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PayPalSo, if you are living under a rock let me remind you on something: Gearbox president Randy Pitchford stated he would talk to some people about the possibility of a Linux port for Borderlands 2. Sadly though as I expected from Randy it probably won't happen.
@Two__Tone It happened. I talked to some people. I talked to some people about it today, too. I wouldn't get your hopes up too much...
— Randy Pitchford (@DuvalMagic) April 22, 2014
I never get my hopes up about anything Randy & Gearbox do since their utter failure with Colonial Marines (not on Linux), they utterly lied about it including showing game-play trailers that weren't in the game! Thankfully that was my last Windows purchase, hopefully forever.
I imagine for a company like Gearbox we are just too small a market-share right now for their wanted/expected return on a port, this tweet seems to sum that up:
@Two__Tone We can maneuver with markets. Today, unfortunately, the mind share cost cannot be rationalized and the economics are poor.
— Randy Pitchford (@DuvalMagic) April 23, 2014
Sad since the Borderlands series of games are actually good.
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Wasn't Gabe Newell saying recently that it turned out to be easy to convince publishers to support Linux? Gearbox obviously disagrees.
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Quoting: entropyWasn't Gabe Newell saying recently that it turned out to be easy to convince publishers to support Linux? Gearbox obviously disagrees.
Engines my friend, engines.
Unreal engine3 doesn't have linux support out of the box. So porting takes more efforts and time.
I expect we'll get more support with UE4 games. I expect chances will be higher once they start using UE4 for games, (maybe a future borderlands3).
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Quoting: mannyQuoting: entropyWasn't Gabe Newell saying recently that it turned out to be easy to convince publishers to support Linux? Gearbox obviously disagrees.Engines my friend, engines.
Unreal engine3 doesn't have linux support out of the box. So porting takes more efforts and time.
I expect we'll get more support with UE4 games. I expect chances will be higher once they start using UE4 for games, (maybe a future borderlands3).
If Icculus as a single developer can port UE3 games, a big company like Gearbox should be able too without "wasting" too many resources.
Apart from that, I agree. Having engines supporting Linux as a target out-of-the-box might help significantly. Same goes for the other major game engines that have announced Linux support.
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Quoting: alexThunderSounds like you're butthurt, or why else would bring that unrelated stuff up? :P
Ah, butthurt, the most irritatingly unproductive slur on the internet that only exists to try and shut down debate without the need to provide any valid reasons to back the assertion up.
Sorry, I don't want to derail the thread on a completely separate point, but that word really has no place in a proper discussion as far as I am concerned.
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Quoting: entropyQuoting: mannyIf Icculus as a single developer can port UE3 games, a big company like Gearbox should be able too without "wasting" too many resources.Quoting: entropyWasn't Gabe Newell saying recently that it turned out to be easy to convince publishers to support Linux? Gearbox obviously disagrees.Engines my friend, engines.
Unreal engine3 doesn't have linux support out of the box. So porting takes more efforts and time.
I expect we'll get more support with UE4 games. I expect chances will be higher once they start using UE4 for games, (maybe a future borderlands3).
Apart from that, I agree. Having engines supporting Linux as a target out-of-the-box might help significantly. Same goes for the other major game engines that have announced Linux support.
I am in awe of what Icculus does, but I've yet to play a single one UE3 game that didn't have horrible, often game-breaking bugs.
Examples :
Killing Floor - missing textures on all maps, West London is nearly unplayable as a result. I can see the invisible monsters. But I can't see through some scopes...
Sanctum 2 - Textures missing (minor), collision issues (player and monsters falling through the world) and many, many random crashes. This one is still in beta, but it's been like that for weeks without any updates.
Dungeon Defenders - Lots of random crashes, weird mouse sensitivity, poorer performance than what you'd expect.
As for his other non-UE ports, such as Psychonauts or Frozen Synapse, there are other smaller issues. Mouse tracking issues. Gamepad issues. Resolution issues.
Bottom line - it's amazing what Icculus does, but porting a game as an after thought is NOT easy and will never have the same quality as a game developed natively. Even Ryan Gordon isn't that good.
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Quoting: scaineBottom line - it's amazing what Icculus does, but porting a game as an after thought is NOT easy and will never have the same quality as a game developed natively. Even Ryan Gordon isn't that good.
It's not a question of how good he is, he is certainly capable. The question is support costs, developers like Tripwire (Killing Floor) would have paid him to port it, not to support it. So once a developer thinks it's good enough Ryan will get his money and then they would part ways.
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Quoting: RadegastQuoteI wouldn't get your hopes up too much...Hehe, Gearbox could use this as their company motto
Made my day. It's a dishardening fact that this is the truth.
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Quoting: liamdaweQuoting: scaineBottom line - it's amazing what Icculus does, but porting a game as an after thought is NOT easy and will never have the same quality as a game developed natively. Even Ryan Gordon isn't that good.It's not a question of how good he is, he is certainly capable. The question is support costs, developers like Tripwire (Killing Floor) would have paid him to port it, not to support it. So once a developer thinks it's good enough Ryan will get his money and then they would part ways.
I don't think he charges amazingly high that gearbox could take a loss on it though, isn't it just the case of sending him the code and getting a game back? I mean there is bug testing, QA and more but thats the basic gist.
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Quoting: Half-ShotQuoting: liamdaweI don't think he charges amazingly high that gearbox could take a loss on it though, isn't it just the case of sending him the code and getting a game back? I mean there is bug testing, QA and more but thats the basic gist.Quoting: scaineBottom line - it's amazing what Icculus does, but porting a game as an after thought is NOT easy and will never have the same quality as a game developed natively. Even Ryan Gordon isn't that good.It's not a question of how good he is, he is certainly capable. The question is support costs, developers like Tripwire (Killing Floor) would have paid him to port it, not to support it. So once a developer thinks it's good enough Ryan will get his money and then they would part ways.
No idea what he charges, but he certainly does support the games. However, for long, I have no idea, or even if he's actually paid for providing that support. I assume so, but since Killing Floor has been out for Linux for over a year and it still has the same issues, it's anyone's guess.
In fact, taking a look - https://bugzilla.icculus.org/describecomponents.cgi, while anyone can file a bug report, it doesn't look like Ryan ever responds. And certainly, looking at Killing Floor, the texture bugs were reported over a year ago, but the bug's never had an update.
So, "best effort" might be putting it optimistically.
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Quoting: entropyWasn't Gabe Newell saying recently that it turned out to be easy to convince publishers to support Linux? Gearbox obviously disagrees.
convincing to do new game for it is 100x easier than convincing for late port
when you do new game (if done correctly) you'll need minimal work. it will share marketing expense and you'll sell over all platforms. this is simple win which is not hard to persuade into
late port needs extra work, extra marketing... and there is a fact of how many people will buy it. lots of people already bought windows version to play native or on wine. now... this is where persuading over risk gets trickier
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