The Witcher 3 is something Linux users have been practically begging to have, but the problem is that it seems it will likely never come to Linux. An ex-Virtual Programming developer has taken to reddit explaining why this may have happened.
I should stress, for our own record here that this is not the official word from Virtual Programming or CD Projekt RED. This is the personal opinion of an ex-VP developer.
Here's the issue: The Linux version of The Witcher 2 was released in a poor state, it had poor performance and just didn't really work well at all. It was later fixed-up and last time I tried it, the performance was absolutely fine for me. The real problem, is the amount of hate that was sent towards the porters Virtual Programming and directly to CD Projekt RED as well. Even I personally saw some of the hate that was sent their way and it was downright idiotic and absolutely uncalled for.
I will absolutely hold my hands up as well, I made mistakes around it since I simply didn't know enough at the time, and to be honest three years ago I was still learning a lot about everything. I later corrected what I said, as I always aim to.
Writing on reddit, this developer said (source):
It seems we may have also seen a port of The Witcher 1 as well, as the developer also said (source):
There's also this post from another user, who said at the time The Witcher 2 released for Linux, CDProjekt apparently lost a fair amount on the Warsaw Stock Exchange. Apparently due to such a big backlash from the community about the initial release quality. I haven't verified that myself, but if true it would certainly make CDProjekt rather against doing another Linux port with anyone.
This is sad, really sad. I hope this makes a few people reconsider their attitude when talking to developer about the performance of ports. Performance can be worked on and fixed, burnt bridges are harder (and sometimes impossible) to fix.
This reminds me of the time the Blizzard President responded to a small petition asking for Linux ports of their games. The response to the petition was really nice to see from such a big company and truthfully the response I fully expected, but the original statement in reply to it from the petition author (now deleted by the author, but captured in my article) was downright childish and idiotic.
Yes problems are annoying, but throwing insults around helps no one and yes it does make us look bad. I get where people are coming from, to an extent, since some games do end up getting left in a terribly broken state for a long time and sometimes forever. However, in this case VP did good and continued working and now, as stated previously, The Witcher 2 seems fine. Their others ports are generally pretty decent too.
I just hope in future that this developer who got a massive amount of hate and CD Projekt RED can look past it somehow, for all the fans of their franchise on Linux.
Note: I personally spoke to this developer about publishing this with their approval, in the hopes that it might get a few people to re-think their initial attitude towards problems in games. Article taken from GamingOnLinux.com.
I should stress, for our own record here that this is not the official word from Virtual Programming or CD Projekt RED. This is the personal opinion of an ex-VP developer.
Here's the issue: The Linux version of The Witcher 2 was released in a poor state, it had poor performance and just didn't really work well at all. It was later fixed-up and last time I tried it, the performance was absolutely fine for me. The real problem, is the amount of hate that was sent towards the porters Virtual Programming and directly to CD Projekt RED as well. Even I personally saw some of the hate that was sent their way and it was downright idiotic and absolutely uncalled for.
I will absolutely hold my hands up as well, I made mistakes around it since I simply didn't know enough at the time, and to be honest three years ago I was still learning a lot about everything. I later corrected what I said, as I always aim to.
Writing on reddit, this developer said (source):
QuoteI agree, things were not right on release... but the vocality of people went way beyond that. It was an all out hate campaign against VP, against CDPR for "lying about the port being native". I attempted to help people out in my own time and got absolutely roasted and abused for it.
The community needs to realise it simply cannot justify this sort of behaviour if they want to convince devs and publishers to support them. There is no excuse.
It seems we may have also seen a port of The Witcher 1 as well, as the developer also said (source):
QuoteThe vitriol was unbelievable. Yes we messed up the performance on release but we put it right. However a huge hate campaign ensued. Both VP and CDPR got lots of vengeful hate mail sent to them. I cannot help but feel this damaged CDPR's view of the Linux platform irrevocably.
They certainly didnt blame us, because they had us work on a Mac port of Witcher 1 to replace the non-functioning Wineskin version. The same port would have ran on Linux too with very little extra work, but they were not interested in releasing it.
