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3) This is all based on releases people actually know/really think will come. Many more games actually arrive than people expect.

That is of course true, but also the known titles do give an indication of the state of affairs. Her's hoping a few major bombs will drop this year too!

Naturally, a lot of the bigger titles aren't announced until they're confident about a release date, I wouldn't say titles we actually know is an indicator of anything right now :)

Just wait and see, there will be a number of juicy releases this year, you can bet on it :P (I could probably say that line for the next 2-3 years and still be right ;)).

That's good news, it seems many of the big AAA Linux titles come out of nowhere, whereas the console type AAA's get hyped up for years in advance.

I think last year wasn't a particularly great year for AAA games in general. Nintendo hit it out of the park with top quality games, there were a handful of excellent platform exclusives like Horizon Dawn, but very few multi-platform must-have games. Other than PUBG, which is still in Beta quality, Assassins Creed Origins and Divinity 2, I'm struggling to think what we missed out on?

" Street Fighter V is still coming according to a recent BoilingSteam interview with TTimo."

That's great news! I thought it had been cancelled.

What is HITMAN considered now that I/O is sans publisher? If they release chapter 2 for Linux this year, I'll be happy with whatever else does or doesn't happen.

Yes, sure, this would make my year too (together with Rise of the Tomb Raider, if it really comes to Linux). I didn't wanted to paint a black and white picture with my statements. Certainly there are very cool titles from independent developers and a lot of titles with a big budget are rather crap (Loot boxes indeed). I'm also not worried that I will get out of games either (also due to limited time).

It is just the feeling that the trend with regular big names from Aspyr and Feral from the past years is slightly turning and nothing has come up to compensate for that. Next to that I guess also the realization on my side that the Linux community is a rather difficult diva to deal with for companies like these both.

Anyway, lets see what happens this year :)

I don't consider myself to have a negative stance in this, but rather objective/analytical, with a negative conclusion. I see no signs of a buildup - quite the contrary.

There was a time where there was a lot of promise flying around in the air, from multiple directions. Typically we had at least rumours about some of the larger titles coming to Linux. Sure, lots of cancellations too - but at least there was movement.

So you compare your hopes and dreams against reality, and analytically come to a negative conclusion?

In case you and your hype-weary co-worriers haven't noticed, very few things happen quickly in the Linux world. The growth of gaming was never going to be an exception, especially as the infrastructure simply wasn't there and is still taking shape. I for one see no reason to throw in the towel just because big releases don't drop in a steadily tightening pace. It's those AAA games we would all like to see that have the biggest hurdles to clear, both technically and from the business (or at least business culture) perspective as well.

We'll get there eventually - wherever that is - and it will be glorious! Or at least a lot better than it used to be. I'm fine either way.

In the past, prominent music was ubiquitous in games, and it was much harder to do atmospheric sound design. I feel that the old approach, which is present in Owlboy, lends to the atmosphere and world building with the same purpose as the ambience of The Long Dark, even if the former is a more abstract method.

I make this argument because it is still rare or impossible (someone go ahead and prove me wrong) to find a game with both excellent, prominent music and rich, atmospheric sound design. Most games these days go for sparse music in favor of more realistic, less abstract immersion, but the old way still works for me.

I agree, it's not common. Old approach works well indeed, one of the good examples is The Neverhood. It has superb music and it sets the mood of each level, but it just plays in a loop like many classic games do.

Still, there are some games that use music only at certain points of the game and make it fit the mood perfectly in time specific manner. I remember for example in The Blade of Darkness there was a moment where your character (when you play a dwarf) enters an ancient city, and the game gives a wide view switching to a different music at the same time. It was very well presented. (Unfortunately this game is now gone from GOG catalog, it used to be sold there).

Almost too many choices per category and some really good games.

I did have to giggle with Ark under 'Best Graphics'. That game is one giant disappoint in regards to graphics. It lets me down every time I give it a chance and fire it up every so often.

What is HITMAN considered now that I/O is sans publisher? If they release chapter 2 for Linux this year, I'll be happy with whatever else does or doesn't happen.

Yes, sure, this would make my year too (together with Rise of the Tomb Raider, if it really comes to Linux). I didn't wanted to paint a black and white picture with my statements. Certainly there are very cool titles from independent developers and a lot of titles with a big budget are rather crap (Loot boxes indeed). I'm also not worried that I will get out of games either (also due to limited time).

