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PayPalUPDATE: The developer provided some clarifications here. I think the key point to take away is this "Last but not least, we are shelving the Linux port, not outright killing it. This doesn't mean we won't do it after the launch."
ORIGINAL: Book of Demons [Steam], a dungeon crawling hack and slash with deck-building will no longer get a native Linux port. Steam Play is part of the reason.
It won't be the last game to do this I'm sure. At least in this case, they aren't pulling support for an already released game like Human: Fall Flat as Book of Demons didn't have a public Linux version. Anyway, writing on the Steam forum the developer noted a few vague issues they were having.
Things like "We had as many different issues with the build as testers. With each flavor of Linux came different issues." along with "Right now everything indicates that Linux port would be very high maintenance.". I always find these types of statements highly unhelpful, unless they actually say why that is. Let's be clear on this again too, you do not need to support all Linux distributions, support the most popular.
They went on to mention the issue of users only getting a single choice between Native or Proton, since Steam has no built-in way of picking between Steam Play or a Native build. An issue that seems to be mentioned more lately by gamers and developers. So, they said they will "focus our efforts on supporting Steam Play and Proton.".;
This does bring up some interesting thoughts. To be clear, I'm very open minded about Steam Play especially since sales will still show up as Linux and that I do like.
However, there's a lot that's unclear right now. When developers say they will support Steam Play/Proton, how will they do that? It would at the very least, require them to test every single patch they do on a Linux system through Steam Play to ensure they haven't broken it. Anything less than that and I wouldn't say they were actually supporting it. If it is broken, finding out why might end up being a hassle and hold them back and end up causing more issues. They can't really guarantee any degree of support since it is Valve and co handling it for them, the way I see it is that the game developer is not really doing anything.
Article taken from GamingOnLinux.com.
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... And this is exactly what the pessimists were worried about.
27 Likes, Who?
... And this is exactly what the pessimists were worried about.If they can get Linux support basically for free they'd sure go for it. Especially if they don't have any personal feelings for Linux and FOSS in general (I'm not judging of course). So yeah, it's not good but considering the market share it's much better than nothing. And if they see any significant Linux share, they might reconsider.
9 Likes, Who?
rustybroomhandle 5 Nov 2018
It would at the very least, require them to test every single patch they do on a Linux system through Steam Play to ensure they haven't broken it. Anything less than that and I wouldn't say they were actually supporting it.
This. If they are agreeing to "support" it, they must be willing to field bug reports from users.
Other than this, I don't have too much of a problem with this approach. It's going to be good in some cases, terrible in other cases.
Having had the occasional Linux native game just stop working after a while, I've come to the conclusion that what I want more than anything is a library of games that keep working. So this basically means devs supporting their software one way or another.
7 Likes, Who?
In theory, yes, they should only support Ubuntu and SteamOS, but in practice users of different distros complain in the forums, give negative reviews and return their games as much as they have problems. So it doesn't help giving this advice, those users feel entitled to the game as much as any user of the support distributions.This is the first time I hear about such an issue. Do you have any examples of negative reviews because the game didn't work on Arch or Gentoo? I had an impression that non-mainstream distro users (as well as most of the Linux users in general) are very eager to report the bugs and support the developers in their quest. And the reports come quite detailed also. If the game still doesn't work, they're usually quite understanding.
8 Likes, Who?
Linux is sort of on the bleeding edge, always changing and a bunch of experimentation going on. Perhaps when Linux has a larger market share and one particular distro rises to the occasion the platform will be more stable and easier for developers to support. Though if that were to occur I think Linux would ultimately be worse off as it probably be slower to progress in performance and design to maintain legacy support and whatnot.
0 Likes
GustyGhost 5 Nov 2018
cat /home/GustyGhost/List_of_cancer_developers.txt
No Brakes Games
Thing Trunk
2 Likes, Who?
Expalphalog 5 Nov 2018
Gotta be honest, as long as I can play the game on my system without having to worry about a Windows partition or mucking about with Wine, I am happy.
