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The latest Steam Survey had a huge surge of Simplified Chinese
13 April 2023 at 1:37 pm UTC Likes: 3
We did have a previous shonky month where you gave up waiting and put the data on your tracker as the best option, and Valve finally got round to publishing the correct data after something like three weeks.
Open Hexagon gets new content plus Linux and Steam Deck improvements
13 April 2023 at 1:32 pm UTC Likes: 1
Quoting: SuperV1234Could you please elaborate on why AFL might be a poor choice? Is there something bad about it that is not evident from the tldrlegal page?


There's nothing wrong with the AFL as far as I'm aware. It's OSI-approved and is probably fine. If you're unfamiliar with open source licensing, it might be worth having a chat with someone more familiar, so that if there's a particular aspect that you're after - whether your software is copyleft, for example, then maybe they'll be able to find a different licence that better meets your needs, but that part's fine. The odd thing is to license your software as open source, but then put additional EULA restrictions on it when people give you money; normally giving someone money gets you fewer restrictions.

QuoteRegarding the EULA, I added it only because it was recommended on several game development pages and forums I follow. I've read that without an EULA a malicious agent might resubmit my game to Steam with minimal changes, even as a paid product, and I wanted to avoid that.

Someone taking someone else's game and listing it on Steam happens rarely regardless of licence. An additional EULA won't prevent that, just like it won't prevent piracy: the people that want to do that will do it anyway. Should it ever happen to you, a ticket with Valve will get the other one de-listed.

I'd suggest having a think about why you want your software to be open source - whether you just want people to be able to study your work, whether you'd like other people to contribute, whether you'd like other people to use your work as the basis of their work, and so on. There is a wide range of different open source licences to achieve different aims; the AFL might be exactly right for what you're after, or there might be a different one that's a better fit. The extra EULA doesn't seem to me to be providing any function; the only people that will pay any attention to it are those that want to follow the rules already.
Open Hexagon gets new content plus Linux and Steam Deck improvements
12 April 2023 at 4:25 pm UTC Likes: 2
That's some weird licencing. The version that's on github is under the AFL 3, but the version that's on Steam has an additional EULA on top of Steam's normal restrictions that says, amongst other restrictions, "Vittorio Romeo shall at all times retain ownership of the Software as originally downloaded by you and all subsequent downloads of the Software by you. The Software (and the copyright, and other intellectual property rights of whatever nature in the Software, including any modifications made thereto) are and shall remain the property of Vittorio Romeo." Open source stuff being dual-licensed by the copyright holder is fine, of course, but that second licence means that the project can't take contributions from anyone else. And it means that if you give the developer money then you get less of a product than if you don't.

I expect that the developer is worried that people are going to take the Steam version and pirate it for some reason, but the people that want to do that aren't going to not do that just because of his EULA. And the developer of ΔV, who's been quite chatty about their findings from doing game development, has found that people will pay for your game even when they don't have to, after they accidentally included the whole game as the demo: "But they still chose to pay me, because they want to. Not to get access - they already have that. "
EVERSPACE 2 out now, devs focus on Proton for Linux - Steam Deck optimizations planned
11 April 2023 at 1:20 pm UTC Likes: 2
Quoting: EagleDeltaNo, it's not. Come on now.
The term you're looking for is "material misrepresentation."

From the Kickstarter Terms Of Use:
"The creator is solely responsible for fulfilling the promises made in their project. If they’re unable to satisfy the terms of this agreement, they may be subject to legal action by backers."
Here's the top Steam Deck games for March 2023
8 April 2023 at 5:04 pm UTC
Quoting: Klaas
Quoting: CatKillerThere's some jank at install time and the text is tiny, but it otherwise works well.
Sleeping Dogs: DE or original? I've got the original version on Steam and the DE on GOG. The DE works after activating a virtual desktop without issues and the original apparently not.
Definitive Edition. The install-time jank was that whatever hooks games usually have to seamlessly pull in the redistributables this game doesn't use, so it popped up a Windows-style window that needed the touchscreen to get rid of. After that it ran fine.
EVERSPACE 2 out now, devs focus on Proton for Linux - Steam Deck optimizations planned
8 April 2023 at 2:22 am UTC Likes: 1
Quoting: tgurrPromising something in a Kickstarter campaign and then not fulfulling the promise is another cup of tea though but at least they offer refunds.
If they'd promised it, not delivered, and not given a refund, that would be fraud, so... they had to give refunds.
Report: Steam Deck to pass 3 million sales during 2023
8 April 2023 at 1:12 am UTC Likes: 4
Quoting: elmapulif your numbers are right, then steam might have half a billion users nowadays... i dont think this is correct, last time i checked it was something arround 120 millions or maybe 160 millions, but not even close to 500 millions.



there is something wrong here, either most steam deck users install windows on their machines, or linux marketshare is wrong or steamOS marketshare...
Nope. Very few users install Windows on the Deck. The Deck is about 1/400th of the Steam market (AMD Custom GPU 0405 is the Deck's GPU). Steam is just huge. The hundred-and-something million is just how many people happened to sign in during a particular month - the monthly active users. The total number of users is bigger.
Report: Steam Deck to pass 3 million sales during 2023
8 April 2023 at 12:38 am UTC Likes: 4
Quoting: Purple Library GuyOK, so 3 million units. And, how many Linux desktop users are on Steam? It's certainly significant from our point of view. These are the kinds of figures that make Linux a bigger target for game development than Mac.
Not directly. March's figures are still broken by double-counting China, so I'll use February's. Mac was at 2.37% and Linux was at 1.27%, of which 21.05% was the Deck. So the 1.6 million represents roughly 0.27 percentage points of the Steam market*. If we add another 1.9 million, that's an additional roughly 0.32 percentage points, which would take us up to 1.59%. There's still a way to go until we're a bigger market than Mac. Of course Macs come with all sorts of hoops to jump through to develop for, so we'll have an easier time being a better market than Mac. We're arguably there already.

*(obviously this is only an orders-of-magnitude guesstimate; remember to warm up before attempting hand-waving so vigorous)
Report: Steam Deck to pass 3 million sales during 2023
7 April 2023 at 4:30 pm UTC Likes: 4
Here's the top Steam Deck games for March 2023
5 April 2023 at 7:05 pm UTC
I got Sleeping Dogs on a whim because it was cheap and it quickly became my second-favourite GTA after San Andreas. Completed that. There's some jank at install time and the text is tiny, but it otherwise works well. Also completed Braveland that had been unplayed in my library for years. Got it in a bundle, maybe? Next up is either Syberia 2 or Broken Sword 5.

I've also played some No One Lives Forever, Kendria (controls stop working after time, so I stopped, but I'll probably go back to it at some point when they've fixed it), Ziggurat, Ori And The Blind Forest, The Gardens Between, Bridge Constructor Portal (controls on the default native version are broken, but Proton works OK), and Lara Croft and the Temple of Osiris. The little one played some Lego Brick Tales but was on a computer ban for much of March.
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