That's quite interesting. We know intuitively that supporting multiple platforms is hard because you have to upload everything multiple times, but it seems many platforms are just really bad. I wouldn't imagine that GOG support was so primitive for Linux builds - just lost even more of my respect for doing a crap job for one platform and having a very outdated system still in place.

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QuoteAdded the ability to force Steam Play compatibility tools for non-Steam game shortcuts

Again I am pleased - I would say pleasantly surprised, but it is not that surprising by now - by Steam making it easier for people to play non-Steam games. :)

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Quoting: const

Quoting: eldakingIt's not just about "cheap or joke" games. It is about potentially fraudulent games. It is about games that are seriously objectionable, that can cause a lot of harm - like a nazi propaganda game.

Well, I'd prefer laws to regulate such things, rather then private companies.
Do you have an example for a nazi propaganda game on Steam? I'd be shocked, if it would be available here in germany.

Well, yes, ideally the laws created by democratic governments would deal with everything unethical. But in practice, it isn't enough: laws can be unethical, wrong, outdated, incomplete, hard to interpret... or, when you operate in a lot of countries, inconsistent. There are countries where homosexuality is illegal, there are countries where the age of consent is different, there are countries with no fair use laws, etc. Navigating all those laws is a big task, and neither extreme (applying the most restrictive laws to everywhere or doing just the minimum required by local laws) is a good solution.

Even if they went with a "we allow anything that is legal", I think they should at least check for compliance instead of relying on notifications and terms signed by developers taking all responsibility. They are selling the game, they should be responsible for checking.

I really hope there is no actual nazi propaganda game on Steam. It is an exaggerated example of something that clearly shouldn't be there. Though I'm not sure if the laws of most countries would make such a game straight up "illegal", for example.

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Quoting: HoriSteam should NOT be a censored / regulated store.
Many people wanted this, including myself in the past, but it is actually a really bad idea.
Steam is a store and a platform for everyone. Good and bad games should be welcomed both.

IMO the discovery algorithms combined with a non-regulated store is the best approach.
If you don't care about cheap / joke games, then just mark them as not interested and let the algorithm hide them for you in the future (not hide, but more like not recommend / advertise)

Sure, the algorithms aren't perfect, but the answer is to improve them, not bring regulation. If you want regulation, go to Epic Store, where they don't even have user reviews.

It's not just about "cheap or joke" games. It is about potentially fraudulent games. It is about games that are seriously objectionable, that can cause a lot of harm - like a nazi propaganda game. And on the other side, about blocking things that should be allowed. And yes, people will disagree about what is acceptable or not, which is why the company has to take a stance instead of trying to please everyone.

And the fact that it is so hard is precisely the reason why it can't be done algorithmically. Yes, they need real people to make the hard decisions - is this too gruesome, is this really satire, is this too charged, whatever.

They are not forced to sell or refuse any games; they could always choose. This means they are responsible for what is sold on the store. They can't choose not to pay attention as an excuse for selling (and profiting from) something objectionable.

QuoteYou have to be realistic here. (and a certain dose of cynism also doesn't hurt)
Even if it would be fair and would work wonders in the beginning, it will certainly get corrupted eventually. Especially since, Valve is at the end of the day just another company. And the sole goal of a company is to make profit (otherwise it dies) - and being fair/equalitarian is pretty much always unprofitable. (you can make a case that in the long-term it's beneficial to be so, but companies almost exclusively care about short-term. They are businesses, not governments)

I very much disagree. The fact they want to make money is not our problem as consumers and we don't have to be understanding of it. Quite the opposite, we have to be harsher on them because by this logic they don't have incentive to be ethical otherwise.

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I think there was one more step, with Improbable claiming that Unity had explicitly told them they were not in violation and the entire "notified one year ago" was solved.

Anyway, it is certainly an advancement on one front, but proprietary software is still a huge liability.

As for the other companies involved, you know what would be actually cool? If Epic, instead of opportunistically giving money for people to use their (equally proprietary) engine, open sourced Unreal to actually solve the issue. Or if Improbable partnered with Godot instead.

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Quoting: cRaZy-bisCuiTI don't get a few things: Maybe you guys could enlighten me?

