While the upcoming Cyberpunk 2077 will not support the Linux desktop, it is at least confirmed to be launching on Stadia same-day as other platforms on November 19.
This gives Linux gamers another way to play, with Stadia getting more huge upcoming games, as on Linux all you need is a Chromium browser and a mouse or gamepad hooked up. If your country is in the supported list for Stadia, that is. Google has still yet to announce wider support for the game streaming service.
Stadia getting probably one of, if not the biggest release this year day and date with other platforms with Cyberpunk 2077 is pretty huge news and perhaps a show of how serious Google are about bringing more people and more games over to it.
From the press release:
“Huge in scale and scope, Cyberpunk 2077 is our most ambitious game to date. It’s humbling to see just how many people are looking forward to playing it, and we want to make it possible for as many gamers as possible come November 19th, when the game launches. The Stadia version will allow players to jump into Night City just seconds after the game unlocks for play worldwide without any downloads needed,” said Michał Nowakowski, SVP of Business Development, CD PROJEKT.
"CD PROJEKT RED are known for developing some of the biggest and best games ever created, and Cyberpunk 2077 is sure to deliver as the most anticipated game of the last few years. We're thrilled to announce that Cyberpunk 2077 will be available on Stadia November 19th. Cyberpunk 2077 on Stadia will allow gamers to play on their favorite screens and never have to wait for a download or install to get into, and explore, the depths of Night City," said Shanna Preve, Managing Director, Stadia Partnerships.
Plenty more footage was shown off recently too on the official YouTube, like this one showing off plenty of the vehicles you will be able to get your hands on:
Direct Link
They also confirmed that people who buy the game on Stadia will get a set of Cyberpunk 2077-themed digital goodies including: the game’s original score, art booklet, the original Cyberpunk 2020 sourcebook and Cyberpunk 2077: Your Voice comic book, as well as a set of wallpapers for desktop and mobile.
It's worth noting also, that CD PROJEKT RED have been embroiled in plenty of controversy around Cyberpunk 2077. Video game journalist Jason Schreier has been covering it in detail, with a developer who was apparently confirmed to be working on it posting about the working conditions on Reddit too. Crunch is seriously terrible and it's such a massive shame these big games keep forcing such terrible conditions on developers.
Don't miss that we're expecting more big Stadia news next week, which we will be following along.
Article taken from GamingOnLinux.com.
What I think happened is that CDPR tied that support to platform owner mentality, like I explained above. And when Valve backed down from posing as the steward of Linux gaming, CDPR also stopped caring.
See: https://www.gamingonlinux.com/wiki/The_Witcher_3_Linux_port
QuoteIf Steam will deliver a constant Linux environment, call it SteamOS or anything like that, we would love to have our game there, because the more people play our games, the better for us.
The key part is that they want Valve (or someone) to be involved as the overseer.
Last edited by Shmerl on 16 October 2020 at 5:41 pm UTC
Quoting: GuestQuality Assurance, testing efforts, training of staff to handle customer support tickets. There are possibly additional IT infrastructure that needs including (servers for Continuous Integration, that kind of thing) - and the salaries of people to maintaining it. Or keep the salaries, but those people now have less time for other things, which can delay products.
CDPR are already doing all that, for Stadia. Adding more use cases for desktop Linux (like tests on more hardware) would be a minor cost in comparison.
I said that before and I'll say it again. The bulk of the effort and expenses on testing and support are already covered if they are releasing for Stadia. So there is no excuse not to release for desktop Linux, it's a minor addition.
Last edited by Shmerl on 16 October 2020 at 5:44 pm UTC
Quoting: GuestVast difference comparing that to general GNU/Linux desktop users running something locally. Stadia is almost the same as a console by comparison.
The difference is vastly overestimated. It's not vast, it's a minor difference. It's not a zero cost effort sure, but it's peanuts expenses for someone like CDPR.
Quoting: GuestFine, show me the economics in numbers behind it all if you know so much better than every single company out there. Include all support costs, and I'll give you a hint: there are more than what I wrote previously.
