Getting In the Game
In the continued rampaging growth of Linux, many users and critics alike have claimed that Linux will never be a serious Operating System until it is a top-tier gaming platform, akin to it’s Windows counterpart. Jono Bacon and Stuart ‘Aq’ Langridge the state of play (pun intended), the challenges it faces with technology and sales and what the future may hold.
Of course, we are the very start of the conversation, so what do you good folks think? Do you think that gaming is critical to the success of Linux? Are you games fan and use Linux as a gaming platform? Are you a games developer who can offer more insight into the discussion about the needs of games developers, both in terms of technology and the market? Go and share your thoughts in the shot comments below…
76 Comments to “Getting In the Game”
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“If the latest game comes out to multiple platforms people won’t come to linux.” – That may be true, but with all the other features (open source, free, social networking integration, speed, beauty) it would make linux rock more. When comparing linux with any other operating system, the gaming part would be ticked out, even if the others have it, it would be a strong point.
That makes it sound like a ticklist feature, like something that people want the platform to have even though they’re not going to use it. Which seems rather daft to me.
Are we committed to Free Software ideals? Do we want our Free operating system to be flooded with proprietary games? Maybe this relates more to the earlier shot about funding open source projects: How can we fund the existing open source games to make them better?
You’re joking, right? Grand Theft Auto IV cost a hundred million dollars to make. There’s realistically no way of recouping that investment other than selling the game.
Surely it’s up to the individual user to decide what level of open source they wish to commit to? Isn’t that the benefit of freedom?
Exactly: don’t like proprietary games? Just don’t buy them.
I’ve not finished listening yet, but Postal was a great movie!
Why does everyone hate it?
(On topic comment coming soon..)
People hate Postal, only because it was Uwe. If it was done by anyone else, they would have loved it. Oh wait, they did… a couple times. Only it was called Hot Shots, and was made in the 90s. Different war, but I think Postal was a better film.
I found Uwe’s role in the film hilarious, particularly how he paid the celebrity guest..
A cross platform solution could be browser games. Has anyone seen quakelive.com? It’s a free service, so I’m sure they won’t raise $100,000,000 from it but since quake 3 well and truly paid for itself I’m sure ID don’t mind raking some advertising revenue out of the old dog.
From my perspective (and others I’ve spoken to), having access to modern games would be a great benefit to linux.
Personally I hope that Steam and source engine games soon come to linux. They’re coming to OSX (natively) in the next month or so, it doesn’t seem too far a reach to then port from there onto linux.
The games I play the most are from Steam – it’s a convenient platform that circumvents the need for discs and makes my games relatively system agnostic. I could buy a new PC running Windows, install Steam, and have my games collection at my fingertips as fast as my connection would allow.
To be honest, it’s one of the biggest things preventing me from using Linux full time. I used to have a laptop that would overheat if I tried to game on it, so I didn’t play games. During that time I used ubuntu as my primary OS. These days I use XP primarily, as I can now game on my desktop.
So, to summarise – if we could get Steam (and some of the big source engine titles) running on linux there’d be a significant improvement in the standing of the OS.
Just so I understand this, you don’t want to play games in XP but then use Ubuntu for everything else because switching between them is too much hassle? So since you’re in XP for playing games anyway, you decide to stay in XP for other work too?
Pretty much. I don’t like having to stop whatever I’m doing, shut everything down, fire up another OS and then play a game.
I might play a three hours of Team Fortress 2, or I might just want half an hour. If I have the hardware to play it, I’ll use the OS that lets me do so, even if I actually prefer using linux.
I also play console games, but I tend to play more social things on it – co-op games, Rock Band, DJ Hero, that sort of thing.
That’s often the case, actually. Before Karmic, shutting down my Ubuntu system took ages (about 2 minutes) due to a stupid ordering and timeout issue with samba mounts. When I was looking at staring at a black screen for that length of time, just to pop into a game for a bit, I’d end up booting Windows from the outset and only retire back to Linux after I was totally done with gaming for the day. Karmic’s shutdown speed improvements made the process of dual booting much more pleasant.
