The recent Linux port teaser from Feral Interactive seems to be coming to Mac first now

Do note I didn't say anywhere this teaser is delayed for us ;) only that Mac is getting whatever it is first.

Yes, your wording were very carefully, though "might be encountering problems" might imply "they might experience a delay" ;)


Last edited by jens on 13 Aug 2017 at 9:32 am UTC

I also love Liam's Linux bias. :)

I'm a little confused on what you mean here?

The day you lose that Linux bias I'm outta here. What is this, gamingonwhatever.com? :P

Hmmm okay so mac people might get whatever game it is on the radar a little earlier...so what? I also think that a direct comparison of games being ported to Mac and Linux isn't very productive. Concerning Bioshock Remastered:Feral never stated that they will port all games for mac to linux as well. It's a revenue based decision for them if they want to port a game to mac, linux or both.

Feral is one of the very few companies out there that care about bringing games to our platform. We know that linux sales amount to two to three percent on average, even if it was five percent it's still pretty small, and we also know from some insider interviews (thanks to the great work of people like Liam) that linux issues also take up a lot of resources for the support.

I remember the article about Witcher 3 not being ported to linux because of the linux community treating the developers in a really bad way for the witcher 2 port. So if I was a dev, and I had some trouble porting whatever game that is to linux, would I want the linux community to push me and support me to make it work (cookies helped in the past ;) ) or do I want it to complain about the game being ported to mac first (even if not intended, I think the article does sound like a complaint in part)?

I recently played a lot of Ferals ports: Shadow of mordor, Hitman and now total war: warhammer, all work just fine on my machine and I am really thankful for Feral bringing those games to linux, because otherwise I had to switch to my Windows 10 partition to play and I always feel like having to shower afterwards :P

[quote=tuubi]

I also love Liam's Linux bias. :)

I'm a little confused on what you mean here?

I share your predilection for Linux. And it is pretty cool that you also report on such details. I like these articles. :)

But remember: The Mac people wait until today on Deus Ex, DiRT Rally and many more.

The disease is called "proprietary API". But I'm curious what the current port will be. I guess it will be the current Tomb Raider with Vulkan support. For Linux they will have to support a lot of Hardware. Not so easy. For Apple they will use Metal and have to support only a few systems.

@Duke: Don't really get where you seem to think pointing out things are complaints, but okay. The article even ended on a positive note.

You can hardly compare this article to what happened with The Witcher 2, come on now. I'm mostly stating basic facts, which gave me an opportunity to reshare the teaser.

The fact is though, I want Bioshock Remastered on Linux and I will repeatedly make it known :)


Last edited by Liam Dawe on 13 Aug 2017 at 10:38 am UTC

@Duke: Don't really get where you seem to think pointing out things are complaints, but okay. The article even ended on a positive note.

Sorry I didn't mean to offend you or anything ;). And you are right, the article did end on a positive note.

However I can't really understand the necessity of the article for us linux gamers. The title says explicitly that the game will be on mac first, but why would a linux gamer care, as long as the game gets ported to linux eventually? What would be of interest however, is to know if said game was delayed, which we couldn't possibly know because no one knows the time schedule of feral. Why were linux and mac versions separated on the radar? Maybe they've got problems with the linux version,maybe they were faster with the mac version than expected, we can only speculate.

You can hardly compare this article to what happened with The Witcher 2, come on now. I'm mostly stating basic facts, which gave me an opportunity to reshare the teaser.

Sorry again, I didn't mean to say that either. In no way is this article comparable with what happened with witcher 2, of course. I was merely trying to break a lance for supporting devs who keep bringing great games to our platform.

The fact is though, I want Bioshock Remastered on Linux and I will repeatedly make it known :)

Me too! Who knows maybe, if the recent feral questionnaire turns out to show enough interest in the game, we'll get a linux port eventually. ;)

@Duke: Don't really get where you seem to think pointing out things are complaints, but okay. The article even ended on a positive note.

Sorry I didn't mean to offend you or anything ;). And you are right, the article did end on a positive note.

