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.
elbuglione Jul 6, 2017
Quoting: ShmerlQuoting: 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).
I did not know about that game.
In any case, Gwent (2D Unity Engine game and NOT LINUX?) is the final evidence that needed to understand the problem of CDPR and GOG is unrelated to the difficulty of making ports for Linux, lack of time or poor support.
It is simply negligence...
CDPR and GOG have the policy of completely ignoring Linux.
Maybe, it's time to do the same... as I did with Activision-Ubisoft-EA
R.I.P. CDPR
Last edited by elbuglione on 6 July 2017 at 5:16 pm UTC
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Quoting: elbuglioneI did not know about that game.
In any case, Gwent (2D Unity Engine game and NOT LINUX?) is the final evidence that needed to understand the problem of CDPR and GOG is unrelated to the difficulty of making ports for Linux, lack of time or poor support.
It is simply negligence...
I'd call it perceived lack of demand. Disprove them by flooding them with requests for Linux versions. And if you don't want to, it only proves their point of view ;)
They can demonstrate demand requests to their investors (to show potential customer base). Not sure what else can motivate them.
Last edited by Shmerl on 6 July 2017 at 5:30 pm UTC
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Quoting: ShmerlI'd call it perceived lack of demand. Disprove them by flooding them with requests for Linux versions.
The problem is that it's not just perceived. We really need bigger market share. Man, the Linux desktop is really pretty damned good (I remember when it wasn't, but those days are gone) . . . I know there's a monopolist busily trying to keep it sidelined, I know nobody has figured a way to milk it for concentrated money, but there's a side of me that really can't understand why we're not growing much.
Last edited by Purple Library Guy on 6 July 2017 at 5:47 pm UTC
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elbuglione Jul 6, 2017
Quoting: ShmerlThey can demonstrate demand requests to their investors (to show potential customer base). Not sure what else can motivate them.Maybe you forget that the system does not work like this. CDPR should convince ME to buy your product, not vice versa.
Quoting: ShmerlDisprove them by flooding them with requests for Linux versions. And if you don't want to, it only proves their point of viewMaybe you're right ... being like that, R.I.P. CDPR
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Quoting: Purple Library GuyQuoting: ShmerlI'd call it perceived lack of demand. Disprove them by flooding them with requests for Linux versions.
The problem is that it's not just perceived. We really need bigger market share. Man, the Linux desktop is really pretty damned good (I remember when it wasn't, but those days are gone) . . . I know there's a monopolist busily trying to keep it sidelined, I know nobody has figured a way to milk it for concentrated money, but there's a side of me that really can't understand why we're not growing much.
To a degree. Bigger market share would surely prevent such snags, but even current is already enough to make profit, as other developers demonstrated. I suppose CDPR are either not convinced, or they don't want to bother anymore, since they aren't familiar with Linux development and fixing that requires investment.
In the context of this discussion, I think the main reason for all these problems is their expectation for Valve to push Steam Machines, which didn't materialize. Remember - both ads were about SteamOS specifically.
Last edited by Shmerl on 6 July 2017 at 6:24 pm UTC
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Quoting: adolsonLinux 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.
While you're on that subject, as a proud Linux user, I regularly post to friends and other channels about my lack of appreciation of Microsoft and Apple. Not going to do it here, but I have plenty of bad things to say about both those companies and their business practices.
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I understand that a small percentage of users on any platform can be childish and moronic and throw tantrums when they don't get their way. however, I have read plenty of tantrums from gamers on other platforms so punishing all Linux users for the sins of a vocal minority is also childish and also shows a tremendous disrespect for the vast majority of Linux users that would willingly support your efforts. I paid good money for Witcher 2 and would have paid the same for Witcher 3. I won't buy it, even though I also have a Windows 10 install, out of principal. If the developer won't support my preferred platform I won't support the developer. I have always felt that and do not own any steam game that does not also have a linux variant. So I do apologize to the developers for some people's lack of tack and childish behavior (even though I had nothing to do with it) but I will keep my money and spend it elsewhere on developers that support Linux.
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Quoting: ShmerlQuoting: etonbearsThe parallel with CDPR is their apparent intent to provide TW3 for Linux by making RedEngine cross platform and provide development tools for 3rd party use. For whatever reason ( likely the cost vs predicted revenue ), they abandoned the RedEngine port, and it is my guess that with it went TW3 for Linux.
The lack of a Linux version of RedEngine also probably means no Linux version of Cyberpunk 2077. As Cyberpunk 2077 is already in the asset and subsystem creation stage ( at a guess, 2H 2018 release ), and they are using a multiplayer-enabled version of RedEngine with additional capabilities like vehicles, I would be surprised if the engine also adds Linux or Vulkan support.
