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Quoting: voytrekkI think the only thing that Valve should be punished on is the fact that you cannot use another marketplace to trade items. It locks users into a single marketplace that Valve just happens to collect a fee on each transaction. Either take away the fee or allow other marketplaces to compete with Valve.

You want another marketplace to be able to compete with Valve on selling digital items hosted on Valve's platform...?

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The MtG comparison actually fits quite well, only that trading card games would be even more problematic, because each boosterpack has a chance to give you an advantage while playing. In Valves games the benefits are purely cosmetic.

Gambling is a serious topic and its a discussion we´ve got to have. But I personally dont think trading card games should be banned and - by extension - neither should Valves marketplace.

@voytrekk: You are wrong, there are tons of alternate marketplaces for CS2 stuff etc. I find them all a bit cumbersome and shady, but its one of the great things about Valve, that they dont lock you down. You can trade user-to-user or use these marketplaces without giving a penny to Valve.

For that exact reason, PUBG descided to lock down trades after a while (changing all items to "marketable - non tradeable", because they got greedy and didn´t want to miss out on fees.

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I think the only thing that Valve should be punished on is the fact that you cannot use another marketplace to trade items. It locks users into a single marketplace that Valve just happens to collect a fee on each transaction. Either take away the fee or allow other marketplaces to compete with Valve.

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I think it's great they're adding official Linux/SteamOS/Deck/Machine targets. Maybe sometimes they won't work and then we will resort to Proton, but it's still a huge step benefiting the developers who otherwise might be reluctant to develop for Linux. It's all about the friction.

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Let's strike a compromise and just ban anything where you pay a certain amount of money but don't know what you're getting back: lootboxes, gambling, card packs, kinder surprise, mystery game bundles, lotteries, taxes...

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I've been playing Linux native games (Unity, no less) that I had bought ten years ago without any issue. What is there left to improve?

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Director of the one of the 2 most common game engines promises improved native Linux support, and of course it is the "Linux gamers" shitting on it in favour of Windows games via Proton.

Once again, the biggest undoing of Linux games is the Linux gamers. Sigh...

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If they can pull it off, nice.

It's what plenty of folks have been saying a long time. With Proton they can establish Linux as a proper gaming platform. Native solutions would eventually follow.

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Very nice. Didn't expect that given the massive success of Proton.

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What they say is not a good reason not to ban lootboxes and other predatory business practices. It's really just fair to have a good look at the real life equivalents they mentioned, as well. When they say MTG is the same thing, they're right. They also make people overspend for little value in return. I wouldn't mind banning that stuff, too. Collectibles have been a thing since forever, but I am not sure at what point it become acceptable not to tell people what they're buying.

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Quoting: Stella

But I think we can do better with a native solution.

I hard disagree with this statement. Pretty much all existing Linux games suffer from various problems ranging from complete inplayability over control and gameplay/visual issues as well as crashes. Running games over Proton is vastly preferable to Native most of the time because the Windows API is much more stable than the Linux API. I myself have had so many issues with native ports that the Proton versions never have, that I've given up on them completely

So you think that native Linux apps/games are inherently bad. Why bother with Linux and not just use Windows in that case?

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Multiplayer? OK I guess.
Good game, I like it as single player . . . I suppose I'm just not much of a multiplayer fan.

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Quoting: KandarihuI don't think that this is the right approach. As much as I want Linux to grow as a platform, this gives us an unfair advantage. The better choice will be to scrap/abolish such legislation entirely.

As a general rule, I am fine with open source having unfair advantages. For one thing, closed source things do their best to create obstacles and disadvantages for open source. If you can't stop your opponent from cheating, better cheat back. For another, I can see very sound public policy objectives that can be served by preferences for open source. Government does not have a responsibility to make the playing field level, it has a responsibility to make the results of the game good for its citizens. If open source is better for the country and its citizens, then favour it.

In this specific case, I agree that the best choice would be to scrap this kind of legislation entirely. However, if that is not on the table, an unfair advantage for open source would be better than nothing.

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Quoting: grigiWow, did not expect this.

Is this the start of the Linux picks up mainstream developer mindshare thing?
Or is Unity just trying to have it covered in case that happens?

More the latter than the former, I expect. The last time we had Steam Machines announced we got 40% of games released on Steam having a native Linux build, and game engines stepped up their Linux support, based on the potential of a new market. Since those Steam Machines didn't really happen in the end, that support withered.

This time around I think there'll be less withering. The Deck is a proven market, and media are much more positive about Linux than they were then. Linux support is less acceptable to allow to drop than it was then. But the driving force to improve Linux support is the potential of a bigger future market, just as it was then.

Of course, back then, OpenGL support was about the same on Windows, Mac and Linux, so you could avoid duplication of work. Vulkan support on Windows isn't that great, and it's non-existent on Mac, so there'll be more platform-specific duplication of work this time around.

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But I think we can do better with a native solution.

I hard disagree with this statement. Pretty much all existing Linux games suffer from various problems ranging from complete inplayability over control and gameplay/visual issues as well as crashes. Running games over Proton is vastly preferable to Native most of the time because the Windows API is much more stable than the Linux API. I myself have had so many issues with native ports that the Proton versions never have, that I've given up on them completely

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Bureaucratic overreach. As usual, they know that their demands cannot be backed up by existing law. They're just hoping that businesses and citizens will give in to their demands without questioning the legal validity of those demands.

We've seen the same conduct here in Canada, just in different industries.

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But I think we can do better with a native solution.

Oh really? 🤔

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Wow, did not expect this.

Is this the start of the Linux picks up mainstream developer mindshare thing?
Or is Unity just trying to have it covered in case that happens?