Sadly, so do I. I’ve tried to find a way to sync the open pages of Firefox, but it just doesn’t work. I know, organizing and using bookmarks and delicious would go a long way…
I have some ideas floating around for a blog post on this very idea, and why I feel that Linux Gaming feels more like an obligation rather than something to be enjoyed. I am guilt-ed into buying games for Linux because if I don’t, there won’t be a Linux gaming industry. I need to compile my notes together and get that up.
You should share your thoughts here too as part of the discussion, and then we can discuss it further.
I will do that, once they’ve been codified.
LOL!
Here’s the article and thoughts I have on Linux Gaming:
http://decafbad.net/2010/03/28/the-guilt-of-linux-gamers
There are a number of switchers, I think Valve sees this now, and they’re going to be the only way you’ll see more games on alternative operating systems this century. They’ve already got the equivalent of XNA with Steam, and the dev tools are right behind. Competing head on with Microsoft is the only way to get ahead in this game.
I think Jono’s right when he said that it’s a market thing. Sadly, the reason Windows gets so much game development is because it’s a HUGE market… Linux and Mac are far less appealing (at the moment) for developers because we’re far less Linux users than Window’s users.
With regards to Free Software people compromising their ideals by running proprietary games on their Free platforms… I don’t see that as a problem at all, because nothing is forcing them to buy the game if it’s not free. It’s quite similar to those who install the proprietary nVidia drivers, and “bad” gstreamer plugins versus those who choose to use the completely open alternatives.
As Linux on the Desktop gains adoption and starts to become an interesting “market” for developers more and more games will start to show up, drivers will start to show up.. and once it becomes worth it for developers to invest in the platform, we may see a slew of new optimized gaming standards start to pop up.
Sorry for the very economically slanted point of view, but usually markets (even gaming markets) do tend to follow those simple rules of offer and demand.
Now then, lots to answer here.
1) Is the technology there? Yes-ish, for the most part. Due to the massive costs of making games these days, most games companies will buy an off-the-shelf middleware platform and build their game around that – and many of those middleware engines are fully Linux-friendly. UnrealEngine 3 and ID Tech 4 are some of the best-known engines here. Other engines like Valve’s Source aren’t very ported.
There are 2 major issues with the whole porting exercise though – firstly, whilst OpenGL is there, you don’t build your game only using OpenGL – you need audio APIs, input APIs, networking APIs. On Windows, that’s handled by DirectX (as opposed to the subset that is Direct3D), and for cross-platform development, SDL often isn’t remotely as robust. Secondly, there are often cases where the Linux version of something needs 1001 different workarounds to deal with 1001 different issues. Which audio API do you use? How do you handle the random bugs between one sound driver and another which cause audio popping? Whilst these issues happen on Windows, they’re rather less frequent. Even Quake Live, which is a pretty front end to an 11-year-old game, still has nasty audio issues on Linux.
2) If they can do it, why don’t they? Because it’s not cheap, and usually the costs don’t outweigh the benefits. A developer can do it in their spare time, sure, but then what? QA, testing, certification, and the dreaded technical support, all scare off the major companies. In fact, here’s a quote from iD Software on the subject:
User numbers have gone up, but so have costs, so the net result is nothing’s changed. And in these days of DRM, chances of ports are even slimmer than before.
3) Do we need gaming? That depends. Is gaming a part of your use-case for a PC? If not, then no. It’s nice when saying “Linux can do everything Windows can do” to keep the list of “except” to a minimum. And for some of us, it’s a workflow issue – if I can’t jump between gaming and packaging easily, then gaming wins and I remain booted on Windows. Personally, gaming is a big part of my life, and Linux is cheapened without it. Hell, the superiority of Unreal Tournament 2004 on Linux played a large part in my switch from Windows as my primary OS.
Until Linux can play all my games, as well as Windows can, then I will continue to pay Microsoft for Windows licenses for myself and my wife. That’s the blocker on complete migration.
I’ve invested a lot of my time in Linux gaming because I frankly think its reputation of ‘Linux is not for games’.
I’ve written a long blog post about a year ago about my opinions about gaming on Linux ( http://tweekers.free.fr/blog/index.php?post/2009/05/19/The-state-of-gaming-on-Linux ). I’m a strong believer of Open Source engine and proprietary content model but it’s not going to happen … Companies make a lot of money selling licenses for their engines and I doubt they’d want to Open Source their stuff. Only iD Software does it, and only after a couple years.
