Yep, this is an old problem with Denuvo, new proton version looks like a new system. I guess if the containerization is perfect, Denuvo won’t be able to solve this and retain the same functionality.
Banning is fine, we’re talking about remote bricking. If I hack my Xbox, I’m fine with not being allowed to use it to join msft’s network, but I am not fine with them identifying my hacked device over the internet and actively sending some sort of backdoor self-destruct instruction to it. To me that’s a violation of the CFAA.
It’s hard to say. I agree, it seems like the MAU data for each of League and Fortnite is roughly the same as MAU for all of Steam (which is nuts). Of course there’s no way to know how much overlap is there. Still, both of these titles would be a hard stop for people deciding whether to switch to Linux.
As for msft themselves though, ironically I don’t know what titles they have that keep players on windows. Battle.net works on Linux, Minecraft Java ed works on Linux (not sure about bedrock ed compatibility or player count, but afaik most of those players are on non-PC platforms), all their zenimax titles are sold through steam and work great on Linux. CoD might be their biggest hold.
I disagree on number of games, but I agree on player count. The number of PC games that are not on steam (or don’t work on linux) is tiny these days. But the number of PC gamers who don’t need steam, or need something that doesn’t run on linux is probably still quite high. Still, even if valve was able to push a few % of PC gamers to Linux, that would be huge. We’re currently at 2% on Linux in steam surveys. I could see a power move by valve around win10 eol bringing that closer to 10%.
I think that was them drawing a line on eol windows. They cut both 7 and 8.1 at the same time. Could just be the policy now.
Part of me wants them to take the opportunity to push people to switch to Linux, the other part of me thinks that will be perceived no differently from msft’s badgering about win11.
Maybe you don’t understand it, but that doesn’t mean you don’t rely on it. If I said an OS was unusable by 99% of people because it didn’t support multithreading, it doesn’t matter if 99% of people know what multithreading is, that’s clearly a true statement. Similarly, if you’ve ever expected your PC to have the same files on it tomorrow that you put on it today, then you might find it annoying when that’s not the case.
No one is trying to play games on those vista machines, though. Valve pulled steam support for win 7 and 8.1 over a year ago because they were EOL. If they also pull support from win 10 once it’s EOL, then people will need to make a change to keep playing their games. If msft refuse to support existing hardware with win11, then many people will be forced to choose between buying a new laptop/PC, or trying Linux.
As Gaben put it in the recent valve doc, moving the story forward wasn’t a good enough reason to put out a new Half Life. The series has always been about pushing technological innovations, and they just felt stumped on how HL3 was going to do that.
People like to claim valve doesn’t do anything anymore, but I legitimately feel like PC gaming is the best deal for gaming right now, handily beating out console and mobile, and that is in large part due to valve.
Their flat internal structure hasn’t been perfect, but on the bright side it didn’t result in them pumping out what the gaming industry would have viewed in retrospect as yet another obligatory entry in an FPS series. Valve’s intention was to let smart people solve hard problems in the gaming space, and IMO they have always done that, it just so far hasn’t resulted in a HL3.
Ah yes, the ol’ ‘ostracize the core fanbase to gain a more ephemeral one’ strategy. A popular choice these days, unfortunately.
Yeah, I put dozens of hours into Hunt with some friends. We would only be able to play every few months. So every time we logged in, they had made new mechanic changes, some of which made the game less of what we liked. I always appreciated that there were no respawns. If you killed someone, they were out, period. If I die, then i wasn’t careful enough.
And then one day we come back to play, and kill someone, only to have them pop back to life behind us. I felt like the gameplay I enjoyed had been betrayed.