Feral's Lead Vulkan Developer Leaves The Company For Sony

[Boland]

Feral is a publisher for all games they port. So I think it's Feral that pays other publishers to be able to port and sell games.

Exactly this. Feral IS the publisher... Porting is the side business to the games they publish (on Linux, macOS, iOS, Android and Switch).

[puleglot]

It's a company, they would have contracts with the original game developer/publisher company that pays them for the whole work.

Feral is a publisher for all games they port. So I think it's Feral that pays other publishers to be able to port and sell games.

[starshipeleven]

Well I don't see the big problem with dropping 32 bit support, except where it prevents older games from working.

This is admittedly less of an issue for Mac user because they are used to being told that it's their fault for "holding the phone wrong" or "using the laptop wrong" when Apple screws up, but doing the same on Windows would have caused massive shitstorms as there are A LOT of older games that will never be updated anymore there.

Feral will survive as they are also making Android, iOS, and Switch ports now too. 64-bit Metal Mac ports still make somewhat sense as Proton and DXVK arent supported on that platform. Feral's new Linux Vulkan ports beat DXVK in performance, so there is that at least. I buy their ports to support them from time to time.

Mac gaming is about to come far crappier when they finally drop OpenGL support. It was already a big setback when they dropped 32-bit support and will be an even larger back catalog of games will simply stop working when GL is dropped.

Well I don't see the big problem with dropping 32 bit support, except where it prevents older games from working.

Any new games should be in 64 bit anyway, it makes absolutely no sense to continue creating 32 bit applications for MacOS (unless they're Hackintosh builds on old machines).

I can’t imagine working for Feral would be extremely rewarding in the pocketbook. There simply isn’t enough Linux gaming happening to pay the developers a large wage. If anything Linux gaming seems to be dying rather than growing.

this is why I justify Linux via uses other than gaming for myself. Almost everything else is a better avenue for gaming,Windows, the consoles even a Mac are better gaming platforms.

It's a company, they would have contracts with the original game developer/publisher company that pays them for the whole work.

I don't think Feral itself would have monetary problems, the main problem is whether game development and publishing companies see any value or returns in porting to Linux.

[starshipeleven]

Mac are better gaming platforms.

To "game" you need proper gaming hardware, not shit that overheats and blows up when loaded continuously for more than 10 minutes.

I wonder if Sony is fiiiinally going to use some standard API like Vulkan for their PlayStation consoles? That would be great, especially since consoles are using close to standard PC hardware for a few generations.

Or maybe this is related to Android games, maybe on their Android phones/tablets, TVs, or some new device they're going to create.

[stormcrow]

... even a Mac are better gaming platforms.

Yeah... no. No one buys a Mac for playing games. It's just not done. People buy Macs for developing iOS, Mac, web, or Linux/Unix. People playing games on Macs are incidental to what they're really doing. Any serious gamers are using a console or Windows.

[Boland]

And how many 32 bit OpenGL games are ported to 64 bit and Metal?

And how many recent/new games are using 32bit/OpenGL?...

As for Feral, off the top of my head so far they've converted Arkham City, Tomb Raider, Railroads, Medieval 2, and a few of the Total War games to 64bit/Metal form 32bit/OpenGL.

[timofonic]

I can’t imagine working for Feral would be extremely rewarding in the pocketbook. There simply isn’t enough Linux gaming happening to pay the developers a large wage. If anything Linux gaming seems to be dying rather than growing.

this is why I justify Linux via uses other than gaming for myself. Almost everything else is a better avenue for gaming,Windows, the consoles even a Mac are better gaming platforms.

Feral ports games to a wide variety of systems, including video consoles. They port games to a lot more platforms than just Linux.

Vulkan is a multiplatform API, even Android uses it.

You have no idea about what the Feral business are, really. You should be more informed before something such stupid things, please.