This is admittedly a bit of an “ooh a thing may be happening sort of at an unknown point in the possible future”, but I’m frankly quite fascinated by the moves THQ are making as they battle to fend off moneypocalypse. The Humble THQ Bundle was divisive, what with it not involving the DRM-free indie games that Humble has become synonymous with, but one thing it seems to be is a sign of THQ striving to court a PC audience after long years of being very much console-focused. The PC-only Company of Heroes 2 appears to be a very big deal for them (and Metro: Last Light too, a preview of which I’ll bring you later this week), but now they might maybe perhaps possibly be going one further – they’re talking about Linux support for their games. This is not the usual MO of a large publisher.
Talk of THQ becoming penguin-friendly arises as a result of a Twitter exchange between a Linux user and the publisher’s bossman Jason Rubin. He replied with this: “Got the Linux message load and clear via #HumbleBundle feedback. Evaluating cost/benefit as we speak.”
Which promises nothing, as the last thing we should expect from THQ right now is for them to spend any cash they don’t absolutely have to, but for the often gaming-starved open source OS’ growing userbase it must be a delightful thing to hear anyway. Couple this possibility with Valve’s gradual adoption of (and possible move to) Linux as a platform and perhaps we really could be looking at more than a token number of PC gamers parting ways with Windows.
Frankly, I am very tempted myself – I’m just trying to work up the will for a day of setting everything up. And I’ll take Linux over Windows 8 any day.
17/12/2012 at 21:06 Dragon Master says:
Been having a few loadings too much, Alec?
Edit: Wait, scratch Alec, insert THQ’s bossman in its stead.
17/12/2012 at 21:07 LionsPhil says:
>Image caption
/wrists
17/12/2012 at 21:14 f1x says:
seems to be about to scream “FiiiiiiiiisssshHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!”
17/12/2012 at 21:16 Beelzebud says:
The image made me smile, the caption made me laugh.
17/12/2012 at 21:33 RandomEsa says:
SUDO KILL -9! SUDO KILL -9!
17/12/2012 at 22:08 Snakejuice says:
kill: usage: kill [-s sigspec | -n signum | -sigspec] pid | jobspec … or kill
-l [sigspec]
kill: usage: kill [-s sigspec | -n signum | -sigspec] pid | jobspec … or kill
-l [sigspec]
17/12/2012 at 22:11 darkChozo says:
sudo ps -ef|grep image-caption
17/12/2012 at 22:15 Ergates_Antius says:
Why would you sudo a ps call?
17/12/2012 at 22:19 darkChozo says:
Just doing my part to help the underprivileged.
18/12/2012 at 14:09 uh20 says:
you do realize you can just USE THE TASK MANAGER
18/12/2012 at 01:02 Brun says:
#!/bin/bash
while [ 1 ]
do
echo “SPACE HULK”
done
18/12/2012 at 07:31 Rawrian says:
I see what you did there. Sort of.
17/12/2012 at 22:36 Gap Gen says:
In the grimdark of the future, there is only freeware.
Nah.
18/12/2012 at 09:07 Kaira- says:
But it’s true, you know. Canonical may not be on the levels of MS but they’ve their own fair share of dubious things done.
17/12/2012 at 21:11 Simon Hawthorne says:
Would someone kindly explain just how difficult it is to port from Windows to Linux? I have literally no idea – so this is the sort of thing that makes me go “Just do it! It’ll be great!” without actually being able to do a quick cost/benefit analysis in my head.
Does it involve basically rewritting the game in a new language? Remaking it in a new engine?
(I don’t even understand that last question…)
17/12/2012 at 21:17 Fazer says:
I recommend reading this comment by a man that ports games – link to reddit.com
Also this thread – link to reddit.com
17/12/2012 at 21:36 Simon Hawthorne says:
Thank you – I at least half understand now! Third party libraries seem like the biggest hurdle; I wonder how reliant THQ are on those.
17/12/2012 at 22:44 FakeAssName says:
Not at all: the PS3 used a hacked up version of OpenGL, so everything THQ developes for it is allready partially programed with it.
If publishers would port to pc based off their ps3 builds instead of the 360 they could easily support both windows and Linux at the same time.
