KubeRoot

I like Valve, but I will point out what’s been said before - Valve has a stake in making Linux gaming better, since it enables the Steam Deck to exist and prosper. They could’ve chosen other options that don’t help the community, but they didn’t choose this entirely selflessly, since they reap the benefits from not just their own work, but also that of the open source developers.

It’s not like Bethesda called their games “Fantasy” - “Civilization” is such a generic name that I respect putting the author’s name before it to avoid any confusion.

I generally agree, but I’m not gonna continue buying on steam just because they’re developing new tech - I happily buy games on steam because of the features steam provides.

That said, DRM-free games is something steam does not and probably will not provide - it’s a niche GOG is comfortable with, so many people who value freedom on software will choose it as their first platform of choice.

In that sense, the hardware is completely unrelated - it does nothing towards the goal of DRM-free games, and in case of the index, locks more games behind a platform.

What take even is that? I can understand some complaints about Linux support for how much people praise the deck, but why would they make their own handheld… And VR headset? I feel like hardware shouldn’t be locked to specific platforms, and I would rather blame Valve for not releasing steam-independent software for their headset.

Well, some games that come to mind are Stellaris, RimWorld, Oxygen Not Included, and I think the upcoming Factorio expansion. And from those, I think it might be possible to buy RimWorld DLC off-steam and install it in a steam copy.

Fun fact, you can check - on steamdb, you can check depots for a game, and see if it has one for a DLC. If it does, then it is downloading extra files for it.

All that said, I wouldn’t say it’s 100% a developer issue. The way I see the accusation, Valve is very comfortable providing convenient libraries for various things, including working with DLC, that only work on their platform, making it hard to release the game elsewhere in the future.

I’m generally fine with that for a simple reason - Steam really does have great features that just work. However, if somebody forced Valve to make features like Steam Input available independent of Steam, it could be a great boon for gaming.

I think the DLC point is the one valid argument, although nontrivial to implement.

How do you think DLC works on DRM-free games works, like GOG? The game is just gonna check if you have the DLC installed, without any real DRM.

The main issue is, this is entirely possible right now for games to do, but it won’t be integrated with steam, and needs to be done by developers themselves. I don’t know how feasible it would be for Steam to realistically do something about it, but it’d definitely be nice if you could buy a game on steam, and later decide you want to buy DLC on another platform and install it onto your steam game.

Maybe it is, maybe it isn’t… But we have definitive proof ARM is, in the form of actual consumer systems on the market.

If apple is viable for consumers, and apple uses ARM, then ARM is viable for consumers.

Windows and Linux being unfortunately behind is not an argument against ARM being viable, it shows it’s not ready - however, apple was in the same situation before they moved to ARM, so theoretically Microsoft could attempt a similar investment and push towards ARM. Apple’s control over both hardware and software certainly helped them, and went well for them.

That said, maybe it’s a disagreement on terminology. When I say that ARM is viable, I mean that it’s ready to create hardware and software that does what people need it to do. Apple clearly succeeded, now it’s a question of if/when manufacturers start making open hardware and software starts compatibility… Or if maybe another option will succeed instead.

Aren’t the new Apple chips ARM? If they are, then ARM is absolutely in the present, and proven viable for consumers by Apple.

Right, but are the sources all available? You probably wouldn’t want to be using the same build for your one device with different hardware, so the question is, do you have what it takes to put the system together yourself?

Don’t get me wrong, I know, I might not have been clear enough.

I do not think Palworld reflects negatively on steam deck - I was originally wrong, I didn’t check what I was talking about, and edited my comment after I read your reply.

What I meant is, in cases where proton does fail, it does reflect negatively on the steam deck. It’s not a statement of fact, and no longer relevant to the original message, but I was upholding that opinion from my original comment.

Ah, sorry - I saw mentions that Proton-GE fixes it in another reply, thought it was something else.

My statement does stand in general, any issues with Proton will reflect negatively on the deck - but I definitely spoke too soon here

I mean, it kinda is a deck problem, in that it affects the steam deck’s capabilities as a gaming device. Apparently I misunderstood, I thought it was a proton issue where it’s just Palworld leaking memory? If you know what you’re doing you might be able to fix that issue, but for most users it ends on “this game doesn’t work on the steam deck”.

That said, I do believe valve (and all the other contributors to wine, dxvk, etc.) are doing work to make more games work on Linux, and they’ve done an amazing job so far

Isn’t the secret sauce already available, with the issue being that it’s not adapted to run on a wider range of devices? I had the impression HoloISO was just that, but as a community project - putting in all the work to make it installable on various devices (and work correctly)

Cleverly cheesing rules is up to the game master’s discretion, while transforming into a whale sounds like a very reasonable, if overpowered, interaction, the peasant rail gun wouldn’t fly in most campaigns. Not that it makes it any less hilarious.