1. Epic Store
Why do you get so crazy about it? It's basically a launcher that allows you to buy games. Nothing more, nothing less. Many publishers do have stores. Many of them have exclusives.

2. Valve exclusives
All of their titles are exclusives, aren't they? Why do you never complain about that?

My thoughts..
Don't get me wrong, I'd love to have freedom of choice where to buy and a FOSS API and launcher for every single store. Unfortunately it won't get any better then Lutris. I do appreciate their work, unfortunately the GOG feature did not even work for me.

Finally Valve do a lot of FOSS tools, DXVK, Mesa developement and much more. Still they have exclusives and a store honoring DRM.

1) Because Epic right now has a ton of money, somehow their latest game is the biggest thing in gaming, and there is a lot of publicity (and even press coverage) of this store. For some time Liam also thought they would support Linux, which made it relevant to this website.

2) I don't know, those games are already old enough that it isn't news anymore? They are exclusive to the store, but not to an arbitrary platform (neither Windows, nor a console)? They are very integrated to Steam features like the marketplace, so it seems justifiable? Because its only their own games, they don't go out of their way to make deals with other publishers? I agree that any games being exclusives is bad, but I don't see people complaining that much about Blizzard games or League of Legends or other games that you can only get from the developer.

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An interesting part of the article:

QuoteWe also took what we learned about mitigating denial-of-service attacks on our own games and made it available to some non-Valve multiplayer titles in a private beta. And since you ship your games on multiple platforms, we made the GameNetworkingSockets[github.com] library open source and Steam agnostic. The Steam version of your game can take advantage of our private network and get the same DoS protection that Dota 2 or CS:GO have. This means that we'll relay all your game network traffic, which keeps the IP addresses of your game servers and clients anonymized, and safe from the script kiddies. In the coming year we're planning to let you use our private network for the non-Steam version of your game as well.

While many stores, publishers and hardware vendors are trying to push exclusives, Valve is open sourcing some of their tools so that developers don't have to make their games Steam-exclusive.

Valve has its many flaws (their hands-off approach to curation or their subpar treatment of indies for example). But they are still so far ahead of the competition it's just hard not to support Steam.

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Quoting: elmapul"Again though, this only highlights some of the dangers of using proprietary game engines for your projects. "

unreal engine is kind off open source...
i'm not sure about their licence but the code is

It is source available, not open source. The license is the important part, much more than being able to see the source code: you are signing a contract that severely limits your freedom to use that code, and could come back to bite you in the ass in the future.

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Three terrible companies causing a lot of damage.

One is trying to abuse the already bullshit copyright laws to limit how people can make games (with the probable purpose of pushing its own services). One is trying to use software-as-a-service to take control of how games are run both from users and from developers. One is trying to create a closed store full of exclusives, and opportunistically partnering with the second company to sneakily push their own products using the controversy.

Yeah, this is why software needs to be FLOSS, and also why software-as-a-service is bad. Don't make your games rely on stuff that some company may take away from you because of its new "business interests". And of course, developers shouldn't do this same stuff to your game and players (at the very least, no DRM).

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Quoting: Guest

Quoting: Nevertheless

Quoting: eldakingI am not very interested in this game in particular (completely opposite style of RTS for me), but Stardock has plenty of strategy games I would love to see on Linux - GalCiv and Fallen Enchantress/Sorcerer King don't run well on Wine.

Also, good to know that the industry is excited about Linux right now. It isn't just us. :)

Yes, but let's rejoice carefully! Google was also excited about Linux when they created Android...

I didn't want to dampen enthusiasm either, but if "the industry" was doing something, it wouldn't be super secret. Perhaps Stardock and some they internally talk with are, but that doesn't represent the (gaming, presumably) industry as a whole.
Don't get me wrong, Stardock doing this work is great, but just keep expectations in check. Ultimately, nothing was really said.

If some developers are excited, it is probably due to stuff we already know, or at least stuff we suspect. Vulkan is looking good, Valve is pushing Linux again, this kind of stuff. If there are any "secret plans" (NDA stuff), it probably isn't that big, at least not yet.

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