17/12/2012 at 23:30 Fazer says:
OpenGL/DX is only one of the many libraries used in a game. You need also libs for audio, networking, threading, input controllers, databases, even scalable UIs etc. You need to think about portability from the start.
18/12/2012 at 07:23 a2636450 says:
I think exclusivity becomes the less viable the larger gaming audiences become and the easier supporting platforms gets.
http://www.vg247.com/2012/12/17/warhorse-studios-responds-to-leaked-medieval-rpg-demo/
18/12/2012 at 08:41 Emeraude says:
a2636450 Represents an interesting (new?) form of spambot…
Hadn’t seen it in action yet.
18/12/2012 at 10:29 phuzz says:
I had a spambot steal the text of my comment from further down the same page the other day.
Clever girls…
18/12/2012 at 08:26 LionsPhil says:
Good answer—while ISTR he was a bit coy-under-an-NDA about it, I think Ryan Gordon’s attempts to get UT3 ported to Linux were hampered by blasted proprietary Windows-only third party libraries too. This despite UT99 and UT2003/4 having high-quality Linux ports ready in time to make it onto the discs.
17/12/2012 at 21:17 f1x says:
I’m not an expert on that, but apparently it depends on engine and compatibilities, as you know Direct X for example is a windows thing, so its means in the end probably yes, you need to sort of port the game to Linux from Windows
Someone will probably be able to inform you better, but also the talk in Twitter from Jason Rubin said that they were developing one of their titles in Unity which is suitable for Linux, something that is not been mentioned here but is there in his twitter account
edit: What Fazer linked!
17/12/2012 at 21:17 SkittleDiddler says:
Maybe it has something to do with the fact that most games implement DirectX instead of OpenGL? I honestly have no idea.
17/12/2012 at 21:18 Deadly Habit says:
The main issue tends to be reliance on DirectX instead of using OpenGL. DirectX is tied to Windows unfortunately..
17/12/2012 at 21:18 FRITZY says:
The biggest problem is OpenGL vs. DirectX for graphics, DirectSound vs. anything else, etc. When a game engine supports OS X, for example, mostly that means that they wrote their game to support OpenGL.
18/12/2012 at 17:38 zaphod42 says:
Agreed. That said, Valve have proved with the L4D2 port that it doesn’t take thaaat much time and money to port from DirectX to OpenGL, and it can be done, and the results are quite appreciable. They’re actually finding that openGL in Linux gets them higher frame rates than DirectX and Windows overhead. You may not get the absolutely latest tricks with tessellation or whatever, but if they’re aren’t there they’re coming, and most users don’t have hardware to support those things anyways. I think we’ll see more and more companies targeting OpenGL now so they can sell across Windows, OSX, and Linux equally.
Besides, what about engines like Unreal and Crytek which support PC, 360, and PS3? I know the Xbox uses something that is or is very close to DirectX, but I imagine the PS3 has to use OpenGL or some in-house library, there’s lots of engines now which support concurrent development for all 3, so I see more and more things going that direction.
17/12/2012 at 22:11 Aaarrrggghhh says:
It’s hard to say without knowing the underlying tech. If someone has full access to the source code it is not that hard to do, but depending on third party tech used (as such things often would have to be ported too or replaced).
Many of the games that have been in the Humble Indie Bundle have actually been ported by one(!) guy in prepartation to the bundles. A skilled team of programmers would be able to port almost everything, in theory. But the heavy use of third party tech in AAA titles make it hard to almost impossible to port many titles without the need to rewrite a lot of code.
17/12/2012 at 22:37 Gap Gen says:
Yeah, if you make a game with portability in mind, it’s really very easy (I believe Unity is super-nice in that regard, for example). But if you start by hard-coding everything in DirectX, good luck to you.
18/12/2012 at 07:51 f1x says:
Yeap and he twitted:
Jason Rubin ‏@Jason_Rubin: @psygnisfive Using Unity on one of our current projects.
So thats another hint that Linux support might be a real thing
18/12/2012 at 10:22 Gap Gen says:
Oh, so one very slightly potential issue with Unity is that it’s built on C#, which is owned by Microsoft and relies on their assent for a Unix C# compiler to exist. So if Microsoft decided to throw all their toys out of the pram they could potentially withdraw their consent for Unix compatability with C#.
