Some news that I'm not particularly happy about. Snapshot Games, which includes X-COM creator Julian Gollop, have announced they've cancelled the Linux version of Phoenix Point.
As a reminder: After having a succesful Fig campaign last year, where they raised well over $750K which went up to over $780K after it finished, Snapshot Games also gained over $1.2 million in pre-orders from their own store. Linux was a platform advertised during their crowdfunding campaign along with it being clearly listed as a platform on their official website's FAQ. They went on to release two backer builds, both of which had Linux support and ran quite well. After spending quite a number of hours in their second backer beta, I was extremely keen for the third build which was expanding the feature-set quite a lot.
I ended up speaking to Snapshot Games, who gave me the news ahead of time so I've had a little time to think about this. Even so, I'm really not happy with the situation.
They put up a dedicated page to talk briefly about it, after I told them not to leave the reasons why up to people's imaginations. Citing reasons like Linux requiring "specialised graphics programming" as it uses OpenGL and not DirectX, they also mentioned that Linux drivers are "not as comprehensive as for Windows and Mac" requiring them to make "adaptations to graphical shaders" to get them working. Additionally, they mentioned the issue of Linux having many distributions, Linux-specific Unity bugs like "not being able to correctly render the video player" and input issues. I won't comment much on those points, since I am not a game developer and so I've no idea how Unity handles different APIs and everything else Unity does. It's clear Unity has had plenty of Linux issues in the past year though.
I consider myself a big fan of Gollop's work, after discovering UFO: Enemy Unknown/X-COM: UFO Defense when I was younger on the Amiga. So when Phoenix Point was announced, I was incredibly excited. I actually put my own money down for their "Luxury Digital Edition" without using their discount code (not exactly cheap) as I wanted to support them. So for me, this stings quite badly.
Hopefully they will properly reconsider this in time. In the grand scheme of things, it's only one game. We do have a lot of strategy games as well, so it's not like it was serving Linux gamers something we have a complete lack of. A very unfinished game too, but it's still not great to have news like this. Disappointing is a wild understatement.
Anyone who backed it for a Linux build, should contact them to seek an immediate refund. I already have and that's not me being malicious, but if they're not currently doing what you paid for, that money should be put to better use. If they do support Linux properly in future, I will likely be the first in line to pick up a copy.
Obviously, it's a reminder that during development anything can happen. When you support crowdfunding, Early Access and so on developers priorities can and very often do change. Although, that can happen after you release a game too like with Human: Fall Flat so it's not something that happens only here. It's also a reminder about being realistic. Sadly, with our current market share developers find it all too easy at times to leave Linux in the dust. There's not a whole lot that actually treat Linux as a first-class citizen outside of dedicated porting studios and individuals. This has happened around 8 times this year now, hopefully next year things will improve. I could argue that 8 games out of well over 1,100 released for Linux this year isn't a lot, but it's still 8 too many for my liking.
Article taken from GamingOnLinux.com.
Quoting: stretch611Quoting: Whitewolfe80Yes but 3000 thousand of those games are shovel ware shit people that spam asset flips every week hell i could put up three linux games today using unity they would all be based on unit z but hey 3 new linux games. It is not the qty coming to linux we need the top tier games for every shovel knight or hollow knight there are 100 boring bland asset flips with zero bug testing or quality control. Maybe it's just me having a narrow view of games but no having 4000 thousand games doesnt mean anything if only 1/4 are worth playing.
That is not a linux problem. It is indicative of every gaming platform... and actually software in general, not just games.
I remember back when smart phones were brand new, Apple and Android bragged over who had more games in their respective software stores... who cares when 99.9% are crapware? Needless to say, no one cares how many titles there are.
If anything, this proves that linux is a viable platform. If there was no money to be made, even these asset flipping game authors wouldn't waste their time. It takes the promise of money being made for even the crapware to exist.
I never said it was a linux problem I was merely responding to the people posting graphs showing there being 4000 games on linux so nothing wrong yeah there is most of them are shit
Quotehttps://phoenixpoint.info/linux
Last edited by crt0mega on 11 November 2018 at 10:47 pm UTC
Quoting: g000hReasserting the fact that it was hard to find high-calibre staff with these credentials: Lead Unity programmer, DevOps/Server programmer, Business Intelligence/Data Scientist expert. Many people interviewed were not suitable candidates, due to inexperience or lack of ability (i.e. Couldn't complete the on-boarding tests).
That means nothing to me.
Mayhap you're sitting on some isle?
Mayhap you pay peanuts?
Mayhap you required unpayed overtime?
Mayhap people with experience don't feel like working in a startup / basement to get burnt?