However I can't really understand the necessity of the article for us linux gamers. The title says explicitly that the game will be on mac first, but why would a linux gamer care, as long as the game gets ported to linux eventually? What would be of interest however, is to know if said game was delayed, which we couldn't possibly know because no one knows the time schedule of feral. Why were linux and mac versions separated on the radar? Maybe they've got problems with the linux version,maybe they were faster with the mac version than expected, we can only speculate.

No offense taken at all. We often speculate on a lot of things here, it's nothing new. A lot of people generally want to know and keep up to date on what Feral are doing, myself included.

Also, knowing we are getting a release later is also important to know. Day 1 releases are important for Linux as a gaming platform. Delayed releases end up getting less enthusiasm in general. Especially if it's a multiplayer title, we don't want to end up getting a game when the hype has vanished and there's no one left online. Hopefully not the case here.

You can hardly compare this article to what happened with The Witcher 2, come on now. I'm mostly stating basic facts, which gave me an opportunity to reshare the teaser.

Sorry again, I didn't mean to say that either. In no way is this article comparable with what happened with witcher 2, of course. I was merely trying to break a lance for supporting devs who keep bringing great games to our platform.

And support Feral we generally do :). I think you've taken the article in too negatively.

The fact is though, I want Bioshock Remastered on Linux and I will repeatedly make it known :)

Me too! Who knows maybe, if the recent feral questionnaire turns out to show enough interest in the game, we'll get a linux port eventually. ;)

Well the more people request it, hopefully the better our chances.

btw there is a free DLC for Total Warhammer, you have to go to there web page create or login to your account and activate it through steam

Two things of interest here:
1. it is redeemed via oauth, which was supposedly turned off a while ago - yet again it's proved that select publishers still have access to this feature
2. it says it was redeemed successfully, yet doesn't show up in my library, possibly it's not available on Linux (yet?)

The fact is though, I want Bioshock Remastered on Linux and I will repeatedly make it known :)

If I were Feral I would think twice if I would start a port of Bioshock Remastered to Linux too. The original Bioshock is rather old. Back in the days even I had a dual boot system with Windows. There I played the original game and thus wouldn't purchase it again, even remastered, considering other games currently available for purchase. I could imagine that a lot of Linux people would decide like me and actual sales of a port would mostly be out of sentiment only. To low I guess for justifying the costs of a port.

Mac is I guess differently due to much higher volume in absolute numbers and because most (or lesser) Mac users don't have a dual boot past.

PS: Regarding the article, note that "X-Com War of the Chosen" now has two items on the radar too, both Linux and Mac are in "Very soon". Guess we have also witnessed an overall update of the radar. ;)


Last edited by jens on 13 Aug 2017 at 4:59 pm UTC

Mac is I guess differently due to much higher volume in absolute numbers and because most (or lesser) Mac users don't have a dual boot past.

I disagree. You know of Boot Camp right?

I imagine most Mac gamers used Windows for years before getting a Mac too.

I Sincerely hope that at some point, we'd at least get complete franchise ports.

Feral did Shadow of Mordor, but shadow of War is not planned. They did an Ok job with Mankind Divided, but there's no port of Human Revolution.

What I'm most afraid of, is that there's simply not enough of us to justify having Feral doing any work...

I've started buying games, just because they have Linux support. Games I'd ignore, games I've owned for Windows on a CD. The games I like almost never get ported (probably never will, unless Bethesda change their policies). Am I the only, who does this out of fear that those semi-native ports are going to disappear?

I'm looking at the recommended specs for Bioshock Remastered for Windows (minimum GeForce 670/recommend 770), and it makes me wonder how many Macs out there will be able to handle it

I imagine most Mac gamers used Windows for years before getting a Mac too.

I would say there are in relative numbers less Mac users with a Windows past (or present) than Linux users, surely in absolute numbers. But we can agree to disagree here ;)

This combined with the general situation of more support costs on Linux due to much higher hardware and software fragmentation would be my reasoning for not bringing Bioshock Remastered to Linux. But this is just speculation from me. Would be nice if we would at some point hear Feral's actual reason for this business decision.