That sounds logical, except for one thing. Their current engine (used in CP2077) is a very major rewrite, and quite different from their TW3 engine. So any attempts to retrofit it back into TW3 would also be far from trivial. Their cancellation of plans to release RedEngine for the world came after TW3 was already released, so it affected more their current engine (CP2077 one), and not TW3 one, since there was no point to release TW3 engine, when they are making a much better one already. So while it could be the reason for TW3 Linux cancellation in other timing circumstances, I don't think it was one here.
And I don't think it has any bearing on them using or not using Vulkan. They can as well use Vulkan in CP2077 if they aren't stupid, even if they don't plan to release the engine for others. But they consistently avoided answering any questions about engine used in CP2077, so anything can be going on there.
Of course; we are both speculating based on what we read. You can infer quite a lot from reading the job adverts for CP2077; those adverts specify skill sets the candidate should have, as well as the job activities and responsibilities. You can make reasonable guesses both from what the adverts say, as well as what they don't. For example, I found no mention of Linux, Mac, Android, iOS, Vulkan, Metal or even OpenGL. All of these would be new to CDPR if supported, and you would expect their job adverts to include these as skills or activities somewhere. So, my conclusion is that they are not likely to support these platforms/technologies in CP2077, although that is still just speculation.
With respect to engine updates, as RedEngine remains an internal technology, the updates are probably continuous. By that I mean that new or expanded features are probably added all the time to support new projects like CP2077. RedEngine would certainly need a lot of new features to support CP2077 concepts that were absent in TW3, but equally, much of RedEngine is likely to be generic rendering, path-finding, physics etc that will be unchanged from TW3. In normal circumstances, I would also expect CDPR to require their updated engine to always produce a working build of previous games as a regression test; it would certainly represent their most rigorous QA option. ( This is why Bethesda were able to release Skyrim Special Edition; it is the Skyrim game compiled using the engine technologies updated for Fallout 4 ).
It can be fun to speculate when there is no concrete information, but I think that game development ( particularly on these large-scale games ) is such a fluid activity, that even CDPR could not tell you, right now, how exactly CP2077 will be delivered. That may also be why the bigger studios/projects are becoming wary of promising things they can't be sure to deliver ( and then getting pilloried for it ).
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The stock exchange story does not hold water at all. Witcher 2 was released for Linux on 2014-05-22 and the blog post talked about the CDR share plummeting on the Warsaw Stock Exchange in 2014. Well this is the actual closing prices of the CDR share on the Warsaw Stock Exchange from the release to the end of 2014 and as you all can see the price went up, not down (it closed the year at +12.45% as compared with the day the Linux version was released).
Last edited by F.Ultra on 6 July 2017 at 10:18 pm UTC
| 2014-05-22 | 14.85 |
| 2014-05-23 | 14.66 |
| 2014-05-26 | 14.89 |
| 2014-05-27 | 14.8 |
| 2014-05-28 | 14.8 |
| 2014-05-29 | 14.89 |
| 2014-05-30 | 15.2 |
| 2014-06-02 | 15.4 |
| 2014-06-03 | 15.38 |
| 2014-06-04 | 15.32 |
| 2014-06-05 | 16.15 |
| 2014-06-06 | 16.5 |
| 2014-06-09 | 16.75 |
| 2014-06-10 | 16.58 |
| 2014-06-11 | 16.27 |
