I, amongst others like Icculus and Aspyr, had the pleasure of speaking to Kyle Orland from Ars about the past, present and future of Linux gaming. See the full article on Ars here for referencing. I would suggest people read it, as it is an interesting look at the state of things.
As usual from a “bigger site” it has plenty of absolutely golden comments to take a look at. We are lucky here at GOL, in the way that myself and the other editors are as active as we are in the comments, so we try to keep things under control and sane, but I decided to risk my sanity to check out the comments on the Ars article.
If you go reading the comments yourself, I suggest having a friend handy to pull you out with a rope to avoid getting too sucked in.
Here are some choice comments, and some further thoughts of mine:
It’s nice to see people not properly read the article, and as I stated to Kyle I am quoted on saying that Steam Machines would not be an overnight success.
You may remember I also wrote an editorial recently about how Linux Gaming will be fine without Steam Machines, so no, I’m not saying it will be a resounding success, as I don’t know if it will be a success or not, but I am hopeful, there’s a difference.
Valve Time is always an issue, and yes, it has slowed things down a bit as we have already seen developers delay Linux ports due to this. As for games, even Windows doesn't have Destiny, so that example was rather pointless, not to mention Destiny is a shallow husk of what it should have been. As for Shadow of Mordor, well who knows, there has been a hint thanks to SteamDB, as we noted recently.
I used to agree about the porting, and was quite vocal about my annoyance on outsourced ports. I've stated a number of times having outsourced porting does often leave us in the dust, but Aspyr and Feral have started to prove that wrong with their fantastic efforts.
The last point is one I touch on often too. We need games to get a higher share of the market, but a lot of developers don’t enter a market until it reaches a higher point, and this is why I am so thankful we do have companies like Valve, Aspyr, Feral and one man porting machines like Ryan 'Icculus' Gordon.
This also directly goes into my points about Steam Machines not being an overnight success, but it should help our numbers grow a lot quicker than before.
Android came out of nowhere and quickly took a massive chunk of the mobile market, so it's certainly not impossible to break what people are comfortable with.
I will end this funny little look on a high note, this was a “reader favourite” and an “editors pick”:
I’m not exactly sure what % of my Steam library is on Linux, but almost all of my favourite games are now on Linux. I’ve been able to sink tons of hours into games like XCOM (see my full review of XCOM here) and Borderlands 2.
There are tons of other interesting, constructive, and argumentative comments about it never taking off, and let’s not forget the comments about us not understanding “gamers”, and just lots of silliness.
No matter what happens, I think we are all going to be pleasantly surprised next week when the GDC news comes flowing in. Article taken from GamingOnLinux.com.
As usual from a “bigger site” it has plenty of absolutely golden comments to take a look at. We are lucky here at GOL, in the way that myself and the other editors are as active as we are in the comments, so we try to keep things under control and sane, but I decided to risk my sanity to check out the comments on the Ars article.
If you go reading the comments yourself, I suggest having a friend handy to pull you out with a rope to avoid getting too sucked in.
Here are some choice comments, and some further thoughts of mine:
BasPSo both the guy who ports games to Linux for a living and the guy who has a Linux gaming website think Steam games on Linux will be a success, eh? Unexpected!
It’s nice to see people not properly read the article, and as I stated to Kyle I am quoted on saying that Steam Machines would not be an overnight success.
You may remember I also wrote an editorial recently about how Linux Gaming will be fine without Steam Machines, so no, I’m not saying it will be a resounding success, as I don’t know if it will be a success or not, but I am hopeful, there’s a difference.
Operative MeThe Steam Machines were supposed to launch in October. Where's the glut of new games being released for Linux on the same date? Destiny? Shadows of Mordor?
Again, if you're a Linux fan, I'm happy you're getting more games. Be thrilled about that. But the idea that the Steam Machines were anything but an overreaction and a useless gesture just isn't borne out by reality. And the future of SteamOS and gaming on Linux just isn't set in stone. I'm sure there will continue to be some support for it. As it gets cheaper to port games, more games will be ported. But they're going to be late, and done by a third party who doesn't really care.
