Thanks to a hot tip from our Telegram Group, we've been notified that the Paradox Launcher is now available on Linux.
Announced on their forum:
I'm very pleased to bring you the news that after much anticipation and gnashing of teeth, the Linux version of the PDX Launcher is now available for download. At this time, only Stellaris is available for download and installation, but our other games with Linux support will be forthcoming (in a more expedited way than the launcher itself, fortunately!).
Caveat emptor! As much as the launcher is beta quality software, the linux version has had even less testing done on it. I do anticipate, however, that people interested in the Linux version will have the capacity to find workarounds for non-critical bugs.
As usual, we have some secret sauce on the cooker (this is the games industry after all) but we'll still try to get some QA and general quality-of-life fixes in during the autumn. In other news, Swedish summer vacations is almost upon us, so set your expectations accordingly!
What's the point in another client? I hear you ask. Well, it's a way for developers and publishers to have more direct control over the experience. It also likely means they take a bigger cut of any sales made, since they won't be giving a chunk to stores like Steam.
Personally, I will most likely stick to the Steam client since it does everything I want it to. However, I can appreciate for all those who would rather purchase elsewhere that this will be welcome news. It not only shows that Paradox is continuing their support of Linux, but also allows you to keep your games up to date, get cloud saves and so on.
See more on the official site.
Article taken from GamingOnLinux.com.
Mountain Man Jun 28, 2018
Quoting: ElectricPrismIIRC launchers are not allowed on SteamOS due to them not able to handle fullscreen.I think Feral programs their launcher to not run if you start the game from Big Picture mmode.
Quoting: mylkaI'm not sure if this is still the case, but years ago, EA games were removed from Steam because they breached Valve's policy of no in-game purchases.Quoting: F.UltraQuoting: mylkamaybe they get more money with each sale, but now they have higher costes. own servers and linux programmer for the launcher
maybe gog follows
I think that it's simply that they have now grown big enough to where those costs are less than having to give away 30% of each sale to companies such as Valve.
Now I don't have longer data than back to 2013 in the database (they listed their share in 2016) but they seam to have made some nice increase in both sales and profit (ptp in the table below is the pre-tax-profit) and while not close to a behemoth like EA they are probably as I wrote before closing in on the kind of sales numbers where 30% suddenly are quite a lot of actual money (aprox 35M EUR in 2017 if we assume that all sales are from places like Steam).
does steam really take 30%. assassins creed costs the same on steam and uplay. actually its now cheaper in the steam sale, than the uplay sale
why wouldnt ubisoft make their games like 10-20% cheaper in their own store? the customers would pay less, so they would get more costumers and they would make more money with each sale
why is EA selling their games only on origin, but ubisoft isnt, if they would save so much money?
Quoting: mortigarWorks good on ubuntu 18.04 needed to install libgconf-2-4 no biggie though :DBut wait, your profile icon says Manjaro.
Last edited by 14 on 28 June 2018 at 2:07 am UTC
TheRiddick Jun 28, 2018
Quoting: mylkadoes steam really take 30%. assassins creed costs the same on steam and uplay. actually its now cheaper in the steam sale, than the uplay sale
why wouldnt ubisoft make their games like 10-20% cheaper in their own store? the customers would pay less, so they would get more costumers and they would make more money with each sale
why is EA selling their games only on origin, but ubisoft isnt, if they would save so much money?
Steam is near to a PC games online selling monopoly. They could demand that games are not sold somewhere else cheaper. Not selling on Steam will cost you lots of sales if you don't have the uber AAA game.
Quoting: SalvatosInstalling and running launchers from every publisher I buy from is pretty much the opposite of what I want, but nonetheless this is welcome news as it shows that they take their Linux playerbase seriously and are willing to invest in that segment of the market. I hope it does well :)
This. They wouldn't create a launcher if they didn't intend to support Linux for a long time.
Steam kind of makes the exception just because it's one launcher (and much more) for ALL games. So it's not an additional click between me and my game because it basically replaces the click on the game folder. Imho launchers go against modern GUI design rules and are an expression of an 80ies mentality and I would rather have all my games without them than every company making his own launcher.
Quoting: devlandDoes it have any form of DRM?It's a store and launcher, where the games are bound to your account. So of course there is DRM in some way.
For the launcher, I appreciate the effort, and I understand they'd like to sell more directly and not give away 30 % of their profit, but I want just one launcher and that would be Steam.
The only two companies who managed to make their games non-steam and have their own launcher and are not selling on steam are Activision/Blizzard with Battle.net and EA with Origin. Where I couldn't care less, since their games don't run on Linux anyway.
Last edited by STiAT on 28 June 2018 at 10:41 am UTC
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