I think the main problem that causes a lack of games on Linux is that nobody knows how to do it. People who do know work on making games on PS3 and Windows where they can get a high paid job. On Linux we got Ryan ‘icculus’ Gordon and that’s about it, we need to make clones of this guy if we want more games! There’s no reason why there would be more games on Mac OSX than on Linux and yet many games get ported on Mac. That’s because there are companies like Aspyr Media that are able to port games.
The situation was much much better 10 years ago when Loki was still around, we could buy Soldier Of Fortune or Quake 3 or Unreal Tournament and these were the best games around at the time, nowadays we got nothing !
Despite this horrible situation we are in right now, I still play a lot on Linux. I’ve got something like 40 games on Steam that I never played on Windows (and Braid is one of them).
I write an app called Lutris that is meant to give the best experience for Linux gamers. It’s supposed to support any game that can be made to run on Linux. Think of it as a better PlayOnLinux not limited to Windows games. You can look for ti on Launchpad if you want to try it out, I need users badly
Oh, and as an extra, perhaps the possibility of ports isn’t all that remote in some cases: all of Electronic Arts’ recent Mac titles (and other big labels too) are not in fact Mac titles; they’re Windows titles using a specialized bundled Wine fork called Cider, from the Cedega (WineX) people. Spore, The Sims 3, Prince of Persia, Dragon Age Origins, Warhammer Online, and more, are all being developed to use almost-Wine in an integrated and certified manner, on the Mac. Now THERE’S an opportunity if ever there was one!
That “opportunity” is Cedega’s business model, isn’t it? I thought that that’s what they did. Have they stopped trying to sell Windows games to Linux people?
Dunno, Cedega’s seemed pretty stagnant lately from what I’ve seen. And there’s a difference between selling a generic gamers’ Wine, and selling boxed games which use a bundled Wine… think Picasa.
blimey, I thought that that’s what Cedega did, sell on the games with a bundled WineX. Obviously not, then
What always strikes me about the emulation discussions is that in some ways it is not solving the problem. I think we need to instead have a company that acts as a consultancy for helping games studios to build a Linux workflow into their build systems. As in: what is needed to trigger a Linux build and what tool sand workflow are involved.
Emulation is great, but I think what we really want to see are native ports, and there seems to be a huge commercial opportunity for this.
Ah, but you forget.. WINE Is Not an Emulator…
Is there an actual performance hit from using WINE versus using native libraries?
I’ve never had much success with Cedega, it’s virtually always failed. I seem to recall it working for Max Payne, several years after Max Payne 2 was rreleased..
I’ve just tried out TF2 using PlayOnLinux (i.e. running through Wine).
For a comparison – under Windows I run the game at 1920×1080 with all the settings turned up to the max and 16x AA. Without my hardware so much as breaking a sweat.
Under Wine I tried to run it and found the following: -In game menus don’t render, making things like ammo, objectives, health, etc. invisible, making the game unplayable -I could barely get a playable frame rate with just about all the settings turned down to medium or low.
So, to answer your question – there’s a colossal performance hit.
The DRM mechanisms that they use in games are a major factor these days. Steam seems to work well as a distribution network that stops piracy without intruding too much into the use of a game, but Ubisoft and EA have pretty awful mechanisms that force you to be online at all times whilst playing the game (assisn’s creed 2 has all your saved games on their server’s).
Publishers are finding that the PC isn’t as big a money platform as consoles, they blame piracy as a PC with a windows install is pretty easy to mess around with compared to a PS3 or Xbox 360. This might be bull crap reasoning on their part but I don’t see developers moving to linux if windows is too open to reverse engineering for them. I have no issues with Proprietary software running on Linux, but games Publishers hate openness.
I had to come back to this after reading a wired article on ChromeOS and was reminded of Native Client: http://code.google.com/p/nativeclient/
Hey guys,
First off I had Windows removed from my computer a few years ago and I had no need for it until about a year ago when I started playing EVE Online. Now I have it in dual boot and I find myself spending a lot of time in Windows because of this one little thing that I can’t get on Linux. (I can’t be bothered with Wine because I don’t think that’s good enough)
I’ve been reading up on OpenGL because I think we can’t get games on Linux without moving development away from DirectX first. There are some signs that OpenGL will rise again, especially because of the raising number of Mac users and because of the mobile devices that will soon be invaded by gaming.