Linux, to get the support people seem to think they're going to get, would need to have more users than Macs. Do you realistically see Linux surpassing 10% marketshare?
Valve Time is always an issue, and yes, it has slowed things down a bit as we have already seen developers delay Linux ports due to this. As for games, even Windows doesn't have Destiny, so that example was rather pointless, not to mention Destiny is a shallow husk of what it should have been. As for Shadow of Mordor, well who knows, there has been a hint thanks to SteamDB, as we noted recently.
I used to agree about the porting, and was quite vocal about my annoyance on outsourced ports. I've stated a number of times having outsourced porting does often leave us in the dust, but Aspyr and Feral have started to prove that wrong with their fantastic efforts.
The last point is one I touch on often too. We need games to get a higher share of the market, but a lot of developers don’t enter a market until it reaches a higher point, and this is why I am so thankful we do have companies like Valve, Aspyr, Feral and one man porting machines like Ryan 'Icculus' Gordon.
This also directly goes into my points about Steam Machines not being an overnight success, but it should help our numbers grow a lot quicker than before.
Android came out of nowhere and quickly took a massive chunk of the mobile market, so it's certainly not impossible to break what people are comfortable with.
I will end this funny little look on a high note, this was a “reader favourite” and an “editors pick”:
andrewd18Almost 50% of my Steam library is natively available for Linux. No matter where SteamOS and the Linux gaming market goes from here, I already count that as a win.
I’m not exactly sure what % of my Steam library is on Linux, but almost all of my favourite games are now on Linux. I’ve been able to sink tons of hours into games like XCOM (see my full review of XCOM here) and Borderlands 2.
There are tons of other interesting, constructive, and argumentative comments about it never taking off, and let’s not forget the comments about us not understanding “gamers”, and just lots of silliness.
No matter what happens, I think we are all going to be pleasantly surprised next week when the GDC news comes flowing in. Article taken from GamingOnLinux.com.
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In general, I agree with everything said here. Regardless of what happens next for the Steammachine/SteamOS, the last year or so has been 100% win.
I will say, however, that using the metric of "% of my library" is a horribly flawed way of looking at the state of the union. By definition, we (linux gamers) are more likely to have a linux-dominated library, so it will almost always appear to be that the market is looking great. Likewise, I don't believe you can safely use the old stand-by "% of the general Top Sellers on Steam". Windows users still dominate the market, the will float some games to the top that will skew that top sellers-style of list.
A better metric would need to be user-independent and based on the *all* new games within a given date range ("last month", "last quarter", etc). Optionally, you could filter further by "AAA" vs "non-AAA", but I suspect you'll run into issues of what exactly is a AAA game/where do you draw that line.
Using Steam only (which right away is also a flawed approach), looking at all software, filtered by Games Only (that is, excluding things like tools, SDKs, etc), they show a library of 4,565 games, 981 of those are available on linux (21%). Looking at just what has a release date within February 2015: 226 total, 44 for linux (19%). Which is all hellvua' lot better than the market was a year or three ago, but far from our personal libraries what 40%, 50% and higher would be more common.
From an analytics stand point, I'd also be kind of interested in a breakdown based on game genre. Do RPGs get ported more often than Action, etc. that kind of thing.
I will say, however, that using the metric of "% of my library" is a horribly flawed way of looking at the state of the union. By definition, we (linux gamers) are more likely to have a linux-dominated library, so it will almost always appear to be that the market is looking great. Likewise, I don't believe you can safely use the old stand-by "% of the general Top Sellers on Steam". Windows users still dominate the market, the will float some games to the top that will skew that top sellers-style of list.
A better metric would need to be user-independent and based on the *all* new games within a given date range ("last month", "last quarter", etc). Optionally, you could filter further by "AAA" vs "non-AAA", but I suspect you'll run into issues of what exactly is a AAA game/where do you draw that line.
Using Steam only (which right away is also a flawed approach), looking at all software, filtered by Games Only (that is, excluding things like tools, SDKs, etc), they show a library of 4,565 games, 981 of those are available on linux (21%). Looking at just what has a release date within February 2015: 226 total, 44 for linux (19%). Which is all hellvua' lot better than the market was a year or three ago, but far from our personal libraries what 40%, 50% and higher would be more common.
