I know, I know, quality over quantity! Still, I can't help but feel excited by the amount of good quality games that are now available on Linux.
The current count is at around 3529 on Steam, give or take a few that still show up in the list that haven't actually released yet. It might be slightly different depending on the country you're in too.
The rate of games releasing for Linux hasn't actually increased all that much at all, it took a very similar amount of time for us to go from 2.5K to 3K and again now to 3.5K. The funny thing is how wrong I was back in February, since I thought it might slow down. If anything, it's increasing in pace overall, just not all that quickly.
While we're on the subject, GOG now has about 719 games that support Linux, so their library is growing for us too. It pales in comparison to Steam though. GOG are much more selective about what they allow on their store overall, so it's to be expected.
We've had some truly great releases already this year and we've got a lot of time left to go. We've had games like Total War: Shogun 2 & Fall of the Samurai, DiRT Rally, HITMAN, Civilization VI, Sudden Strike 4, Tacoma, Pyre, Albion Online, Planescape: Torment: Enhanced Edition, Rusted Warfare and I could continue on for hours it seems.
I said in my end of year review for 2016, that 2017 would be a massive year for us. Given how the year has gone so far, I think I might have been right. Lots of time left this year, so I bet there's a good amount of surprises due.
What has been your most exciting Linux game release so far this year? I really can't pick! I'm at an absolute loss, there's so many. Article taken from GamingOnLinux.com.
The current count is at around 3529 on Steam, give or take a few that still show up in the list that haven't actually released yet. It might be slightly different depending on the country you're in too.
The rate of games releasing for Linux hasn't actually increased all that much at all, it took a very similar amount of time for us to go from 2.5K to 3K and again now to 3.5K. The funny thing is how wrong I was back in February, since I thought it might slow down. If anything, it's increasing in pace overall, just not all that quickly.
While we're on the subject, GOG now has about 719 games that support Linux, so their library is growing for us too. It pales in comparison to Steam though. GOG are much more selective about what they allow on their store overall, so it's to be expected.
We've had some truly great releases already this year and we've got a lot of time left to go. We've had games like Total War: Shogun 2 & Fall of the Samurai, DiRT Rally, HITMAN, Civilization VI, Sudden Strike 4, Tacoma, Pyre, Albion Online, Planescape: Torment: Enhanced Edition, Rusted Warfare and I could continue on for hours it seems.
I said in my end of year review for 2016, that 2017 would be a massive year for us. Given how the year has gone so far, I think I might have been right. Lots of time left this year, so I bet there's a good amount of surprises due.
What has been your most exciting Linux game release so far this year? I really can't pick! I'm at an absolute loss, there's so many. Article taken from GamingOnLinux.com.
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The comments on this article are closed.
Quoting: Purple Library Guy[ Game designers are part of that community and came through that educationI don't think most game-programmes or game-designers went through a classic computer-science- or informatics-education.
I actually had game programming courses as part of my informatics-studies at a german university and microsoft happily sponsored all the courses related to game design, gave away free licenses here, free hardware there and probably also money to directly use for researching. Nobody but me complained.
I had quite a lot of contact with people working in the gaming-related chairs and they found themselves way more attached to the gaming-community then computer-science. It's just so much a different field and just a tiny fraction of a game-producing team needs to know anything about the deeper core technology let alone maths behind it.
Last edited by const on 15 August 2017 at 7:07 pm UTC
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Crazy Penguin Aug 15, 2017
Quoting: Sir_DiealotAnother perspective on Steam vs GOG:
GOG has 2100 games, 700 for Linux, that's 1/3 of the games.
Steam has about 15000 games, 3500 for Linux, that's less than 1/4.
By ratio, GOG wins.
Well, no. GOG has still a bad Linux support. There are many games with native Linux support which are not on GOG. Galaxy is still missing too. It's a shame! On the other hand I'm not really surprised about the bad support as the "Boss" from CDProject doesn't like Linux, which he made clear many times.
BTW: If you count non-offical supported Games, which are running with DOSBox and Wine, then GOG has more then 1800 Games running on Linux.
