Supraland, the colourful and inviting first-person puzzle game from Supra Games is now going to be removed from game store GOG after less than a year being there.
Looking at the dates: it released on Steam in April 2019, then came to Linux in July that same year and then onto GOG in that same month. Today, June 9 in 2020 the GOG team posted on their forum that Supraland will be delisted from their store at the developer's request but it will stay in your GOG library. That's not long to be on a store to then ask for it to be removed, so why?
The developer has been quite vocal about it all, as it turns out. Back in July 2019, we posted an article about the developer saying some strange stuff about both GOG and Linux and it seems their opinion didn't change after being live on GOG for some time, as they said on Steam in May this year:
Going onto GOG I expected maybe something like 10% of Steam, but it's more like 1%. Same with releasing a Linux version. It's all worth so little for us that it's rather annoying to have to do the extra work all the time and carry that weight around. I wouldn't do it again.
Sounds like a case of heavily inflated expectations, mixed with some naivety. Still, it's better to request removal than to leave it up and not support it at all, so it sounds like they're doing the right thing overall.
In other posts they also mentioned how in relation to DRM-free gaming that "98-99% of players don't care" and that if there's any "crying about DRM stuff in the gamer scene, it must come from a really vocal but tiny minority. 1-2% tiny". That's some pretty tough words for the DRM-free crowd.
As for the Linux build of Supraland, it appears to have been suffering a few issues lately as posts on Steam will show and the developer isn't sure what they will do so the Linux build may be pulled too see: #1 and #2. They've never been particularly confident about it either as they said before a few times, and it appears they don't know how to support the Linux version. If they do announce a decision on that bit, we will let you know.
Article taken from GamingOnLinux.com.
Quoting: x_wingDoes anyone know which are the APIs that are required by GOG?I'm assuming they are talking about APIs to interact with the platform features like achievements, game overlay, chat, etc.
I'd say multiplayer, matchmaking, etc. but I doubt that's the case for them.
Quoting: EikeYou are right to make that point, but the fact I didn't make a link between DRM and those devices is quite revealing. I think more of DRM like "let's go through our customer's stuff because something may be wrong" than a simple automatic check (stuff paid for/stuff not paid for). In that case, CD Key looks more like theft prevention than DRM. But that's just how I see it.Quoting: omer666Quoting: EikeYou complained that "DRM doesn't trust you and treats you as a potential criminal apriory." - and that's what you're doing with random foreign people as well, and for a reason. There's bad people out there.I don't know where you're from, but here in France if a shopkeeper starts being suspicious towards his clients, they just leave the shop and never come back.
So, you cannot demand trust from companies (or other foreign people
So, shop detectives, electronic door devices to scan for stolen stuff labels (CDs, clothes, ...) or other theft prevention isn't a thing in our neighbor country? I find that hard to believe (and would search on my own of you insist that would be true).
Quoting: TheSHEEEPQuoting: x_wingDoes anyone know which are the APIs that are required by GOG?I'm assuming they are talking about APIs to interact with the platform features like achievements, game overlay, chat, etc.
I'd say multiplayer, matchmaking, etc. but I doubt that's the case for them.
The latter is definitely not the issue as is single player game.
Regarding overlay and other stuff, is all that mandatory for a GOG release? I always though that GOG galaxy integration was optional, but maybe I'm wrong...
Last edited by Shmerl on 12 June 2020 at 6:48 pm UTC
Quoting: ShmerlI'm surprised their issue was some API integration. I guess achievements and such? Not something I really care about. It's one thing to rely on those APIs for multiplayer game and having trouble supporting multiple backends. Making a big deal out of it for a single player one and then pulling out of the store because of it, that sounds very misguided.
Still, keeping your game up to date with different APIs is way more work that just creating an installer for one or another (the former require extra QA and keep an eye on APIs updates/bugs, while the latter is just about checking that the installer worked fined). Either way, my question for this is: is not an option to release the GOG game without any of those APIs? Does GOG mandates that new games must use their API?
Quoting: x_wingis not an option to release the GOG game without any of those APIs? Does GOG mandates that new games must use their API?
It is an option. I suppose developers didn't want to do it.
Quoting: ShmerlIt is an option. I suppose developers didn't want to do it.
Or this guy assumed that it's mandatory. If it's optional, GOG install would only require to take Linux/Windows binaries for Steam and create the installer for each platform...
Quoting: x_wingOr this guy assumed that it's mandatory. If it's optional, GOG install would only require to take Linux/Windows binaries for Steam and create the installer for each platform...
Yes, you can even see some Steam releated .so in some of the GOG games due to that.
Quoting: ShmerlI'm surprised their issue was some API integration. I guess achievements and such? Not something I really care about. It's one thing to rely on those APIs for multiplayer game and having trouble supporting multiple backends. Making a big deal out of it for a single player one and then pulling out of the store because of it, that sounds very misguided.I'm also not fully buying it.
How hard can it be to implement achievements if you have already done it for another game (and GOG & Steam as well).
It's not like these APIs change a lot.
Quoting: ageresQuoting: scaineDenuvo is a kernel driver for DRM, as well as anti-cheat.Denuvo anti-cheat is, but Denuvo anti-tamper is just an obfuscator. It hurts performance on weak CPUs but doesn't mess with an OS afaik.
Steam DRM, on the other hand, prevent Linux gamers from playing a bunch of PS360 era games: https://github.com/ValveSoftware/Proton/issues/753. Those games run fine with cracked exes though.
"Just" an obfuscator? Weirdly, that sounds like you're defending it. Maybe you are. I suppose some people might prefer Denuvo to CEG because at least some Denuvo games run in Proton, but given that those games run with higher CPU, and lower framerates, at that point, I don't really care if it's a rootkit or not, I want nothing to do with it.
Can you imagine if this was applied to cars, clothes, or hell, burgers?
Cars: worse performance, you can't lend to a (insured) friend. Maybe you can only fill it from certain stations, or drive it on certain roads. Probably costs more as a result.
Clothes: Harder to put on, doesn't last as long, can't dye it, can't hand-me-down to others. Probably costs more as a result.
Burger: tastes longer to cook, can't share it with your son/daughter. Probably costs more as a result.
It's just weird. My entire steam library is mine and mine alone. When I die, even if I give the steam login to my children, they can't transfer the games to their account, it's completely locked. They're scaine, or nothing.
Defending DRM is such a strange position. And I know I've done it in the past, but the more I think about it, the more annoying and invasive I realise it is. Maybe one day I'll give up on Steam, but that would require a linux-friendly competitor to offer DRM-free gaming on a platform with vaguely similar features... and I doubt that will happen in my lifetime.
Last edited by scaine on 12 June 2020 at 9:58 pm UTC
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