UPDATE: 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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I can't help feeling that this is less a case of "Tsk, tsk, there goes a native port lost in favour of Steam Play" than a case of "Steam Play rescues a game for Linux that would have otherwise been abandoned by yet another Linux-benighted band of devs." Trying to support multiple distros of Linux when all they had to support was Ubuntu tells me that these guys brought their problems on themselves.
Off the top of my head, "extra work, not enough profit" seems like the most common reason promised ports go missing (the second most common reason would be no reason ever being given.) Since many, many devs manage to produce perfectly functional (if not functionally perfect) Linux ports of games, I refuse to accept whinging excuses of devs saying anything that doesn't sound like, "Golly, we got in a little over our heads with Linux."
I look forward to all the future games that will come to Linux, saved from well-intentioned-but-naive devs crying, "Linux is hard." And I'll take a Steam Play supported game over an abandoned Linux port any day. More and more, Steam Play will mean that weaker developers won't be able to abandon Linux gamers, Linux gamers will abandon them.
Off the top of my head, "extra work, not enough profit" seems like the most common reason promised ports go missing (the second most common reason would be no reason ever being given.) Since many, many devs manage to produce perfectly functional (if not functionally perfect) Linux ports of games, I refuse to accept whinging excuses of devs saying anything that doesn't sound like, "Golly, we got in a little over our heads with Linux."
I look forward to all the future games that will come to Linux, saved from well-intentioned-but-naive devs crying, "Linux is hard." And I'll take a Steam Play supported game over an abandoned Linux port any day. More and more, Steam Play will mean that weaker developers won't be able to abandon Linux gamers, Linux gamers will abandon them.
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Quoting: NeverthelessQuoting: Beamboom... And this is exactly what the pessimists were worried about.
And it's also what the optimists were hoping for. Instead of maybe just giving up Linux support completely, the developer now looks out for Steam Play compatibility at least. What's the harm in it? If you want the game, you will be able to play it on Linux.
What's the harm? That's easy to answer, actually:
In order to become healthy gaming platform we need games built on and for our platform. We don't just want ports.
No healthy gaming platforms are happy with being a secondary citizen. The console gamers don't want pc ports. Windows gamers don't want console ports. Why? Cause they don't fully utilize their platform. There's always a sacrifice.
To develop for a platform one need platform experience. If Steam Play provides them an exit from even making ports it degrades us even further and makes the goal of a healthy gaming platform - a platform That don't just receive subpar ports, even more distant.
Now, I bet it's a surprise when I now say I'm not totally against Steam Play. I'm not, not at all. But I am very aware that this is not just a good thing. The critics do have a very valid point.
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Quoting: GuestI am a bit confused.
Some people try to make a living from developing games on PC and they manage to never talk to someone explaining to them it is fair enough to support the distro steam supports which is a couple ubuntu's and steamOS ?
I know, right? It's just weird.
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Nevertheless Nov 6, 2018
Quoting: BeamboomQuoting: NeverthelessQuoting: Beamboom... And this is exactly what the pessimists were worried about.
And it's also what the optimists were hoping for. Instead of maybe just giving up Linux support completely, the developer now looks out for Steam Play compatibility at least. What's the harm in it? If you want the game, you will be able to play it on Linux.
What's the harm? That's easy to answer, actually:
In order to become healthy gaming platform we need games built on and for our platform. We don't just want ports.
No healthy gaming platforms are happy with being a secondary citizen. The console gamers don't want pc ports. Windows gamers don't want console ports. Why? Cause they don't fully utilize their platform. There's always a sacrifice.
To develop for a platform one need platform experience. If Steam Play provides them an exit from even making ports it degrades us even further and makes the goal of a healthy gaming platform - a platform That don't just receive subpar ports, even more distant.
Now, I bet it's a surprise when I now say I'm not totally against Steam Play. I'm not, not at all. But I am very aware that this is not just a good thing. The critics do have a very valid point.
The underlying hen egg problem here has been discussed a lot. In the light of those discussions I'd say proton could be harmful to some native versions, but all in all we're dead in the water without it.
Last edited by Nevertheless on 6 November 2018 at 7:09 pm UTC
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Just revisiting this again and realised that I'm angry at their play-testers for pretending to be running Ubuntu, but later were discovered to be running Arch. That's a bit of a dick move and it's backfired here spectacularly: the devs have been scared off launching for Linux, believing that this might be a common practice. And honestly, I think they might be right.
