Comment by DiggyJohnson
3 years ago
Isn’t part of the original point not just that Wine is a perfect (dubious, imo) compatibility layer, but that distributing a native port is cumbersome on the Linux ecosystem?
3 years ago
Isn’t part of the original point not just that Wine is a perfect (dubious, imo) compatibility layer, but that distributing a native port is cumbersome on the Linux ecosystem?
I don't buy the cumbersomeness argument for Linux games. A lot of games in the past and today has been distributed as Linux binaries. Most famously Quake and Unreal Tournament series had native Linux binaries on disks and they worked well until I migrated to 64 bit distributions. I'm sure they'll work equally fine if I multi-arch my installations.
Many of the games bundled by HumbleBundle as downloadable setups have Linux binaries. Some are re-built as 64 bit binaries and updated long after the bundle has closed.
I still play Darwinia on my 64 bit Linux system occasionally.
Most of these games are distributed as .tar.gz archives, too.
I can accept and respect not creating Linux builds as engineering (using Windows only APIs, libraries, etc.) and business (not enough market) decisions, but cumbersomeness is not an excuse, it's a result of the other related choices.
In my book, if a company doesn't want to support Linux, they can tell it bluntly, but telling "we want to, but it's hard, and this is Linux's problem" doesn't sound sincere even remotely.
> have Linux binaries
In January, HumlbeBundle removed Linux support from their Trove [1].
HumbleBundle support points out that it's not simple [2]:
> While it is entirely possible to install and run games and programs from the Linux GUI, implementation across distros can be wildly different. For this reason, this guide will explain how to install and launch games using the Terminal.
And, usually, only a small list of distributions are supported, like Ubuntu or Mint. For example, Bundle 9 [3].
All of the above seems to supports the "cumbersomeness argument for Linux games".
1. https://kotaku.com/latest-humble-bundle-change-leaves-mac-li...
2. https://support.humblebundle.com/hc/en-us/articles/219377857...
3. https://support.humblebundle.com/hc/en-us/articles/115011722...
Humbe Bundle has been focusing on profit only and ignoring their original values ever since it has been sold to IGN. It's not surprising that they would cut support for something only a small percentage of their users use (remember, they are primarily a Steam key reseller now). That has nothing to do with Linux support being cumbersome just with any OS support benefiting from economies of scale that makes minority platforms less lucrative.
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> In January, HumlbeBundle removed Linux support from their Trove [1].
Yet, I have downloaded all new builds for a couple of games for amd64 from one of their oldest bundles.
It's not as clear cut as it seems.
> I can accept and respect not creating Linux builds as engineering (using Windows only APIs, libraries, etc.) and business (not enough market) decisions..
Yep, and if somebody made your game work under Wine/Proton or Bottles/Heroic, just pay them to support it or create an AppImage/Flatpak and that's the easiest way to get compatibility.
Basically game developers never once booted linux.
They'd need to do some learning and don't want to. They might have superficially read something about distributions and think that a software cannot run on two different distributions.
I've read this excuse time and time again. And saying it tells me that the person never actually tried to compile anything on linux.
On the contrary, they are more that used to POSIX stacks on macOS, iOS, PlayStation, Nintendo, Android, ChromeOS....
Yet porting to GNU/Linux is not worthwhile.
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