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Braid http://braid-game.com/

Commodities like food and transportation has already reached its base point - they are sold at just barely above material cost - sometimes below when subsidized by outside sources such as the government. The profit margin is miniscule, which is part of why food costs the same and farmers are making such piss-poor money compared to 10 years ago, and why auto makers are constantly getting bailed out.

If the video game industry charged just over cost of programmer time, API licensing, and distribution costs, we'd be left with a $10 game, online distro only. Hm, it's almost like it has been done before.

In an open source community where you don't usually pay the devs and digital distribution is free, you can theoretically create full commercial products for free. Look at OpenOffice. Do you think they're making money like Microsoft? Of course not.

Well, ignoring the 'limited environments' I'm sure a list can be drawn up. Meanwhile, there's no reason I know of why Braid, for example, couldn't be redone in HTML5.

Just a thought.

Boxworld, anyone?

Jonathan Blow posted in his blog about issues porting to Linux.

He said then that it was tabled. I wonder what methods he used, or what changed that made things easier for him.

I was pointing out that the little guys with very little resources don't seem to have any problem at all so somebody is full of shit somewhere.

The one who is full of shit here is you. There is an enlightening blog post by the creator of Braid (Jonathan Blow) where he reaches out to the Linux community asking how to overcome some of the deficiencies of xorg and various sound libraries. Here are some of the highlights in the comments from a small developer with very little resources:

I would say the biggest problems, development-tools wise, are the lack of a reasonable debugger, the slowness of gcc, the lack of the Visual C++ “IntelliSense” kinds of features, and edit+continue, and the extreme disappointment that is OpenGL 3.0. At this point Direct3D is a far, far superior environment for programming and debugging. And that is pretty lame, because when it started out it was horrible and sucky and OpenGL was obviously superior; but GL just lost ground, year after year, until we get where we are today.

However, the development tools are just not very good, and it turns out to be too big a sacrifice. As I was telling someone in a conversation the other week, it was hard enough (and very expensive) to make Braid on Windows, where the tools were a lot better. Braid could easily have failed and never been completed. If I had had to develop Braid on Linux, where it is so much harder to build software, it probably would have failed. You wouldn’t have gotten to play the game, ever.

So, that is too big a price to pay. I was willing to suffer some friction, to have to patch the source of whatever tools I was using in order to get them to do what I wanted. But the friction is just too great; the development tools are just too poor. I can’t take that much of a hit, because I would never get anything done.

What is it that you find good about the tools? It appears to me that they are about 12 years behind what I can use on Windows.

But this is exactly my point — I don’t want *more* functionality. I want *less* functionality, but that works better and allows me to do what I need at a high level of quality.

One of the big problems with Linux these days is that people are writing all kinds of random crap code when there aren’t even dependable foundations that apps can use.

SDL is not an appropriate API for a high-quality game that cares a lot about game feel; it’s better as an API for mini games or whatever. Which is fine. There’s a place in the world for that, but it’s not what I want for my game.

I could keep going, there is plenty more, but I'll just link you to the original post so you can check it out for yourself: http://braid-game.com/news/?p=364

tl;dr; Linux is a horrible platform to develop games for.

Or perhaps the lead (only?) programmer for Braid: http://braid-game.com/news/?p=364
(I think there was another post saying "Screw this, it's not coming out for Linux," but that might just be at the end of the comments)

Bet you're not a game developer, are you?

You're the one full of shit clinging to decade old quotes. Carmack himself later said DirectX is better nowadays. Maybe the notion of some things getting better and the other things degrading is foreign to you. Anyway, read this and the comments http://braid-game.com/news/?p=364

http://developers.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=08/08/11/2135259

http://www.opengl.org/discussion_boards/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showflat&Number=243195&Main=45784#Post243195

Stop sitting on your couch and spouting off things that game developers should do, they have their own constraints.

Are they really recommending Braid as a "kid-friendly" game? Braid? I'm generally impressed with Common Sense Media's take on reviews in that they look at all aspects of a movie or game when judging its appropriateness. But with Braid, the themes of the game are going to be way over the heads of most kids. I guess if your 12-year old really wanted to play it, why not. But as High Fidelity taught us there are other dangers of exposing impressionable teens to this kind of thing:
What came first, the music or the misery? People worry about kids playing with guns, or watching violent videos, that some sort of culture of violence will take them over. Nobody worries about kids listening to thousands, literally thousands of songs about heartbreak, rejection, pain, misery and loss. Did I listen to pop music because I was miserable? Or was I miserable because I listened to pop music?

I think the indie game Braid was the first game to make this approach of time in games great.

Not true, sir. Not true.
Chronotron

I think the indie game Braid was the first game to make this approach of time in games great. And if you develop the game good around that, it's great.

I loved Braid for the fact that even if I made a mistake, I would push the go back in time button instead of repeating quick-save/quick-load all the time when I fail. The levels could be made harder and more unforgiving too because you could always go back in time. And on its philosophy side it made me want to do the same thing for my past relationships, which is part of the story. Great game.

Actually I would like to see this in more games. Just go back in time instead of the quick-save/load bashing. It's a lot more fun too.

Pretty much nobody in our society with the exception of hardcore gamers believes videogames rise to the level of high art

Sorry, but you're wrong. For a recent, shining example, take a good look at Braid.

There's plenty of art in games, even though that's not the selling point. Games provide an experience, which often includes art, either as pictures (Myst), music (Final Fantasy) or story-telling (Thief).

