Steam Reaches Over 1,500 Linux Games, It's Not Enough

Quoting: Comandante oardoWe don't have much good quality games for Linux?

How about gathering a list?
Obviously, a "good quality game" is something subjective, but I could surely come up with 50 good quality Linux games.

Quoting: liamdawe

Quoting: Mountain Man

Quoting: liamdaweSorry, but again, there isn't 1,000 quality Linux games on there, I can guarantee the actual number of quality games is well under 1,000 which is my point.

That's rather a matter of opinion, don't you think? I would be curious to know how you define a quality game.

Hence why it is an editorial. To everyone: If you have forgotten, an editorial is 100% my opinion, don't read it if you can't handle it ;)

I don't have a problem with you expressing your opinion. I'm just asking you to qualify that opinion.

Quoting: Mountain Man

Quoting: liamdawe

Quoting: Mountain Man

Quoting: liamdaweSorry, but again, there isn't 1,000 quality Linux games on there, I can guarantee the actual number of quality games is well under 1,000 which is my point.

That's rather a matter of opinion, don't you think? I would be curious to know how you define a quality game.

Hence why it is an editorial. To everyone: If you have forgotten, an editorial is 100% my opinion, don't read it if you can't handle it ;)

I don't have a problem with you expressing your opinion. I'm just asking you to qualify that opinion.

It's not something to easily "qualify", since it will again be all my opinion, and to do it properly I would have to go through hundreds of games and note why I think they aren't very good, which is what all my general articles are for.

I find quite amusing someone expresses his opinion in an editrorial and complains at the same time about people expressing theirs in comments. Well...

Eike did by far the best comment, and I would go further: how many of those people (in percent) can play the game they're currently playing on Linux?

I found 1'691'508 over 2'169'177 can play their game on Linux, that means 78%. (38 games over 99 listed)

Quoting: PeciskHow about organizing good and serious discussions about what's lacking in Linux gaming? How to make developers aware of help they can get from community? There are so many ways to look at this positively.

There are a number of symptoms you could point to of things that are lacking in Linux gaming--technical annoyances of various sorts. But they are just that: Symptoms. And overall, they're not that serious symptoms; other platforms have their own aggravations. This many ports despite this low market share tell us any Linux problems aren't as steep as all that.

But there is only one real thing that is lacking in Linux gaming: That market share. Number of users. Linux needs those Steam Machines to succeed, and it needs more desktop market share. On the Steam Machines, time is going to start telling relatively soon now. On the desktop . . . well, I've been pretty pessimistic of late years. The Linux desktop is more than ready, but that does not in itself generate sales and distribution. People built it, and they didn't mostly come. But I did recently see something that I found interesting on that front:
http://thevarguy.com/open-source-application-software-companies/091515/ubuntu-linux-based-open-source-os-runs-42-percent-dell-pc
The Chinese government seems to be finally getting serious about its Windows espionage fears, or something. Whatever the reason, currently close to half of Dell's Chinese sales are running state-backed KyLin Linux.

If Linux becomes a bigger market, various other aggravations will get cleaned up because there will be the people with the motivation and knowhow to clean them up. Valve has already done some work. If Linux does not gain a bigger user base, the momentum will ultimately be lost, although it's seeming as if on certain engines porting is now so cheap that the Linux game situation will never get bad like it used to be.

(For our purposes, the desktop remains key, or at least the big powerful desktop-replacement laptop, which people mostly lump together with desktop nowadays anyhow. People can talk about the death of the desktop, but for gaming most of those tiny form factors are irrelevant; nobody's going to play DOTA 2 on a tablet)

Linux gaming does not begin and end with Steam.

Quoting: Pecisk

Quoting: maodzedunIndeed - the lack of AAA games on Linux is a big problem. And let us be honest - even the ports that are released are not exactly amazing. AMD performance aside, most ports, if not all simply provide sub par game performance compared to Windows. Even the better ports see 10 to 30, even 40% performance hit. That is a lot even in the best case scenario. Not to mention horrible releases like Dying Light.
The 1500 games sure can be used as a marketing trick by Valve but the sad truth is at this point Linux/SteamOS just has nothing to offer on the purely gaming front. In fact I'd go as far as say, that the Nvidia DX12 fiasco that will obviously stall DX12 game development with up to half an year, is probably the best thing to happen to Linux gaming this year. With the performance gains we've seen on Xbox One with Gears of War you can imagine the improvement on PC, thus adoption rate. Fortunately, for Linux games, it's unlikely we'll see any DX12 games/patches before Pascal cards.
In short - what appeal does a Steam Machine have at the moment? There is worse performance, a small library, lack of AAA games and Directx 12 is obviously way ahead of Vulcan at this point. And they're expensive. Like - very expensive. Not to mention the front runner of the litter cannot even upgrade its GPU (I'm looking at you Alienware). With things at their current state - console gamers will stick to consoles and PC games will just build something on their own and put Windows on it, just forcing it to boot in Big Picture mode.

So much complaining, so little facts.

QuoteNot to mention horrible releases like Dying Light.