So I found this blog a few weeks ago that explains things quite well. The first link refers to why you should support Linux and Mac OS as a game developer and the second link is about OpenGL vs. DirectX.
http://blog.wolfire.com/2008/12/why-you-should-support-mac-os-x-and-linux/
http://blog.wolfire.com/2010/01/Why-you-should-use-OpenGL-and-not-DirectX
He is an independent game developer but that doesn’t make his points any less valid.
Also about that guy that made “Braid”… I completely understand his position but on the other hand it’s really easy to just point out the challenges of making a cross platform game and say “I can’t do it”. But the fact that there’s plenty of games out there that deal successfully with this stuff shows it can be done. It’s a change from the usual D3D and Direct Input stuff most game developers are used to but that doesn’t mean it’s hard it just means it’s different.
Plus if you really want to learn something about Linux you don’t ask in a blog post… You go to the people that can help you and you ask them. You post your questions on the X.org forums or the ALSA forums where you can get the attention of relevant people not in a blog post that’s going to attract every troll on the net.
@ Mathieu Comandon I don’t mind closed source games… I’m really happy with the EVE client being closed source actually.
Wait what ??? … “buy a console” ??? when they make a mouse and a keyboard standard I might think about it. Actually no I’m never buying a console because games that are made for consoles are crap. You can’t play an RTS and using those controls for shooters is just ridiculous… the mouse is the most natural thing in the world .. it’s even called a “pointing device”. But no they have to invent a new control because having two buttons and a wheel on a thing that moves around the table is presumably too complicated for your average gamer to grasp.
I don’t think it is so much that “games for consoles are crap”, it is just that games for consoles are not optimized for your needs – you like point and click RTS adventures I am guessing, and console games are not typically targeting that market, with a few notable exceptions such as Final Fantasy.
Also, World of Warcraft and the like are not likely to be seen running on consoles in the close future… and from what I hear MMORPGS are what’s HOT in PC gaming.. it’s kinda like SecondLife, but with a purpose.. and weapons.. and less crashing.. and a bunch of guys making dumb Chuck Norris jokes all over the place.
it’s not about point and click .. that was just an example … it’s about the nonsense and that sort of thing reflects in some of the games that are especially made for consoles.
But that’s another story … actually it’s more like my little rant. See the links in my first post cuz I think those are way more relevant to the discussion.
Computer games -loathe ‘em! Used to teach a martial arts class to a group of junior school children, one day a lad came in and asked if he could join the class. After five minutes he got bored and asked when would he be able to fight like his favourite characters in ‘Mortal Kombat’. I outwardly sighed and inwardly swore. I mean, this is like some 17 year old having a first driving lesson and comparing it to Grand Theft Auto! Get to grips with reality for heavens sake! I for one can’t stand any video games (except for Crash Bandicoot). So, I for one don’t miss them on the Linux desktop.
Amusing story.
Mind you, I think many of us dream about some mystical voice saying “FINISH HIM!” and us being able to pull off some kind of Chuck Norris move. 
can you not throw fireballs? I thought everyone could.
Depends on what I had for dinner.
That’s why I stick to space simulators … there’s less chance of getting disappointed of my new space ships
)…
Well, this was one topic that was bound to drag me out of the lurking background, thanks Jono {:-)
Yes, Linux needs games. I bet that every single person that tries to get people to use Linux has heard ‘but will it play the latest games?’. At which point you lose the convert. Or they move to Linux as a part time thing. Or give up after a week.
I have spent the last 10 years trying to make this happen, with limited success. Over 20 commercial game releases isn’t bad going, but we need to do better. Loki had it right but didn’t have the money. We (LGP – http://www.linuxgamepublishing.com) don’t even have the money that Loki had, so we have had to play the cautious game and that costs us in other ways.
Addressing a couple of points people have made:
Is the technology there? YES. Most definitely. We have 3D graphics (openGL), 3D audio (OpenAL), good networking libraries (Grapple), and SDL handles things like input and screen management. We have what we need.
