Very well-deserved success, this is a game that more people should play. Incredibly polished and quite different from most others, gameplay is a joy, looks and sounds great.

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Nice, the trailer looks even better than the game used to be. The looks are very on point, and I also much prefer the "classic" style of gameplay for RTS.

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Quoting: riidomDoes Valve know what a median is? Because this white line in that graph does not look like one to me. Which leads me to wanting to see their calculations on the 30% cut. Maybe there is a mistake too and it should have been 50% all the time!

I think the bars are the median increase for each event, and the white line is not the median of the bars but the median for all events combined.

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I appreciate these events that go beyond "sales and discounts". It is a nice opportunity to find out and try cool new stuff, especially stuff that isn't necessarily going to get a huge coverage in press and streaming... and without any commitment to buy, just a "if it's cool, maybe later".

Shame they didn't call it Steam Demo-nic Festivals, but oh well.

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I put Loop Hero for best overall, though there were a few games this year that were great and I wish I could nominate Loop Hero for more than one category (best visuals at least). It is just so well-crafted, polished, and fresh.

In this sale, I have just picked some DLC for Warhammer 40K Gladius: Relics of War; I have been really enjoying it. (Actually it went on sale yesterday due to release of a new DLC and I got it then, but it's the same). I would also recommend Northgard (my favorite RTS) and Monster Sanctuary (a very good, if difficult, creature collector+metroidvania).

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I read "Project Wingman" as Wingspan (an adaptation of a boardgame I like). But look at that, Wingspan is also included. xD

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Quoting: kuhpunkt

Quoting: eldakingYou can just install Windows, which is what people do with custom built PCs.

Which has nothing to do with the entire discussion? We're talking about Linux.

I'm talking about why Steam Machines failed, and how it is not because of Linux. "SteamOS" didn't help, but it was not the main reason.

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Quoting: RaabenSo, we're on the second E here now.

I'll stick with non-Chrome as much as I can too.

That's very optimistic of you. We are over a decade past extinguish, they have such a strong hold on the desktop OS market that they don't even feel threatened by Linux (on the desktop) anymore.

"But it is getting better for us, and there is the Steam Deck" - not better enough to trigger a mass migration anytime soon, and the Deck is a problem only for the X-Box division.

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Quoting: kuhpunktA lot of games relatively speaking isn't enough when you can't play most of the modern games.

You can just install Windows, which is what people do with custom built PCs.

Not coming with Windows pre-installed isn't a deterrent for people that buy components and assemble their own PCs - but they wouldn't buy a prebuilt Steam Machine anyway, unless it had some great hardware or killer price. It would be an issue for people wanting an out-of-the-box console experience, but the Steam Machines couldn't compete at that price point and they would be a lot less "out-of-the-box" than a console even if they had Windows and it's huge selection of games.

There wasn't a very compelling reason to port games to Steam Machines. I doubt slapping Windows would have made them successful, because it wasn't just about the game selection.

On a minor point, I really think "most of the modern games" is not a good phrase. Linux has more native games than any current-gen console, and a large part of those games are "modern" - developed recently, with current tools, current themes, current genres, some with innovative ideas that had not been seen before. It's not like they are all emulated old games (and there are extremely few old native games), or even retro-styled games. What Linux didn't have was most of the AAA games, most of the popular big names with large budgets, which is completely different. Or, if you compare only with Windows and not with console, "most of the games" in general. But implying that small games and indie games aren't "modern" is a very narrow view.

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Quoting: Shmerl

Quoting: kuhpunktSteam Machines didn't work, because there was no software to play - because devs didn't want to port. That's the whole reason why Valve put so much effort into Proton.

I can argue the opposite. Devs didn't want to port becasue Steam Machines didn't work. Software stack wasn't ready. Marketing was non existent, potential sales didn't look promising and so on. It was too early. Proton isn't the main point here even though it helps of course.

Even more so, a number of devs actually did port, we got a lot of games (relatively speaking) from that time in particular. Only afterwards, because Steam Machines flopped, some of those were disappointed and didn't make subsequent ports. Not all, though, it worked out for many. Steam machines failed devs, not the opposite.

The Steam Machines just weren't very compelling. It was a prebuilt PC at normal value with the Steam brand. SteamOS was certainly a disadvantage for most people, but I don't think "have to manually install Windows" was the one big problem for the audience.

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