Growing pains. Port was done by few guys with little time on their hands. They got their stuff together eventually. While not named WB game is still getting repaired 3 months after release.

QuoteEven the better ports see 10 to 30, even 40% performance hit.

Again, let's talk facts. Different cards have different performance. Classic recent Nvidia card like 760 GTX works reliably well, with good performance. Older cards and AMD is big issues vendors need to tackle.

QuoteIn fact I'd go as far as say, that the Nvidia DX12 fiasco that will obviously stall DX12 game development with up to half an year, is probably the best thing to happen to Linux gaming this year.

Errr what. Seriously this is your argument for success or failure of DirectX12? First of all, DX12 is a buzz word, as Vulcan. For Windows to use low level APIs require seriously restructure how things are done on that platform. Due of how young Linux is to gaming, Vulcan will clearly give more benefits to Linux. There's also lack of pull to do DirectX12 ports - Windows 7 is still out there, Windows 8 is still out there. Vulcan will be available to all those platforms.

QuoteDirectx 12 is obviously way ahead of Vulcan at this point

You know all major developers had access for Vulkan for all this time, don't you?

Seriously. Do some fact checking.

You do realize you're not quoting a lot of facts yourself, right? Feel free to check some performance comparison videos of Shadow of Mordor, Company of Heroes, Bioshock or any other Linux AAA port. The only game that shows equal performance thus far has been the beta or Arma III.

QuoteGrowing pains. Port was done by few guys with little time on their hands. They got their stuff together eventually. While not named WB game is still getting repaired 3 months after release.

I'm not blaming anybody, but stating facts. The game used to run bad and stayed that way for a long time. And considering there are immensely fewer AAA releases on Linux the impact of a botched release is much more significant.

QuoteAgain, let's talk facts. Different cards have different performance. Classic recent Nvidia card like 760 GTX works reliably well, with good performance. Older cards and AMD is big issues vendors need to tackle.

I've never said the performance was bad always. I said it was sub par compared to Windows. It you've dropped from 80 to 65 fps the game objectively will still be running smooth but you have a significant loss in performance none-the-less. Again - feel free to check youtube for some benchmarks.

QuoteErrr what. Seriously this is your argument for success or failure of DirectX12? First of all, DX12 is a buzz word, as Vulcan. For Windows to use low level APIs require seriously restructure how things are done on that platform. Due of how young Linux is to gaming, Vulcan will clearly give more benefits to Linux. There's also lack of pull to do DirectX12 ports - Windows 7 is still out there, Windows 8 is still out there. Vulcan will be available to all those platforms.

You do realize there are already two actual games using the DX12 API - Gears of War on Xbone and Ashes of Singularity on Windows. All we've seen so far from Vulkan is an Android benchmark comparison.

You may bury your head in the sand but facts are facts - Steam OS and Linux in general are not currently an appealing gaming platform. Things have improved a lot but there is still a lot of way for Linux to go before it can be a real competitor. Maybe things will suddenly change and come Christmas people will be buying Steam Machines like mad, but my prediction is come March next year Liam will be making an editorial about the low popularity of Steam Machines.

And just so you don't say I'm not providing any facts:

https://www.youtube.com/user/PenguinRecordings/videos

Please watch all comparison videos.


Last edited by mao_dze_dun on 22 September 2015 at 6:44 pm UTC

Quoting: liamdawe

Quoting: Mountain Man

Quoting: liamdawe

Quoting: Mountain ManI'm with you. Two-years ago we were looking at the occasional indie release and hoping the next Humble Bundle would include Linux ports. Today we have over 1000 high-quality games literally at our finger tips, and deleting your Windows partition and gaming exclusively Linux is (finally!) a viable option. (snip)

Sorry, but again, there isn't 1,000 quality Linux games on there, I can guarantee the actual number of quality games is well under 1,000 which is my point.

That's rather a matter of opinion, don't you think? I would be curious to know how you define a quality game.

Hence why it is an editorial. To everyone: If you have forgotten, an editorial is 100% my opinion, don't read it if you can't handle it ;)

If person A says "bla" and person B says "Sorry, not bla!", is it really unreasonable to ask what basis person B had for contradicting person A?
If you have forgotten, Mountain Man's comment on your editorial is 100% his opinion, don't read it if you can't handle it ;)

Quoting: zerothisLinux gaming does not begin and end with Steam.

Comes damn close.

There seems to be a problem here. Announcing X number of games on Linux, or saying the best games have a Linux version, implies the idea Linux should be or is becoming more like Windows (Lots of games, Like Windows. Top selling games, like Windows). I meant think about it? Are we Linux users because it's like Windows or because it's different than Windows? How about focusing on the differences instead. Why should having a high percentage of games for niche markets be counted as negative? More Linux games fill a certain demand than Windows does, that's good! Lets list the differences:
More than any other platform, there are a higher percentage of games on Linux that have female authors and femaleprotagonist. In fact, Linux has the most games outright that have a Female protagonist (higher number, not just higher percentage) http://www.uvlist.net/groups/info/femaleprotagonist
Your turn everybody, start naming things where Linux is better than Windows.


Last edited by zerothis on 22 September 2015 at 7:43 pm UTC