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Supraland, a highly rated open-world puzzle adventure, has now removed mentions of Linux on Steam as the developer is unable to actually support it.

This comes shortly after the developer asked for Supraland to be completely removed from GOG, after being there less than a year citing lower sales. If you read that previous linked article, this news likely won't come as much of a surprise. Checking on SteamDB, it seems they removed the note of Linux support earlier in June. Looking around, the developer mentioned this in the official Discord, "I stopped direct linux support. Using the windows version with proton gives much better results like a much higher framerate.".

This quite likely means Supraland 2 that was funded on Kickstarter, which mentioned Linux as a planned supported platform, won't support Linux either if this is how the developer plans to go forwards.

We've seen how the developer has repeatedly mentioned before that they actually "know nothing about linux". A shame but if you're going to sell your game on a platform, that you don't test it on and don't support in any way, what's the point? It's not good for anyone.


A repeating problem too, the weird expectation that clicking to export in a game engine is enough to sell the game without testing or supporting it, which needs to stop. No one would do the same for Windows or Consoles but as usual, it comes down to the low market share cycle of doom. Developers don't support Linux directly with the lower market share, so less people use Linux and repeat. We're at least seeing a clear upwards trend right now, so perhaps one day we can see more direct support when the user share is big enough.

Article taken from GamingOnLinux.com.
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Whitewolfe80 Jun 28, 2020
Quoting: Linuxwarper
Quoting: Whitewolfe80Thing for me its too late yes our marketshare has increased but almost every single video/article that says nows the time to try linux has one draw back proton its all they talk about and lutris I use both so i am part of the problem. That problem is of course proton has become the clutch we all rely on for games on linux. We have collectively given up on native gaming with the exception of indie games and the one to three games we get from feral a year. We have already seen developers say use the proton version if you want a linux version that attitude has quickly become the norm.
Few if anyone has given up on native gaming. It's simply factual that many major games will never be ported to Linux. To play them, we use Proton. And by the time they do come to Linux people will have either moved on or the wait has been so long that you could buy the Windows version of the game far cheaper than the Linux native one.

No matter how much you ask devs for native ports they simply will not come. If they do come by any chance the possibility of it being poorly handled isn't low. To point that as OS is updated the game runs into issues running or it has poor performance.

Developers telling us to rely on Proton for their games proves little about current state of native games. For all you know these devs had in mind a hacky release of their game for Linux. So poorly developed for Linux that Proton preceeds it with ease in performance. What is the point of native games for Linux if these native releases are poorly handled or of poor quality?

I am sorry i disagree completely really how many linux gamers have bought Red dead 2 how many are going to by cyberpunk neither of which is ever coming to linux because the majority of linux gamers will buy them and play them on proton. Which means why the fuck would a small publisher waste the cash doing a linux port when they have seen their peers profit from no effort from linux gamers.
Whitewolfe80 Jun 28, 2020
Quoting: Purple Library Guy
Quoting: Whitewolfe80That problem is of course proton has become the clutch we all rely on for games on linux.
Speak for yourself. I've never used it. Not because I'm virtuous, mind you, just because most games I ever play are from Paradox and the rest are ones I read about here.

Good for you but you are in the minority
const Jun 28, 2020
Quoting: CatKiller
Quoting: constWe even celebrate those that ignore us but implement a Vulkan renderer.

Would you prefer that individual game devs became more tightly dependent on DirectX rather than developing their cross-platform skillset?

No, Vulkan renderers are awesome. My post was entirely around the fact that a big part of this community accepts developers that don't care about linux a lot more then those who at least give it a try but fail (for whatever reasons and not just this kind of extreme case). From the perspective of the developer, this raises the risk of entry enormously.
Microsoft doesn't need to bribe studios to stay away from linux. Members of this community do that job for free.
And it used to be very different.


Last edited by const on 28 June 2020 at 7:25 am UTC
Alm888 Jun 28, 2020
Quoting: constMy post was entirely around the fact that a big part of this community accepts developers that don't care about linux a lot more then those who at least give it a try but fail (for whatever reasons and not just this kind of extreme case). From the perspective of the developer, this raises the risk of entry enormously.
Bashing the failed attempts would be inexcusable if there was no money involved. But we do not speak just "Oops, we failed, sorry!" cases. In most cases there were Kickstarter campaigns, pre-orders and even actual full-fledged purchases before the "Oops" part. So, we are dealing with broken promises, second-class treatment and scammers -- nasty stuff!

Those who did not promise anything from the get-go are totally fine: some will "Just Use Proton™" (knowing well what they are doing and that there is no and will not be any support and they can just say their money "Good Bye!"), others will just walk away without any hard feelings.

