| The other day I bought Ziggurat 2, a great game except for
| some mysterious input lag on the native version. Partially
| out of amusement, I tried playing it through Proton and
| _poof_ , there went the latency. I do not know what kind of
| black magic it's using, but it seems to work quite well.
| deng wrote:
| I think it's pretty much impossible now to create a modern
| game with the Steam runtime:
|
| https://github.com/ValveSoftware/steam-runtime#default-tools
| superkuh wrote:
| Not so much failed as it was never a real thing in the first
| place. Valve supported steam machines and linux gaming so they
| could fend off Microsoft's attempts to monopolize all gaming
| with proprietary executable formats like in the windows store.
| Every time MS starts this up again Valve will wave around the
| linux/steam machine flag until it stops and then they go back
| to not caring about linux.
| johnny53169 wrote:
| > then they go back to not caring about linux.
|
| So they care so little about Linux they are going to release
| a subsidized console using Linux next year? Give me a break
| with your cynicism.
| 999900000999 wrote:
| Personally I'd rather have all software like this.
|
| Have platform agnostic code, or let it prefer windows. If your
| compatibility layer is so good I don't care.
|
| Better than what we have now where tons of applications don't
| run on Linux or Mac OS.
| Rebelgecko wrote:
| At least we're past the days where the Steam installer would rm
| -rf your home directory
| assbuttbuttass wrote:
| Between lutris and steam I don't even run Windows anymore.
| rjzzleep wrote:
| Now if only AMD didn't treat ROCm as an afterthought the graghics
| card landscape could see an interesting shift. Steamdeck with ML
| capabilities wolud be pretty cool.
| h2odragon wrote:
| Steam really has done an amazing job making Linux systems viable
| gaming platforms.
|
| The manner in which they've done so shows a delightful
| understanding of the "unix philosophy" in so many ways, too.
|
| Last month I was doing hardware changes on our home systems, my
| daughter's steam install and mine copied to new systems with a
| quick "tar" and no fuss; which was a very pleasant discovery.
|
| They've rarely if ever (that I've seen) gone to extra effort to
| introduce warts the user has to deal with. Opening up the new
| deck hardware to show us how to do so, etc... Good eggs there.
| thioordc wrote:
| Yeah I rarely ever "like" a company but Valve has done so much
| it's honestly amazing. The 30% they take is soooo worth it for
| developers who don't have natural Linux support.
| bartwe wrote:
| In that case i'd like a refund as we ship a native linux
| version ourself
| thioordc wrote:
| Maybe I wasn't clear but if you _dont_ have native support
| then it's really worth the 30%! If a game does it's more
| debatable. I also always try to buy the DRM free version if
| it's available!
| smallpipe wrote:
| Reaching a single digit percentage larger user count in
| exchange for 30% of your revenue is questionable accounting
| milesvp wrote:
| I saw an RPG maker who's been making games for over 20
| years on GDC recently. He talks about steam's 30% cut. His
| basic takeaway, is that he used to need to employ an entire
| fulltime employee to handle all the things that steam now
| does for him. For him, the steam tax pays for itself for
| support and distribution alone.
| [deleted]
| thioordc wrote:
| Yes but that's not what I said! If you make a game that
| doesn't have native support I will not buy it. 70% is much
| bette than 0%! I'm sure if they had the choice between no
| fees or 30% fees and Linux support they would take the zero
| but they don't.
| burnished wrote:
| Anecdote: some one else's account of this was that it was
| really helpful because the Linux portion of the community
| (while much smaller than other segments) provided
| consistently high quality feedback/bug reports.
| hn8788 wrote:
| That was just one company though. Other devs have said it
| isn't worth supporting Linux because the majority of the
| bug reports they get are distro specific edge cases.
| zinekeller wrote:
| That anecdote is in part due to the fact that the engine
| that was used was already Linux-friendly and was already
| ironed-out, so it made sense that more agnostic bugs are
| reported, whereas other developers resent (native) Linux
| support due to distros not even fully following LSB or
| outdated libraries, which in Windows has at least the
| concept of side-by-side libraries.
