Not sure why they thought it would be a good idea to make developers perform a "few clicks" to enable other platform support. Developers quite frankly shouldn't have a say about what platforms people run their software on. Just enable it for all EAC games, with no way to turn it off. :S

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Quoting: BumadarAm not British or anything, but putting thatcher in that list seems a bit extreme?

She was one of the most damaging politicians in post WW2 history. Together with Reagan she brought us the extremist form of capitalism that in the following decades led to an insane concentration of wealth and power in the hands of a few, while leaving everyone else in the dust. Because of her, more and more people had to work two or three jobs and STILL couldn't pay their bills.
The current state of the world, where leaders emphasizing nationalism and protectionism are getting elected by the disenfranchised, is a direct result of Thatcher and Reagan's dismantling of any kind of social accord. Even the Brexit is very unlikely to have happened without her and her divisive politics, so that woman is influencing world politics in a damaging way even from the grave.

She actually deserves to be in place worse than hell.

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I sometimes wonder why developers having so much talent put so much time and effort into projects that they know, are a legal minefield on the best of days. They could take the idea and implement a GTA-like game from scratch that they'd own 100%. Yes, it would take longer, since they'd need to create the assets and levels, too. But it would be theirs and theirs alone, and there would be no constant fear of hordes of greedy corporate lawyers breaking down their door.

That being said, while I am against abolishing copyright, it needs to be scaled back to sane levels. Copyright on software needs to expire after 20 years at latest. Not getting extended on Disney's request for all eternity every time Mickey Mouse is set to become public domain.

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Quoting: ShabbyX

Quoting: CatKiller

Quoting: ShabbyXAllow me to clarify, IIUC, kokokk's point is that even if the developer truly wants to support the platform and even if they honestly will try their best, forcing them like suggested may scare them so much they would decide not to take the risk.

They wouldn't be forced to support anything. They'd just have to give the money back if they lied about providing support when they don't, rather than just keeping it.

To put it another way: if you've written on your store page that you're going to support a platform, to entice customers on that platform to give you money, but you are unable or unwilling to provide that support, why should you get to keep the money?

I get your point, but your assumption is that any developer who drops Linux support has a malicious intent, and they were trying to cheat people out of their money right from the get go. That's where the disagreement really is. I don't believe for example the developer in this article intentionally thought "let me boost my sales by 1% through lies and deceit". They simply bit more than they could chew.

Well, here is the thing. 100% of game developers who ever promised their game to run on Linux and it ended up not doing so, were either malicious or incompetent. There is no other explanation. All games can be made to run on Linux. 100% of them, 100% of the time. If your game does NOT run on Linux...that was your CHOICE. And if that was your choice (which it always was), and you promised otherwise...the only remaining explanation for your action is malice or incompetence. Take your pick.

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Quoting: CatKiller

Quoting: kokoko3kAgain, the support i will give could not be dependent on my will, but on third party engine i've no control over.

As a developer it's your choice which engine and tools you use. As a developer it's your choice if you push an update that breaks your game for your customers, and as a developer it's your responsibility to see if that's going to happen before you do it. It's not your customers', nor Valve's, fault if you're just not very good at your job, and they shouldn't have their money stolen, nor reputation tarnished, because of it.

^ This.

Game developers need to start accepting responsibility for their promises, pretty much like every other industry out there. It's not too much asked for to think about which platforms you want to deploy on and then make sure that you're actually able to. If you're not sure if your finished product will run on Linux/Mac/Mobile, don't promise it. Easy as that. Then just say "Platforms other than Windows are not planned at this time", which is true and honest. Don't compel Linux users to pre-purchase your game if you can't say with certainty that they're able to run it when it's done. This is particularly true if you have no experience with Linux and haven't even decided on any 3rd party components to use in your project.

In short, developers who want to make money with selling games need to start behaving like professionals and not like amateurs.

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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".

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This is probably the last game I ever expected to go e-sports. It's strange, because Stardew Valley is about the most non-competitive game in existence. But humans have that tendency to turn really everything into a "I am better than you!!!" competition, so it's not totally surprising me, either.

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This is such a sweet game! I really need to play it again! I never tried it in co-op.

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Quoting: TermyAnother reason to put your money where your mouth is and support Linux-supporting devs instead of devs that don't care. (Personally, official support for proton is fine too)

To be fair, even Linux native clients are not guaranteed to run forever. While the risk of sudden breakage is admittedly higher when using Proton to run games that never were developed with Linux in mind, it's not zero even for native ports.

Also, you got to admit that for AAA titles, giving our money to Linux supporting devs is kinda hard, since there...well...aren't any out there not called Valve.

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The great thing about Proton is -exactly- that we no longer have to care about what people like him are thinking about Linux.

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