TL;DR I'd rather not bash the community for "toxicity" towards failed Linux ports, most of the time the hatred is justified.
tuubi Jun 28, 2020
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Quoting: const
Quoting: CatKiller
Quoting: constWe even celebrate those that ignore us but implement a Vulkan renderer.

Would you prefer that individual game devs became more tightly dependent on DirectX rather than developing their cross-platform skillset?

No, Vulkan renderers are awesome. My post was entirely around the fact that a big part of this community accepts developers that don't care about linux a lot more then those who at least give it a try but fail (for whatever reasons and not just this kind of extreme case). From the perspective of the developer, this raises the risk of entry enormously.
Clicking a button and releasing on a platform without testing? Sure. That does sound very risky. People might not like the result. Actually trying and failing does not usually result in a crappy release (or a release at all), but not bothering to do the bare minimum sometimes does.

Quoting: constMicrosoft doesn't need to bribe studios to stay away from linux. Members of this community do that job for free.
Why would a monopoly holder need to bribe anyone? And that jab at the community is just insincere. In my experience this gaming community is a damn sight more welcoming and helpful than most gaming communities.

I don't think we should avoid being critical of developers who have no intention of supporting our platform properly. Windows gamers sure don't shy away from crapping on bad console ports, and those are actually tested and supported on Windows.

Quoting: constAnd it used to be very different.
You mean back when none of us even considered calling ourselves Linux gamers because there were just a handful of commercial games available? And when nobody actually put out crappy releases by pressing an "Export to Linux" button and calling it a day, because buttons like that did not exist?

Do you remember a different past where we were so desperate for games that we threw our cash at whatever scraps were thrown our way? Because I was here, and I don't remember ever being that desperate.
const Jun 28, 2020
I consinder myself a linux gamer since 2001. Before Steam for Linux, about every game developer using Unity was regularly asked to hit that button and let the community handle the rest. :D
And yes, this is an extreme case, but my argument was not related to this event alone.
const Jun 28, 2020
I agree that a game should be supported if it's officially sold. This developer doesn't care, so my humble choice was a miss, as I'm not even able to get a refund.

Anyway, outside of this specific case, I still wished we would encourage more developers to release native versions, at least as an unofficial beta. :)


Last edited by const on 28 June 2020 at 10:36 am UTC
bacatta Jun 28, 2020
deleted from steam wish list and added to ignore list.
and i don't buy last humble choice because of this.
Beamboom Jun 28, 2020
Quoting: Liam Dawe
Quoting: GuestFrankly my dream is that ultimately one day the OS you run will become irrelevant and then the "native gaming" nonsense goes away for good.
That's realistically not something we're going to see in any of our lifetimes.

Really? I think proton is quite the demonstration of the opposite?

Also, as the platforms grow closer and closer together (Apple changing to x86 architecture, Windows implementing Ubuntu in their environment, cross platform tools emerging, implementation and a better attitude towards open standards, etc), I'd argue that all pointers indicate that indeed LibertyPaulM's dream is pretty damn well on the way!
Liam Dawe Jun 28, 2020
Quoting: Guest
Quoting: Beamboom
Quoting: Liam Dawe
Quoting: GuestFrankly my dream is that ultimately one day the OS you run will become irrelevant and then the "native gaming" nonsense goes away for good.
That's realistically not something we're going to see in any of our lifetimes.

Really? I think proton is quite the demonstration of the opposite?

Also, as the platforms grow closer and closer together (Apple changing to x86 architecture, Windows implementing Ubuntu in their environment, cross platform tools emerging, implementation and a better attitude towards open standards, etc), I'd argue that all pointers indicate that indeed LibertyPaulM's dream is pretty damn well on the way!

Except that Apple is going to an arm based architecture, Ubuntu does do things different to other distros (I've come across some library naming fun with that already), and wine (or if you'd prefer, "Proton") is always a catch-up to a single platform, yet is also trying to implement multiple versions of that platform.

So it's still very much relevant which platform is underneath.
Exactly. Like what mirv said, Wine/Proton is a translation layer that will forever be playing cat and mouse catch-up. You can't realistically see Wine/Proton as a direct target for game developers, the actual target is still Windows and DirectX in that case and they remain closed source. Having a translation layer doesn't change that because it's completely unofficial. Add to that, the translation that goes on absolutely is a platform-specific thing for Linux and all the issues that constantly come with it. Some of these issues may reduce over time but there's tons of them right now.

Vulkan progressing would be a vital step towards taking away platform-specific stuff, sure enough but we're still years away from that because of how long the ecosystem around a newer API takes to build up and that's without taking into account how MSFT continues to aggressively push DirectX - just look at what happened recently with DirectX 12 Ultimate.

Frankly, game streaming through a browser is more what takes away the specific-platform stuff when it comes to the consumer side (depending on how it's all done exactly).


Last edited by Liam Dawe on 28 June 2020 at 1:14 pm UTC
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