There's also this post from another user, who said at the time The Witcher 2 released for Linux, CDProjekt apparently lost a fair amount on the Warsaw Stock Exchange. Apparently due to such a big backlash from the community about the initial release quality. I haven't verified that myself, but if true it would certainly make CDProjekt rather against doing another Linux port with anyone.
This is sad, really sad. I hope this makes a few people reconsider their attitude when talking to developer about the performance of ports. Performance can be worked on and fixed, burnt bridges are harder (and sometimes impossible) to fix.
This reminds me of the time the Blizzard President responded to a small petition asking for Linux ports of their games. The response to the petition was really nice to see from such a big company and truthfully the response I fully expected, but the original statement in reply to it from the petition author (now deleted by the author, but captured in my article) was downright childish and idiotic.
Yes problems are annoying, but throwing insults around helps no one and yes it does make us look bad. I get where people are coming from, to an extent, since some games do end up getting left in a terribly broken state for a long time and sometimes forever. However, in this case VP did good and continued working and now, as stated previously, The Witcher 2 seems fine. Their others ports are generally pretty decent too.
I just hope in future that this developer who got a massive amount of hate and CD Projekt RED can look past it somehow, for all the fans of their franchise on Linux.
Note: I personally spoke to this developer about publishing this with their approval, in the hopes that it might get a few people to re-think their initial attitude towards problems in games. Article taken from GamingOnLinux.com.
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The comments on this article are closed.
Quoting: elbuglioneIf you are comfortable with your purchase, you should not make any complaints about it ...
But, I'm pretty sure that more than one consumer (especially GamingOnLinux users) bought The Witcher 3, because The Witcher 3 was advertised for SteamOS.
I do not see any complaints from Linux users, against RockStar for not having delivered GTA V for Linux ... that's so, because RockStar never promised anything.
THOSE ARE THE FACTS.
Yeah, I bought TW3 partially on those grounds, and I was really sad, and somewhat angry that it never came to Linux even after being advertised to come to Linux in the Steam popup news / Steam store front page.
When did Rockstar promise GTA V for Linux? I don't remember seeing anything like that.
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lucifertdark Jul 6, 2017
Hands up everyone on here who has received deaththreats or verbal abuse on the Internet, my hand is up by the way, do you know what I did the last time I had some? I laughed & told them to feck right off, it's the internet, what are they going to do reach through the screen & strangle me?
These soft as muck developers need to grow a backbone & get on with giving us the games on Linux cause Windows isn't going to be around for much longer & when it's gone we'll still be here playing the games they didn't develop & they'll be on the unemployment line.
These soft as muck developers need to grow a backbone & get on with giving us the games on Linux cause Windows isn't going to be around for much longer & when it's gone we'll still be here playing the games they didn't develop & they'll be on the unemployment line.
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Quoting: Guestthose developers would just move over to consoles.
I don't think that will be the case. The PC gaming market is huge.
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lucifertdark Jul 6, 2017
Quoting: GuestYou're living in a dream world. Even if that were the case, those developers would just move over to consoles.It seems to me that I'm one of the few who is actually living in the real world these days. They already develop games for the consoles, in fact most developers start on the consoles then port to PC not the other way round as it's easier to develop for the consoles as they're closed systems with strict limits on what components they have in them.
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Quoting: lucifertdarkThey already develop games for the consoles, in fact most developers start on the consoles then port to PC not the other way round as it's easier to develop for the consoles as they're closed systems with strict limits on what components they have in them.
There are a few developers who develop two versions, one for PC, and one for consoles. Ssome develop for the PC then port to consoles.
I think I heard that CDPR is developing Cyberpunk for PC then porting it to consoles, but I don't recall where I saw it.
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Mountain Man Jul 6, 2017
Quoting: lucifertdarkHands up everyone on here who has received deaththreats or verbal abuse on the Internet, my hand is up by the way, do you know what I did the last time I had some? I laughed & told them to feck right off, it's the internet, what are they going to do reach through the screen & strangle me?What makes you think Windows won't be around much longer? Last I checked, Microsoft still had a stranglehold on the home desktop market, and there are no indications that they've loosened their grasp.
These soft as muck developers need to grow a backbone & get on with giving us the games on Linux cause Windows isn't going to be around for much longer & when it's gone we'll still be here playing the games they didn't develop & they'll be on the unemployment line.
