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Desura Linux Game Client Goes Open Source
An anonymous reader writes "The Desura game distribution client for Windows and Linux and developed by ModDB is now open source software. The open source version of the client is called Desurium and is hosted on GitHub."
Is -ium the new suffix to describe the open source project of commercial products?
by Cyphase ( 907627 )
Yep, no one on Slashdot has time for games. Wrong place to advertise.
On the plus side, we just ate the mod points of someone very angry.
noooooooooooooo
:> ;o ^^
i'm a PC gamer, here i'll prove it, look at all these emotes i know:
o/ >.> -,-
plu5 1 c4n t4lk liek dis
All that and i own no consoles!
He eats shark fin soup and bad mouths microsoft in the same sentence, go figure.
some would argue that no one games anymore, period because modern 'games' are really little more interactive movies designed to create 'wow' moments as backdrops to social communication (audio chat mostly).
Im guessing that they do want to support Linux as a platform but the maintenance of the thing is killing them. Linux gamers exist but for the small numbers they provide I but the upkeep of the client is killing them time wise. Open sourcing the client makes sense if this is the case, otherwise why bother?
Procrastinating life a way at a rapid rate of speed.
Never got around to buying a HD tv and a 600 dollar (for the longest time) console
BUT, I just dont like download games
I have a sucky internet connection (comcast economy) , its far more convenient for me to go 5 min down the road and get a disc from walmart, I do have a few games, but shit like now I just reformatted my machine yesterday, and those few games are going to take quite a few all night sessions to download ... again, for the 4th time since I purchased them, just so I wont hog up the internet connection so no one in the house can use it
in the meantime while I gear up for my second night of downloading portal(1) I have already re-installed about 200 gigs worth of game shit from disc
Nobody games on PCs anymore
That is completely correct, Mr. Sony. Desura must be losing a lot of money on this, soon they will have to close down like Valve did because of Steam.
Some people obviously don't actually play modern 'games'. I'd love to see some definition of what made classic games more 'game' than things like Battlefield, Portal or Minecraft.
Portal (2007) is retro gaming at its finest.
Or anything else, other than a surrender of a right, and a public sharing of it. A bit testimonial sounding here, so I apologize, but this is a doorway to getting game developers to start taking linux seriously. I just started using the Desura client and found that it runs faster on Ubuntu than on Windows. Just sayin'. Installing and purchasing are painless too. If you game, I wish you'd help promote it. Take it seriously and try not to be so flippant and judgemental. I'm going back to porting one of my projects to SDL now.
eek out a mouse
It's less effort than constantly having to stick/swap discs in the DVD-Rom drive every time I want to play a game...
yea but by the time I download it, archive it, use my discs .... is it really any less effort than driving to walmart and getting a boxed copy on a stamped disk?
I think for me, gaming in the retro-ages were a bit more exciting since well, the social aspect is much different than it is today. For instance, I have fonder memories of playing games at the arcade or on the home console, in person with the other players. As in, we weren't playing with anonymous people we didn't know. We also had a certain code of conduct of how you acted when playing with friends or even people you didn't know at the arcade. You would show good sportsmanship (most of the time), something that you don't see online much of anymore. It was actually a healthy thing back in the days of the atari, nes, snes, n64 because you *were* being social. You were hanging out with your friends in front of the tv/arcade machine. Now it's practically anti-social. You lock yourself away in front of the tv or computer alone, you don't give a crap about the person you are playing with, and you hear nothing but people just being flat out rude. I think this is why things like the Wii sold so well. It encouraged family and friends to come together and play together. Bringing back that old social aspect. Parents playing with kids, kids playing with their friends, etc. A reason why people were all loving games like Guitar Hero/Rock Band was getting 4 friends in the same house playing together. Same with how successful the Halo lan parties used to be. A room full of people all playing at once brought much excitement. Like the Successful Daytona USA series having 2-8 arcade machines all linked together for some exciting competition with a room full of energy. Something that is missing today really with online gaming. The energy, the spark, the togetherness. Another thing that made the games exciting was back then, hardware was evolving FAST. Something that is pretty stagnant now. I mean, from the Nes/Master System to the Snes/Genesis/NeoGeo to the Playstation/N64/3DO/Saturn/CDX then to the PS2/Dreamcast/Xbox we saw HUGE advances in hardware and game quality, but the last few years have been pretty boring. PC wise it has been fun (6 core cpu's, 32gigs of ram in a system, 2-3 video cards in SLI, terrabytes of hard drive space, multiple monitor setups with huge resolution), but the games aren't coming out that utilize the full potential of such a system. So well, we just wait, bored, for the consoles to catch up so we can get some more ports, while they want to carry on with the same old hardware for another decade to save money on R&D. Every once in a while we get a gem like Skyrim or Rage to keep us busy for a week, then we sit bored again just playing some crappy mmo for a while.
