Update: 28/08/21 - The developer is now looking into putting up a Beta version to get the community to help test. So it's possible they may restore native Linux support.
Original article:
Turnip Boy Commits Tax Evasion, a silly single-player adventure that reviewed well and one I personally enjoyed has decided to drop Linux support.
Snoozy Kazoo and Graffiti Games recently put out a big free update for the game, which is not coming to Linux. On their Steam forum, the developer posted this announcement on August 19:
Attention gamers and tax evaders,
We will be dropping support for Linux beyond the June 16th release of the game on Linux. If you have the Linux version installed, it will not be updated with future content and fixes unfortunately. You will need to download the Windows or Mac version for future updates.
We apologize for any inconvenience this may cause, but it has been a struggle to reliably build and test the Linux version, so it will not be updated in the future.
No further explanation was given on what issues they encountered. It's built with the Unity game engine, which usually has pretty good Linux support so we can only speculate as to anything more on it until they decided to expand on the reasons for it.
A real shame when this happens but it's part of the struggle of being a niche platform. Hopefully the upcoming Steam Deck (which is powered by Linux) will eventually see more developers look to support their games directly either through native builds they have control over, or regular testing with Steam Play Proton.
Article taken from GamingOnLinux.com.
Game developers suck at software development, despite doing exactly that - usually they only don't if they themselves come from "normal" software development and possess more skills than "how to do X in Unity".
It's the natural conclusion to having too-convenient tools like Unity available, I guess.
"struggle to reliably build and test".... wow, just wow.
Stuff like that wouldn't fly where I work.
Last edited by TheSHEEEP on 27 August 2021 at 10:39 am UTC
Quoting: TheSHEEEPHonestly just shows what I've been saying for years:
Game developers suck at software development, despite doing exactly that - usually they only don't if they themselves come from "normal" software development and possess more skills than "how to do X in Unity".
It's the natural conclusion to having too-convenient tools like Unity available, I guess.
"struggle to reliably build and test".... wow, just wow.
Stuff like that wouldn't fly where I work.
Yeah, that's what I was thinking. This smells like laziness or incompetence. Or both. If I told my employer something like that he'd tell me to for a new job.
I'm terrible at programming myself but I don't understand how you could fail at setting up a testing environment.
Last edited by CatKiller on 27 August 2021 at 12:17 pm UTC
Quoting: TheSHEEEPGame developers suck at software development, despite doing exactly that
Well the majority of "game developers" are actually just artists. One-man-army game devs are artists who can code a little.
Even a good majority of professional developers suck at programming (sorry, but that's the truth), can't really expect much from artists.
Quoting: HoriIf they consider it's not profitable, or that they could do something else with that time/effort that's more profitable than it, then it is what it is, that's capitalism, we can't demand charity.It's not charity if it's a product that's already been sold. We're in the realm of legal obligations and customer expectations now.
I think there's two positions one could take on this:
1. "You paid for the game at the time, you got the game at the time"
2. "You paid for the game like everyone else, you should expect to receive the same product/experience as everyone else"
While I personally lean more toward the sentiment of #2, for a single-player game I think #1 can be a reasonable position to hold. So long as the game doesn't lose functionality for those who bought it on Linux, they essentially still have what they paid for. :/
redneckdrow Aug 27, 2021
A struggle to build and test? Build and test it on Linux for Pete's sake! Unity's editor works fine now on Linux last I checked; what a cop-out response! If it's a middleware problem, just say so, don't blame the Kernel/OS for someone else's failing.
If itch supported reviews, I'd tell them what I think just like I did with Forager!
Kimyrielle Aug 27, 2021
Quoting: TheSHEEEPGame developers suck at software development, despite doing exactly that - usually they only don't if they themselves come from "normal" software development and possess more skills than "how to do X in Unity".
It's the natural conclusion to having too-convenient tools like Unity available, I guess.
"struggle to reliably build and test".... wow, just wow.
Stuff like that wouldn't fly where I work.
I second that. Many game developers, even the ones writing code and not just the artists, indeed seem to have surprisingly narrow skill sets. They know how to boot Windows and can navigate whatever scripting language their engine of choice is using. The better qualified ones know their way around Visual Studio and DirectX, too. And only a handful ever seemed to have worked with an IDE -not- called Visual Studio, or is aware that DirectX isn't the only API of its kind out there.
If that studio isn't even able to make what really doesn't look like an overly complex piece of software run on a platform their engine is supporting quite well, I really wonder for how long these people have been "software developers".
PublicNuisance Aug 27, 2021
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