Okay 505, Holiday's over. Time for some answers. (Linux/Mac)

browren



Can't speak for 505 Games, Question or Angel, but I personally wouldn't trust someone to help me out with a problem when said individual has alluded to suing me and called me a liar the moment we first met. I think your cause would have been better served if you had started out by writing about your passion for Linux and your extensive experience with programming on this platform instead of a thinly veiled threat and accusations of untruthfulness. You have every right to be angry but there's a way to getting things done and threats and accusations aren't the way to go.

This was a Kickstarter campaign and thus involves a higher degree of risk than just pre-ordering a game at a store. There's always a chance that the content creator won't be able to make good on some or all of their promises. I get that Linux and Mac backers are in the worst possible position having their platform cancelled, refund denied, and having to witness the project move forward for other backers that chose a different platform. But this is a risk that is inherent in the process of crowdfunding campaigns.

Having said that it's not for certain that this game won't ever be playable for those platforms, just not on launch.

As far as the Switch goes, it's only logical for them to have added it to the list of supported platforms considering the cancellations of the Wii U and Vita. The Switch is arguably the successor to both consoles since Sony never released a new handheld.



There also isn't any evidence to the contrary either. It's all speculation. Does the fact that I didn't get to play the backer demo on my PS4 mean that they haven't worked on the PS4 port yet?

The mere fact that we're talking about "evidence" in the first place makes it sound like you're gathering evidence for a court case as opposed to you making an honest effort to help out the development team.

Well, first off, I'll say that I personally appreciated browren 's offer, and I thought it was sincere and very magnaminous of him to extend. But I also think there are a host of legal reasons the Bloodstained team couldn't take the offer. For instance, working on a port is a pretty hefty task, even more so when one is doing it pro bono--would browren's employers be okay with him working for another company? That last thing we would want is to cause trouble for a benefactor in his personal life. Second, there's always a lot of legal issues involved when taking on a new member of a team. Remember, the game has assets from Inti Creates, and also musicians like Yamane, Virt, Yamada, and a bunch of other things too, probably. If you were to work on a port, even for free, you'd have access to all those other companies or artists' work. They were okay with their stuff being handled by 505, Dico, and the rest, but would they be alright with a new party working on it? And what about other possible issues with proprietary software that a linux/mac port will encounter, aside from UE4? The 'proprietary' there means there might be trouble with someone else working with it in regards to bloodstained, even if the new worker is under an NDA. And so on, and so forth...

That said,

"Yeah? Which demo has the middleware problem they claim is so horribly bad that they have to drop TWO platforms because of it? The fact that there is no native Linux or Mac demo is not speculation...Does the fact that there hasn't been a PS4 demo yet worry you at all? It should. What makes you think other platforms are immune to this horrible, insurmountable, terribly bad "middleware" problem? What makes you think they're not going to end up delaying other consoles, or everything, again, because "middleware"?"

That's certainly possible, but I doubt it. From what I understand, PS4 and Microsoft are generally pretty easy for most games that work on a PC to work with. I mean, Bloodstained is *very* far from the first game to have either delayed or dropped entirely its Mac and Linux ports. The Linux version of Battletech was delayed for quite a while, though it's still being worked on. Phoenix Point dropped its Linux port entirely (and sold out to Epic Games; I'm still kind of depressed about that, but that's neither here nor there). However, neither of those games have dropped any of their other features--I don't think Battletech is on consoles, but Phoenix Point is still coming to the Xbawks with no problem. I'm not going to get into a big debate over whether or not Linux and Mac are good for gaming/developing/whatever, but I will say that even as just a layman, I've never heard of PC games having as much trouble or expense getting ported over to Playstation or Sony consoles as I have of them running into issues working on Linux or Mac. I think there are issues involved in getting them on portable systems, but Bloodstained dropped its Vita version already, and was never promised for the 3DS (thankfully evading a MN9 problem). Maybe Nintendo's middleware is finicky, and maybe the Switch is also harder to develop for, but if they had Bloodstained running on it a while ago I don't think that's the case.

Anyways, browren...I'll try not to come across as too much of a "PR Guy," especially since they don't pay me enough to do that (they don't pay me at all, lol), but here's something to consider. I can tell you for sure that Angel and Question know how much it sucks for the Mac and Linux backers and how bad a look it is for the Bloodstained brand, and they really do want to find a solution. There are limits to how much they can say here because the higher-ups have tied their hands, and not for no reason: Companies take NDAs and secrecy of proprietary agreements very seriously, and if one their employees breaks an NDA even a little bit--like, if even vague specifics about the middleware issue can tell you what software they're referring to and what bug they might have encountered--they could get in a lot of hot water.