It is just the feeling that the trend with regular big names from Aspyr and Feral from the past years is slightly turning and nothing has come up to compensate for that. Next to that I guess also the realization on my side that the Linux community is a rather difficult diva to deal with for companies like these both.

Anyway, lets see what happens this year :)

Some good points there for sure. I guess I'm mostly taking an optimistic view of the indie market continuing to expand now that development tools are more accessible. I totally see your point about Aspyr, et. al; it seems like even last year had a better selection of AAA ports.

I hope that Vulkan continues to grow and makes it easier to develop cross platform from the get go.

You mention the Linux community as a diva, and from a certain point of view it almost seems absurd to expect outside companies to port games for us. I wish more companies would take the old Id Software approach and release the source code while keeping assets proprietary, so we could just do it ourselves.

So you compare your hopes and dreams against reality, and analytically come to a negative conclusion?

In case you and your hype-weary co-worriers haven't noticed, very few things happen quickly in the Linux world. The growth of gaming was never going to be an exception

We see the opposite of growth. That's the entire concern. Any growth would be taken as a victory. Just like miniscule increases in the Steam user stats.

And your ending of that post, THAT'S "hopes and dreams". There's zero guarantee we'll "get there eventually". There's plenty stories of failed attempts in the Linux world too, it's not all a success story on all fronts.
And AAA gaming on Linux is really nothing to take for granted.


Last edited by Beamboom on 14 January 2018 at 8:19 am UTC

So you compare your hopes and dreams against reality, and analytically come to a negative conclusion?

In case you and your hype-weary co-worriers haven't noticed, very few things happen quickly in the Linux world. The growth of gaming was never going to be an exception

We see the opposite of growth. That's the entire concern. Any growth would be taken as a victory. Just like miniscule increases in the Steam user stats.

And your ending of that post, THAT'S "hopes and dreams". There's zero guarantee we'll "get there eventually". There's plenty stories of failed attempts in the Linux world too, it's not all a success story on all fronts.
And gaming on Linux is really nothing to take for granted.

What we see is proportional growth of Windows due to the PUBG effect and Asian market increase. If you want to freak out about it then go ahead, meanwhile I will look at the more significant statistics offered by developers and the gradual numerical growth. I personally think that playing video games is more fun than endlessly worrying about them.

Voted. Except for "Best Update", where my favorite was "Beamdogs 2.5 beta update" for their Enhanced Editions of Baldur´s Gate, Planescape and Icewind. Adding achievments, new classes, auto-looting and much more.


Last edited by Feist on 14 January 2018 at 9:04 am UTC

We see the opposite of growth. That's the entire concern. Any growth would be taken as a victory. Just like miniscule increases in the Steam user stats.

That's exactly it. Stop thinking about this as a competition with victors and losers, measured by meaningless fluctuations in numbers and statistics, and you'll feel a damn sight better. If you bother to look at the big picture, you'll see nothing but progress.

And your ending of that post, THAT'S "hopes and dreams". There's zero guarantee we'll "get there eventually". There's plenty stories of failed attempts in the Linux world too, it's not all a success story on all fronts.

Yes, and there's usually a good reason for those failures, be it a market that isn't large enough yet, or maybe the technical infrastructure is still not ready. These attempts, failed or not, usually spark a bunch of interest and development that helps whoever tries next.

Most success stories take a few false starts. And you have to admit, Linux is definitely one big success story already. No single player matters in this long game.

Speaking of long games, Linux as a gaming platform hasn't had time to fail or succeed yet. To me it's already a success though. No hoping or dreaming necessary. I can buy and play awesome games on my Linux system, and if that isn't success, I don't know the meaning of the word anymore.

And AAA gaming on Linux is really nothing to take for granted.

I don't take it for granted. But I do see all obstacles developers and publishers have faced in the past slowly crumbling away, thanks to a whole bunch of companies and organisations working towards this rather recent goal of making Linux an awesome gaming platform.

Speaking of long games, Linux as a gaming platform hasn't had time to fail or succeed yet ... thanks to a whole bunch of companies and organisations working towards this rather recent goal of making Linux an awesome gaming platform.

Actually Linux has already had a long and turbulent history in the gaming market, even in the AAA market. Loki Software was at least as successful as Aspyr Media and Feral Interactive at porting big AAA titles to Linux, and arguably did even more than Valve to make Linux a viable gaming platform by shepherding the development of SDL and the like. When they and the hype around them died, it did take commercial Linux gaming a long time to recover. So yes, it has in fact "failed" once already, in one sense at least.