| gravypod wrote:
| Valve does quite a bit more than just proton.
|
| 0. They manage the most popular games store in the western
| world.
|
| 1. They provide a community forum for your users.
|
| 2. Host downloads of games (sometimes 100s of GBs). They
| distribute the content all across the world and handle
| region specific laws about what can be sold, etc. They host
| content at edge so downloads are super fast.
|
| 3. Process refund requests.
|
| 4. Have one of the better VR abstraction layers for game
| devs.
|
| 5. Provide networking and social integration (chat, anti-
| cheat, friends, etc).
|
| 6. They allow you to generate steam keys (at no cost to
| you) and sell them on your own website.
|
| 7. They process payments (PayPal charges ~3% for this,
| Stripe is 2.9%)
|
| 8. Achievements, time tracking, etc. These are useful for
| game devs who iterate on their formula (most use
| achievements to see what percent of a user base does X).
|
| That's what I can think off the top of my head benefits the
| game developers. The list of things that benefits the users
| is also pretty big (steam sales).
|
| I don't think any company is good or bad but Valve's offer
| to game devs is a pretty decent one.
|
| > Anecdote: some one else's account of this was that it was
| really helpful because the Linux portion of the community
| (while much smaller than other segments) provided
| consistently high quality feedback/bug reports.
| quitit wrote:
| Many comments also seem to be grounded in the false
| notions that running a store is easy and inexpensive.
| burnafter185 wrote:
| They've also got a network of servers to help reduce
| latency in P2P games, which is actually pretty impressive
| to me. I don't know how effective it is, but as a _GAMER_
| any solution to latency is a great boon.
| peatmoss wrote:
| Apart from a few games purchased on GoG, everything I buy
| is on Steam. It's been a very consistent experience for a
| long time. My first Steam "purchase" was me plugging in
| the CD code from a copy of Half-Life purchased ~1999.
| Everything I've purchased since then is playable in
| minutes--most of it playable on Linux.
|
| The killer feature of Valve / Steam for game developers
| is customer trust. For me, that trust has translated into
| a resolute refusal to buy games on any other platform.
| paulryanrogers wrote:
| Considering all the broken or neglected games on Steam
| I've lost trust in them. GOG has started slipping in
| quality as they've grown, but at least they strive to
| host playable games and without DRM.
|
| Competition among stores and hosting is good IMO, even if
| a modest inconvenience.
| debaserab2 wrote:
| Platform loyalty in gaming has always struck me as an odd
| phenomenon. You don't hear people raving about netflix or
| hulu being superior, but for some reason there is a huge
| fanbase for Steam itself.
|
| I mean, I don't mind steam, but I'd really prefer to have
| software that I purchase not check with a gate keeping
| entity before launching itself.
| ajvs wrote:
| Most people don't care about privacy much, so they don't
| notice that if you try to use Steam in offline mode
| permanently it's impossible. Valve like most other big
| tech companies wants all their user data too.
| revolvingocelot wrote:
| I don't think that's the reason. Valve is too small to
| really achieve anything with our user data, nor do they
| have any impetus to collect it. The Hardware Survey is
| technically optional, and my recommendations are so
| unbelievably poor that I can't seriously believe that
| feature ingests any individual user data.
|
| I suspect it's more to do with the fact that without
| requiring a new Steam Ticket every once in a while, I
| could go and install much of my library on a friend's
| computer (or any number of friends!), rig the OS to deny
| Steam internet connectivity, and thereby allow them to
| play games with my licenses indefinitely and
| undetectably! The horror!
| nindalf wrote:
| I bought several games in my childhood. Games that mean a
| lot to me personally because of how much I had to scrimp
| and save to be able to afford. It took me nearly a year
| to cobble enough money to buy Warcraft III. And I can't
| play the game anymore because I've lost the CD. Ditto
| with Halo, CS, AoE and others.
|
| Every game I've purchased on Steam I can play right now
| with one click. Obviously others offer the same thing now
| but Steam offered it first. They also have region
| specific pricing, a huge pull for me at some point.