What about it being proprietary? The way I look at it, is that proprietary isn’t a problem. I have, for a long time, said that as long as your operating system and file formats are open, then the rest, by definition, is a level playing field. You can only win by being better. I did spend some time on a longer blog post about this at http://blog.linuxgamepublishing.com/2009/06/29/a-closed-source-companys-ceos-view-on-open-source/ last year.
How to go about it? Well, if someone wants to throw 2-3 million a year for 10 years at me, that’s about the figure I reckoned would take to drag Linux gaming into the present day. Until then, Linux will keep losing converts, and we’ll keep growing more slowly.
That’s really interesting. Can you talk in more detail about what the $25million would buy? If the technology’s there to run the latest games on Linux, is it all about paying a team of hackers to port/write great modern games to the Linux platform and to open up a viable sales channel for them?
Yes, it would be for wages for a team of developers, license fees which are anything up to £100K for a AAA title, and publicity costs. (It was £ not $ by the way {:-) I should have specified, my bad). It would also allow some small research budget for things like building frameworks for 64 bit gaming, and fixing bugs and adding features to open source libraries (such as the lack of EAX support in OpenAL).
Thanks for joining the discussion, Michael! For those who don’t know Michael – he runs Linux Game Publishing who provide a range of commercial Linux games.
It sounds like you are one of the primary hopes for helping to improve this, but it sounds like you can’t do it alone. I am wondering whether there are some things the Shot Of Jaq community can help you with to be successful?
Hi Jono {:-)
That’s a very good question to be honest. I think the biggest thing any community can do is to keep us in mind, and mention us to people when appropriate.
I think the biggest frustration is how many Linux users have never heard of us. If everyone in the Linux community knew us we’d be able to grow a lot faster with more sales, and we’d be able to grow the devteam, and start porting the AAA titles at the rate of 3 a month. LGP has the skills and the business contacts, we just need the sales.
Of course, I’m still looking for that £20-£30 million to throw at games, so, that wouldn’t hurt either {:-))
Long story short: Video games are one of the few things that you can do on Windows that just doesn’t have a satisfying experience on Linux. If Linux wants to draw more users and compete in the marketplace like it should be able to, games are a must.
If you are an OSS idealist, don’t buy proprietary games. But, like religious evangelists (of all religions not just the one people associate the term with) people want the choice of whether or not to go along with what you’re saying. Don’t jam it down everyone else’s throats.
While Linux has its own identity and doesn’t need games to be a great OS, it is the one aspect that truly separates it from Windows and even from Mac OS to an extent. With Steam now spreading its wings on the OSX platform, it’s only logical to be calling for games on Linux.
Let’s be honest, folks, SuperTux just doesn’t cut it.
I’m not necessarily seeing the argument behind “games are a must”. This is one of the things we discussed in the shot, and I’m still not convinced about it; why are games a must?
Because they keep people back .. it’s the one little thing that you can’t get an equivalent for. If someone casually plays this one game that doesn’t work on linux he doesn’t want to give up his casual habit. And you can’t tell him “well there’s this other game on linux that’s very similar to the one you play”.
Also it’s because gaming on linux is in such a bad shape. If it were up to the point where people can make a compromise then it wouldn’t be such a big problem. But right now the compromise is to hack away at your machine in order to get most titles barely playable.
And finally it’s because people are so vocal about this. It’s the one argument that keeps coming back even from people that never play games. “You can’t run CAD software and you can’t play games”… This usually comes from people that don’t actually use linux but it’s repeated so much that others think it might be important for them even if it’s not.
I might not have a computers if it weren’t for games, starting with a commodore. So gaming for GNU/Linux is absolutely a must have to bring young users over i think. First thing many take a notice to is how flashy compiz can be, and it gets them interested. One of the first things they then will try is games. So they ask, what games can i play on this flashy system?! In very many cases they end up with wine and a low fps, since they would like to play the games they already have on a random windows system. Bad fps or not, now this system got some attention, so if they’re not giving up with their games, the kids might check for games that will fit the system and might end up searching in the repositories and find free software games. I hope they like first person shooters
since many of those games tend to be based on the engines from id software.