From an analytics stand point, I'd also be kind of interested in a breakdown based on game genre. Do RPGs get ported more often than Action, etc. that kind of thing.
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Maelrane 27 Feb 2015
97/225 of my games are on my favorite platform. I also count this as a win. Even if they stopped right there I could still play for many years and then would switch to other hobbies ^^
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QuanTuM 27 Feb 2015
I totally count the following as a win:
I dropped windows when I started my studies (3 years ago) and never used my steam account since then (only some Counterstrike Games unlocked on my account), suddenly Valve says:
People, here is a steam client for you.
Now here is what my steam client tells me now (only a few examples):
Isaac: Rebirth - 61h
Book of Unwritten Tales (1, 2 and prequel) - 46h
Borderlands 2 - 136h
Deponia: The Complete Journey - 37h
Don't Starve - 26h
Dying Light - 46h
Metro Last Light - 56h
Metro 2033 Redux - 14h
Portal 2 - 14h
Team Fortress 2 - 128h
Trine 2 - 64h
The Witcher 2 - 44h
XCOM - 36h
FTL - 41h
Half Life 2 - 12h
L4D2 - 19h
Mark of the Ninja - 38h
....
Ratio STEAMOS + Linux to all Games on my account:
141 vs 228
:]
I dropped windows when I started my studies (3 years ago) and never used my steam account since then (only some Counterstrike Games unlocked on my account), suddenly Valve says:
People, here is a steam client for you.
Now here is what my steam client tells me now (only a few examples):
Isaac: Rebirth - 61h
Book of Unwritten Tales (1, 2 and prequel) - 46h
Borderlands 2 - 136h
Deponia: The Complete Journey - 37h
Don't Starve - 26h
Dying Light - 46h
Metro Last Light - 56h
Metro 2033 Redux - 14h
Portal 2 - 14h
Team Fortress 2 - 128h
Trine 2 - 64h
The Witcher 2 - 44h
XCOM - 36h
FTL - 41h
Half Life 2 - 12h
L4D2 - 19h
Mark of the Ninja - 38h
....
Ratio STEAMOS + Linux to all Games on my account:
141 vs 228
:]
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As long as Linux proves itself a great alternative to Windows when Windows is too buggy, unstable, or bloated with crapware tied to drivers, Linux will be a winner. These are my reasons among unlisted reasons to use Linux over Windows. I didn't choose Linux over Windows for fanboyish reasons. It just proved to work better for me and it might for other people as well.
Windows 8 and 10 might be better for gaming than 7 is besides performance reasons. If not, then at least Microsoft is looking over their shoulders and thinking about what they can do better for PC gaming. Everyone wins regardless of the OSes they may love, despise, or feel indifferent to.
Windows 8 and 10 might be better for gaming than 7 is besides performance reasons. If not, then at least Microsoft is looking over their shoulders and thinking about what they can do better for PC gaming. Everyone wins regardless of the OSes they may love, despise, or feel indifferent to.
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FutureSuture 27 Feb 2015
Worth noting that there are not 10% Mac users on Steam, but 3.32%.Indeed. No idea where they got those 10% from. He also made a mistake by thinking Dying Light is not on Linux. That, plus Shadow of Mordor is likely to hit Linux as well, not just because of the hint Liam mentioned, but because of [this hint by Feral](https://www.gamingonlinux.com/articles/feral-interactive-have-put-up-another-port-teaser.4844) as well.
http://store.steampowered.com/hwsurvey
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sarmad 28 Feb 2015
Using any sort of metrics right now is not really valid until Valve declares clearly their intentions. There are actually a couple of worrying signs lately:
* Valve mentioned the Steam Machines, but for a developer conference (which is what GDC is) you would expect them to mention SteamOS, but they didn't. So, could Steam Machines come loaded with Windows instead?
* The latest update to Unreal Engine 4 did not support Linux, not yet at least.
We'll have to wait until next week to be sure what goes on in Valve's mind. But so far the skepticism of the analysts isn't totally invalid.