18/12/2012 at 11:04 Aaarrrggghhh says:
Yeah, but I doubt even MS would be stupid enough to do that. This would lead to a shitstorm like the internet has not seen it before. And not just because of Linux users but every person and company that uses C# for their multi-OS applications.
18/12/2012 at 17:44 zaphod42 says:
Wrong! Software engineer here. Sorry, but this is very misleading and incorrect.
Microsoft did create C#, but it is now an approved ECMA and ISO standard, irrespective of the Microsoft implementation. C# is a syntax, a language, and cannot be “owned”. You can’t say that Microsoft has to “let” people use C#, that ABSOLUTELY is NOT true.
MONO is an open source, free software implementation of the C# language and CLR and compiler. Microsoft has nothing to do with it and has no control over it and cannot shut them down.
“Unix Compatibility” is something that free software put together; Microsoft does not support C# on Linux in any way. They never have. Microsoft .NET is only for Windows; any C# on Linux is Mono and MS has nothing to do with it and no control over it.
I can absolutely write and execute C# code on Linux and MS can’t do a damn thing about it.
18/12/2012 at 17:34 zaphod42 says:
It super depends. The main limiting factor is that Microsoft wrote DirectX, the leading graphics library (a bunch of code for rendering that everybody gets to use) so they have incentive to keep it exclusive to Windows so they get a de facto monopoly (one of the things keeping their OS strong). Thing is, Valve have proved with porting L4D2 that OpenGL, the open source competing graphics library really isn’t that different. There’s a few new fancy features in Dx11 that OpenGL doesn’t have yet AFAIK, but most people don’t have hardware to use those features anyways; hell some people still use Dx9. OpenGl definitely has all DX9 features; but that said if the game is already written for DirectX, you’re going to have to modify a great deal of very important low-level code which handles rendering to work with OpenGL to DirectX, not trivial AT ALL.
If you’re already on OpenGl, (or once you make the switch), then its mostly just the difficulty of the additional testing and QA required, (everything you support adds compounding difficulties to testing). You’ll have to recompile your binaries but that’s nothing too hard, you’ll have to change some things from windows API calls to POSIX style UNIX calls, but that’s a pretty easy porting. Its more the difficulty of DirectX (which most game companies use) and the QA. There are tons of other libraries that developers use other than graphics libraries, but most of those will work fine in a linux environment.
Short version: It could range anywhere from changing a few lines of code and testing, to having to rewrite a very, very large portion of the codebase.
17/12/2012 at 21:14 cairbre says:
Where will pc gaming be in five years time? I really don’t know. Will I have a steambox under my tv instead of an Xbox? I can see the advantages steam sales playing a game on my gaming pc then coming down stairs and playing on the tv to be more sociable. I’m excited and nervous
17/12/2012 at 21:34 Supahewok says:
Can’t you do that already by hooking up a second PC to the TV and a gamepad into the PC?
…
Surprise! The future is now!
17/12/2012 at 22:22 Lev Astov says:
Or an only PC.
18/12/2012 at 10:07 Subject 706 says:
Or using something like the ASUS Wavi between your PC and TV. Reviews of it seem positive, do a WIT of it, dear RPS hivemind.
18/12/2012 at 15:02 uh20 says:
get yourself a media-based linux desktop on top, and you’ve got yourself one formidable tv box
17/12/2012 at 21:15 Beelzebud says:
It’s nice to hear, and I hope they do it! Steam is the shot in the arm that Linux gaming needed. The OS is more than ready, it just needs software now. Even if it’s a smaller user pool, there is nothing wrong with new customers is there?
17/12/2012 at 21:18 jezcentral says:
I’m always up for learning new stuff. Linux should be fun! :)
Anyway, more choice. Good stuff. And good luck, THQ.
P.S. Please hurry up with Saints Row 4.
18/12/2012 at 00:31 elderman says:
I moved to Linux from Mac four years ago and can’t imagine ever going back. For me it’s been tons of fun, and I think that’s the best reason to try a Linux distribution. It’s been a great learning experience; and I’ve loved participating in the open source community.
18/12/2012 at 11:02 Gap Gen says:
Yes, I moved from Mac to Ubuntu and can think of no convincing reason to go back. That said, it helps if you’re prepared to dive into the command line from time to time, but once it’s set up it’s mostly fine. Plus installing third-party libraries on Macs is horrible.