|
| There are other good store fronts, I'm sure. But the
| amount of trust they've built with me over the last 10+
| years can't be replicated overnight by anyone else.
| simion314 wrote:
| >And I can't play the game anymore because I've lost the
| CD. Ditto with Halo, CS, AoE and others.
|
| The disadvantage is that your game is locked now to your
| account, I cant just gift my games to my son. I have to
| make sure to keep my Steam version in Offline mode before
| he tries to play from his PC using my Steam Account. I
| wish there was a way to create family accounts and share
| the game or even gift them to your children, you could
| add some rules like you can't re-gift same game for say n
| years or whatever.
| bluely wrote:
| Have you tried Steam Family Sharing?
| https://store.steampowered.com/promotion/familysharing
|
| It won't support every game but it should help you in
| your quest to share games with your son
| simion314 wrote:
| So we don't need sharing, I want transferring/gifting.
| Basically i have a ton of games , very old not this last
| years AAA , that I won't play again but my son will play,
| like Gary's mod that can import content from Half Life
| games and Portal if you have them installed, so I would
| like to create a new account for my son and completely
| transfer half of my library to him.
| revolvingocelot wrote:
| The problem with Family Sharing is that it requires that
| the donor account not be playing any of its games while
| the recipient does. The workaround is to kill the
| internet connection to the donor account, then both
| accounts can play to their hearts' content! Er, as long
| as the donor doesn't mind single-player content.
|
| Which is essentially what grandparent is already doing.
| Alas!
| jterrys wrote:
| Shoutouts to GoG. I'll buy games off of them even if
| they're on Steam. Making old games compatible and
| offering DRM free downloads deserves respect.
| RealStickman_ wrote:
| I've started to migrate off of GOG again after switching
| to linux.
|
| The main reason was steam's investment into linux gaming
| and I decided to support that.
|
| Also, GOG have promised a linux client for years that
| still hasn't materialised.
| otachack wrote:
| Mod support via Workshop is pretty sweet, too. I don't
| use mods much but when I do, and the game supports it,
| workshop makes it incredibly easy to plug an go.
| jhanschoo wrote:
| 9. Controller support
| billfruit wrote:
| And also provide region sensitive pricing, allowing
| gamers in the third world to buy games often at very
| affordable prices in their local currencies.
| cma wrote:
| > They allow you to generate steam keys (at no cost to
| you) and sell them on your own website.
|
| Only if you charge the same as Steam, i.e. you can't pass
| the 27% (still pay payment processing) savings on to
| customers, unless it is a limited time sale.
| Lev1a wrote:
| > you can't pass the 27% (still pay payment processing)
| savings on to customers
|
| Well yeah... whether you sell your game on Steam or via
| Steam codes on your website, the soft-, hardware and
| business infrastructure in the background handling the
| sale and distribution of your game is the same. So why
| would they let you use their infrastructure without
| letting them have their cut? It wouldn't make any sense.
| LegitShady wrote:
| Well yes, they don't want you to generate code sand then
| sell for less than you sell at steam because that's a
| suicide level business model for them. But you can still
| sell the codes yourself without cost to you. I don't
| understand why what you're saying is relevant.
| cma wrote:
| You are bringing in new users and locking them into
| Steam.
|
| Steam only allows it because they want to be one
| centralized hub with more and more people locked in
| through social features, existing libraries,
| recommendation traffic, etc., but it is only allowed if
| it isn't price competition so that consumers can't feel
| the weight of the 30% directly.
| bluecatswim wrote:
| I know devs who do free giveaways through steam keys once
| in a while so presumably there is a provision in place
| for that too.
| DeathArrow wrote:
| >0. They manage the most popular games store in the
| western world.
|
| I do not like the app store model. I rather buy from the
| developer.
| I_Byte wrote:
| From my point of view the store model simply is more
| convenient for consumers and worth the extra price. I
| know that I stopped pirating games, music and movies when
| I started using Steam, Spotify and Netflix.
