Quoteafter previously releasing the positively received Full Void.

Ooh, I really liked that one! Played through it on the Deck recently.

Guess I ought to check out their new one, then.

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Quoting: Purple Library GuyYes and no. The difference, sure, at any particular snapshot in time. But that's not what I was wondering about. Linux's 4% on the web was 2% not so long ago--the Linux desktop web share has apparently doubled, while its Steam share has inched upwards, I dunno, maybe 10%. This during a time when using the Linux desktop to game has rapidly gotten more workable, so if anything I would have expected the ratio to shrink, not grow. Still seems odd to me.

Since September 2018 (the start of the GOL data) Linux in the web browser has grown from 1.68% to 3.77%, while Linux on Steam has grown from 0.78% to 2.32%. There just hasn't been the meteoric rise that you're imagining. Linux usage on the desktop has just had slow, steady, boring growth whichever way you measure. With slightly faster growth for gaming specifically once a high-profile company releases a high-profile gaming device with Linux pre-installed.

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Quoting: Purple Library GuyGood news! I'm still wondering what's up with the increasingly strong difference between the apparent growth speed of desktop Linux on the web (as noted here ), and the relatively slow growth of desktop Linux on Steam.

Do you wonder about the difference between Mac's 14.9% on browser stats and 1.5% on Steam stats? It's the same thing.

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Quoting: denyasis(to be fair, I've had a steam deck for a year and have barely used it, still can't figure out a use case for it for me)

(psst... You play games on it...)

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Quoting: WorMzyI don't think I've ever seen the survey pop up on Steam Deck. Does it appear in Big Picture mode or does it only show up if you switch to Desktop mode?

In gaming mode it pops up a notification. You need to interact with that to send off your sample.

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Quoting: CorbenMore than Mac... impressive!

https://www.gamingonlinux.com/2023/08/linux-overtakes-macos-users-on-steam-thanks-to-steam-deck/

Linux has been higher than Mac since.

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Quoting: slaapliedjeHa, yeah, they call it the 'Game porting toolkit' and I put that in quotes because it's not really porting the game, but is more like how Wine works... literally being based on Crossover/Wine. Though I'm assuming it mixes Rosetta in there for some of the CPU translation layer. I'm not sure how much of that is the open source stuff from Wine, or how much is just Apple code though...

It also can't be used for any actual released games; it's for internal demonstration purposes only.

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It is, of course, entirely expected that Sony would want to leverage their own infrastructure, and to funnel PC gamers into PlayStation gamers.

With their network working on the Deck - make sure it works, and make sure it keeps working - they get the virtuous cycle marketing boost that's hugely more significant than just the ~5 million units sold. The two biggest questions the games media have with every high profile PC release are "is it coming to Steam?" and "will it work on the Steam Deck?" Boosting non-Microsoft gaming should be an easy mood for Sony, and people gushing over how talented Sony's devs are is no bad thing.

Without it working on the Deck the coverage is only about how terrible PSN is, and how much everyone hates it, as demonstrated by EA, Ubisoft, Rockstar and Epic. Except actually slightly worse, because they're years late behind a half-dozen others, and the things people are already aware of with PSN are the bad download speeds, the pretty rubbish store interface, and the massive data breach that took the network down for months and meant Sony had to fork out to millions of people.

"Not actually worse than EA & Ubisoft" is an achievable goal for Sony, but it would be pretty sad if that were all they could muster. There are some pretty straightforward things Sony can do to better achieve their objectives.

Internet requirement for single-player is bullshit. Cut that out. Cut that right out.

PSN linking can be optional. When the player links their Steam account to their PSN account - boom! - populate their achievements list on each with achievements earned in the other. Steam has adequate means to uniquely identify a Steam user in the meantime for cross-platform play.

Eat the cost of double-dipping DLC. I haven't yet worked out whether it makes sense to eat the cost of all double-dipping, but single-digit percentages buy DLC at all - you don't want those purchases locking people out of your platform, so if people buy DLC on Steam they also get the DLC on PlayStation, and vice versa. For the base game, something like "buy the game on Steam, with a linked account, get it half price on PlayStation" might end up making sense. Possibly the other way, too. Should they ever get round to having a PSN PC store, having "buy on PSN anywhere, have it apply to PSN anywhere" should be a no-brainer. Also ensure that cross-platform saves work both ways. If you do persuade someone to switch from PC to PlayStation, they've already got an account, they've already got a library, with their saves, and they've already got some bragging rights on their profile - those are the kinds of thing that can keep them active on your platform.

Doing these things might not be enough for Sony to succeed, but it would definitely be better for them than not doing those things. I hope they choose wisely.

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Quoting: Purple Library GuyI have this feeling that there has been a shift over the years when it comes to this stuff. Some time ago, when someone cancelled their promise of a version of the game for an OS, they would just cancel the Linux version but they'd usually still do the Mac version. These days, they cancel Linux and MacOS if they're going to cancel at all. I'm not sure that's good, misery loves company maybe? but it's different.

It's not really good, no. In the old days, avoiding platform-specific lock-in and having an OpenGL render path got you Linux and Mac. Ditching Linux but keeping Mac was a specific "we love those turtle necks, but fuck those weirdy-beardy Linux folks." Now, Mac work doesn't help Linux work at all - if you can avoid single-platform stuff and use Vulkan for both Windows and Linux you still need an entirely separate render path for Mac. And Mac has a smaller share than Linux. Making a Mac build but not a Linux build (which people still do) is quite misguided. So we get "fuck those weirdy-beardy Linux folks, and fuck those turtle necks: we're perfectly comfortable with Microsoft having a monopoly on the platform we can be bothered with" instead. Macs using Vulkan and not destroying their share of the gaming market would have been much better for us.

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Quoting: SilverCode

QuoteI can organize a refund for you out of pocket.

Out of pocket? I had to check the definition of this to make sure it meant what I thought it meant, and it does - "having lost money in a transaction"

It doesn't mean that they've lost money, it means they're paying the money themselves (rather than accounting for it specifically from Kickstarter funds). Literally taking the money out of their own pocket to pay for it.

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