Games do not need to have the very best graphics to be the best games. I think the more technical you are a gamer, the less you care about graphics, but more about the gameplay. You want the most stable fps the game system can give you, and a good control over your player. So only if it helps you be a better gamer, will the hardcore gamers turn up the graphic quality. It’s those players that will turn to GNU/Linux to play if their game is available there, and they will lead the way!
What’s more important than the games it self is the community around the games. You have people playing very old games today because the community still creates leagues and competitions people can attend, online or in any local LAN-party. Good example of this is counter-strike 1.6.
Publishers need a good way to get these games to the Linux community, a central place, like Steam.
I am hoping the Ubuntu software center can meet that by providing commercial games like quake and doom.
Considering the move towards selling music through Ubuntu’s own music store, it’s not too far-fetched to imagine games being sold in a similar way.
Great shot guys.
Personally, my views are these:
Yes, Linux needs games. Many of the ones that are in the Ubuntu repos are of poor finish, have bad documentation, and most of all, you just don’t know if they will work on your system. Of course, commercial software won’t necessarily fix all this, but it would help, and certainly appeal to those who have to use Windows still for gaming, because Wine just isn’t good enough yet. Nor will it probably be.
While Linux has the right technologies to get good looking and sounding games running well, one of the MAJOR downfalls is a unified installer across all Linux platforms! I mean, there are .debs for debian systems, .rpm for red-hat based systems, .bin that has to be run from command line to work, and then there’s compiling from source, and probably even more! What one will the commercial companies use, and what installer will the end-user use?
Before we can even address the problem of getting games on Linux, I think first the problem of installing and running games on the Linux platform has to be addressed first and foremost.
But on a lighter note, there are some great commercial games on Linux, iD software, who make Doom and Wolfenstein, have ported their games to Linux, as have Bioware, who released Neverwinter Nights for Linux. The only problem with these is, you can download the packages, but you have to buy a Windows copy of the game to use the Cd Key to make them run.
Actually the problem you are pointing out is one for all the distributors of closed source software not just games. And I don’t think it’s such a big problem after all but it does add some extra complexity to the task… sets the bar higher for the amount of motivation required.
You know, for years people have been questioning linux gaming and the likelihood that it will take hold in the market. I have news for you, it’s happening now. Private game companies and developers are popping up all over the internet. I could go on, but it would be a novel of reading. Being the admin for the Linux Game Consortium, we would appreciate further feedback and ideas for the site. In support of linux gaming.
Ooh, really? Do, please, go on. That sounds really interesting; I don’t know enough about this, obviously!
Indeed…do share…
I constantly underestimate how much importance people assign to games. Until the Intel Macs came out it was one of the biggest arguments people made against using the Mac. Having played very few commercial games myself (my favorite game being the free and very-cross platform Nethack), I wouldn’t even have a clue of what to play on Linux that I can’t already. But clearly there is a demand for games, and not everyone wants to go to the extra expense of a console if they already have a perfectly good gaming machine on their desk.
Regarding that live CD option, I like the idea, but I think it would be hard to do. Full hardware support on a live CD had got to be hard. Also, how would you save your game?
This isn’t a very serious post, but a linux game I made in a team of 6 in a year as part of my degree:
http://www.drop-game.co.uk/pages/video.php
I don’t think Linux needs games though to be taking seriously as an OS, but it would be nice. However I can’t see there being much money in it, I don’t know.
This isn’t a very serious post, but a linux game I made in a team of 6 in a year as part of my degree:
http://www.drop-game.co.uk/pages/video.php
But the tools we used were meant to be cross platform, but there are certain tools that weren’t, so I could see how it quickly becomes a case of maintaining 3 versions of the game to use different tools.
I don’t think Linux needs games though to be taking seriously as an OS, but it would be nice to have the option there. However I can’t see there being much money in it.
Whilst I don’t think games are necessary for Linux I certainly think that they would help promote the growth of the Linux as a primary OS on many desktop PCs, especially those homes with older children.
I have installed Linux on a few friends machines and usually within a few weeks, they are pleased with the system, but they want a version of windoze installed as their kids want to play the new games. I think that if we are able to get the ‘big title’ games onto the system and start introducing people to Linux from an early age then the future market would increase rapidly.
We cannot say that there is no market in the games industry, billions is generated every year, if we can get people to stop sending that money to ms via 360 and windoze game sales and start putting money into the companies that support Linux then this is even better for the potential growth of the Linux community.
