The Big GNU/Linux Gamer Survey

[thatgui]

It does not contradict anything.

huuh ?"The freedom to study how the program works, and change it so it does your computing as you wish (freedom 1). Access to the source code is a precondition for this.

Seems to contradict a lot, but what do I know, you slapped the Linux label on it, so everything is fine

2) Games have nothing to do about security, about portability (most of them target x86 only), about information protection, about leaking data from my computer (at least on desktop PCs), so I (and many others) don't care if Games are Free Software or not. It's not vital to computing, but a FOSS OS is vital for many other reasons. Non-FOSS games will have more chance to be lost in time when hardware cannot support them anymore, and that's fine - Games are just games, most of them are not that great anyway.

A game is a piece of software which means it can be a host for malware as any other - this point makes absolutely no sense at all

3) Most FOSS people don't care if their Microware oven is not Free Software Firmware either. I approach games the same way. They run in a closed environment, and they do not prevent me from running a FOSS OS in the first place.

Except that they don't run in a closed environment (well except closed in a sense on what you are allowed to with it). And which system does prevent you from running FOSS software ? Your Microwave ?

4) FOSS games that happen to be good at the same time : that's ideal. But what we see if that most FOSS games tend to be a mess, half-baked, not finished, poorly designed - that is why most people prefer commercial offering. Sure, there are exceptions - and that's why we call them exceptions.

As most of your points this is absolutely useless, the quality or (lack of) of FOSS games has no connection to Steam

- You don't need a proprietary OS to run Games anymore. Its good because it's not owned by a single company.

But you need a proprietary client to run the games, which is owned by a single company

- That should reduce the barrier to switch to Linux in the first place, and switchers can benefit from all the FOSS benefits offered by the system.

And ensures people that make decisions in companys and in shareholder boards that you can enforce DRM even in environments where people actually give a shit

- It increases the importance of Linux across the spectrum, with more focus on performance of drivers - all applications benefit from it in the end.

Which can (and has been, rembember the HumbleBundle guys, beeing all DRM, Linuxy and free n'stuff) achieved otherwise

 

[_wb_]

The only commercial games I have ever bought or legally owned were some Commodore 64 games in the late 1980s, mostly birthday presents iirc. I was a kid back then. Oh, and KAMI RETRO on the Pandora.

In the 1990s, as a teenager, I played quite a few DOS (and later Windows) games. All shareware and/or illegally copied; I did not have a budget for software since hardware was already expensive enough.

By the end of the 1990s, a bit before I went to university, I got mostly bored of following mainstream PC gaming since it seemed to have become just first person shooters with better and better graphics and less and less original gameplay. For me, Wolfenstein was actually scary, it was fun and original. Doom was also still nice. I remember having some fun with Quake II CTF and with Half-Life, but after that I completely lost interest in PC gaming because the innovation in terms of gameplay seemed to have gone: to me, it was all basically "more of the same, but with a more advanced rendering engine and higher resolution textures". Also, I had switched to GNU/Linux in 1997 iirc, and by 1999 or so, even though I probably still had a copy of Windows somewhere on a different partition, I just didn't feel like rebooting and destroying my uptime just to play some boring game.

In the 2000s, I played some FOSS games like Wesnoth and Tremulous, and some illegal copies of console games (SNES, mostly) through emulators.

In the 2010s, I made and played a few homebrew FOSS Pandora games. I'm not really interested in commercial games; I don't really have time (or want to make time) for serious gaming anymore. A quick game of Hase, Snowman Reloaded or NubNub, or (dare I admit this?) Cut the Rope or Candy Crush on my phone, that's about it now. I think I have become a casual gamer *shudders*.

Should I do the survey or would that be pointless?

 

[Ziz]

Should I do the survey or would that be pointless?

This survey is for commercial games, not aimed at free software games

Unfortunately I doubt it makes sense for you.

 

[ekianjo]

A game is a piece of software which means it can be a host for malware as any other - this point makes absolutely no sense at all

Gee looks like you know a lot on how Linux works with permissions.  

But you need a proprietary client to run the games, which is owned by a single company

So ? It's FOR FUCKING GAMING. You don't get my points at all do you ? Do you have problems with English or something? I want FOSS software for browsing and everything actually important (I don't want to deal with crapware present in what I install), but GAMING IS NOT IMPORTANT if I need to spell it obviously to you. 

Which can (and has been, rembember the HumbleBundle guys, beeing all DRM, Linuxy and free n'stuff) achieved otherwise

Yeha looks like you HAVE REALLY PAID ATTENTION AT what the HB guys have been doing. They's mostly dropped DRM-free and do mostly Windows bundles nowadays. You know, why don't you talk about what you actually know about for a change? 

Should I do the survey or would that be pointless?

I would say pointless at this time, but I will include a FOSS gaming section in the next survey (3 months later) so you will be able to answer that one.  