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Quoting: DuckeenieQuoting: wolfyrionThe biggest surprise that I had with GOG is when I discovered that is a Cypriot based company :D
(I was like no way!!! but then I understood the reasons like all other foreign companies that have a company in my country)
Proof: https://support.gog.com/hc/en-us/articles/212632089-User-Agreement
This Agreement is a contract between you and GOG Ltd, 7 Florinis Street, Greg Tower, 6th floor, 1065 Nicosia, Cyprus and applies to www.GOG.com, your GOG user account, the GOG Downloader, GOG Galaxy, any games or videos or other content which you purchase or access via us, the GOG web forums, GOG customer and technical support and other services we provide to you (we'll just call all this “GOG services” for short).
That came as a surprise to me. I thought they were based in eastern Europe.
CD Prokect Red is based in Poland the game studio, The commercial arm however is based in Cyprus (gog)
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I don't think you can really put DOSbox into "linux games", especially since most of them are abandoware and GOG just put standard dosbox config with them.
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a very nice number.. but actually most of them are easily outmatched by open source games regarding quality, performance and content... that's nothing you get anyone to about trying Linux as an alternative... so really countable are only those AAA-type games (those you'd use to promote a platform i.e. in a TV-commercial).. and then the number very quickly diminishes.. to .. 100? I don't think there's more (if it even is that high.. no I didn't do a thorough investigation, it's estimation based on following release anouncements), especially when you consider they have to run equally good on the same hardware... compared to ten or twenty(?) times as much on MS Windows (OK, we should compare with Mac first, that would end up in a much more positive result what has happened lately!!)... so, in the last few years our favourite OS made a giant step, but to make it last and not to be just a hype which vanishes as quickly as it appeared, it's necessary that game developers consider multi-platform as the standard and include that in the basic design of their engines, like i.e. UnrealEngine, Unity, CryEngine, Unigine did.. but we need that for major publishers like EA and Ubisoft (which are like Microsoft/Google/Facebook and try to control the market as much as possible).. otherwise the amount of people switching to linux as their major OS would be to low for a porting industry in the long term I'm afraid.. because you won't buy things you don't like forever just because they are available for linux forever (as some do, at least they mention it here from time to time)... and you shouldn't, because - if that is successful - you'll end with tons of games you don't want to play but porters made a good revenue on them and don't care to look at other genres... it might be noble at first but it's devastating in the long run regarding your own satisfaction with the situation...
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Quoting: ColomboI don't think you can really put DOSbox into "linux games", especially since most of them are abandoware and GOG just put standard dosbox config with them.
I don't know how I feel about that. I'm generally happy to welcome any gaming entertainment that can run in Linux as a Linux title, whether natively coded or wrapped in code that allows it to run. Anything that builds the ecosystem is fine with me.
For example, my kids are learning to type using Mavis Beacon Teaches Typing's Amiga version on the FS-UAE emulator. This is the same program I learned on like 30 years ago. Is this a "Linux title?" No. But in discussing what runs on Linux for your enjoyment should the entirety of the Amiga library, DOS library, Dreamcast library, etc get a mention? Absolutely in my book...
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Sir_Diealot Sep 1, 2017
Quoting: iiariQuoting: ColomboI don't think you can really put DOSbox into "linux games", especially since most of them are abandoware and GOG just put standard dosbox config with them.
I don't know how I feel about that. I'm generally happy to welcome any gaming entertainment that can run in Linux as a Linux title, whether natively coded or wrapped in code that allows it to run. Anything that builds the ecosystem is fine with me.
For example, my kids are learning to type using Mavis Beacon Teaches Typing's Amiga version on the FS-UAE emulator. This is the same program I learned on like 30 years ago. Is this a "Linux title?" No. But in discussing what runs on Linux for your enjoyment should the entirety of the Amiga library, DOS library, Dreamcast library, etc get a mention? Absolutely in my book...
Actually I'd prefer it if GOG would put them in a category "Dosbox" and just shipped game files and configuration instead of (or in addition) to those installers. You'd know what you get and could count them however you like.
I also think that gog does not count all dosbox games towards Linux. Probably only those with Linux installer, and that's probably not all of them.
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[quote=Sir_Diealot][quote=iiari]
Don't disagree with that, but is your approach less Noobie friendly?
Quoting: ColomboActually I'd prefer it if GOG would put them in a category "Dosbox" and just shipped game files and configuration instead of (or in addition) to those installers
Don't disagree with that, but is your approach less Noobie friendly?
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