Linux is no longer only a purist OS; a novice can install one of several distros and get the internet, write a letter, listen to music and burn a CD with no need to even touch the terminal. For your purist programmer then Linux is the perfect choice. However we need to focus on the middle ground. Not the minimalist who only wants to browse and write letters, but also those who are keen users of the computer, but do not want to programme.
Yes there are some games out there, but most of the games offered by LGP(Linux Game Publishing) are ports of older windoze games. Runesoft have a few, but again these are hardly chart busting titles. We need a company to take a chance and prove that the Linux market is worth investing in.
Most Linux users have a console, so that shows that we will pay for entertainment, if this money were to be diverted to Linux supporting companies then surely this is better for us in the long run.
I feel that Loki games were just too ahead of their time. They printed too many copies of games for a market that was not quite ready yet. It is a shame that we only seem to be getting smaller independant companies porting games to our open OS. These are good, some are great, but will not convert the hardcore gamers away from the ms operating systems.
Do I think games are vital for Linux’s survival: No. For Linux’s growth as a mainstream desktop OS: yes
Dont hold it against me but I have an Xbox and a linux box
Ive done a few posts about this issue on my blog. I think our problem is the amount of users. World of Warcraft could be ported fairly easily like the Mac version uses OpenGL and mainly cross platfom tech but they dont because there isnt enough people to dedicate the hiring of a few devs to maintain it.
I think there is another problem though, in colleges that have games development courses most of the time they have a sponsor. My college is sponsored by Microsoft and teach the student devs to program in C# and DirectX technology(which isnt portable).
No one would move to Linux for games but if we have some of the popular games on windows ported to Linux they would have less of a barrier to switching.
Me specifically id love to have a good online game for linux I would pay for it if it is good but at the moment other than savage2 and heroes of newerth there isnt anything as appealing as World of Warcraft.
So if WoW was ported or a better game was ported I think we would get some users who dont switch because of the lack of good games.
Hi Stuart, Hi Jono….ALSO here some proposals:
What if…. mesa 8/GALLIUM3D software driver tied together with an “opengraphics.org OGD1 graphics board to support an OPENGL 4.0 version of Speed-Dreams aka TORCS to get development from allover the whole world? Wouldn’t that be SUPERCOOL!?! in my humble oppinion: A revolution takes places… Low at first then swift…
Btw: Do you know pandora? NO! NOT the US-Based RadioMusic Service. A tiny little console WITH HUGE credit AND potential as well. openpandora.org and YES it runs linux obviously…
I don’t know how many of you guys follow any game journalism publications but the numbers for PC gaming is going down the crapper and has been for the past few years. I personally have wanted to see some kind of open source gaming platform but it will probably never happen, and it definitely won’t happen as linux PC based games. It will have to be a linux based console with dedicated hardware and a dedicated OS just for gaming.
Do you remember the Atari 6200? It had a license that allowed people to make their own games and sell them. That’s how all of the Atari porn games came about. I think that’s where an open sours OS can shine. You would have to keep it closed enough to ensure DRM for big game developers to take it seriously but license it so that anyone can develop and release games/apps for it. I know people in open source hate DRM but, a linux based gaming OS won’t be taken seriously by developers if it’s too easy to crack games and pirate them. That’s one of the big reasons that PC gaming is losing developers, it’s too easy to pirate the games.
That’s why I think the best solution is to have a dedicated OS and dedicated hardware, essentially an open source gaming console. But part of it will have to be closed. I think the thing that most people in this scope are craving is the ability to make their own apps and games for a game console. If people could make their own games and get free games as well as buy the latest and greatest games that come out on every other console, I think people would buy it. I would, especially if I knew I didn’t have to hack my gaming console and void my warranty to do it.
If you were to make an open source gaming console, how would you handle controllers/remotes?
Stick to keyboard and mouse?
Create unique controllers/remotes?
Support drivers for the many PC controllers out there already (including competing gaming console controllers)?
[...] on Shot of Jaq, there’s been some discussion about Linux Gaming. I’ve been thinking about the current [...]
