The Linux GOTY Award 2019 is now open for voting

I think DUSK is worthy of the best soundtrack, hands down. So many original compositions in this game, and they do switch with intensity of the gameplay. It enhances the experience tenfold.

Huh, I could not find DXVK in the category "Favourite FOSS project" :O


Last edited by einherjar on 1 February 2020 at 5:15 pm UTC

Huh, I could not find DXVK in the category "Favourite FOSS project" :O

Wow, yeah, that's surprising. Especially consider that both Wine and Proton are in there! I'm amazed that no-one nominated it!

I made an executive decision to add DXVK, it fully deserves to allow people to vote for it. If anyone wishes to change their votes, you're able to reset any time before it ends.

voted.alot of great things to choose from but man this was tough lol

I regret not nominating celeste for best update of 2019 but with that said its surprising how many good games there were this year despite it feeling like a bad year

Already voted.
Glad to found Godot amidst the best foss options.
And for sure, Dusk has the best OST in 2019.

And for sure, Dusk has the best OST in 2019.

Loved its OST as well as the one of Ion Fury - and thankfully, two votes were allowed ;)

Thank you for doing this. I know my backlog is bad when I only played 1 or 2 of the games on the lists....

Only tossed in a handful of votes because for the most part I haven't played any of the games, or in many cases even heard about them. But I missed RimWorld in the long-term support category. Think it deserved to be in there since the game has been supported on Linux for years (with patches along the way) and works perfectly natively. It's also a really fun and challenging game, but that's not really relevant I suppose :P

Thank you for doing this. I know my backlog is bad when I only played 1 or 2 of the games on the lists....

Otherwise known as the "oh god look at everything now going in my backlog/checkout" awards.

I know the polls were open for items to add, but somehow I failed to add one of my favorite developer, which would be Shiro Games. The Evoland games were great. Northgard is so much fun (though very difficult). And their upcoming 2020 title looks really good as well.

Defend the Keep is the only game I purchased in 2019 that was actually released in 2019. So I won't be voting in most of the categories.

Oh dear me, that was a load of obscurities as far as I'm concerned. So much so that I can't even vote - I've not even heard of the vast majority here.
Not the fault of anyone of us course, but a rather depressing picture of Linux gaming anno 2019.

I thank the gaming gods for Steam Play... When maybe I should curse it?

Well, how about that? I do own a 2019 release. I've been playing it for so long in early access, I'd forgotten Planet Nomads was officially released last year. I kind of voted for it by default, though...

Oh dear me, that was a load of obscurities as far as I'm concerned. So much so that I can't even vote - I've not even heard of the vast majority here.
Not the fault of anyone of us course, but a rather depressing picture of Linux gaming anno 2019.

I thank the gaming gods for Steam Play... When maybe I should curse it?

I disagree, there's plenty of seriously good stuff in there. Just because it's not all big AA/AAA doesn't mean it's bad. If you've truly not heard of the vast majority, you're living under a rock and missing out on some great stuff.

Oh dear me, that was a load of obscurities as far as I'm concerned. So much so that I can't even vote - I've not even heard of the vast majority here.
Not the fault of anyone of us course, but a rather depressing picture of Linux gaming anno 2019.

I thank the gaming gods for Steam Play... When maybe I should curse it?

Don't think that's the first GOTY award article where you've made this comment. Also, there exists a website where you could have heard of these games but I don't remember exactly what that site was...

Snark aside, the game selections this year are not bad. Yes they are indie, but at least to me this indie stuff is more interesting anyway because indie games feel like they at least have some soul. Not to mention games like DUSK, Slay the Spire and Dicey Dungeons play awesomely well, have really good soundtracks and are simply fun.

I would recommend looking beyond the mass-marketed AAA stuff and consider widening your palette to slightly more exotic options. Who knows, you might find something that you would actually like.

at least to me this indie stuff is more interesting anyway because indie games feel like they at least have some soul

And that's your opinion, and one you are fully entitled to, of course. Just like I am entitled to mine. I respect your point of view. I'm glad for you. Cool! Enjoy the small games!

But I've been a gamer for four decades now. I have played Pong on coin-up arcades back when people still paid to play that black'n'white game with coloured transparent stickers to create an illusion of colour. It's not like I've never played anything but the flagships of today.