However, the same applies to various solutions. I know it sounds lame, and I know you have no reason to believe me, but you might want to wait and see how things go after the game is released in the summer. Angel is concerned about the long-term health of the brand, and he might--*might*--be able to pull a rabbit out of his hat and do something for the Mac/Linux backers after a successful launch and Bloodstained has established himself. He might have plans or solutions but can't talk about them, especially at this stage, because that sort of information needs to be kept strictly under lock and key. For instance, if they end up giving some support to Proton and Wine officially, they can't say that publicly at the moment because they have to make 100% sure they have a deal signed and an NDA locked in and all that legal junk. Same with even outrightly releasing proper Mac and Linux versions, they can't say anything about that unless they're 100% sure they have the money to start the project, which they'll only know once release sales numbers for Bloodstained come in. And so on, and so forth. I know it sucks losing an investment, and I know it seems like 505 has done you poorly, but I think it might be worth it to wait and see if your situation is really a total loss, or if you do get a solution in the end, it just happened to take some time.

browren - I interpreted your offer as sincere and feel that it was a very nice gesture on your part. My guess is that 505 is reluctant to accept help from a third party even when it's free. If you mind me asking, are you currently bound to an existing employer or would you be available to subcontract your services to 505? It's possible that if you were "on their payroll" even for a token amount, they might be more willing to work with you since you would be operating in an official capacity. Again though, I'm not affiliated with 505 so take my suggestions with a teaspoon of salt.

freddythemonkey, I appreciate the kind words and understanding. My first Castlevania was CV2, rented from a Blockbuster in the summer of '88. My favorites are SOTN (of course!) and Dracula X. Obviously, I'm a huge Linux fan too, big enough of a fan to have made it my career. I'm also a fan of Kickstarter and think it is one of the best, most direct ways for fans to connect with their favorite creators, so when I read that Koji Igarashi was opening a Kickstarter, for a Metrovania game, and it was going to support Linux, of course I backed it. Between that and Shenmue 3, it was a really awesome year for Kickstarters.

Generally, Kickstarters go pretty OK and I don't feel like I need to add to the chatter, so I'm content to sit back and watch. They also usually deliver on Linux just fine, so I wasn't ever worried about Bloodstained. I first heard that Bloodstained had cancelled support from the news feed on GOL and when I saw "Failed" there, I was crushed, and stunned. How does a high-profile UE4 title from pro developers just suddenly up and fail like that?

The reason I'm being so dogged about this is I can't believe they can honestly have such a massive problem that they need to drop support. How hard is it to test your Windows build on WINE, really? How much time does that really take? All they had to do was say "we'll accept and address bug reports for the PC version under WINE, and fix bugs that are our fault" and they're good, right? Heck, pack in a known-good version of WINE and you're golden.

Game devs don't like to look incompetent, either. I mean we have a project here led by a man that helped write SOTN, a game that is rightly in nearly everyone's top ten list of games ever, and we're supposed to believe he's throwing in the towel over a middleware bug in UE4 on two supported platforms? Did anyone bother to call Epic and ask for help? Pardon my French, but WTF?

This entire thing stinks to high heaven of pointy-haired boss logic - lie about the problem, hide behind the team, and make the developers look incompetent to save a few bucks. But hey, if 505 really wants us all to think Iga and his devs somehow couldn't get a UE4 game to work on Linux or Mac, but small indie companies like Bloober and Reikon can turn out working code, that's on them. I mean come on, even Mighty Number Nine has a native Linux port and that's UE3 which wasn't as well supported.

Really? That's sure...something. I would have never thought that'd be the case, but I guess it'd have to be, considering. On one hand, that sounds like less consideration to make native ports for other OSs, but on the same token I guess you capture those sales anyway if those folks exclusively use those OSs. Forcing a double purchase would certainly be kinda disingenuous either way.

How much should "if they're available when you purchase a title" be emphasized there? i.e. Mac/Linux Bloodstained comes to eventually exist, do the backers who hold those Steam codes gain access to it once it becomes available with no further action/publisher/Fangamer contact? Would they have to hold onto their codes until the ports' time (since that would be the time of "purchase")?

Well, here's some info on "Steam Play":

support.steampowered.com/kb_article.php?ref=9439-QHKN-1308
steamcommunity.com/games/221410/announcements/detail/1696055855739350561

I believe GOG just puts OS-variant downloads on the page created for a purchase, which will update as needed.

illasera

Did you hear about Phoenix Point backlash? Backers backed for the game but (a week?) before the release, the dev signed contract with Epic game store and made it Epic Game Store Exclusive for one year. The dev agreed to refund but that doesn't help the situation at all. I saw a few youtube journalists talking about the issue.

I think bloodstained is worse than that since the dev don't even want to refund the backers but I haven't seen any youtube journalist talking about this.