| 2014-06-12 | 16.5 |
| 2014-06-13 | 16.1 |
| 2014-06-16 | 16.25 |
| 2014-06-17 | 16.3 |
| 2014-06-18 | 16.7 |
| 2014-06-20 | 16.73 |
| 2014-06-23 | 16.35 |
| 2014-06-24 | 15.88 |
| 2014-06-25 | 15.44 |
| 2014-06-26 | 15.3 |
| 2014-06-27 | 15 |
| 2014-06-30 | 15.24 |
| 2014-07-01 | 15.07 |
| 2014-07-02 | 15.2 |
| 2014-07-03 | 15 |
| 2014-07-04 | 15.07 |
| 2014-07-07 | 15 |
| 2014-07-08 | 15.3 |
| 2014-07-09 | 15.23 |
| 2014-07-10 | 15.08 |
| 2014-07-11 | 14.95 |
| 2014-07-14 | 14.72 |
| 2014-07-15 | 14.85 |
| 2014-07-16 | 14.84 |
| 2014-07-17 | 14.9 |
| 2014-07-18 | 15.25 |
| 2014-07-21 | 15.33 |
| 2014-07-22 | 15.42 |
| 2014-07-23 | 15.6 |
| 2014-07-24 | 15.5 |
| 2014-07-25 | 15.63 |
| 2014-07-28 | 15.5 |
| 2014-07-29 | 15.5 |
| 2014-07-30 | 15.41 |
| 2014-07-31 | 15.3 |
| 2014-08-01 | 15.06 |
| 2014-08-04 | 15.25 |
| 2014-08-05 | 15.4 |
| 2014-08-06 | 15.08 |
| 2014-08-07 | 14.47 |
| 2014-08-08 | 14.5 |
| 2014-08-11 | 14.9 |
| 2014-08-12 | 14.77 |
| 2014-08-13 | 15 |
| 2014-08-14 | 15.3 |
| 2014-08-18 | 15.25 |
| 2014-08-19 | 15.69 |
| 2014-08-20 | 15.85 |
| 2014-08-21 | 16.2 |
| 2014-08-22 | 16.05 |
| 2014-08-25 | 15.8 |
| 2014-08-26 | 15.7 |
| 2014-08-27 | 16 |
| 2014-08-28 | 15.23 |
| 2014-08-29 | 15.5 |
| 2014-09-01 | 15.45 |
| 2014-09-02 | 15.55 |
| 2014-09-03 | 15.85 |
| 2014-09-04 | 15.89 |
| 2014-09-05 | 15.98 |
| 2014-09-08 | 16 |
| 2014-09-09 | 16.6 |
| 2014-09-10 | 16.75 |
| 2014-09-11 | 16.9 |
| 2014-09-12 | 16.61 |
| 2014-09-15 | 16.7 |
| 2014-09-16 | 16.89 |
| 2014-09-17 | 17 |
| 2014-09-18 | 16.74 |
| 2014-09-19 | 16.76 |
| 2014-09-22 | 16.73 |
| 2014-09-23 | 16.61 |
| 2014-09-24 | 16.59 |
| 2014-09-25 | 16.61 |
| 2014-09-26 | 16.59 |
| 2014-09-29 | 16.59 |
| 2014-09-30 | 16.59 |
| 2014-10-01 | 16.59 |
| 2014-10-02 | 16.63 |
| 2014-10-03 | 16.7 |
| 2014-10-06 | 16.95 |
| 2014-10-07 | 16.97 |
| 2014-10-08 | 16.74 |
| 2014-10-09 | 16.86 |
| 2014-10-10 | 16.4 |
| 2014-10-13 | 16.15 |
| 2014-10-14 | 15.7 |
| 2014-10-15 | 15.46 |
| 2014-10-16 | 15.56 |
| 2014-10-17 | 16.15 |
| 2014-10-20 | 16.26 |
| 2014-10-21 | 16.46 |
| 2014-10-22 | 16.42 |
| 2014-10-23 | 16.5 |
| 2014-10-24 | 16.65 |
| 2014-10-27 | 16.7 |
| 2014-10-28 | 16.68 |
| 2014-10-29 | 16.67 |
| 2014-10-30 | 16.65 |
| 2014-10-31 | 16.7 |
| 2014-11-03 | 16.64 |
| 2014-11-04 | 16.84 |
| 2014-11-05 | 16.73 |
| 2014-11-06 | 16.95 |
| 2014-11-07 | 16.57 |
| 2014-11-10 | 16.45 |
| 2014-11-12 | 16.39 |
| 2014-11-13 | 16.28 |
| 2014-11-14 | 16.44 |
| 2014-11-17 | 16.48 |
| 2014-11-18 | 16.9 |
| 2014-11-19 | 17.73 |
| 2014-11-20 | 17.7 |
| 2014-11-21 | 17.95 |
| 2014-11-24 | 17.99 |
| 2014-11-25 | 17.98 |
| 2014-11-26 | 17.85 |
| 2014-11-27 | 17.5 |
| 2014-11-28 | 17.53 |
| 2014-12-01 | 17.42 |
| 2014-12-02 | 17.98 |
| 2014-12-03 | 17.87 |
| 2014-12-04 | 17.39 |
| 2014-12-05 | 17.4 |
| 2014-12-08 | 17.3 |
| 2014-12-09 | 16.58 |
| 2014-12-10 | 16.8 |
| 2014-12-11 | 16.15 |
| 2014-12-12 | 16 |
| 2014-12-15 | 16.22 |
| 2014-12-16 | 16.22 |
| 2014-12-17 | 16.2 |
| 2014-12-18 | 16.54 |
| 2014-12-19 | 16.19 |
| 2014-12-22 | 16.15 |
| 2014-12-23 | 16.37 |
| 2014-12-29 | 16.36 |
| 2014-12-30 | 16.7 |Last edited by F.Ultra on 6 July 2017 at 10:18 pm UTC
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Quoting: etonbearsIn normal circumstances, I would also expect CDPR to require their updated engine to always produce a working build of previous games as a regression test; it would certainly represent their most rigorous QA option.
From what I've heard from engine developers, way more often engines are thrown away (for the most part) with each new major version. Which would mean they won't be able to use CP2077 engine for TW3 without some huge effort.
But again, we have no info.
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