Quite the contrary. I've played sprite based 2D games for thousands of hours back when that were the bleeding edge technology - there wasn't anything else. I played games back when they had to make them unfairly hard just to make them last, as they could not write bigger programs, the machines would not tackle it.

So for me, to go back to that kind of software - low budget, short games, small team efforts, limited resources, limited everything - well, I played nothing but that for years.

I don't play for score anymore, I don't play to win at a strategy board. I play for immersion. For fantastic experiences, gorgeous landscapes, excellent acting, touching characters, and a freedom to be and do what I want in a universe like the ones I see in the movies I love.
I don't sit on a machine capable of delivering me a holodeck experience just to play pong again. That's where you have me. Is that really something to patronise?

But all this is irrelevant for my comment. My comment was written in the context of the wider perspective. I am really, really hoping for Linux to become a viable gaming platform for the general gaming audience. There's few things I'd rather love to see than that. And for that to happen we need to enter the same universe, and not operate on a kind of an alternative dimension where GOTYs are handed out to titles that's not even mentioned anywhere else. It's not a strength of the platform, never will be.

And judging from the nominees this year, I don't think we've ever been more in our own dimension than this year.


Last edited by Beamboom on 3 February 2020 at 5:52 am UTC

I don't play for score anymore, I don't play to win at a strategy board. I play for immersion. For fantastic experiences, gorgeous landscapes, excellent acting, touching characters, and a freedom to be and do what I want in a universe like the ones I see in the movies I love.
I don't sit on a machine capable of delivering me a holodeck experience just to play pong again. That's where you have me. Is that really something to patronise?

I think it's more a case of the attitude. We're a niche, a tiny one and nothing has changed on that. Seeing people repeat the "there's no AAA games" thing over and over again just gets tiring. We are where we are, a lot of us enjoying what we have.

I don't play for score anymore, I don't play to win at a strategy board. I play for immersion. For fantastic experiences, gorgeous landscapes, excellent acting, touching characters, and a freedom to be and do what I want in a universe like the ones I see in the movies I love.
I don't sit on a machine capable of delivering me a holodeck experience just to play pong again. That's where you have me. Is that really something to patronise?

I think it's more a case of the attitude. We're a niche, a tiny one and nothing has changed on that. Seeing people repeat the "there's no AAA games" thing over and over again just gets tiring. We are where we are, a lot of us enjoying what we have.

Perhaps it'll be useful to consider whether we add a "Steam Play" category next year. I'm all for celebrating devs who support us, and while I also believed Beamboom to be pretty negative (although well explained in the follow up), I suppose I've played a handful of excellent Windows-only titles this year and perhaps that needs to be recognised. Titles like Void Bastards, Witcher 3, (the absolutely incredible) Noita, Deep Rock Galactic, A Plague Tale: Innocence, Risk of Rain 2 and Wolfenstein: Old Blood.

I suppose what's interesting about that list is that only one is a AAA title and wasn't even released (in any form) in 2019.

So what big AAA titles WERE released in 2019 that I actually missed as a Linux gamer?

PC Gamer notes the following titles:

Best Ongoing Game: Sea of Thieves
Best Remake: Resident Evil 2
Best Character: Untitled Goose Game
Best Action Game: Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice
Best Setting: Control
Best Expansion: Final Fantasy 14: Shadowbringers
Best Comedy Game: What the Golf?
Best Strategy Game: Total War: Three Kingdoms
Best Design: Slay the Spire
Best Open World Game: Red Dead Redemption 2
Best FPS: Apex Legends
Best Adventure Game: Outer Wilds
Game of the Year: Disco Elysium

Looking at that list, I didn't miss much. Outer Wilds, and Disco Elysium. But I wouldn't have bought the first anyway, because it's an Epic exclusive and I could play the latter anytime with it's Gold rating in ProtonDB.

Some might miss RDR2, but it's not my scene. Sekiro is meant to be a nice Souls-like, but again, not my scene and it's Platinum anyway.

So I'm pretty happy with both the state of Linux gaming, and this GoTY. You only have to rewind five years to remember that we didn't have anything. And with just under 1% market share, that's not really likely to change.