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Comment by paxys | Hacker News Reader

Is there any major studio or publisher that DOES give a rat's ass about Linux gaming?

Paradox has been pretty consistent about Linux support, and in turn I've been pretty consistent about lighting my money on fire by buying their games and the DLCs thereof.

It's been pretty consistently broken support. I've run into lot's of things like CK2 only working on xorg, HOI4 only working on x11 (or the other way around), Imperator not working unless you install some c++ runtime lib, EU4 not working at all at the moment for some reason, all on a pretty standard ubuntu 18.04.

Some of those might not be the fault of paradox, but Imperator shows that they didn't even test running it on a stock install.

I've had better luck with proton games, they don't always work but once they do I have far less regressions.

That's surprising. I'm on Slackware and literally every one of Paradox's strategy games I've tried (Stellaris, HOI4, CK2, EUIV, Imperator, in that order) works flawlessly out-of-the-box.

Granted, I'm on Slackware64-current, so it's possible I've got newer driver/lib versions than Ubuntu 18.04. I'm also using FOSS drivers exclusively (primarily AMD, though I've played Stellaris on Intel GPUs with decent results, too), so if you're using Nvidia graphics, that might be a factor, too.

My experience is that Stellaris works REALLY great on Linux! Since I bought it two years ago, the experience has been flawless (on Ubuntu 18.04)

> CK2 only working on xorg, HOI4 only working on x11 (or the other way around)

Not sure what you meant, but X.Org is an implementaion of X11 so this doesn't make any sense.

I meant xorg and wayland but I just tried everything.

Currently on wayland stellaris and EU4 won't start for me, I didn't even know stellaris was broken until now, that was one of the better working ones.

On xorg they will all start but games are offset and sit below the top bar in gnome, The mouse isn't offset so it's completely unplayable. One of them used to work fine in xorg though, not sure which.

The problem is the DLC money grab.

It's also been a while but I wasn't able to play CKII or EUIV against friends on Windows due to some clock-time issue. Not sure if that's still a thing, but it led me to use CKII in WINE while doing large multiplayer games.

edit: otherwise, single-player native linux has been solid with CKII, HOI4, and EUIV, including mods. Vicky II did fine in WINE. I'm running new-ish Fedora.

Valve

When was the last time they actually released a game though? From Wikipedia I can see:

Nov 2018 - Artifact (Collectible card game on Windows/Linux/MacOS)

Apr 2016 - The Lab (Windows only)

Dec 2014 - Left 4 Dead: Survivors (Arcade game?)

Oct 2014 - Counter-Strike Nexon: Zombies (Windows only)

2013 - Counter-Strike Online 2 (Windows only)

Heck even their new tentpole title Half-Life: Alyx is Windows only. Those aren't really big Linux credentials to boast about.

They've had an autochess game in early access for a few months. It officially comes out next month.

They launched Artifact in 2018, Underlords in 2019 all with first class, first day support for Linux.

Half-Life Alyx is coming in 2020.

The meme that Valve doesn't make games isn't real.

The meme might not be real but they're also not doing themselves many favors. People want a certain couple games, value does whatever they can to avoid it.

Even to hold people over they could have resurrected HL:DM and made it F2P.

HL:A is still Windows-only last I checked; haven't seen anything official indicating that Linux support is to be expected.

Probably because steamVR on linux is still pretty buggy and missing core features.

Artifact and Underlords are both mobile-style 'board games'.

So sure, Alyx is coming. But before that is a six and a half year gap in major games.

And if you discount CS:GO and Dota 2 as remakes, then you're looking at Portal 2 all the way back in 2011.

I'd think Proton is something to boast about.

https://github.com/ValveSoftware/Proton

Proton is kinda the admission that even on Linux, Windows is still the better platform though.

I’m 100% not complaining because Proton has enabled me to play a libraries worth of games that were previously unavailable but it’s not exactly a victory Linux. The future might look like devs testing a little bit in Proton as “Linux support.”

I would disagree; "Better Platform" != "Supported Platform".

While it is an admission Linux gaming was hardly going to take off on its own from a cold start, it allows people to use the platform that makes more sense for them. With the increased capability of Linux+Proton as a platform, its horizons are pushed and it makes more sense for more people.

The only possible downside here is the potential for a developer to neglect Linux support now that people "can just run it in proton", netting Linux users a couple losses of what-would-have-been native ports. However, I believe the increase to the viability of Linux gaming overall makes up for it.

Especially, considering that more linux gamers increase ROI for a native linux version.

Not by much, considering the results of Steam's hardware survey.

Maybe, but a fairer statement would be "even on Linux, Windows, without the Microsoft, is a better gaming platform."

Not exactly, the the correct obvious admission is that Linux is a better Windows, as an extra translation layer for Win32 API to Linux/POSIX still has better performance (most games I play on Proton) than native Windows.

They have been providing a lot of tooling to help other people release games on Linux. Or attempt compatibility

You're missing counter strike: global offensive and dota2, which do work on linux natively. They're definitely in the top 3 in terms of general popularity for their genres.

All source games work on linux, but the new half life game might be the first exception. Proton works pretty well for other games, but there are hard blockers on some (for ex: the anticheat in pubg)

id Software contributed many excellent games to Linux, but they're no longer doing it.

id does, even if they don't provide "official" support. All of their games have worked flawlessly with proton or wine, from my experience.

> All of their games have worked flawlessly with proton or wine

Is that due to active development effort or is it just chance?

There's no way it's chance given that they directly contribute to proton and wine

Ah, thanks, I didn't know that detail!

AFAIK there is certain level of active development, though it was for a long time only one person, but also the general code is kept clean and portable, and it's mostly the occassional middleware that is an issue.

Valve does

Valve isn't really a publisher and they're only barely a studio these days.

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