* Valve mentioned the Steam Machines, but for a developer conference (which is what GDC is) you would expect them to mention SteamOS, but they didn't. So, could Steam Machines come loaded with Windows instead?
* The latest update to Unreal Engine 4 did not support Linux, not yet at least.
We'll have to wait until next week to be sure what goes on in Valve's mind. But so far the skepticism of the analysts isn't totally invalid.
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* The latest update to Unreal Engine 4 did not support Linux, not yet at least.
.
Since 1 or 2 versions ago, you can make games for Linux.
Which doenst support, is the Unreal Editor working in Linux, so you have to develop the game in Windows. By the way, this is the exact reason because I use windows yet.
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Segata Sanshiro 28 Feb 2015
Indeed. No idea where they got those 10% from.
The 10% is probably based off the overall Desktop OS market, last I checked OSX eas estimated to be around 9% or so.
But obviously that doesn't equate to 9-10% on Steam, considering the OS is tied to hardware and that hardware is pretty crappy for gaming.
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Speedster 28 Feb 2015
I will say, however, that using the metric of "% of my library" is a horribly flawed way of looking at the state of the union.
"% of my library" is not a good universal metric... but it can be a very meaningful metric on a personal level.
Suppose you were a newly arrived Linux gamer, like some posting here. If you then checked to see how many games bought under windows were still playable after the switch, and found over 50% of your couple hundred games had been ported, that's a great indication that your favorite genres and publishers are strong on Linux support -- worthy cause to celebrate. Pretending for the sake of example, that you love retro platformers but dislike AAA stealth games, then the current market is treating you well, and you probably don't need to get too upset about how nobody is porting the Thief series to Linux ;)
I'm assuming here of course that they're talking about games that were (mostly) bought under Windows, like someone posted here. Otherwise that statistic is a less strongly positive indication, just that there exist some games for Linux that you consider worth buying, but not necessarily your favorites that you would have been buying without having to take platform into account.
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Not to be a Negative Nancy but how is the Borderlands 2 port good, if it only works properly with Nvidia hardware. Just saying. Or is the Linux platform open, just so long as you don't want to play games, in which case you need to buy a GPU from that one brand. I'm thankful for Aspyre's work- don't get me wrong. But let's not get blinded and not state facts as well. For all the crap the Witcher 2 port got they're still actively fixing it and the thing is very playable even on AMD hardware, now. Yet, last week when I started Borderlands 2, just to see if the performance has improved since the last time I tried it on Linux and it couldn't reach 30 fps on an i7 4790k, 290x 4GB and 12GB of RAM. Heck, I was rocking 60 fps with my previous FX6300 and 270x 2GB under Windows and it s a notoriously badly optimized game.
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Liam Dawe 28 Feb 2015
@mao, speak to AMD about their drivers. Every developer says the same thing, the closed source AMD drivers are trash for OpenGL support and performance.
Look at every Phoronix benchmark. It is not Aspyr's fault.
Look at every Phoronix benchmark. It is not Aspyr's fault.
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Keyrock 28 Feb 2015
76/144 of the games I own on Steam are natively Linux. That percentage will go up as I don't buy anything but Linux native any more.
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biggest fail of Ars article is the timing. posting speculation like this one week before GDC where Valve will finally unveil more information after long quiet is like intentional flaming in order to get money from advertising
first steam machines showed the problem and that is why they never happened (september was just for Alienware and that happened, just not for Linux which is probably best thing about it). you can't unveil spec that has "cpu, gpu, ram and maybe hdd". this is even bigger hurdle for developer than PC ever was.
my guess goes that steam machine will at least require glNext and this simplifies developer target a lot from "you need to check which core profile and extensions are supported, then use correct code path"
first steam machines showed the problem and that is why they never happened (september was just for Alienware and that happened, just not for Linux which is probably best thing about it). you can't unveil spec that has "cpu, gpu, ram and maybe hdd". this is even bigger hurdle for developer than PC ever was.
my guess goes that steam machine will at least require glNext and this simplifies developer target a lot from "you need to check which core profile and extensions are supported, then use correct code path"
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@mao, speak to AMD about their drivers. Every developer says the same thing, the closed source AMD drivers are trash for OpenGL support and performance.