Eh, I'd say only in so much as Battlefield is Wolfenstein 3d and Minecraft is lego.
This is a place where the distribution groups can get the latest updates before they release the real version on TPB
Nobody games on PCs anymore
Nobody the whole internet on PCs anymore
I can't wait for the far superior fork that utilises Qt instead of GTK!
The major change I have seen is that games have gone from focusing on physical technique or strategy to focusing on the story. I place games like half life, mass effect, and homeworld on the same level as my favorite books or movies when it comes to an ability to move me emotionally.
While I remember older arcade games from my childhood fondly, they lacked the narrative depth of more modern games, and were basically a challenging distraction. I sometimes wonder if the video game will become the 21st century's most distinctive art form.
Nobody game's on PCs anymore.
Better now?
We all eat poop. It's just been filtered, but surely some remains.
The major change I have seen is that games have gone from focusing on physical technique or strategy to focusing on the story.
There's games in the SNES era that did this; that's maybe where the RPGs started to blossom. There were console RPGs before that, but they were usually pretty lacking, and less common.
And the PC was always like that. Text adventure games, through clicky adventure games and CRPGs.
No, not by a long shot.
Stop trying
You sound like one of the more loosely attached life support tubes hooked to PC gaming. Unless you utterly lack a living room, just switch and be much happier.
Let me know when the Humble Bundles hit the consoles.
yeah, 1€ = 1$ ... come on, guys, really ?
Prices expressed in € generally include VAT. Prices expressed in $ generally do not; sales tax is either added as a line item (for sales in person or mail order sales within one state) or payable to the state government at the end of the year (for interstate mail order sales).
I'd love to see some definition of what made classic games more 'game' than things like Battlefield, Portal or Minecraft.
Well that's simple. Elitism and snobbery!
To those people, the definition of a game is pretty straight forward:
"If I don't like it, then it is not a game at all"
"If I do like it, and so do others, it is a pop game"
"If I do like it, and others don't even know it exists, then it is a true game"
Seems to fit perfectly with the GP comment too.
Of course the true definition of a game is "Something you do to have fun or compete at" ;}
But don't let the game snobs hear you say it, you might get mauled
I'd say Chrono Trigger was the first to merge Gameplay and Story successfully.
Baldurs Gate
Portal and Minecraft are very old-school games, the very example you reply to is wrong.
What makes classic games classic? Emphasis on gameplay over anything else. Quick games you can start in less than 5 minutes without sitting through options or too much story. Yet complex enough to last a long time and relying on skill rather than invested time (except RPGs of course) (and as opposed to random, dime-a-dozen-note the emphasis, that means "not the good ones"- iOS/Android games that are extremely shallow). Minecraft exhibits such characteristics, Portal does, but also has a nice story on top at the same time (a brilliant game in short). Battlefield might not be my favorite title but it's pretty old-school if you think about it, it just happens to be mostly online stuff.
But where Portal and such do it right, there are plenty of games where gameplay is a mere afterthought.
Also those were the worst possible examples ever, really. I don't think any old-schooler/hardcore gamer can complain about Portal, and never saw it happening myself. I did see complaints about Minecraft but mostly because its former lack of an "end" (and I haven't seen any other complaint in that style since it got an actual End).
I am what marketing calls a "harcore gamer". Honed in the days of 8 and 16 bits to today.
I love games that are 2D/sprite-based, and miss many old classics, I dislike a lot of today's games, and I still play my old-time favorites, and still discover games from that time that I find excellent even after I grew old and grumpy.
But man, those 3 you mention, are absolutely proper games.