2 Likes, Who?
Perkeleen_Vittupää 5 Nov 2018
With each flavor of Linux came different issues.
And WHO excatly told them to support EVERY flavor? Just support Steam OS and/or Ubuntu. And for the most part it will work on any Distro.
Exactly! Sounds like a made up reason ...
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Most people who pretend that "Everything is fine", are casuals who only use vanilla versions of Ubuntu/SteamOS, possibly even outdated versions...Damn casuals, they ruin everything.
7 Likes, Who?
This look like some devs who just want the linux money (not as much as they expect) by clicking the export button, and then complain about users reporting issues who shouldn't exist if they took the time to do the port seriously.
Last edited by serge on 5 Nov 2018 at 5:23 pm UTC
Last edited by serge on 5 Nov 2018 at 5:23 pm UTC
3 Likes, Who?
I think dev's need to make the choices that fit their game, budget, and team strengths. I'd much rather see a team put the effort into ensuring perfect steamplay compatibility then to release a buggy native port. Too many times I've been burned by devs dropping a linux port and then realizing it has terrible performance. The "no tux, no bucks" movement makes some sense, but IMO officially supporting steamplay is decent middle ground and I'd rather support a dev who does then one who's just cashing in on a terrible port.
6 Likes, Who?
I quite like the look of this game, and had been thinking to Wishlist it. Also, it is reasonable enough for the developers to decide that native Linux support is too much effort for them currently. We see developers back-tracking and changing their minds all the time. (Hopefully they will, maybe when they are under less pressure.)
However, my perspective on this is - As a Linux gamer, I am very unlikely to buy this unless it gets a Linux build. I have other games that I'm really keen on, and have been waiting for them to be released on Linux and I have held off buying them until that Linux release happens: Into The Breach, Shadow Warrior 2 (got it for free), Dungeon Warfare 2, Kingdom Come: Deliverance, Divinity Original Sin 2, etc.
It is a rare thing for me to buy a Windows-only title.
However, my perspective on this is - As a Linux gamer, I am very unlikely to buy this unless it gets a Linux build. I have other games that I'm really keen on, and have been waiting for them to be released on Linux and I have held off buying them until that Linux release happens: Into The Breach, Shadow Warrior 2 (got it for free), Dungeon Warfare 2, Kingdom Come: Deliverance, Divinity Original Sin 2, etc.
It is a rare thing for me to buy a Windows-only title.
5 Likes, Who?
stretch611 5 Nov 2018
The fact is that it does take additional work to support a different platform. While things like Unity make it easier it still requires more than just "pressing a button." However, programmers that put in the extra effort to learn the differences between the platforms also learn how to do it right in the first place to minimize problems in the future.
One other thing... the developers that are willing to put in the extra effort to learn the right way to do things will generally be the ones that are willing to try and actually spend time and effort trying to figure out what is wrong with their program when errors occur. They are the ones that will eventually fix their errors. Unlike the people who only know how to program by "Googling StackOverflow" which will generally throw up their arms and say "I can't fix it."
If someone wants to only support SteamPlay which implies no effort on their part that is fine for them; However, I choose to support developers who are willing to learn instead.
One other thing... the developers that are willing to put in the extra effort to learn the right way to do things will generally be the ones that are willing to try and actually spend time and effort trying to figure out what is wrong with their program when errors occur. They are the ones that will eventually fix their errors. Unlike the people who only know how to program by "Googling StackOverflow" which will generally throw up their arms and say "I can't fix it."
If someone wants to only support SteamPlay which implies no effort on their part that is fine for them; However, I choose to support developers who are willing to learn instead.
4 Likes, Who?
Committing to support SteamPlay... Does that mean they are willing to develop using open source frameworks so that it is more suitable to run it with Wine? I am okay with it as long as they don't use proprietary APIs so that there won't be a lot of complications through Wine. It's not like it's a game that requires to decrease CPU overhead.
