The OpenAL issue was actually pretty easy to diagnose and fix. The crash comes with a pretty detailed log indicating the game encountered an issue when OpenAL was trying to load. And, lo and behold, staring at me was a checkbox in Prism Launcher’s options to “Use System OpenAL.” I ticked it and haven’t had a single issue since, my guess is that the launchers bundled version of OpenAL just didn’t play nice with my system.

I’ve even manually added a few mods since installing, still no issues.

I do understand where you’re coming from though, I personally enjoy tinkering and problem solving almost as much as actually using my computer. It’s a learning experience for me and makes my computer really feel like my own at the end of the day. However I totally get that not being everyones cup of tea.

Yes of course this is a huge factor, but modding games in general tends to be a sticking point. The fact that I immediately had a heavily modded game up and running via a third party launcher with only one minor issue, which was fixed via a single checkbox, was just a really nice experience.

72% platinum and gold, 86% plat, gold and silver. I’m honestly surprised that this isn’t higher because almost everything I play just works (I do have a lot of random games in my account from humble bundles and such, so I don’t even play a good amount of them).

Funny enough what I’ve been playing recently is Minecraft. Downloaded the Prism launcher, linked my account, installed the game and the BetterMC modpack which includes pretty heavy lighting shaders, get an easy 120fps with absolutely zero tinkering besides telling the game to use my systems OpenAL rather than the bundled one, as that was causing a crash. I do have a relatively beefy system so the performance isn’t what I’m impressed by, moreso the fact that this was all up and running in 5 minutes.

You can configure your OS to boot directly into Steam Big Picture mode, then add lutris/heroic as non steam games.

Ground Branch for me. Love the old Rainbow Six games, and I find that newer tactical shooters in general just don’t hit the mark for me. GB still has a long way to go but actually has some original R6 devs at the helm and has an excellent core experience so far, and it’s only getting better.

I know, I know. Just making a point. They could be doing better things that actually build good faith.

Early access definitely has its place. I’ve bought several EA games I really enjoy, and it’s kind of rewarding seeing something go from basic and threadbare to a more complete picture, and knowing I was a part of that is satisfying. I’ve also been burned by EA too, so it’s a double sided coin.

Them issuing C&D after C&D costs their legal team time and money they could be using to, idk, trademark new IPs or license third parties for libraries and music. It also hurts their PR.

Bethesda had absolutely nothing to do with “ruining skyrim mods”. Bethesda built the game for Windows, not Linux, it’s not their fault the game has issues running mods on a platform it wasn’t intended to run on. This is like saying “fuck toyota” because your gasoline car won’t run on diesel.

As an aside, you absolutely can mod Skyrim on Linux, with USSEP and SKSE. With one quick google search I found multiple guides.

SteamDeck plays the same version of the game as a regular PC. Any mods that work on PC will work on SteamDeck (in theory), but seeing as the deck runs Linux, you’ll need to do some more tinkering with Wine and such.

That’s the thing though, they really were never as rabid as Nintendo. Bleem wasn’t the first PS1 emulator, it was just the fact that it was a commercial product that Sony took issue with, honestly understandably so.

There are actually PS1 emulators from the pre-Bleem era that are still available. Sony did nothing to shut those ones down because they were being offered freely.

Piracy is a totally different deal. I’m not delusional, any company that owns an IP is completely within their rights to aggressively stomp piracy at every turn, and I think it’s silly to criticize a company for trying to protect one of their main sources of income (I mean really, do people expect a company to spend billions on a product, then just be okay with the theft of that product?).

That’s not to say I’ve never sailed the high seas, or think it’s objectively wrong to do so no matter what, but I tend to save it for times where I really wouldn’t be able to enjoy the product otherwise (abandonware, or in Nintendo’s case, games they stubbornly lock behind ridiculous paywalls).

What IP does Sony hang its hat on?

Ratchet and Clank, Uncharted, Killzone, Sackboy, inFamous, God of War, The Last of Us, and if you want to go older, SOCOM, Syphon Filter, Spyro, Sly Cooper, I could go on.

I mean, I get what you’re saying, they don’t have something as iconic as Mario, but to say you’re hard pressed I think is a bit of hyperbole. Sony has had a really well rounded line of exclusives for decades. Sure, some are on PC now, but they’re expressly “PlayStation ports” not console ports.

There are other platforms and franchises to mod on

I personally disagree with that attitude. If every consumer went along with that set of ideals, every studio, firm and corporation would be free to jerk us around willy nilly because we’d just move on to the next thing. There are people out there who really don’t care about modding Skyrim, they want to mod BOTW.

I do get the Ubisoft hate, but at the very very least, they don’t shut mods down. There are still mods being actively developed for games like Ghost Recon 1 and Rainbow Six 3.

They can still get all the way fucked for pulling The Crew.

You know what they say; if buying isn’t owning, piracy isn’t stealing.

I’d agree with you, except Sony, another massive Japanese company operating in the same industry as Nintendo, doesn’t lash out this aggressively at their own community that is just desperately trying to enjoy games in their own way.

Sony has left basically all emulation projects alone as well as modding projects like 60FPS patches (there was one emulator that they took to court in the 90s, Bleem, but Bleem was charging money for the emulator. Funnily enough, Bleem won the case and was allowed to continue existing, but the company went under due to the cost of the legal battle) .

Nintendo doesn’t have to act out like this. They actively choose to stifle such products so that they themselves can offer tightly curated versions on their own schedule and at their own price. This isn’t an IP protection strategy, it’s an agressive cornering of their own market.

Especially on PC. Also, people forget that Indie doesn’t necessarily mean “made by a small team/low budget”. It just means it was produced by a studio that isn’t at the behest of some massive corperation/faceless number crunching shareholders. CD Projekt Red is an independant studio, as is Valve.

Also, some games are developed independently by small studios, but then marketed and published by a larger company. Devolver is an example of a publishing house with an excellent track record of just letting the indie dev teams they work with do whatever they want.

If you look into PlayStation from a software angle, it makes perfect sense. Sony has always been pretty pro-unix.

They had an official Linux kit for the PS2 (came with a custom Linux distro on a CD, a HDD, and a KB+M).

OtherOS was also a selling point on the PS3, and was only ditched when they realized it opened the door to major security risks.

Further, CellOS, the operating system for the PS3, and OrbisOS, which is the base operating system for the PS4 and PS5, are all based on FreeBSD.

So, a lot of their hardware is designed around Unix systems already. I know all their controllers since the Dualshock 3 are natively supported by the Linux kernel (no dongles or drivers needed in theory).

True, but a movie like this, if successful, has a much higher potential profit than a small drama. As an actor, why not take a bit of a gamble on a big blockbuster for a potentially massive paycheck?

Me and my sister have a running joke casting for a movie of the Uncharted games, I’m pretty sure Danny DeVito was Sully and Mel Gibson was Elena. I’d rather watch something that stupid than something as uninspired as this.

I don’t have experience with visual impairment, so take my answer with a grain of salt, however it seems that KDE has all the features you need. Plus it’s super customizable, so you could set it up to essentially emulate the MacOS desktop.