I'm now revising my earlier suggestion that devs "only need to support Ubuntu". Because people will simply lie in order to get support. And taking a hard line on those people will just foster ill will.
As much as I hate to say it, I think Thing Trunk are doing the right thing here. Especially if they're willing to have another go after release.
I'm now revising my earlier suggestion that devs "only need to support Ubuntu". Because people will simply lie in order to get support. And taking a hard line on those people will just foster ill will.
As much as I hate to say it, I think Thing Trunk are doing the right thing here. Especially if they're willing to have another go after release.
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Quoting: NeverthelessI'd say proton could be harmful to some native versions, but all in all we're dead in the water without it.
Are you serious?
So, eight years of native ports (too many to list here) were "dead in the water"? Be they few in numbers, it doesn't matter, you can't argue that we lived without "Proton" up until now and slowly progressed.
And now "Proton", or rather, PROTON emerged and we all must enable "All Hail Gabe!!!" mode praising our savior?!
I'd say, without proton we had big publishers going "We are so big, we can't afford wasting resources on Linux for additional $100 of income, you know, rate of investment… yadda yadda…" while small-time and novice developers sometimes considered Linux versions. Now we have the above (please, prove me wrong, name a single AAA developer who switched her/his stance) plus "Just Use Proton"™ from small-time ones.
MISSION -FSCK***- ACCOMPLISHED!!!
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Nevertheless Nov 6, 2018
Quoting: Alm888Quoting: NeverthelessI'd say proton could be harmful to some native versions, but all in all we're dead in the water without it.
Are you serious?
So, eight years of native ports (too many to list here) were "dead in the water"? Be they few in numbers, it doesn't matter, you can't argue that we lived without "Proton" up until now and slowly progressed.
And now "Proton", or rather, PROTON emerged and we all must enable "All Hail Gabe!!!" mode praising our savior?!
I'd say, without proton we had big publishers going "We are so big, we can't afford wasting resources on Linux for additional $100 of income, you know, rate of investment… yadda yadda…" while small-time and novice developers sometimes considered Linux versions. Now we have the above (please, prove me wrong, name a single AAA developer who switched her/his stance) plus "Just Use Proton"™ from small-time ones.
MISSION -FSCK***- ACCOMPLISHED!!!
You can thank Valve with or without Proton. Without their efforts we would discuss FOSS games exclusivly here (no, I don't doubt they're great too).
Why would any developer suddenly provide native Linux versions because of Proton?? That's not the way it's supposed to work. With Proton Linux gaming suddenly has a chance to get what it needs most: more users. People now can play those AAA games on Linux and are seen as Linux users by the developers of those games. People are no longer held back by a mostly incompatible Steam library. That hopefully leads to more users, which might again lead to more native versions. Of course that's not certain, but in my opinion we never had a better chance.
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Quoting: GuestXulima and Sheltered just don't play on Archlinux. Try it) or need hacks to work (DOS).
Hmmm.
I recall being able to run it when I was on Arch.
What error is it throwing ?
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Nevertheless Nov 6, 2018
Quoting: scaineJust revisiting this again and realised that I'm angry at their play-testers for pretending to be running Ubuntu, but later were discovered to be running Arch. That's a bit of a dick move and it's backfired here spectacularly: the devs have been scared off launching for Linux, believing that this might be a common practice. And honestly, I think they might be right.
I'm now revising my earlier suggestion that devs "only need to support Ubuntu". Because people will simply lie in order to get support. And taking a hard line on those people will just foster ill will.
As much as I hate to say it, I think Thing Trunk are doing the right thing here. Especially if they're willing to have another go after release.
Incredible! They are imposing their completely unnessessary "upstream specific problems" on Linux gaming. That's idiotic!
Arch users should know what they're doing (and for the most part they certainly do!). It's not made for keeping compatibility with anything...
Hmm... maybe a Flatpak Steam installation could help (?)
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BrazilianGamer Nov 7, 2018
I think that's how things are gonna work from now. Small developers will let Proton do the job and big devs will port their games through companies like Feral. We could see this one comng back in the day Proton was released
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