18/12/2012 at 11:06 Aaarrrggghhh says:
I think that’s the most important part: you must bring the will to learn. It’s a new OS and as people had to “learn” Windows and/or OSX they have to learn Linux. Although Ubuntu really does a good job at hiding a lot of stuff from the user its another OS with all it’s strength and weaknesses. It takes some time to get used to but once you are in, it’s hard to go back.
17/12/2012 at 21:24 JaminBob says:
I’ll believe it when i see it, but, like most people who comment on these posts I can’t wait to dump windows, so fingers crossed!
17/12/2012 at 21:27 Shuck says:
Weird. No Mac support, but Linux support? Seems like a strange leap for THQ.
17/12/2012 at 21:40 InternetBatman says:
Steambox vs. a company that shows minor disregard for games and doesn’t keep OpenGL up to date. However, I imagine porting to mac is much easier once you have a linux port and vice versa.
17/12/2012 at 22:20 Danny252 says:
Like InternetBatman says, Mac OS is a Unix operating system, like the Linuxes and BSDs, so they all work in the same sort of way. There might be some work in getting everything to behave, but I believe the vast majority of Linux programs will work on Mac?
17/12/2012 at 22:50 Shuck says:
Yeah, it makes sense, but it was odd that Linux was explicitly mentioned but not Mac. Not that in the AAA space there’s been much interest in doing Mac+Linux so far. Mostly I see games in poorly-running emulation wrappers rather than real ports. (And some of the real ports don’t run all that well, either.)
17/12/2012 at 22:45 Shuck says:
I have to say, I’m skeptical of the chances of Linux Steam box, both as a player and developer. Right now I’m looking for a new game machine that could, in theory, be used just for my huge un-played library of Steam games. If the Steam box ends up being Linux based (and that seems to be pure speculation right now), that would be a deal-breaker for me, as that would mean 99% of my Steam game library would be unplayable. (Because there’s no Linux version so, at best, it would be run extremely poorly under emulation.) I’m skeptical of Valve’s Linux ports, too. Playing their Source games on the same machine running either Mac or Windows, the Windows version plays a hell of a lot better. As a developer, I be hesitant to throw development money at a box that has seemingly limited appeal and an unknown potential user base.
18/12/2012 at 01:54 InternetBatman says:
Well, I think it’s important to note that we don’t know steam/linux’s potential. It seems like OSX is relatively static. It’s not a matter of improving service, OSX is pretty good already. Linux seems to be improving rapidly; Valve is getting some major players to play ball.
Lord knows I’m not a developer, but at least consider it. When a console comes out (and steam box will be a console, don’t look at it as a PC), the library is small. So you have higher demand with a lower supply, which is a seller’s market. Red Steel has a 63 on metacritic but still sold 500k because it was well placed.
Also, gabe did say something like they needed big picture working and steam on linux to give them flexibility for future hardware plans.
18/12/2012 at 10:37 solidsquid says:
The changes for Mac support after getting linux support are minimal. In fact if they do port it to Linux it’ll probably appear on Mac first because the library changes needed for Mac are some of the same ones for Linux but less of them
17/12/2012 at 21:31 kwyjibo says:
He’s only mentioned Linux, because those are the most vocal.
But we all know the main switching cost is going from DirectX to OpenGL, and that gives you Mac as well. Fairly sure that’s where the potential is. (Unless Steam decide to do something weird with their “turnkey solution”)
17/12/2012 at 22:38 Gap Gen says:
So I don’t know DirectX, but is it still the case that it’s vastly less of a gigantic mess than OpenGL, or have OpenGL caught up of late? I know my laptop’s Intel HD doesn’t support geometry shaders in OpenGL, which is super annoying.
18/12/2012 at 14:20 uh20 says:
directx and opengl is a funny comparison…
most versions of directx up to 9 are pretty much faster than their pre-opengl 3 counterparts
and directx can find itself on slightly older hardware than opengl
however, if you do have something that is up to opengl 4, then it will outspec and outperform
even the latest directx.
from my own experience, opengl is a bit more clean to develop for, which means a bit for development
so, in a ways, as long as you bought a new computer, and the developers actually made a game in opengl 4 (O_O) then opengl will be greater than directx
otherwise…….