That's what Valve were doing for developers do dispel this nonsense (in the early days of SteamOS and Steam machines). They had a bunch of presentations on how to reduce cost of support when releasing for Linux. It worked, developers were educated on it. But Valve stopped putting this marketing and educational effort and things started falling back to ignorance or indifference at best.
Point is, those who care can do it right and afford it while being part of the Linux gaming market. Those who only care about platform politics won't lift a finger, even if costs them peanuts change to do it. So cost argument can be put to rest right away. The problem different.
Last edited by Shmerl on 16 October 2020 at 6:07 pm UTC
https://community.stadia.com/t5/Stadia-Community-Blog/Explore-hack-and-fight-your-way-through-Ubisoft-games-coming/ba-p/35870
Quoting: GuestIt would have been akin to Stadia - a single platform to develop against. That was the idea. It....didn't turn out that way, which is somewhat annoying.
I think even Linus Torvalds mentioned it - no one stops games developers from making some distro their standard target. Other distros won't have hard time adjusting to run such games if needed. So it's not a cost and not even a technical problem by far and for a long time already. It's totally political.
Valve tried to push that idea with SteamOS being that standard target. But in reality it doesn't have to be SteamOS, it can be anything. Problem is, without anyone actually advocating a specific example for developers anymore, it falls back to the above issue - having to decide for themselves doesn't fit into their mental model of always requiring a platform owner telling them what to do and as a result they don't do anything.
To put it differently, Linux gaming is bitten by lack of collaboration in the messed up gaming industry and no one taking the lead role of advancing Linux gaming in general from the above perspective.
Last edited by Shmerl on 16 October 2020 at 6:16 pm UTC
Quoting: GuestMultiple distros become suddenly a single target. This is what I suspect to be Valve's long term goal with that collaboration.
If they are still on board with that - great. But they practically stopped all the outreach to developers (may they aren't ready?), so it looks like nothing is happenning.
About open source community - that's a good point. Community can create a distro that is targeted for gaming specifically with the focus of promoting it to developers first and foremost, and invite more collaboration from all interested parties. It shouldn't be limited to Steam or whatever (that's why I think SteamOS was a bad name for it). It should be more neutral to invite collaboration.
Last edited by Shmerl on 16 October 2020 at 6:29 pm UTC
Quoting: GuestSame for Destiny 2, which Bungie had a big video on porting for it. We've seen Ryan "Icculus" Gordon talk about how easy it is to go from plain Linux to Stadia, and same with Ethan Lee on porting to Stadia. People need to stop this incessant tin-foil hatting about it. It means nothing for games on the Linux desktop though. More Vulkan and more developers learning both? Yes. Accessible and playable on Linux in the browser the same as on Windows? Also yes. It's a net win for us, not something against us.Quoting: CyrilQuoting: gustavoyaraujoIf it runs on stadia, it's running on Linux.
It doesn't mean it's native. And I think it's quite important.
Seriously we know barely nothing about their infrastructure.
We know quite a lot from Google themselves, and from developers talking about their experiences on porting to Stadia. Ubisoft has a whole presentation on the people getting things running with Vulkan, and working that in with the rest of the development efforts with other platforms.
Quoting: ShmerlQuoting: GuestExcept that it _is_ normal. It's entirely normal for a company to look at the costs of support and factor that into whether a game is released on a given platform, regardless of technical viability.
No, I don't buy the support cost excuse anyone. It's bunk. Not when small studios with much thinner resources can afford it. It's platform politics in its worst form.
It is quite a difference to offer support for 10.000 sold copies vs 2.000.000 or more copies. I don't think you can compare both cases.
Quoting: jensIt is quite a difference to offer support for 10.000 sold copies vs 2.000.000 or more copies. I don't think you can compare both cases.
The support argument is used as an excuse, but the real problem is different - see above. I.e. without solving the actual issue, even if support costs would be zero, they still wouldn't care.
Last edited by Shmerl on 16 October 2020 at 6:44 pm UTC
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