Though of course I would have been happier if they prepared a native build, which is not even that difficult nowadays. Unless they are using DirectX or something. In which case "supporting through SteamPlay" does not make much sense anyways; that is practically saying "We are just releasing a Windows version. Linux users can try to run it via SteamPlay and see if that works".
Though of course I would have been happier if they prepared a native build, which is not even that difficult nowadays. Unless they are using DirectX or something. In which case "supporting through SteamPlay" does not make much sense anyways; that is practically saying "We are just releasing a Windows version. Linux users can try to run it via SteamPlay and see if that works".
2 Likes, Who?
I just can't bring myself to buy a windows-only title, which is a shame, because I love the look of this. I've made one exception in the past five years - Doom. And I only bought that during the hype of Steam Play a few months back! I've played 80 minutes of it. It's good, but I regret the purchase.
I realise that I don't have much buying "power" with the tux-then-bucks mantra, but it really sums up how I feel.
That said, I am signed up to Humble Monthly, so I'll get a handful of windows-only titles "for free" that way and that's about the only way Steam Play will really affect me.
Oh, and Mirv's comment that this ties Linux support to Steam. That's not good. That's really, really not good.
I realise that I don't have much buying "power" with the tux-then-bucks mantra, but it really sums up how I feel.
That said, I am signed up to Humble Monthly, so I'll get a handful of windows-only titles "for free" that way and that's about the only way Steam Play will really affect me.
Oh, and Mirv's comment that this ties Linux support to Steam. That's not good. That's really, really not good.
2 Likes, Who?
Avehicle7887 5 Nov 2018
I guess some devs will never get it that they don't have to target all distros, if they compile against a fairly modern distro such as Ubuntu 16.04 that would be the sweet spot. Might not be a good choice to use bleeding edge (Ubuntu 18.10),that might cause issues for who is using a setup with older libraries.
3 Likes, Who?
Do you know what will really be the tell tale sign for me on whether they support steam play properly? Are they going to use OpenGL or Vulkan as their default backend or are they going to stick with DirectX. If they go with DirectX then I'm not sure I'd agree that they are supporting steam play. Yes they could test every patch as Liam mentioned and that'd be good but I'd expect them to at least use the Linux native graphics APIs
1 Likes, Who?
With Steam Play being much more uniform across linux distros, they'll have less trouble.While I get what you are trying to say, just have a look at protondb and you will see that your lineage can change a great deal depending on the distro and hardware used, so if they want to officially support Proton, they will need to either bundle it within the game or test it across all distros, which cancel their point.
As far as buying Windows games is concerned, I personally do it a great deal since I know it counts as a Linux sale. It is so much fun to know that companies like Namco or Square Enix who never ever considered porting games to Linux, let alone macOS, see users playing their games in their stats.
1 Likes, Who?
Lol , supporting SteamPlay my a..
Definition of supporting SteamPlay : we wouldn't mind extra cash but we also don't want to make any effort towards it.
Most they will do is not using a Drm which is also not an issue in indie titles ever.
So after all , supporting SteamPlay means nothing.
I can understand big shots won't support Linux directly but easen out SteamPlay usage with using Vulkan , using at least compatible drm's etc but when it comes from an indie dev it means nothing.
Also that is a bad sign if every title goes for that route , even Valve can't overcome with all titles tied to SteamPlay kind of situation.
Definition of supporting SteamPlay : we wouldn't mind extra cash but we also don't want to make any effort towards it.
Most they will do is not using a Drm which is also not an issue in indie titles ever.
So after all , supporting SteamPlay means nothing.
I can understand big shots won't support Linux directly but easen out SteamPlay usage with using Vulkan , using at least compatible drm's etc but when it comes from an indie dev it means nothing.
Also that is a bad sign if every title goes for that route , even Valve can't overcome with all titles tied to SteamPlay kind of situation.
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