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Quoting: g000hAs soon as Californians are no longer able to legally run Linux, their own citizens will go after this law and end the moronic political overreach.

This assumes that the majority of Californians are Linux users. Linux is not significant enough to overturn this law. Besides, the majority of eligible voters are indifferent sheep ... they are more likely to just accept or ignore the overreach.

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Quoting: CaldathrasInteresting. I was forced to 580 from the 550 series. Wasn't given a choice. Based on the link below, Nvidia no longer supports the 550 series, by the way:

https://www.nvidia.com/en-us/drivers/unix/

To do that I had to drop my kernel to 6.14 (which is now also unsupported I think) and remove one line from the code. But any drive above that messes up my VR (among other things), so it has to be done.

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Quoting: Ehvis

Quoting: hardpenguinHmmmmmm Debian Sid has only 550, the Experimental repository has 555, and the official NVIDIA apt repository has... 590.

I think I'll stick to the older driver as long as everything works. Although jumping on the bleeding edge is tempting, as always.

I've tried drivers up to 585 and always returned to 550 because of too many issues. So sticking with the older driver definitely not the worst idea.

Interesting. I was forced to 580 from the 550 series. Wasn't given a choice. Based on the link below, Nvidia no longer supports the 550 series, by the way:

https://www.nvidia.com/en-us/drivers/unix/

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Quoting: princechmm but any news on the totally broken XFCE desktop compositor...? Anything later than 570 completely borks it.

Well, not totally ... just those using the nvidia-open-dkms driver -- i.e., those with newer Nvidia GPUs that support this driver.

https://www.gamingonlinux.com/2026/02/nvidia-recommended-driver-580-126-18-released-for-linux/?comment_id=290368

I'm not having any compositor problems on the 580 series driver with my GeForce MX150.

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Quoting: tmtvlOn the other hand, it would be neat if Steam paying the royalties meant that products containing copyrighted material could be sold through Steam as long as the royalties are paid; DDR/Audiosurf/GH clones could ship with a ton of songs, for example.

That assumes that these parasitic bodies know, much less care, whose work is being licensed. They don't. These bodies don't have a membership list of artists and composers. They don't know whose music is being played by the licensed facility nor to they require that playlists be filed after each event. They are just demanding a general fee because music is involved with the event.

This puts a lie to their claim that a performing artist putting on a show would pay a fee for performing live music but then get that fee back in royalties as the artist and/or composer. Most of the money they collect is likely being consumed by the organization itself with the balance just being distributed to large record firms to line their already considerably wealthy pockets.

Quoting: tmtvlAnyone could make a Harry Potter/Song of Ice and Fire/Lord of the Rings game.

Well, these "royalties" only applies to music, not other intellectual property...

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Quoting: princechmm but any news on the totally broken XFCE desktop compositor...? Anything later than 570 completely borks it.

This problem is not only on the XFCE. MATE desktop is broken too... :(

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Quoting: KandarihuI don't think that this is the right approach. As much as I want Linux to grow as a platform, this gives us an unfair advantage. The better choice will be to scrap/abolish such legislation entirely.

The more users that switch to Linux, the better. M$ Microslop may start to listen to the users 😆 😆 or they will try Embrace, extend, and extinguish

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Quoting: tarmo888Godot has Linux ARM64 and even ARM32 in the UI and you don't even need ARM hardware.

Cool! I know what I have to do. 😁

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This would be great if the Steam Deck system wasn't so terribly inconsistent. I frequently find games that are listed as 'Unsupported' but that run fine, and 'Verified' games with severe performance issues, such as Horizon Zero Dawn (the OG has tons of stuttering). And as for the Remaster, it's Verified despite having the exact same engine as Forbidden West (Unsupported due to 'bad performance') and performing identically.... yea I already gave up trying to make sense of this mess

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Quoting: Ehvis

Quoting: Liam Dawe

Quoting: tarmo888Confused. Only 2 paths for standalone Frame apps? Does that mean there will be no native Linux ARM apps? Through Lepton is as native as we get?

It's more a case that most devs are unlikely to do Native Linux builds.

I don't even think there is a game engine that exports native Linux arm builds. Although they should be there for mac, so who knows what can happen in the future.

Many don't have Windows ARM export too in the UI, but that doesn't mean you can't do it. On Windows, many use scripts to make build anyway, so Windows ARM exports have been available for them for quite some time, even on x86_64 machine. On Linux, all you need is hardware with ARM64.

Godot has Linux ARM64 and even ARM32 in the UI and you don't even need ARM hardware.

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Quoting: Liam Dawe

Quoting: tarmo888Confused. Only 2 paths for standalone Frame apps? Does that mean there will be no native Linux ARM apps? Through Lepton is as native as we get?

It's more a case that most devs are unlikely to do Native Linux builds.

I don't even think there is a game engine that exports native Linux arm builds. Although they should be there for mac, so who knows what can happen in the future.

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Quoting: pb

Quoting: _Mars

In 2007, PRS for Music took a Scottish car servicing company to court because the employees were allegedly "listening to the radio at work, allowing the music to be 'heard by colleagues and customers'".

From the Wikipedia page. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PRS_for_Music#Legal_cases

It happened in other countries, too. My hairdresser has a plaque informing that the music is only for employees and the customers ought to abstain from listening to it. That's where it's headed...

That is not where it's headed, that is the way it has been since the 80:ies when these licensing firms was allowed power by politicians to not allow music to be used at all for any means without a separate license in every step of the chain. This is the entire reason why so called Muzak is used in public spaces and why there is a whole industry of people making music "with low entertainment value" which is exempt from this licensing.

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