Yes, There Are Portal 2 Linux References

[Cybolic]

There's a reason I don't like people speculating about Windows games being ported over to Linux, it's a bit like trying to port over a mindset. Games which have been created and developed for masses, for a platform where uniformity and (more or less) 'it just works' are the most important values, cannot be easily, if at all, ported to a platform which puts a huge amount of emphasis on individuality, free choice, standards, openness, and so on and so forth.

Wait, what? Are you saying that because we have different desktop interfaces, the POSIX base (and things like SDL) doesn't work? I've been running games on Linux for quite a few years (since around 2001-2002 I believe) and I have never run into any major issues (apart from a few horribly ported games from LGP, I'll give you that, but that's besides the point - there are horribly coded games for Windows as well).

So in fact I'd really rather people not port Windows games to Linux, or think that companies which traditionally develop Windows games should start developing for Linux. And this journalism, which is already harmful in its speculativeness, is also harmful in trying to cause people believe in the illusion Linux is Windows. It's the same people who use Wine on Linux and try to turn it into something it is not.

I don't understand this pride issue. If you like playing games, then dualboot windows and play the games you love when you want to. If you don't, don't try to force something where it doesn't belong.

How about if I like playing games, I also like running Linux and I don't want Windows to go anywhere near my machine? This scenario has been working perfectly for me for the last years, without trying to force anything.
I don't get this "it doesn't belong" thing, or the pride thing for that matter. I'm not too proud to run Windows, it's just that it usually fucks up my machine (hard drives usually) and I don't like rebooting.

...wait... are you against commercial software on Linux in general? Is that it? If so, why didn't you just say that?

[Cybolic]

$12 is far away form the prices Valve charge for their top tier games

I'm pretty sure that comment was meant as a comparison, not a base price.

[Cybolic]

[...] as OilRush and the Humble Indie Bundle 3 has proven there isn't enough interest in Linux gaming [...]

By proven, you mean that there are almost 10 times more purchases of the Linux version of OilRush than the Windows version and that the Humble Indie Bundle 3 has more Linux purchases than Mac purchases and that Linux users pay twice to three times as more in average than Windows and Mac users?

I fail to see your logic...

[Nobu]

The cake is a lie (and it looks disgusting!).

The cake is a lie! (but it looks tasty; Mmmm, bread pudding!)

[deanjo]

Wait, what? Are you saying that because we have different desktop interfaces, the POSIX base (and things like SDL) doesn't work? I've been running games on Linux for quite a few years (since around 2001-2002 I believe) and I have never run into any major issues (apart from a few horribly ported games from LGP, I'll give you that, but that's besides the point - there are horribly coded games for Windows as well).

Oh man, there have been some real doozies when it comes to SDL bugs such as wandering cursors that get stuck to the corner of the screen when using evdev devices, tonnes of audio issues (a lot of them tied to SDLMixer, even XBMC was forced to finally turf it because of unreliable audio), etc. In fact if you want to see SDL at its finest you should use it in windows (sad but true).

[Michael]

The cake is a lie! (but it looks tasty; Mmmm, bread pudding!)

Bayerische Dampfnudel from Augustiner-Keller.

[deanjo]

By proven, you mean that there are almost 10 times more purchases of the Linux version of OilRush than the Windows version and that the Humble Indie Bundle 3 has more Linux purchases than Mac purchases and that Linux users pay twice to three times as more in average than Windows and Mac users?

I fail to see your logic...

10x more purchases for oilrush in linux because on Windows you have far better choices for your gaming dollar. A linux user only has to spend maybe $20-40 every three years on their gaming options. On windows they wouldn't even consider a person as a casual gamer.

HB3 shows that roughly 25% of revenue ($$$), not "more Linux purchases then Mac" there is a difference. Now given that the average purchase price in linux is roughly double that of OS X but not double in total $$$ sales you can reasonably extrapolate that total copies of linux purchases is actually lower then OS X. Throw a starving dog anything and they are likely to try to eat it.

[Goodolandy]

Nobody should be using the poor sales of HIB #3 or Oil-Rush to defend their claim of why there should not be any Linux games.

1) HIB #3 has three games that most people seem to already own (from comments I have read on various forums).
2) One game in HIB #3 is still in development while another is only for Windows.
3) Oil-Rush is also still in development and many people have stated that they will wait until final release to purchase.

Not everyone is into using beta software, in fact it appears a lot of people tend to stay away from anything beta. Once Oil-Rush is officially released then we will see just how much or how little Linux sales are.

As for people complaining about Michael and his post, I don't understand what you guys are complaining about. He simply made a public post asking people to stop flooding his inbox concerning Portal 2 and some code found in it's launch script. What is so wrong about that?

[Armurier]

As for people complaining about Michael and his post, I don't understand what you guys are complaining about. He simply made a public post asking people to stop flooding his inbox concerning Portal 2 and some code found in it's launch script. What is so wrong about that?

Point taken. It's less wrong than this article where he said Steam Linux Client was official, whereas it wasn't.
But, as it's not his first time claiming Valve games/Steam are being ported to Linux ; we're simply suspicious. What's wrong about THIS ?

[entropy]

Maybe this is just another ARG from Valve. But then again this would take far too long now...

At first when the hints appeared inside the download scripts and soon after someone got his hands on the preliminary Stream client this looked really promising to me. In particular, because it was imho to obvious that Valve wanted this stuff to be discovered (for whatever reason).