17/12/2012 at 21:36 lizzardborn says:
Unless Valve pays for the porting, or valve have some amazing emulator/abstraction layer the cost benefit will not be in Linux favor.
17/12/2012 at 21:58 InternetBatman says:
Maybe. The humble bundle is hardly a typical source, but it has some interesting data. Linux users normally contribute between 15 and 25% of the total purchases. Just the charts make them look around 20% normally, and macs another 20% approximately.
If you look at the THQ bundle, that would be $1.7m for mac and linux separately, and that’s before the extra revenue you get from high paying users raising the average. That’s $242k for each engine 3 programmers at $80k for a year ($339k / 4 programmers if you ignore the really old extras like Titan’s Quest and Dawn of War). So under that you make a miniscule bit of profit and substantially increase the size of your brand. Not a bad deal if it can be done, especially since it makes the next game much lower in cost to port.
Furthermore, if THQ can be the first AAA to the Steam box, they can make much more, merely by being in a market where demand is higher than supply. Best of all, the more platforms they support, the more leverage they have when dealing with platform holders.
18/12/2012 at 01:51 meatshit says:
Yea, it was a very diplomatic way of saying no.
18/12/2012 at 14:25 uh20 says:
this is one of those things that are always debated around
there are a few very good single man teams that port games for a living, one of which makes almost all the games linux compatable for the humble bundle, and thats profitable
yes, the percent is lower, but you can still grab a revenue if your porting strategies a good one.
17/12/2012 at 21:37 cloudnein says:
Always hated the Linux penguin (art-wise it’s SHITE.) Now I doubly-hate it.
18/12/2012 at 14:28 uh20 says:
i like it in thumbnails, but everywhere else, its kinda silly.
i prefer large pictures with the ubuntu logo.
that picture was honestly the funniest photoshop i have seen yet .-.
17/12/2012 at 21:38 Earl-Grey says:
So, does this possibly also mean support for us macputer users?
Considering that …something something UNIX, something OpenGL, something Linus Torvalds and some other things I know absolutely nothing about either.
17/12/2012 at 22:40 Gap Gen says:
Unfortunately Apple is a tiny, unpopular company, so probably not. :(
18/12/2012 at 14:31 uh20 says:
mac and linux support come hand-in-hand, so dont worry about it.
18/12/2012 at 15:23 Bob_Bobson says:
Unless Apple are doing the development. Have you ever tried to run Safari on Ubuntu? The only way to do it is to run “Safari for Windows” in an emulator. Which is all kinds of stupid.
(Before you point out the obvious solution of “Don’t run Safari” I need to test websites in a lot of different browsers but don’t own a Mac).
17/12/2012 at 21:53 Anthile says:
In the shining brightness of PC gaming future there is only waddle.
17/12/2012 at 22:18 Paul says:
Microsoft deserves a nice smackdown for their abhorrent treatment of PC as a gaming platform. Good on THQ, it would be amazing if Linux became viable gaming platform few years down the line, and MS struggled to keep up.
17/12/2012 at 22:47 SuperNashwanPower says:
I have a concern. If Microsoft, via control of XBox, have a huge amount of control over what kind of games get made and what publishers do via licensing agreements, could they insert a clause in their contract that says they are not allowed to produce a Linux port?
In other words, is it possible microsoft could force games companies to choose between the appealing, warm teat of assured audiences on console / windows, or the wild unknown of a new and under-subscribed platform?
Even if valve make it their preferred conduit, dont MS have the market so sewn up as to make it near impossible for wholesale movement into linux territory extremely difficult?
17/12/2012 at 22:54 darkChozo says:
That would run afoul of any number of anticompetitive laws, particularly if Microsoft ever achieved a pseudo-monopoly in the console space like they have in OSes. They could potentially make it a technical restriction by having the Xbox API be significantly different from everything else, therefore increasing the cost of porting, but that seems like it would cause a lot of problems with developers, not to mention that they could still be hit by anticompetitive litigation.
17/12/2012 at 23:35 Fazer says:
Imho the biggest weapon in MS arsenal is their patent portfolio. They can sue Valve for using Linux that infringes on some technology (trivial or not), like they did many times with mobile and navigation companies. It could force Valve to cancel Steam Box or pay huge royalties.