Look at every Phoronix benchmark. It is not Aspyr's fault.
You know, in general I would agree because AMD have a history of bad drivers for both Windows and Linux. However the current driver is exceptionally good for Windows and pretty decent for Linux. It is the Omega driver that brought a huge boost in performance to 290 and 290x in particular, but I fail to see that in Borderlands (heck, the game actually runs worse). Again - I'm not judging Aspyr because it's always an financially based decision. I'm just arguing you cannot call a great port a game that does not officially support 2 of the three graphics card vendors and there is no active development in that direction. I know most Linux purists tend to bash on AMD but this whole "Linux as a gaming platform" thing will NOT work out if games aren't developed for all brands of GPU.
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RTheren 28 Feb 2015
I have on Steam 27 games, but only 2 can be played on Crapdows (for now). I really like the higher performance in some games. Also I am considering to install Steam OS when it will be full release.
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crunchpaste 28 Feb 2015
Not to be a Negative Nancy but how is the Borderlands 2 port good, if it only works properly with Nvidia hardware.
Works quite decently on an Intel HD4400. Medium settings 30+ FPS.. I think that's good enough for a cheap laptop.
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Liam Dawe 28 Feb 2015
I've also seen reports of 30FPS+ on Intel HD 3000, so Intel works pretty well for Borderlands 2.Not to be a Negative Nancy but how is the Borderlands 2 port good, if it only works properly with Nvidia hardware.
Works quite decently on an Intel HD4400. Medium settings 30+ FPS.. I think that's good enough for a cheap laptop.
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Ivancillo 28 Feb 2015
Linux gaming existed before Valve, before the Humble Bundles, and before either was ever even an idea. With all due respect to Valve and their efforts (which have been a lot), they didn't create a market - they took it over, have increased it, but they never created it. The ball was rolling long before then.
It seems that so many think any kind of Linux gaming is reliant entirely on Valve and the success of Steam Machines. It's not.
[...]
So if Linux gaming isn't a replica of how things are done for Windows - does it really matter? By any other metric, Linux gaming is already a success and it's only growing.
I think more or less the same way as you.
In fact, I give more credit to HumbleIndieBundle and crowfunding goals for the increasing interest of the developers on Linux ports than to Valve.
It was clear for me at the time HumbleBundle started.
Valve saw the same and bet for Linux. Which is OK and contributed even more to the success with its influence on market and with the Steamworks port for Linux.
The last place (but not inmeritorious for that) is for GoG.com, which was very reticent to give Linux support.
I think that the exit of The Enigmatic T took part in that change.
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Linux gaming existed before Valve, before the Humble Bundles, and before either was ever even an idea. With all due respect to Valve and their efforts (which have been a lot), they didn't create a market - they took it over, have increased it, but they never created it. The ball was rolling long before then.
It seems that so many think any kind of Linux gaming is reliant entirely on Valve and the success of Steam Machines. It's not.
[...]
So if Linux gaming isn't a replica of how things are done for Windows - does it really matter? By any other metric, Linux gaming is already a success and it's only growing.
I think more or less the same way as you.
In fact, I give more credit to HumbleIndieBundle and crowfunding goals for the increasing interest of the developers on Linux ports than to Valve.
It was clear for me at the time HumbleBundle started.
Valve saw the same and bet for Linux. Which is OK and contributed even more to the success with its influence on market and with the Steamworks port for Linux.
The last place (but not inmeritorious for that) is for GoG.com, which was very reticent to give Linux support.
I think that the exit of The Enigmatic T took part in that change.
Speak for yourselves guys. Pre-Valve the state of Linux gaming was pitiful IMO. Games have been my hobby and passion ever since I was 6 and my parents made the grave mistake of buying me my first console (I've only had two so don't hold it against me :)). In my view Windows has been and currently still is by far the vastly superior gaming platform. I'm not discussing why just stating the situation. However with Valve and GoG pushing the idea of Linux as a triple A viable gaming environment, sort of speak, that gap is finally closing. Obviously it always boils down to personal preference, but I cannot imagine how gaming can be your hobby and you'd lock yourself out of 90% of the great titles that come out for the PC. Hopefully in the coming years more of you guys will get a taste of that AAA goodness that us dual booters get to experience.