| bnegreve wrote:
| > I know that I stopped pirating games, music and movies
| when I started using Steam, Spotify and Netflix.
|
| But is it a causal relation? You probably have a steadier
| income now than you had back then.
| pdpi wrote:
| With games, an important part of the equation is DRM. I
| prefer buying (DRM-free) things from GOG where possible,
| but steam has provided developers with a decent bit of
| DRM that is not too intrusive for consumers. There's
| plenty of older games from before Steam became dominant
| that I refused to buy because of their draconian DRM
| solutions.
|
| I have to say that Spotify completely changed the way I
| listen to music, and I would really struggle to go back
| to buying individual albums.
|
| I think of the three, movies are the only one where the
| "more disposable income" part of things is the dominant
| component of why I changed behaviours.
| revolvingocelot wrote:
| This makes me think of GabeN's 2011 commentary on
| expanding Steam into notoriously hax0r-infested Russia:
| the smart money scoffed at the prospect, keenly aware
| that the Russkies will just steal your product and why
| not make it that much harder for them to get their hands
| on it?
|
| "Russia now outside of Germany is our largest continental
| European market [...] The people who are telling you that
| Russians pirate everything are the people who wait six
| months to localize their product into Russia. It doesn't
| take much in terms of providing a better service to make
| pirates a non-issue." [0]
|
| "We think there is a fundamental misconception about
| piracy. Piracy is almost always a service problem and not
| a pricing problem," he said. "If a pirate offers a
| product anywhere in the world, 24 x 7, purchasable from
| the convenience of your personal computer, and the legal
| provider says the product is region-locked, will come to
| your country 3 months after the US release, and can only
| be purchased at a brick and mortar store, then the
| pirate's service is more valuable." [1]
|
| I for one absolutely have more money than I once did, but
| to be honest I stopped pirating long before that in '09
| or '10, once I realized that the then-ridiculous Humble
| Bundles and Steam sales reduced the actual expenditure
| required from "gotta save up" to a mere "gotta skip
| buying takeout tonight". Of course the sales have
| decreased in quality since then, but so too has the
| number of games I want to play, and the time I can spend
| doing it.
|
| [0] https://www.pcgamer.com/gabe-newell-on-piracy-and-
| steams-suc...
|
| [1] http://www.escapistmagazine.com/Valves-Gabe-Newell-
| Says-Pira...
| [deleted]
| Knufferlbert wrote:
| Don't know about I_Byte, though I could have written what
| he has written.
|
| I can now actually afford games (in the quantity I
| consume them) now, so that question is fair. But
| thankfully the video landscape fractured, now you better
| have NowTv, Netflix, Prime and Disney+ and you still
| can't watch all. I've started pirating again after 10
| years or so of complete abstinence. So I think it's
| causal (if you have money)
| zinekeller wrote:
| > I do not like the app store model. I rather buy from
| the developer.
|
| _You_ , as a person might not like it and _you_ as a
| developer might like to directly sell games, but as
| pointed out above, Steam /Valve does make it easier for
| the developer to be legally clear in terms of taxes,
| refunds, etc. and also makes it easier to distribute by
| leveraging their "warehouse" which _some_ do prefer.
| plussed_reader wrote:
| How do you feel about package managers?
| meibo wrote:
| They also have quite a bit of useful Middleware nowadays,
| like Steam Input and Audio, which are both great.
|
| Their controller wrapper obsoleted all of the messy third
| party tools you used to need on Windows, and they have a
| sharing platform for controller profiles.
| pjmlp wrote:
| A whooping 1% in 9 years, great achievement.
| DeathArrow wrote:
| In 891 years, Linux gaming will reach 100%. :)
| 0des wrote:
| That's a little optimistic, don't you think?
| erikpukinskis wrote:
| If it's an s-curve, then yes: it will never reach 100%.
|
| But if it's an s-curve it will reach 70% much sooner than
| 891 years.
|
| In my opinion 1% of the Earth in 9 years is a triumph.