 

[sebt3]

HAVE REALLY PAID ATTENTION AT

So worth shouting...

 

[ekianjo]

So worth shouting...

Well when one does not listen when speaking normally...  

 

[thatgui]

Gee looks like you know a lot on how Linux works with permissions.

This has no effect on your silly argument (which had no important connection to our original discussion in the first place). Software is inherently flawed thus a source for security holes, beeing games, applications or a simple lib. As long as it executed it can potentially harm the system, which also includes *unix system, they aren't perfect either.

So ? It's FOR FUCKING GAMING. You don't get my points at all do you ? Do you have problems with English or something? I want FOSS software for browsing and everything actually important (I don't want to deal with crapware present in what I install), but GAMING IS NOT IMPORTANT if I need to spell it obviously to you.

So your whole point is riding the freedom of choice horse is a great thing as long as you don't have to pay much for games that are not bad (which seems to equal foss games in your opinion, of course except the exceptions)? Hmm, must have missed the footnote that states that those principles should only be uphold for the "important" things that are defined by ekianjo on the Openpandora boards

Yeha looks like you HAVE REALLY PAID ATTENTION AT what the HB guys have been doing. They's mostly dropped DRM-free and do mostly Windows bundles nowadays. You know, why don't you talk about what you actually know about for a change?

They spearheaded the whole Indie goes Linux for the masses (yes I know about Loki games and their history) long before Steam showed any hints about beeing interested in Linux (and Steam isn't interested in Linux as an OS/Philosophy/whatever, they simply want to get MS out of the way). And they haven't mostly dropped their DRM-free stance: true, partially they became Steam-key resellers, but they more often present a DRM-free download as an alternative and not only for games, but for comics, books, music too.


But I would rather like to know what this all has to do with our initial dispute.

 

[Klumpen]

I actually don't believe everything I read on the internet.

Wise thing to do. Well to answer your question again, no, no affiliation whatsoever, I have no friends working for Valve either and I'm just a regular gamer like everyone else. By the way none of my websites are commercial (Pandoralive and BoilingSteam make no money, have no ads, and actually cost x Euros/month to maintain on top of the time I put into them). 

So if you are looking for bias/corruption you are in the very wrong place.

Actually, I didn't get that the survey is made by you and noone else, didn't read carefully enough but took my time with the survey.

By the way: Does Wordpress allow donation buttons or would it violate their terms of use?

 

[ekianjo]

Does Wordpress allow donation buttons or would it violate their terms of use?

Not sure about that. Why do you ask ?  

 

[notaz]

It is free software. You just explained, how good Free software is and that it is okay if only games are not free and now you see no difference in a Windows partition vs. Wine? Some linux ports just link against wine. So they don't count, too? Even if they are on steam?

I was thinking the same thing, all the FOSS related points ekianjo listed as benefits of Steam Linux apply to wine too.I'm a heavy wine user (and occasional contributor to it's development), so I must be biased, but can't see any difference except the obvious performance one (useless back and forth conversion between multiple windows APIs that wine has to do).

A game is a piece of software which means it can be a host for malware as any other - this point makes absolutely no sense at all

Gee looks like you know a lot on how Linux works with permissions.

I actually agree with thatgui - if you don't do something special steam (and the games it starts) run at the same privilege level as your browser (that you said you care to be FOSS), so can do the same amount of damage rogue browser can do. It's not hard to imagine a flaw in the steam client that would allow a file to be injected to some plugin based game, that would then load up when you fire a game, scan your browser's memory for passwords and CC details and send them somewhere you'd never want them to be. Or maybe encrypt your files while you play and then ask for a ransom.
Steam has done some really stupid things in the past because of some horribly poor coding, like deleting all files of currently active user. Every time I start steam I feel slightly nervous...

 

[rygD]

You asked a Yes-No-question, but there is no "No". Only options, what do know. What if a person has not heard of any of the options?

 You can continue to the next question by not ticking anything. It works (i think...) - if it does not, I'll have to include such option next time.

Ah, okay, didn't test this. I just wondered, what happens if I doesn't select anything and got a red bordering

I tried it and it told me I had to answer the question to go to the next page.

 

[_jr_]

If wine is targeted as a platform already in development the performance penalty of wine could become negligible in some (I suspect most?) cases. Then this would be significantly cheaper to develop and maintain than a native port. Without any downsides to users.

 

[Klumpen]

Does Wordpress allow donation buttons or would it violate their terms of use?

Not sure about that. Why do you ask ?  

You could use something like this to make sure you at least don't have to pay.

I remember some sites in the past having sliders that show how much of the costs are already gathered via donations, you could even deactivate the button automatically when costs are reached and depending on how fast they are, you could put more money into the site in the next months, I liked this system but unfortunately it was destroyed by greed sooner or later in most cases, it was really long ago.

Well, maybe not neccessary for a news-blog but in case you want to extend the site at some point it would be an idea.