What I'm most afraid of, is that there's simply not enough of us to justify having Feral doing any work...

That is indeed the question, right? Looks like a turning point at the moment. Our situation has that much improved in the last years that it feels like either we had the tip and the market is now satisfied or that we are at the beginning of seeing Linux to grow to a serious gaming platform.

PS: That said I'm really glad to see Ubuntu switch to Gnome again, to get rid of some fragmentation in the Linux Desktop world. We would be much stronger if 95% of all users would use either CentOs/Fedora or Ubuntu (or in other words: Debian or Red Hat based distro's).

I imagine most Mac gamers used Windows for years before getting a Mac too.

I would say there are in relative numbers less Mac users with a Windows past (or present) than Linux users, surely in absolute numbers. But we can agree to disagree here ;)

Unless either of us have anything to back it up it's speculation on both of our parts, not worth debating to be honest ;)

This combined with the general situation of more support costs on Linux due to much higher hardware and software fragmentation would be my reasoning for not bringing Bioshock Remastered to Linux. But this is just speculation from me. Would be nice if we would at some point hear Feral's actual reason for this business decision.

That will always be an issue of course and another not worth debating, mainly as that point is an obvious point :). Still, most developers generally target SteamOS and/or Ubuntu to get around that. Feral in this case, go by that too usually.

Hmmm okay so mac people might get whatever game it is on the radar a little earlier...so what?

So this is very important. Linux, as a profitable platform, is still weak. Waiting a bit more for a game is not a problem, but it may be one of the first sign of a decline of Linux ports.

The big wave of ports we had these years was due to comapnies following Valve in their bet. The situation is diferent now. Steam machine were'nt a big success, Linux market shares does not seem to progress, companies now see much clearer the costs and expected profits.

If Feral would slow down Linux ports (I'm not saying they do! Just considering the possibility), it would mean porting for us would be less profitable. Which would be very very bad for us.

I believe our platform can become a viable target, but we're not there yet. Drivers, ABI compatibility, libraries backward compatibilities, middleware are still major problems.

We may experience a slow down for the upcoming two or three years until vulkan, Mesa, engines, flatpack (or any other similar tech) are stable enougth.

If marketshare doesn't rise in the next years, Linux as gaming os will probably fall into oblivion.
Like my Tax app which I had on Ubuntu. I mailed and they said not enough users to continue, use Windows.-

I'm looking at the recommended specs for Bioshock Remastered for Windows (minimum GeForce 670/recommend 770), and it makes me wonder how many Macs out there will be able to handle it

Those specs are basically based on politics, not real-life performance. They had to put something that is still supported by graphics card vendors. Real requirements are almost the same as the original one. I played it 1080p maxed on an old 6850 and it could easily do 100+ fps.

What I'm most afraid of, is that there's simply not enough of us to justify having Feral doing any work...

PS: That said I'm really glad to see Ubuntu switch to Gnome again, to get rid of some fragmentation in the Linux Desktop world. We would be much stronger if 95% of all users would use either CentOs/Fedora or Ubuntu (or in other words: Debian or Red Hat based distro's).

Yes and No. Reducing fragmentation in that area is a good thing, but it only works out well, because both sides had a shortage of funds and developers, not a coders' block. Plus the ideas were nauseatingly similar, so you actually had effort duplication, with some diverging experience.

If people writing Debian or Ubuntu decided to merge into Red Hat, SUSE, it would have much the same effect. You would also have an added bonus of merging the advantages of all those families. You'd have centralised control over the system from SUSE, the streamlined User friendly experience for which Ubuntu is famous, and Red Hat's optimisations and security as a baseline. Best of all worlds.

But if you were to merge every other distribution into those narrow categories, you'd have a disaster. Arch is built in a very different way: it can't merge into Red Hat, because their entire ideology would be scrapped or lost. Same with Slack and Gentoo. For a corporate distribution, a "User builds their own system" kind of approach is more of a liability, and it would just die. I like that approach, and would like to keep it that way.

That said, if the corporate world finally decides on a universal Package format, It'd make our lives easier.