| Electric cars are not there yet and people are quite
| optimistic.
| speedgoose wrote:
| I understand your point, but I just want to say that
| electric cars are well beyond 1% in markets where they
| are for sale.
| labster wrote:
| But electric cars have existed since the 1880s, so it's
| still a pretty slow growth rate overall.
| speedgoose wrote:
| True, but the technology has improved a lot recently.
| Perhaps Linux on desktop needs to improve a lot too.
| MaxGanzII wrote:
| Steam is a trap though, no?
|
| You buy software, but if you leave, you lose it all.
|
| Is that correct? there's no way to retain what you've bought?
| vadfa wrote:
| Yes, it's like netflix/etc in that regard.
| ohyeshedid wrote:
| Steam is not like Netflix in any meaningful way to the end
| user.
| LegitShady wrote:
| Its not a subscription service, so that's a strange analogy.
| TulliusCicero wrote:
| I'm kind of surprised it doesn't have a subscription
| service yet. Seems like an obvious way to go, and Game Pass
| seems to have been fairly successful.
| nicolaslem wrote:
| Is Microsoft actually making money with Game Pass? I'm
| guessing many users just subscribe for a month or two
| when a new interesting game is released and cancel just
| after they are done with it.
| messe wrote:
| _It depends_. Some games are DRM free, and those can be backed
| up and kept wherever you wish. I can copy my Kerbal Space
| Program directory anywhere, for example, and it works fine. I
| use this to have several differently modded installs.
| alex_duf wrote:
| Not if you want to use your software outside of steam, no.
| mdoms wrote:
| What you're saying is absolutely true, not sure why people are
| trying to bury your comment.
| slightwinder wrote:
| There are DRM-free games on steam, but how many people maintain
| backups of their games? And this is not limited to steam. Most
| distribution these days on PC is digital, and even consoles
| moved there. If you lose your account for whatever reason, you
| will lose them all. Same problem with other content (video,
| audio, etc.). As long as there is no law protecting the
| customers from those things, it will remain a problem.
| dartharva wrote:
| You can absolutely retain what you've bought: all content is
| saved in the steam/steamapps/common folder. If you want you can
| rip those files out and run them separately with cracks or
| Steam emulators like Goldberg, but the supporting
| infrastructure and dependencies for games (like multiplayer
| services, matchmaking, official support) will be lost. Many
| games prefer to rely on Steam's platform and support for core
| features by their own design.
| LeoPanthera wrote:
| Steam is not a subscription service so I'm not sure what you
| mean by "leave".
| mdaniel wrote:
| Google isn't a subscription service either, and people lose
| access to their Google account for completely arbitrary
| reasons, seemingly without recourse. I believe it's the same
| risk
|
| I do make a habit out of using the Backup Games option in the
| Steam client, but I usually do that more as a caching
| strategy to save myself the 30GB download in the future than
| addressing the risk of my Steam account going poof
| pengaru wrote:
| Valve/Steam does not require games distributed through its
| platform to use their SDK/DRM in any way. It's up to the
| individual game developers if they set such a Steam a trap.
|
| Valve doesn't even give an outright monetary incentive to do
| it. i.e. Valve's 30% cut doesn't turn into 10% if you link in
| Steamworks.
|
| Though one could argue there's an indirect monetary incentive
| created by locking away all the platform/social features behind
| a wall accessed through their proprietary library. But last I
| checked the DRM aspects of that library could be ignored while
| using the rest of the platform. It does automatically stay
| updated though, so they could turn Evil and force DRM @
| initialization if they wanted, hypothetically speaking.
| [deleted]
| throwawaymanbot wrote:
| Why there isn't a Linux gaming module to make gaming for Linux
| simpler for the developers is beyond me.
| arendtio wrote:
| This past week, I witness Steam/Proton making it possible to play
| Age of Empires 4 just 4 days after its official release (and 2 of
| those days were Saturday and Sunday).
|
| That is just awesome.
| mAritz wrote:
| To be fair the public stress test beta already showed some
| problems that needed to be fixed and people started working on
| it back then.
