There's been a lot of chatter in the Linux gaming community recently, centred around Paradox Interactive and future Linux support. It's not all doom and gloom.
Starting off in a post on our forum, which linked to a chat with Shams Jorjani, the Chief Business Development Officer at Paradox Interactive, where Jorjani stated:
As I've said before - Linux sales have decreased annually the past 5 years. Both in relative and absolute numbers. It makes [zero] business sense to support it unfortunately. :(
That didn't make things sound good, which Jorjani followed up with:
We appreciate your support. For what it's worth we always examine rhe possibility and make a call. Hope you decide to return one day.
Now a post has popped up on the Paradox forum with a bunch of users throwing their support behind Paradox, which is always nice to see! Jorjani also replied here, with a little more detail to make things as clear as possible. Here's what they said:
Just wanted to pop in and say that I/we hear you, really appreciate the passion and that you make your voice heard in such a constructive way.
We evaluate Linux on a case by case basis and try to squeeze it in as often as we can. Some devs have experience with Linux and it becomes easier/cheaper to include. For others it's like when Han Solo handles Luke's lightsaber - there's a lot of "ah...uh"-ing and becomes a huge distraction and expensive.
So no promises either way - we'll do our best.
It's good to know that Paradox aren't outright dropping Linux support, it sounds like the same situation as any publisher/developer. Ports to any platform, are done when they think it's worth it and when the developer is ready and willing to do it.
In the case of studios under Paradox Interactive: Paradox Development Studios (Stellaris, Crusader Kings and so on), their strategy games already have Linux support in the game engine, for Haemimont Games with Surviving Mars they already had a bunch of Linux experience with Victor Vran on Linux, the same with Harebrained Schemes and BATTLETECH since they also worked on various Shadowrun titles that have Linux support.
How can you help with this? Continue buying Paradox games of course. A ton of their games are on sale currently on Steam and GOG, might be a really good time to pick some up or some missing DLC.
Personally, you can pry Stellaris, Battletech and Surviving Mars from my cold dead hands. All three are excellent Linux games that I go back to very regularly.
Hat tip to SadL.
Article taken from GamingOnLinux.com.
Quoting: MalYeah, I can see now the games bought on Steam displayed on my Paradox forum account. Not much use for that though...Quoting: dubigrasuJust somewhat on topic: What is the purpose of linking your Steam account to the Paradox account?
I have several Paradox games on Steam (also I bought just right now Surviving Mars) and not one is listed on my Paradox account (or available in the launcher).
Them gathering info on you. You gain the medals and some avatars depending on what you bought when posting on their forums.
... and I guess you have access to their launcher if want to try it. Before they announce that they ditched Steam and make it mandatory (because we all know this day will come).
I have their launcher installed, but apparently is only working for games bought directly from their store, not from Steam.
Last edited by dubigrasu on 13 September 2019 at 6:01 pm UTC
Quoting: ChronariusThis really is the basic problem. Years ago, Linux people talked about this issue all. the. time.Quoting: subBut we're losing momentum.
And it doesn't feel right currently.
The biggest problem is that you still don't get Linux Computers in the stores. They are just not there, and an "avarage joe" has no reasons to reinstall it's PC which comes preinstalled with Windows!
I think we've tended to stop thinking about it over time because there's nothing anyone can do about it so it's depressing.
slaapliedje Jul 2, 2019
Quoting: Purple Library GuyIn Nautilus / Gnome Files you can right click and format a USB stick. Not sure what DE being used that is 'low resource' but we have tons of resources on our PCs these days, so unless you're still running a pentium 3 or something, use something with more features :)Quoting: orochi_kyoWell there's your problem, innit? Use a non-low-resource-consumption Linux distro if you want ease of use. Lots of people are into XFCE and such, but they're more bare-bones and that's how it is.Quoting: subBut we're losing momentum.
And it doesn't feel right currently.
A thing most Linux users are ignoring mostly on purpose, but Linux is not going nowhere, until the casual user may use a Linux distro as they do use Windows, with details like right-clicking on an executable file and creating a desktop shortcut or right clicking your desktop and accessing your monitor settings or formatting a Usb drive from the file browser, everything with a single click.
I love my low resource consumption Linux distro but
It has never occurred to me to go find an executable file if I want a desktop shortcut--I right-click the menu entry or drag it from the menu entry to (the desktop, my toolbar). But yeah, I suppose that would be a good feature. And I do kind of like the idea of USB formatting from the file browser.
For the rest, I work on Windows at work and Linux at home, and I don't notice much difference. There's plenty of stuff on Windows I need to hunt through menus for. The biggest difference I notice is that on a Linux using Mate, if I plug in a USB (which I generally do because I want to use it for something) it automatically brings up a file manager window with the contents of the USB and puts an icon for the USB on my desktop, so I can do something with it immediately. On Windows, nothing much happens except usually it gives me a message falsely claiming there's something wrong with my USB and I should let Windows "fix" it; experience tells me that if I fail to ignore this message, if I let Windows try to fix my USB, it will get screwed up. So then to actually do anything with the USB I plugged in I end up clicking on some random folder to bring up a file manager window so I can scroll down among the many drives and things we have at work until I find the USB and click on it. This happens a lot more often than formatting a USB or changing my screen settings. Overall, ease-of-use-wise, I'll take Mint over Windows . . . and that's despite the fact that at work, all the management of the OS is being done by our mostly competent Systems people (so I can ignore update issues and such), whereas on Linux I'm doing it, and I am in no way a mostly competent Systems person.
Quoting: ShmerlQuoting: Whitewolfe80Exclusive to Epic store for a year though
Huh? I've seen GOG, Steam and Paradox store releases announced. Where did you see anything about exclusivity?
https://forum.paradoxplaza.com/forum/index.php?threads/what-we-know-so-far.1163043/
QuoteNOT A EPIC GAMES STORE EXCLUSIVE
Mmm my mistake was sure had heard it from Jim Sterling video a while back must of been mistaken. However it would not shock me even a little bit if it does end up as a epic exclusive.
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