Mayhap you should search for _three_ different people for your 3 different jobs?
Mayhap you should _train_ your staff to _become_ high-calibre?
Mayhap ...
Mayhap your argument is simply unsuited for the discussion at hand: We got backstabbed once more - and in a genre that has a tight fan base after all.
3qET7rL9Bd Nov 12, 2018
Quoting: dubigrasuSteamOS is not and never was based on Ubuntu, and is not essentially a customized Ubuntu just because they have Debian at their root.
When SteamOS was released many were surprised it was based on Debian instead of Ubuntu because apparently it was first advertised by Vavle as being based on Ubuntu.
https://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=news_item&px=MTU2Mjc
QuoteLast month when SteamOS was publicly made available in beta form there were many surprised that Valve based their Linux distribution off Debian rather than Ubuntu, which they had been heavily promoting up to this point for Linux gaming.
https://www.linux.com/news/review-steamos-beta-linux-experts
QuoteWith previous releases of Steam for Linux, Valve had shown a preference for Ubuntu as a platform; it was therefore a bit of a surprise when SteamOS was revealed to be a direct derivative of Debian rather than Ubuntu.
I'm just saying that "SteamOS is not and never was based on Ubuntu" might not be 100% correct :)
Quoting: 3qET7rL9BdIf you push back in time before SteamOS was ever released for public, then you are correct.Quoting: dubigrasuSteamOS is not and never was based on Ubuntu, and is not essentially a customized Ubuntu just because they have Debian at their root.
When SteamOS was released many were surprised it was based on Debian instead of Ubuntu because apparently it was first advertised by Vavle as being based on Ubuntu.
https://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=news_item&px=MTU2Mjc
QuoteLast month when SteamOS was publicly made available in beta form there were many surprised that Valve based their Linux distribution off Debian rather than Ubuntu, which they had been heavily promoting up to this point for Linux gaming.
https://www.linux.com/news/review-steamos-beta-linux-experts
QuoteWith previous releases of Steam for Linux, Valve had shown a preference for Ubuntu as a platform; it was therefore a bit of a surprise when SteamOS was revealed to be a direct derivative of Debian rather than Ubuntu.
I'm just saying that "SteamOS is not and never was based on Ubuntu" might not be 100% correct :)
Valve did started building SteamOS with Ubuntu as a base and it was planned to be used as such (felt the right choice at the time for various reasons) but the first ever SteamOS "Alchemist" released in 2013, was Debian based and still is to this day. Valve wanted to use Ubuntu as a base, but they didn't because of legal issues.
Quoting: GustyGhostI'm now curious as to what your old avatar was lol.Quoting: ScooptaI'm trying to make out what your profile picture says. Is convenience the left stand?
Yup. I had to whip that up in a rush since my last masterpiece of an avatar got nanny-state'd by the resident snowflakes. Maybe I should reframe the shot for readability.
Quoting: PJSad news - as an Xcom fan I've been looking forward to this one.I actually meant have steam run all games in it's own containerized environment although getting rid of the debian package and replacing it with a flatpak would also fix issues.
Quoting: ScooptaI think the real solution to this problem is making steam behave more like flatpak.
+1 . Atm I'm using Steam through Flatpak and all the issues I've had because of Steam runtime / different libraries etc are gone. Smoothest Steam experience I've had. IMO if Steam would back it up officially and embraced this form of packaging we would be in far better shape (not only in terms of gaming).
Quoting: PJSad news - as an Xcom fan I've been looking forward to this one.
Quoting: ScooptaI think the real solution to this problem is making steam behave more like flatpak.
+1 . Atm I'm using Steam through Flatpak and all the issues I've had because of Steam runtime / different libraries etc are gone. Smoothest Steam experience I've had. IMO if Steam would back it up officially and embraced this form of packaging we would be in far better shape (not only in terms of gaming).
The Steam from Flatpak is running really smoothly. Didn't had any issue with it.
freerunnerlive Nov 13, 2018
Last edited by freerunnerlive on 13 November 2018 at 4:56 pm UTC
orochi_kyo Nov 15, 2018
"At least they didnt hide", you say. So lying is any better?
So they didnt know Linux has many distros before promising a linux version?
Its obvious they use the linux thing to get more crowdfunding money, when they have to deal with reality, they just leave the boat as the rats they are.
Devs should only support Ubuntu, yeah it sound elitist, but its better so devs stop bullshitting to their backers with the "too many distros" pretext. Also having two linux distros on your computer isnt rocket science.
I recommend linux backers to ask for a refund, take that money to a more serious developer.
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