|
| But the point still stands, for big titles you don't have to
| wait long for Proton support nowadays.
| capableweb wrote:
| A bit off topic, but what you think of the game itself? Big AoE
| 2 fan here, and a bit on the edge if I should try it or not.
| mdoms wrote:
| It's more like AoE2 than 3, and in my opinion it's excellent.
| arendtio wrote:
| Being a big AoE2 fan myself (pre-ordered the original version
| back in the day), I think you should try it.
|
| For me, there is one major downside: The camera. I really
| don't like the 3D camera. I think it could be worse. So you
| can actually play the game without turning the camera, but
| what I don't like is the perspective. Sometimes you have to
| move to camera to another position, just to be able to click
| on a unit. I found that much better with the classic dimetric
| projection [1]. In addition, I like the art-style of AoE2 a
| bit better.
|
| However, after putting these things aside, I love how they
| have adapted the AoE2 concepts. It still feels like an Age of
| Empires. But then again different enough to be AoE4. So if
| you like the changes from AoE1 to AoE2 then you might like
| AoE4 ;-)
|
| The civilizations play more diverse than those of AoE2 so
| even with just 8, there is a lot to learn. The story telling
| of the campaigns is also a bit different, but it still has
| the concept of teaching some history. AoE4 actually has some
| nice videos about armor and weapons of the time. The fortress
| building in AoE4 feels a bit more like Stronghold with the
| ability to move units on the walls and I think that is a good
| thing :-)
|
| So much after playing AoE4 for about 13 hours.
|
| [1]: https://gamedev.stackexchange.com/a/16757
| thrower123 wrote:
| I think it is incredible that after all these years the best
| target for Linux gaming is still a Windows compatibility shim.
| squarefoot wrote:
| The Windows user base is too large, and the cost of maintaining
| two versions is too costly for most publishers to even think of
| making two versions. They instead learned how to write Windows
| games that can be easily run under Linux with no or minimum
| effort. Once a significant number of people will transition to
| Linux because they have enough apps/games that do what they
| want under Linux, and the gain in stability, privacy and cost
| is worth the migration, major games being written only for
| Linux may become a reality. Although this would require many
| years, Microsoft has been well aware for a long time, and it's
| the main reason they already aimed at taking control of Linux
| before it was too late (WSL, VS Code, Edge for Linux, etc), and
| it's very likely we'll see a Microsoft branded _free only as in
| beer_ Linux distribution soon. Unfortunately, I 'm 100% sure
| they will succeed.
| thrower123 wrote:
| It's just an interesting shift in the wind.
|
| A few years ago I'd get flamed hard for suggesting that just
| building Wine-compatible Windows builds was smarter than
| trying to build native linux versions.
| alex_smart wrote:
| Why wouldn't it be? What were you hoping would happen?
| Wowfunhappy wrote:
| Presumably, they were hoping for native Linux support.
| edflsafoiewq wrote:
| Going through a shim is better. It allows you to modify the
| open-source shim to analyze and patch the closed source
| game. This is why Proton can release fixes so fast.
|
| It also lets each party care about the natural thing for
| them: gamedevs care about windows and do a good job writing
| windows code; winedevs care about linux and do a good job
| writing linux code. Gamedevs don't care about linux so
| their native linux code is crap.
| arendtio wrote:
| But in some cases it is also the reason why anti-cheat
| software is such a pain and for multiplayer it sucks :-/
| pjmlp wrote:
| Android and ChromeOS games make use of ISO C, ISO C++,
| OpenGL, Vulkan, OpenSL, almost no one cares to port their
| games to GNU/Linux, quite telling.
| TulliusCicero wrote:
| Unrealistic for most games, there just aren't enough users.
|
| With Proton now, there's probably more games playable on
| Linux than MacOS, even though the latter as far higher
| uptake among consumers.
| pjmlp wrote:
| Android and ChromeOS have native Linux support in what
| concerns game development APIs, amount of games that were
| ported to GNU/Linux, almost irrelevant.
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