PS I know I always seem to bash on Linux in my comments but it's actually tough love and this place sure needs a devil's advocate ;)
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drmoth 1 Mar 2015
% of library games is definitely not a good metric, but it's a FUN one.
I have 183 / 226, which means 83% of my games are on Linux. That's not representative, because I only really started using Steam under Linux and I only buy Linux games (or games that are rumoured to come to Linux and are on special). All the rest of those Windows games are from bundles that had non-Linux titles.
@mao_dze_dun you are right, Devil's Advocate is a healthy thing (and a reasonable Devil's Advocate can't be found on mainstream blog comments unfortunately).
However, I disagree, Windows is not a vastly superior gaming platform for the PC because for an eternity it's been the ONLY one. That doesn't mean that as a gaming platform (on PC), it's any good. Broken drivers because you installed an app or game that broke other apps/games on your system, being asked for the millionth time to reinstall the Directx Runtime, random bluescreens, viruses, controller issues, unsupported USB drivers because you upgraded to Windows 8...blah blah blah.
A custom Linux OS, running a true and tried packet manager, on a stable version of Debian (Linux at it's rock-solid best) with video cards running OpenGL Next. Now THAT could be a superior gaming platform for PC. I'm not saying it is now, but the future looks bright.
Example - I torrented Shadow of Mordor on one of my Windows partitions (I'm occasionally obliged to use it for work...I had deleted all of my Windows partitions and then that damn OS crept back due to clients wanting Windows work...my laptop and all PCs have Linux on them though, a couple dual or triple boot) in order to check the hype out as I'm a long time LOTR fan...and you know, "try before you buy". Now, I would never pirate games for Linux mind you. Anyway, turns out SoM only supports the Xbox360 controller, so my Logitech F710 only half works and can't be remapped. WTF! So I tried x360ce , an Xbox360 controller emulator, but no, it fails to work for me, it just crashes on my system and this is after many different attempts. So much for PC (Windows) Master Race!
Needless to say, I have not played any of Shadow of Mordor, I now refuse to play it until it comes out for Linux.
I have 183 / 226, which means 83% of my games are on Linux. That's not representative, because I only really started using Steam under Linux and I only buy Linux games (or games that are rumoured to come to Linux and are on special). All the rest of those Windows games are from bundles that had non-Linux titles.
@mao_dze_dun you are right, Devil's Advocate is a healthy thing (and a reasonable Devil's Advocate can't be found on mainstream blog comments unfortunately).
However, I disagree, Windows is not a vastly superior gaming platform for the PC because for an eternity it's been the ONLY one. That doesn't mean that as a gaming platform (on PC), it's any good. Broken drivers because you installed an app or game that broke other apps/games on your system, being asked for the millionth time to reinstall the Directx Runtime, random bluescreens, viruses, controller issues, unsupported USB drivers because you upgraded to Windows 8...blah blah blah.
A custom Linux OS, running a true and tried packet manager, on a stable version of Debian (Linux at it's rock-solid best) with video cards running OpenGL Next. Now THAT could be a superior gaming platform for PC. I'm not saying it is now, but the future looks bright.
Example - I torrented Shadow of Mordor on one of my Windows partitions (I'm occasionally obliged to use it for work...I had deleted all of my Windows partitions and then that damn OS crept back due to clients wanting Windows work...my laptop and all PCs have Linux on them though, a couple dual or triple boot) in order to check the hype out as I'm a long time LOTR fan...and you know, "try before you buy". Now, I would never pirate games for Linux mind you. Anyway, turns out SoM only supports the Xbox360 controller, so my Logitech F710 only half works and can't be remapped. WTF! So I tried x360ce , an Xbox360 controller emulator, but no, it fails to work for me, it just crashes on my system and this is after many different attempts. So much for PC (Windows) Master Race!
Needless to say, I have not played any of Shadow of Mordor, I now refuse to play it until it comes out for Linux.
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