To me it's already a success though. No hoping or dreaming necessary. I can buy and play awesome games on my Linux system, and if that isn't success, I don't know the meaning of the word anymore.

On this though we can fully agree. ^_^


Last edited by Hamish on 14 January 2018 at 5:51 pm UTC

While I won't belittle what Loki did and how they survived for a few years in a market that barely existed, I consider their effort one of the false starts I mentioned. They were publishing games on a platform that could not begin to support a viable gaming community, and no distribution or hardware vendor was interested in contributing in any meaningful sense. They were simply at least a decade too early.

I don't take it for granted. But I do see all obstacles developers and publishers have faced in the past slowly crumbling away, thanks to a whole bunch of companies and organisations working towards this rather recent goal of making Linux an awesome gaming platform.

Yes, this is certainly valid. So lets conclude that we will most likely face a dip in the upcoming year(s) regarding big titles, but looking at the long term Linux should rise (again) and shine :).

I'm sorry I haven't participated in the nomination process, but nobody nominated We Happy Few in the anticipated category??

Other than that, I really think that category is a sad sight, it demonstrates a glaring lack of major releases to Linux. There's pretty much just indie titles again, with an exception for a rather old title, Tomb Raider.

Compare the overall best title selection for 2015 to the one for 2016. IMHO, it has already happened.

1) You're mixing up the years. The previous one was for 2016, this is for 2017.
2) From the most anticipated 2017 releases, 4/10 released with another one confirmed this year. One of those was never going to release last year let's be honest (Star Citizen). Street Fighter V is still coming according to a recent BoilingSteam interview with TTimo.
3) This is all based on releases people actually know/really think will come. Many more games actually arrive than people expect.

I get it, we don't get a lot of AAA titles, but what's with all the negativity from people lately? Unless you had crazy wild expectations - we all knew this would take a long time to build up.

To add to the counter, it seems Event[0] may still be coming.

If you bother to look at the big picture, you'll see nothing but progress.

That very much depends on perspective.

Speaking of long games, Linux as a gaming platform hasn't had time to fail or succeed yet.

Oh, but I agree. Too early to declare either. I don't think any of us who do see this dip in progress as a end-all moment. We don't say, "oh now it's OVER, nothing more to be seen here". But we are worried. Worried that this is yet another false start, that we will not go beyond a sh*tload of indies.

Still, and I agree, I personally will have enough to play even with just a couple of AAA a year, as long as those are good. But it's not where we want Linux gaming to be. Far from it. Very far. It's not how I would describe "success" as a gaming platform. Again: Perspective.

I don't take it for granted. But I do see all obstacles developers and publishers have faced in the past slowly crumbling away, thanks to a whole bunch of companies and organisations working towards this rather recent goal of making Linux an awesome gaming platform.

There are room for optimism, I agree with that, and I do love your enthusiasm Tuubi :)


Last edited by Beamboom on 14 January 2018 at 8:08 pm UTC

What we see is proportional growth of Windows due to the PUBG effect and Asian market increase. If you want to freak out about it then go ahead, meanwhile I will look at the more significant statistics offered by developers and the gradual numerical growth. I personally think that playing video games is more fun than endlessly worrying about them.

We're really not talking about the Linux Steam share at all here, Samsai. That's not the topic (although it is of course closely related to the speed of the progress here, of course). But when we do rise, I do take that as a small victory simply cause there's not that much to choose from at this point in time.

And yeah, I'm able to both enjoy games and consider the outlook, without either spoiling for the other.

Wouldn’t be better to have all the games in all the sections?


Last edited by UltraViolet on 17 January 2018 at 11:49 pm UTC

Wouldn’t be better to have all the games in all the sections?

Thaumistry in Best Audio?
Rocket League in best FOSS project?
Cheeseness in Best Game?

No, seriously: some games qualify among the best in some categories, others don:t. That's what the nomination phase was good for.


Last edited by Eike on 18 January 2018 at 6:01 am UTC

Wouldn’t be better to have all the games in all the sections?

Thaumistry in Best Audio?
Rocket League in best FOSS project?
Cheeseness in Best Game?

No, seriously: some games qualify among the best in some categories, others don:t. That's what the nomination phase was good for.

I would totally play competitive Cheeseness.

Wouldn’t be better to have all the games in all the sections?

Thaumistry in Best Audio?
Rocket League in best FOSS project?
Cheeseness in Best Game?

No, seriously: some games qualify among the best in some categories, others don:t. That's what the nomination phase was good for.

i guess the nomination phase completely pasted me by...