Stadia, Google's Linux-powered game streaming service continues to grow with more games. Let's start this week off with a roundup and some behind the scenes info.
Firstly, Stadia now has more games live on the service as across the weekend SteamWorld Dig 2 and SteamWorld Quest launched and both are available for anyone with Stadia Pro. In addition, SteamWorld Dig and SteamWorld Heist will be launching on Stadia on March 10th.
Croteam's Serious Sam Collection also now has a release date of March 3rd, which Google did a small interview for with the Chief Creative Officer Davor Hunski on the Stadia community.
If you somehow missed it, Baldur's Gate 3 which is coming to Stadia also had a gameplay reveal that you can see in the below video:
Direct Link
As far as we know, it's not coming to the Linux desktop officially but it will be on Steam. Not a surprise though, since it's Larian Studios who took a long time to get Divinity: Original Sin on Linux with the Enhanced Edition but then never gave us the second one.
When it comes to porting games to Stadia, I did speak to Image & Form Games (SteamWorld). It was expected by some, that having a Linux desktop build would make it easier to port to Stadia since Stadia is Debian Linux and the Vulkan API. However, turns out it doesn't help as much as you might think. They said:
All in all, we didn't save too much time from having a Linux build, most of the system work is dependent on the platform. For example, achievements, save data handling, input handling, etc is specific for the Stadia platform and it doesn't really matter too much which OS is running in the background. The biggest single chunk of work was porting the game to Vulkan, which took a bit over a month. We also spent some time to fine-tune and tweak the games to have minimal input delay and to run as smoothly as possible.
So there you have it. Interesting to know at least.
Google did say they were getting around 120 games on Stadia this year, and it seems more are slowly now starting to trickle in. On that subject, not all developers are impressed with what Google had to offer them. In an article on Business Insider, they cite multiple unnamed developers mentioning there was barely any financial incentive offered and some also mentioned how Google has a habit of killing projects. So clearly Stadia still has a lot to prove.
Article taken from GamingOnLinux.com.
Mohandevir Mar 2, 2020
Quoting: deathxxxGoogle better make some Linux Distro and games for it!
Which leads us to this:
https://www.gamingonlinux.com/articles/steam-reportedly-coming-to-chrome-os-linux-gaming-across-even-more-devices.15796
Any news on the subject?
QuoteAll in all, we didn't save too much time from having a Linux build, most of the system work is dependent on the platform. For example, achievements, save data handling, input handling, etc is specific for the Stadia platform and it doesn't really matter too much which OS is running in the background. The biggest single chunk of work was porting the game to Vulkan, which took a bit over a month.
No one is going to call bullshit on that?
Achievements, save data handling, possibly even input handling (Steam does some of this I believe), etc, aren't OS specific anyway. From steam to gog to itch to any console these are all different.
The biggest chunk of work was on Vulkan and they did that. The rest is superficial.
Just another excuse from Larian not to support Linux.
I was super excited for Baldur's Gate 3 and was going to pick it up on Stadia, but their garbage excuses have really taken the hype away for me personally.
The game went from an absolute buy for me to unlikely, just because I don't want to support their bullshit excuses.
Last edited by sudoshred on 2 March 2020 at 3:27 pm UTC
Quoting: sudoshredAs mentioned, that quote was from Image & Form, not Larian.QuoteAll in all, we didn't save too much time from having a Linux build, most of the system work is dependent on the platform. For example, achievements, save data handling, input handling, etc is specific for the Stadia platform and it doesn't really matter too much which OS is running in the background. The biggest single chunk of work was porting the game to Vulkan, which took a bit over a month.Just another excuse from Larian not to support Linux.
Quoting: Liam DaweAs mentioned, that quote was from Image & Form, not Larian.
Well color me embarrassed.
Your absolutely right and I apologize to Larian then.
The Steamworld games aren't Vulkan on Steam right? Wonder if that would have made the port faster.
Guess I'll have to pick up Baldurs Gate 3 then. 😂
I seriously missed that point. Thank you for correcting me Liam!
QuoteAs far as we know, it's not coming to the Linux desktop officially but it will be on Steam.
They never said it's not coming, they so far didn't comment on their future plans.
See here: http://forums.larian.com/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showflat&Number=652719
And to everyone here. Please actually head to that thread, and express your interest in the game for desktop Linux! So far very few people did it.
QuoteThe biggest single chunk of work was porting the game to Vulkan, which took a bit over a month
That's the main point. Input and etc. may be Stadia specific, but it's minor stuff in comparison with the renderer work. Icculus stressed this several times in the past.
Which means that once the game is released for Stadia, it's not hard to release it for Linux proper.
Last edited by Shmerl on 2 March 2020 at 4:55 pm UTC
Quoting: mylkathere even is a steamworld dig 2 nintendo 3ds port... why would anyone stream it?This type of question was asked before, same answer for any platform: they need all types of games, for all types of gamers. It's really simple. Just because a game works elsewhere, doesn't mean a newer platform doesn't want/need it.
Quoting: sudoshredQuoteAll in all, we didn't save too much time from having a Linux build, most of the system work is dependent on the platform. For example, achievements, save data handling, input handling, etc is specific for the Stadia platform and it doesn't really matter too much which OS is running in the background. The biggest single chunk of work was porting the game to Vulkan, which took a bit over a month.
No one is going to call bullshit on that?
Achievements, save data handling, possibly even input handling (Steam does some of this I believe), etc, aren't OS specific anyway. From steam to gog to itch to any console these are all different.
The biggest chunk of work was on Vulkan and they did that. The rest is superficial.
Just another excuse from Larian not to support Linux.
I was super excited for Baldur's Gate 3 and was going to pick it up on Stadia, but their garbage excuses have really taken the hype away for me personally.
The game went from an absolute buy for me to unlikely, just because I don't want to support their bullshit excuses.
i agree, that is just bullshit.
porting the code to vulkan is by fair the hardest part, after that, the rest of porting efforts is much cheaper, aside from the Q/A on different distros.
Quoting: Liam DaweQuoting: mylkathere even is a steamworld dig 2 nintendo 3ds port... why would anyone stream it?This type of question was asked before, same answer for any platform: they need all types of games, for all types of gamers. It's really simple. Just because a game works elsewhere, doesn't mean a newer platform doesn't want/need it.
google only needs it, so they can say.... "look we have more games now"... maybe they gave them money to port it
who would buy a game with a few 100MB to stream it? i also said this under another article... streaming sucks a few 100MB per minute
every new phone could handle it easily and i can keep my game. if staida goes down, your games are gone too
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