Minecraft is just not specially challenging, but you can find user-made maps that put gameplay as hardcore as it gets (Vechs' maps for example). Portal 2 is good gameplay and a great set of characters to enjoy, I'd consider it one of the best games ever. Battlefield, there isn't much if you aren't into online multiplayer, but I don't see why it's not a proper game anyway.
If you want to put an example of bad games, use Skinner-box-based games, or those were there are only graphics and gameplay is crappy, or where the graphics are uniformly brown without offering much else, or shallow Mobile games that nobody wants to play twice (there can be good ones of course, but the average game is pretty shallow). Also the amount of shovelware that plagued the Wii and the late life of the DS count as pretty shitty games. Portal is definitely not one of those.
The only thing that is consistently different from arcade-era games is a lack of difficulty (you can quicksave and/or continue without losing much time in most modern games), but I'd solve that with extra difficulty modes, that's what they are for.
I've never heard of this company or its games and "client" before. Can someone please explain what exactly the open sourced software does? Is it anything of value or is it simply a portal through which you fill the company's pockets, a la Valves Steam client?
I hate to sound negative about any software being open sourced, but so many companies use open sourcing as a marketing ploy or as a way to cut thier support costs, so I'm always suspicious about ones I've never heard of before.
Seiken Densetsu 2 (also known as Secret of Mana) came out 2 years before Chronotrigger... and there were games in the Final Fantasy series that did a really good job of that before the Seiken Densetsu series was even imagined. Dragon warrior, too. There were games on 8-bit Nintendo that had both good story line, and fun gameplay, and I'm pretty sure that if you went digging for them, you could find games that did a pretty good job on even older systems...
Hell, I have fond memories of playing Riddle of the Sphinx on the Atari 2600, and enjoying both the storyline and the gameplay, and that game came out in 1982, fully 13 years before Chronotrigger....
... but why did the user interface have to be a blatant rip-off of the steam platform? Could they not think of a different color palette at least?
Ultima IV: Quest of the Avatar was an open ended role playing game designed with an "ethically-nuanced, story-driven approach", and it came out in 1985 for the Apple II. The objective of the game is to lead a virtuous life, and become the spiritual leader of the world of Britannia.
Yeah there are monsters and stuff, but all of the quests are ethical dilemmas and you get points for doing things like helping the poor...
Dungeon Tactics : Free Open Source SRPG
There's probably a lot more Linux expertise in the Open Source world than in the private sector. Having said that, having a few paid Dev's for the Linux client would be preferable. Do the dollars not justify it? Only Desura could say. But, as a Linux gamer, and if the Humble Bundles are any indication, I would think it's justified. To me it seems like a lame excuse to say you support Linux.
The answer, IMHO, would be to develop a client that works on the major distro's (Ubuntu, Suse) and is supported. Then make the code open source so the community can develop off-shoots that workk with other distro's like Mint, Chakra, Arch, Debian, etc. etc. To me, this is a great compromise. Trying to make a client that works universally with all distros is just not feasable.
Does anyone else agree?
I love people like you who drink the Kool Aid and think you've all figured out.
I can't possibly be that most of today's games unimaginative and just plain bad, people who have higher standards (the ones people like you love to call "hipsters", even thought it has nothing to do with that) are to blame.
Riiiight, lets just tell that to Gabe at Valve together shall we? "Hey Gabe, this AC says folks don't game on PCs no more, just FYI" Gabe "Wooohoo, I'm using this solid gold slide to jump in my swimming pool of money, I'm fricking Scrooge McDuck, Woohooo"...yeah i don't think Gabe looks all that upset. Considering they added capacity like crazy for the big Xmas sale and there were still plenty of "We're sorry, we have sooo many people trying to snatch these deals up things are jammed up, please hang on" messages i don't even wanna know how much cash went through that thing. i know i probably dropped a couple of hundred there easily snatching games and my boys got so many games i don't see them needing any new ones for at least 3-4 months.
As for TFA, what advantages does this give me over Steam? And don't say "Free as in freedom" because i'm not a programmer and don't get a rat's ass about looking at code. How many games? What kind of services? Does it have chat and matchmaking? Sell it to me, what does it give me that Steam don't?