18/12/2012 at 02:21 InternetBatman says:
I’m not sure if they can exclude competitors like that. Many, many regulators are uneasy with the fact that MS still exists unbroken. What they could do is try to tie developers into exclusivity contracts, or timed exclusivity contracts. That’s a significant amount of cash, however they did spend half a billion on Kinect’s advertising, but it’s competing against four viable competitors (WiiU, PS4, Steambox, and the iOS systems).
I think exclusivity becomes the less viable the larger gaming audiences become and the easier supporting platforms gets.
18/12/2012 at 11:12 Aaarrrggghhh says:
They could do that, but it’s not unlikely that it would severley hurt their own plattform. Developers could not be save to assume that MS does not go on and forbids releases on say, PS4 if you publish on 720. That’s no save environment to develop on, so developers might shy away from publishing on MS consoles.
18/12/2012 at 11:26 SuperNashwanPower says:
Hi chaps. Thanks for the responses. Microsoft already has a long history of anti-competetive practices with their infamous “embrace, extend, extinguish” campaign (link to justice.gov – quite a damning document), so they could easily have the motivation to do so. Its whether or not they can be legally prevented – something which, in the past, I believe has not always happened.
I get the feeling that Linux will be great for indies, but as soon as the prospect of serious money is raised, devs are going to flock back to Bill. Defeatist perhaps, but then one of the (claimed) reasons STALKER 2 was cancelled was because they realised it wasn’t viable on consoles. The major question is if Linux will be able to establish itself as a powerful platform, with enough users to warrant serious attention from devs.
Valve and THQ making noises that way bodes well. Who else will jump onboard?
17/12/2012 at 23:19 suibhne says:
I cannot stop gaping at that image, as at a particularly gory auto accident.
17/12/2012 at 23:33 FurryLippedSquid says:
I think Valve and THQ both know something we don’t.
Industry rumbles of Windows moving in a bad direction, perhaps. Of course there was rumour that Win 8 was the first step in that direction but it appears to have been unfounded.
18/12/2012 at 00:09 varangian says:
I think the thing with MS is that they’re rapidly becoming irrelevant. They release new versions of Windows, each one ‘the best ever’ though that is/has been contentious, but nobody is really excited any more. Used to be people would queue, Apple fanboy style, for the latest version but nowadays not so much. They’re no longer driving the industry but playing catch-up most of the time. Hence their increasing tendency to play the patent troll. And as they lose that dominance it allows companies like Valve to explore other possibilities without the fear that MS can crush them with the kind of tactics that put their rivals in business s/w out of action in the ’90s.
18/12/2012 at 02:18 Beelzebud says:
It’s easy to sit back and say they’re irrelevant, but they still have a solid lock on the PC market, and the Xbox360 has pretty much ruled this generation of consoles. 99.99% of the companies on the planet wish they were that “irrelevant”. Like it or not but the beast isn’t going anywhere.
18/12/2012 at 02:22 Donjo says:
Yeah- it’s too soon to say irrelevant but it’s not hard to imagine that in the future.
18/12/2012 at 02:28 InternetBatman says:
X-box 360 has been the leader this gen for the past two years maybe. It was crushed by a more interesting platform with far weaker hardware for most of it. Then they had to release significantly new harbor with a $500m marketing campaign behind it to gain a slight lead over the PS3 outside of Japan. They’re certainly not irrelevant, but the longer they go without a new technology the greater the risk of disruption they face.
18/12/2012 at 02:35 Donjo says:
The fluidity of a company like Valve must be a fairly incomprehensible disruptive force for the current leaders. It’s always going to be interesting to see where they go next. Whoever jumps on their bandwagon will likely have a huge head start over everyone else in the next generation.
18/12/2012 at 03:07 darkChozo says:
Interestingly enough, it looks like the 360 is the loser in this console generation at the moment, if Wikipedia is to be believed. Only by 200k units or so, but that somewhat flies in the face of conventional wisdom, particularly considering that it was released a year before the PS3. Wii’s ahead by leaps and bounds, of course.
18/12/2012 at 13:44 Donjo says:
That is interesting, I would have assumed the exact opposite.
18/12/2012 at 02:20 Donjo says:
I’m not sure if they know something we don’t (although in my case it’s most likely true- I’m a dumb-ass) but maybe they’re prepared to start moving in a different direction. Which would be good for everyone. Except Microsoft.