Last edited by Mountain Man on 6 July 2017 at 1:24 pm UTC
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Metallinatus Jul 6, 2017
Quoting: TheBardThen it's as confirmed and "coming" as Street Fighter V.... except Capcom eventually spoke up and said that they didn't ditch the port, it is just reaaaaaally low in the priority list of their always-in-development game.... which is more than CDPR ever did with GOG.Quoting: ZeloxThey have answered this;
https://www.gog.com/forum/general/gog_galaxy_biggest_update_yet_marks_the_end_of_beta_5e5d5/post525
There is no ETA, but its planned and worked on atm.
I would like some more feed back from the devs tho, dont like the silence, only makes me confused.
But thats the latest news we got from it, atleast what I know of.
That's exactly what i say when i don't want to do something ;) Two years to port a simple think like Galaxy? They already distribute Linux builds, so the only non trivial part of porting Galaxy is networking. Few months would be understandbale, but more than 2 years and still no ETA?
They don't care about porting Galaxy, that's the only rational thinking. But they know that cancelling it would result in a backslash. I'm sure they prefer keeping us waiting for something that may never than creating a massive wave of complaigns. To be honest, i find it insulting. This is extremely rude. They should be honest with their custumers (us).
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Linux isn't a big enough market for most companies to care about, yet it's big enough to significantly drop stock prices?? OK, then.
This is all unfortunate, but it's not really surprising. Many companies received a lot of abusive correspondence from Linux users for the past two decades. Some things never change.
This is all unfortunate, but it's not really surprising. Many companies received a lot of abusive correspondence from Linux users for the past two decades. Some things never change.
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elbuglione Jul 6, 2017
[quote=Shmerl]
Maybe we could choose to skip the part where we put the negative reviews for The Witcher 3 ... and opt for a rainfall of Positives in The Witcher 2, with special emphasis on its good performance for Linux ...
Do you think that approach would get someone's attention in CDPR?
Quoting: elbuglioneWe could organize a boycott where we would massify hundreds of negative notes for The Witcher 3 on Steam, claiming for the version of SteamOS that never came ...
See the results of similar campaigns, such as "GTA V" and its MODs.
At the same time, we could organize a positive rain on The Witcher 2 on Linux, because its current Linux Port works perfectly.
Quoting: elbuglioneI think @Liamdawe and @Shmerl are the ones to organize this massive complaint on Steam.
Quoting: ShmerlQuoting: elbuglionefair enough...
When you are interested on a different approach, you know what you have to do.
I had enough interactions with CDPR. Complaints won't really do anything with them. But I'm not claiming they are completely rational either. Some things they do don't make sense. Like quite major communication failures, or expectations that community won't react to stuff like "downgrade".
Maybe we could choose to skip the part where we put the negative reviews for The Witcher 3 ... and opt for a rainfall of Positives in The Witcher 2, with special emphasis on its good performance for Linux ...
Do you think that approach would get someone's attention in CDPR?
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Quoting: elbuglioneMaybe we could choose to skip the part where we put the negative reviews for The Witcher 3 ... and opt for a rainfall of Positives in The Witcher 2, with special emphasis on its good performance for Linux ...
Do you think that approach would get someone's attention in CDPR?
I think simply expressing interest in their new (and recent) games on Linux is already enough. For example, GOG/CDPR seem to be focused a lot on their on-line game Gwent. It's even using Unity. Why is it not available for Linux? Personally I'm not so interested in it, but some are.
Besides voting in wishlists I already linked above, leave some informative comments where you express your interest here:
The Witcher 3: http://forums.cdprojektred.com/forum/en/the-witcher-series/the-witcher-3-wild-hunt/21270-the-witcher-3-for-linux
Gwent: http://forums.cdprojektred.com/forum/en/gwent/general-discussions-aa/101703-linux-version
Cyberpunk 2077: http://forums.cdprojektred.com/forum/en/cyberpunk/cyberpunk-2077-discussion/110083-cyberpunk-2077-for-linux
If you want to praise TW2 as their previous achievement on Linux - why not. But show some visibility. So far the impression is, that very few care (besides the wishlist entry).
Last edited by Shmerl on 6 July 2017 at 4:45 pm UTC
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