I don’t think anyone has posted this yet but I thought it might be of interest: http://www.linux-mag.com/cache/7745/1.html
Seems I am a little late to the party but here are my two ören on these matters.
Personally, I think the “bootable game” or “bootable game platform” concepts seem like very intriguing options here. Surely, aspects like boot time (think Splashtop and the like) and graphics performance could be highly optimized in a system which does not need to load many services, a desktop or even window manager. Some guys are getting plenty of extra FPS out of their Quake sessions by using for instance the ICC (which alas is not Free, but still) to compile the kernel + other hacks. Check out the interview with the LinuxDNA guys over here: http://www.hak5.org/episodes/episode-504
Then there is the usual FLOSS problem: lots of geeks, shortage of artists and story tellers. We have the technology and frameworks, but to few people who can draw a sprite which does not make you want to cry…
Two cents here.
a) The technology is there. If you are hardcore and want to futsh around with the technology. A shrink-wrapped easy-to-use just-add-water solution for most game developers is not there yet.
b) Porting to different platforms is expensive. And since at the moment every Linux distro is essentially a platform onto itself. Now it would be nice if more companies would just try to get their games working on some form of Linux would be great. Just throw it out there, slap a “Beta” and if-it-doesn’t-work-don’t-expect-full-support warning would be a great start. However most game house, are not sure how to even approach the Linux community as a whole or what to do once it tries to create a Linux port.
c) Linux being the “gaming” platform is probably not going to make Linux any less of platform. It would help getting more people. Eventually I envision Linux becoming the only gaming platform though, especially with Linux mobile platforms like Android taking off. But we are quite a few years away from anything like that. And it might be so specialized that for all intents in purposes, it will behave like a locked down console.
The funny thing is, write a game in linux with the right tools such as C++ and Ogre3d or write your own graphics systems over OpenGL the game will work in windows might need bit of tweaking the code, but should work. The thing is the libraries we use in linux work in windows too such as GTK, LibCurl, OpenGL, OpenAL, SDL, SFML, RakNet and many more. Winsock is not that different from Berkley sockets. It’s not that hard to write a patcher for the game and you can distribute your game easily over network. You can save money by doing this. It would not even be that hard to write similar system as Steam has for buying their games. Publish your game on linux and windows. You are sure to get profit if the game is good. The hard thing on making a game is the content. 3D Models, textures, CGI art, gui graphics, etc and lets not forget the audio.
Because of game companies use Direct X libraries for their games makes us unable to have them.
I do not use windows i despise it for the closed source, lets say. GIMP? Is on linux, windows and mac. Inkscape? Is on linux, windows and mac. Firefox and Chrome and Opera are on windows and linux. Planeshift the one major open source mmorpg is on windows, linux, mac. Open Source software is mostly cross platform. So why games cant be?
The thing why games are done to windows is because they have most market share and windows has easy systems to make games for windows and even for xbox. Why those who try a linux go back to windows? It is because they have the tools on windows we offer in linux, but do not have much more to offer than free system, with loads of incompatibility. Before starting to port games, we should make our own games, own systems to show that it is possible to make games for Linux and make profit with the tools used for the game.
I want to publish hard copy of a game, well i need a publisher or system to print million of DVD’s. I have calculated that easily you could with 20,000 euros get ~20 burning pc’s with 5 burners, with a little bash scripting i could get the pc’s automate starting burning all those 100 DVD’s at once. Then it would be replacing them and running a command again. Of course you need dvd printer and distribution channels, the price goes already for the system to around 1-2 million per 1 million of copies and making those copies takes 2-4 months. Well publisher is a nice, but he takes bit of your shares. One thing that game companies are afraid is the big range of linux distros, it’s hard to make the app to work bugless on every distribution, audio crashes, etc.. Need some standardization.
Oh yeah. Forgot to say that other thing we offer to new linux users is Awesome Graphical Desktop effects, but really thats it. If you say gwibber and emphaty are nice, there is also software for social networks in windows and much more than for linux.
I use open source because of the technical arguments regarding a better development model, and because it represents better value for money, not because I am making a stand against evil capitalism.
Yeah, the freedom aspect makes me feel warm and fuzzy, but for me if the open source version is of a lesser quality I wont use it just to make some stand againt evil corporations.
Not everyone into open source is an idealistic hippy.