18/12/2012 at 02:18 PopeRatzo says:
So now Linux users will be able to enjoy the same lousy console ports that Windows users have had for the past 5 years.
18/12/2012 at 14:36 uh20 says:
IMPROVEMENT!!!!!!!!
(actually it kind of is, on linux, you can play that game twice at the same time, while getting performance boost from a minimal desktop)
18/12/2012 at 17:56 Valvarexart says:
Yes, the shoddy graphics drivers are sure to boost our performance to the skies.
18/12/2012 at 23:44 uh20 says:
that too… linux still has problems, and one of the most annoying, is that amd dont give 2 crud’s about linux.
if you have a nvidia card, you get equally great performance, but amd and intel graphics are sorely lacking.
of course, this is not the fault of poor linus, this is just adoption that should be ironed out within the next year.
18/12/2012 at 02:52 Xzi says:
Well, THQ is not your typical large publisher. They seem to care less about deadlines and more about the quality of their products than EA or Activision. I don’t like every THQ-published game, but I can understand how those that I don’t bother with can be liked by other people. I really hope they don’t end up going under, because then we wouldn’t have any active AAA publishers with a decent track record at all.
18/12/2012 at 03:20 Solidstate89 says:
Only Ubuntu? That truly is a horrifying future indeed.
18/12/2012 at 11:15 Aaarrrggghhh says:
Ubuntu is the only one that is currently officially supported. But the Steam Linux beta client already runs fine on a lot of distributions. And not only Ubuntu/Debian based ones.
18/12/2012 at 09:19 Prime says:
I’ve nothing against THQ per se, but if their sudden willingness to listen to gamers is any indication we should be pushing the likes of Ubisoft and EA into bankruptcy as well. It’s surprising how easy it becomes to start paying attention to all those little voices and the many eminently sensible ways of doing things when you are worried about your company going bust, isn’t it?
18/12/2012 at 11:23 Alexrd says:
I don’t mind that Humble Bundle is selling AAA games. But they should have been DRM-free.
18/12/2012 at 17:53 Valvarexart says:
All right, I have to go on a rant here.
Firstly, let me say that I am very happy about the evolution of Linux videogame support. I have been using Linux for several years (sometimes exclusively), and I am a great fan of the Free Software movement – so much that I am a member of both the FSF and FSFE – although I don’t strictly adhere to the policies of not using proprietary software (I only avoid it when it is not too inconvenient). If games move on to a more open and organic platform, that is a wonderful thing and I would in no way oppose it (I tried Steam on Arch last month and was happy with the results)… This is something that is long overdue.
BUT!
Windows 8 is not terrible. It is not worse than Windows 7. It is not a closed system any more than all the Windows versions before it has been. Metro does not kill babies. Microsoft are not shoehorning developers into their store (which, by-the-by, has an equivalent on the other big OS’s, including Ubuntu, which has been there way longer).
Windows 8 is in fact a large improvement over Windows 7 – snappier, better-looking, vastly better resource management, better user-end interfaces for resource management and an array of other improvements. Yes, Metro may not be the best thing in the world – but you HARDLY NOTICE it. If you really hate it, you can just mod back the start menu as there are by now thousands of applications that can accomplish that for you so that you can lessen from your burden that terrible Baby Duck Syndrome.
Yes, Windows itself is terrible and Microsoft may or may not sponsor the throttling of baby puppies every week, and the move to Linux is wonderful, because the Windows platform in itself is corrupt…
But anyone claiming that Windows 8 is worse than Windows 7 is SPOUTING BULLSHIT, LYING and thus a nincompoot and a dimwit (and/or has no idea of what they are speaking, and should thus not be speaking in the first place).
Why do you think that your Lord and Saviour, Gabe Newell, said that Windows 8 is a “catastrophe”? Because he is such a nice guy, and wants you to keep using Windows 7 instead because it is better?
NO!
It’s because Microsoft (through their Xbox platform) are direct rivals of Valve (and their upcoming console).
Gabe Newell is a fucking businessman, not a charitable guru. I can respect his statement from the point of view of a businessman.
So, please, RPS – STOP FUCKING LYING TO YOUR READERS. It’s bad journalism. You are bad people and should feel bad, yes?
19/12/2012 at 04:30 Geen says:
WAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAGGGGGHFACE