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The Linux and gaming Sunday round-up paper is here

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Your Sunday paper has arrived, come pick up a copy and see what you might have missed out on lately.

The popular YouTube channel Gear Seekers have announced they're going to be testing GPUs on Linux, in addition to the regular Windows testing. Really good, as we need Linux being talked about and tested by bigger faces. It goes to show how things are changing though, we've seen multiple big YouTube channels start checking on Linux more and more.

Recently, a Twitter post from a developer/publisher talking about Linux gaming did the rounds on Reddit after a user asked them if Linux was worth it. This time it was Mike Rose from No More Robots (publisher of Descenders, Hypnospace Outlaw, Nowhere Prophet and more), showing about 0.8% sales from Linux and they claimed that "Linux itself is a nightmare anyway" due it being open source and different ways of having Linux setup.

We can argue about those above points all day but that wouldn't get us anywhere. Instead, have a chuckle at the Twitter post from game porter/developer Ryan "Icculus" Gordon (one from Ethan Lee too) and they make a good point, each time this happens more developers use it to avoid Linux. Unless something big happened to the Linux market share, it's just not worth asking right now. Not all bad though, the developer of Jupiter Hell certainly had something nice to say about supporting Linux.

ProtonDB, the handy unofficial website you can use to check Windows game compatibility with Steam Play Proton recently passed 10K games reported. Worth noting though, that is including native titles.

Onto some more positivity, the developer of the free game The Climate Trail mentioned their game is available for Linux on itch.io:

The Climate Trail is a Free multi-platform game about climate refugees fleeing ever worsening conditions after inaction on climate has rendered much of the USA (and the world) uninhabitable. The game combines the adventure and play of the journey north with visual novel elements where characters reveal how and why this climate apocalypse unfolded.

The developer of Intrepid, a sci-fi escape room game, emailed in to let us know their game is available on Linux. It's free to grab from itch.io and Steam, plus the code is up on GitHub if you're interested in learning from it (built with Godot Engine).

Sales Reminders:

During November we posted around 185 articles. Here's a few really interesting posts from November in case any readers missed them:

Quick Upcoming Highlights

Also, if anyone is interested in testing Red Eclipse 2 before the Steam release on December 19, we still have over 100 keys available to redeem in this previous article.

If you wish to support GamingOnLinux you can do so across places like Patreon, Paypal, Liberapay, Flattr and Twitch. In addition to our affiliate links with GOG and Humble Store. We're also now giving BAT proper go, so if you have the Brave browser you can support us there too.

Once again I shall return Monday for another full week of news, unless something big/interesting pops up before the end of today. Do email in your tips if something is missed, it's incredibly helpful.

Hope everyone has an enjoyable weekend!

Article taken from GamingOnLinux.com.
Tags: Round-up
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I am the owner of GamingOnLinux. After discovering Linux back in the days of Mandrake in 2003, I constantly came back to check on the progress of Linux until Ubuntu appeared on the scene and it helped me to really love it. You can reach me easily by emailing GamingOnLinux directly.
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sub Dec 7, 2019
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Quoting: CFWhitman
Quoting: sub
Quoting: kaiman
Quoting: subNot sure about the legal situation in the US but here (Germany) I'm pretty sure,
that would be a contract that can't be single-sided cancelled in that way.
Not sure about the content of Valve's terms and conditions, but I would assume they say something like "the contract will be concluded by us shipping your order". At least I've seen verbiage to that point in plenty of German online stores. In which case you're not only out of luck, but also out of any possible recourse.

That said, I'm always baffled when companies don't manage to keep tabs on their inventory and either sell more than they have in stock, or keep selling stuff they've actually ran out of. Had that happen to me a couple of times, with shops both small and large. But life goes on ...

First off, life goes on, indeed. :)

Yet, terms and conditions have to be legal and conform to where you sell.
Thinking a big company like Valve is OFC always in good shape with their terms would be naive.
I want to see those terms "the contract will be concluded by us shipping your order".
I know terms like "the produce stays property of company xyz until delivered",
but that's a totally different thing.

The problem I see is that this case is legally covered by distortion of competition (not intentionally in the case for sure, but still - technically).
Make a very good offer - as it was in this case - attract customers and many of them will additionally buy other products. Then revert only that offer. WIN $$$.
I guess the simplified picture makes the problem clear and why EU considers this, among others, "unfair contract terms".
It was exactly like this in my case.
I bought a game with the SC and they just refunded the SC.
Not the whole purchase.

In the United States this tactic is known as "Bait and switch," and is illegal, but can be difficult to prove at times.

I don't think Valve is using this as a tactic here, but, yeah, it belongs to the same legal subject.

Thing is, it's just 13 EUR.
So not really worth going court.

Yet, it makes me angry that big companies often get away with that.
Like in this case.
CFWhitman Dec 7, 2019
View PC info
Quoting: sub
Quoting: CFWhitman
Quoting: sub
Quoting: kaiman
Quoting: subNot sure about the legal situation in the US but here (Germany) I'm pretty sure,
that would be a contract that can't be single-sided cancelled in that way.
Not sure about the content of Valve's terms and conditions, but I would assume they say something like "the contract will be concluded by us shipping your order". At least I've seen verbiage to that point in plenty of German online stores. In which case you're not only out of luck, but also out of any possible recourse.

That said, I'm always baffled when companies don't manage to keep tabs on their inventory and either sell more than they have in stock, or keep selling stuff they've actually ran out of. Had that happen to me a couple of times, with shops both small and large. But life goes on ...

First off, life goes on, indeed. :)

Yet, terms and conditions have to be legal and conform to where you sell.
Thinking a big company like Valve is OFC always in good shape with their terms would be naive.
I want to see those terms "the contract will be concluded by us shipping your order".
I know terms like "the produce stays property of company xyz until delivered",
but that's a totally different thing.

The problem I see is that this case is legally covered by distortion of competition (not intentionally in the case for sure, but still - technically).
Make a very good offer - as it was in this case - attract customers and many of them will additionally buy other products. Then revert only that offer. WIN $$$.
I guess the simplified picture makes the problem clear and why EU considers this, among others, "unfair contract terms".
It was exactly like this in my case.
I bought a game with the SC and they just refunded the SC.
Not the whole purchase.

In the United States this tactic is known as "Bait and switch," and is illegal, but can be difficult to prove at times.

I don't think Valve is using this as a tactic here, but, yeah, it belongs to the same legal subject.

Thing is, it's just 13 EUR.
So not really worth going court.

Yet, it makes me angry that big companies often get away with that.
Like in this case.

In the US (although this may vary from state to state if it is covered by state consumer laws; I'm not certain if it falls under state or federal consumer protection laws) to sue a company for a variation of the bait and switch tactic, you basically have to prove intent. In other words you have to prove that they planned it all along. Considering that I don't think Valve even did this on purpose, that would be hard to do in this case.

The easiest way to prove a bait and switch scheme is to show that a company almost invariably sold the same type of merchandise at a higher price. For example, if Steam sold two controller models, advertised the one, and then asked if you would like to buy the other at a higher price when they didn't have the first one in stock.

I've talked to someone who worked for a company that did this before the consumer protection laws were passed (something like forty or fifty years ago). The company would have an item advertised, and they were so blatant about this tactic that they would not stock any of the item advertised at their stores at all. There would only be one floor model at each store. If a salesman actually honored the ad and sold the floor model, he would get in very big trouble at the company. Some salesmen, however, were very honest and would tell people about the tactic and why they couldn't sell the floor model, which is probably part of what led to the adoption of the laws against this.
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