ACs don't waste your time replying, your posts are never seen by me.
some would argue that no one games anymore, period because modern 'games' are really little more interactive movies designed to create 'wow' moments as backdrops to social communication (audio chat mostly).
Wait, so you're saying that games have evolved to the point that people are actually talking to one another? Ye gads, we can't have that! What's our society coming to?
Back in the good old days, we played all alone in our parent's basements - like gaming is supposed to be!
Don't forget the Phantasy Star games on the sega, those had some pretty long engaging stories that had plenty of twists. As for as the switch from twitch gaming to today i think the key is finding the right balance between challenging and fun. take a game like ArmA for instance, sure its realistic as hell, but how many are gonna have fun crawling through the grass for 40 plus minutes to get to a position you can fire from that the enemy won't drill you a new asshole? Sure its realistic but that might be a little TOO realistic, on the flip side is what I call the "one man army" like FEAR and Far Cry which while fun, if one guy could slaughter THAT many dudes and walk out unscathed he'd be in some war lab being poked and probed trying to figure out WTH?
But I'd say we also have to be able to look at the past without rose colored glasses. Sure the games at the arcade were entertaining at the time but looking back many of the games like Pleiades and Joust were nothing but a fancier Simon, rewarding memorization of patterns. Now we wants stories, characters we can enjoy, cool effects, give me a Just Cause II or HL 2 over the games of the past any day of the week, they are just more fun,at least to me.
ACs don't waste your time replying, your posts are never seen by me.
Then you have an extremely limited knowledge of games, and I pity you. Chrono Trigger came out in 1995. There was a entire decade of story-based games before it-- including gems like Another World, Prince of Persia (and its sequel), most of the Lucas Arts games...
Comment of the year
I do, actually. No joke -- it's surprisingly tasty and a delicacy despite it's abundance and reputation. Consider -- lobster is now an expensive delicacy but there was a time it was so cheap and plentiful that it was served daily to Main prison inmates. They rioted and demanded better food!
You have to get over the odor and thought of it. But if I stopped to think about pretty much anything I eat, I'd probably starve to death (or be a strict vegetarian that only ate hydroponic, organic food that I grew myself). As for the odor, I've come to enjoy the scent of a good shit. Are you familiar with durian, the "king of fruits"? It smells like rotting flesh (to be charitable).
Of course, I don't eat any random turd lying in a toilet bowl just as you wouldn't eat a hamburger you found in the dumpster or moldy bread or an apple with a worm in it. My shit comes from a girl that goes on a three-day diet of strawberries and bananas and the poo is tested for pathogens before I consume it.
I place games like half life, mass effect, and homeworld on the same level as my favorite books or movies when it comes to an ability to move me emotionally.
What the hell are you reading?
I was 100% in agreement with you, until you provided awful examples...
To those people, the definition of a game is pretty straight forward:
"If I don't like it, then it is not a game at all"
"If I do like it, and so do others, it is a pop game"
"If I do like it, and others don't even know it exists, then it is a true game"
Hipsters can be gamers too.
Calling someone a "hater" only means you can not rationally rebut their argument.
I'm not too familiar with this platform, but a quick browse of the site shows that the client supports some kind of DRM (if nothing else, their developer page lists "Check player authentication (are they allowed to play the game / banned)" under API Integration). Wouldn't open-sourcing the client allow anybody to produce a version that ignored any DRM checks in the client?
When you open source a game, I suppose it's your choice as the developer. But when you open source a content delivery platform, doesn't that affect all the other publishers? (I'm no fan of DRM, but I'm just wondering how this open source changes the nature of the platform.)
So in one breath you call them "unimaginative games" and in the next say those games are not games.
How bout you make up your mind, clean up your English, and get back to us.
We all do, indirectly. I mean, we eat animals which eat poop, like pigs or rabbits.
Linux... It gives you linux. Steam is not on linux yet if ever. There was a time i would reboot to windows to play games. I don't anymore. So these guys do get money out of me because i can get some linux games. Steam does not. However if they where to offer a linux client and had some of their games available on linux.....
As for why OS is better? Well in this case it means linux distro devs can fix bugs and keep it working if they care enough.
If information wants to be free, why does my internet connection cost so much?