So (to game developers), stop depending on DirectX! Use abstraction layers between DirectX and OpenGL. UnrealEngine 3 works with both, and considering how advanced it is, I don't want to hear shit about how OpenGL is not as good.

I am sorry but you do have to hear shit about how OpenGL is not as good. Where's a demo video(or example of a game) of Unreal Engine 3 running on OpenGL? And no, support for PS3's OpenGL ES is not the same as support for OpenGL that runs on Linux/BSD.

And OpenGL sucks on a number of levels, like was covered on Slashdot here http://tech.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=08/08/11/2135259&from=rss

And there are lot other problems with developing games on Linux, like sound and mouse events. Take a look here http://braid-game.com/news/?p=364 if you're interested(Read the comments too).

So instead of telling developers to abandon tools which make their job and life easy, how about requesting Linux developers to make game development a little easier?

They say that one of the benefits, if not an outright goal, of some Linux distributions is to be a great platform to develop software on.

At one time Linux looked downright competitive as a platform (if certainly not market,) so what happended since 2002?

I do think one thing that would help is for OSS games to have much better tools. Make it easy for people to add assets, build levels and so on. Maybe more people would be willing to do so.

Well, games are not just software. The software is simply there to make the game go.

Perhaps the reason that there are so few (or in some opinions no) good games on Linux is that for developing games, Linux sucks?

Perhaps it is time to admit that OpenGL is a not the only kid on the block and start providing another popular API that other developers want to use?

Perhaps it is time to stop throwing away all that boatload of artwork with each release and start saving anything under a usable license to an appropriate gathering spot?

Perhaps it is time to put down that cumulative-xml2pd-custom-package-colored-pretty-printer patch and answer some basic questions in such a way that new people don't hate us?

What happened to those Open Source game engines that were going to let you MOD your way for WoW 2.0? Perhaps they are still there, waiting for content.

Perhaps what Linux Gaming needs is a little less CompSci and a little more Bachelors of Arts?

I work kind of in this area as a researcher, so maybe I have a rosy-glass view, but the arguments seem a bit dated to me. Sure, in say 1999 this was a problem, and not that many people took games seriously. But in 2009? Yeah, people still like to kvetch ("games are rarely taken seriously blah blah and we aim to change that" is a standard opening move if you're writing a paper), and maybe the average person on the street doesn't, but there are plenty of inroads:

There are journals and academic conferences on games, in both the humanities and computer science.

MIT Press has an entire division of books about videogames. I'm currently reading one about the Atari 2600, which, yes, even covers its role as a cultural and artistic platform.

There are initiatives and companies to use games for "serious" purposes. The U.S. Army in particular takes them seriously and funds development.

Braid sold over $1m, despite being a kind of weird arty game made by a single guy. You can even get an MFA doing fine-arts stuff related to games.

Heck, Gamasutra itself frequently publishes about games as art, and it's semi-high-profile (at least to the extent that getting linked at Slashdot once a week counts as semi-high-profile).

I mean yeah, I'll agree that far more people respect, say, film than respect games. But it's not as if this is some novel argument and nobody has ever thought about taking games seriously before. Also, to some extent, it's the fault of people not making more interesting games: Hollywood may be crap, but there are a lot more innovative indie films out there than innovative indie games.

And you miss my point. PopCap doesn't release for Linux because there's no market. You aren't making a market with what you say above and you aren't reducing the pains-in-the-ass of developing a Linux port.

I am reminded of Johnathan Blow's attempt to port Braid to Linux and the myriad pains in the ass that followed.

One of the most successful indie games of 2008, Braid, was sold via XBox Live.

If anything, it shows that all there's all kinds of ways to market your game and if it is enjoyable, people will pay for it.

Now, looking at this year's possibly popular indie games, I think Crayon Physics Deluxe will be a hit, and I hope Fez (video here), which I haven't heard of since February 08 will post some news, and finally there's Braid again, which is coming on the PC!

Additionally, if you include game mods as indie development, I'm looking forward to Neotokyo, a total conversion mod for HL2 that has its inspiration in Ghost in the Shell, and Black Mesa Source, another total conversion for HL2 which is the original Half-Life ported onto the Source engine.

If anything, it shows that all there's all kinds of ways to market your game and if it is enjoyable, people will pay for it.

Now, looking at this year's possibly popular indie games, I think Crayon Physics Deluxe will be a hit, and I hope Fez (video here), which I haven't heard of since February 08 will post some news, and finally there's Braid again, which is coming on the PC!

Additionally, if you include game mods as indie development, I'm looking forward to Neotokyo, a total conversion mod for HL2 that has its inspiration in Ghost in the Shell, and Black Mesa Source, another total conversion for HL2 which is the original Half-Life ported onto the Source engine.

I was looking for a coding rant I read in the summer about SDL and audio insufficiencies so that I could point you to it, but you'll have to settle for what I found instead. Take a look at this ... and I found what I was looking for. Make sure to read the comments on Braid for the real info. A Loki programmer even says SDL isinadequate for audio.

Really, everything wrong with gaming on linux can be found here. Read the comments. To sum it up, according to the guy who created Braid, Linux is seriously lacking in modern development tools.

Well, I would say there are more factors than adoption in this equation. Things like DirectX. Or ease of deployment. Or development tools.

You might want to check out what the Braid developer has to say about that.

Most of your post is just the same tired back and forth, but this is the important bit:

Personally I think you'll find Distro companies are more concerned with getting your mom to use Linux than for you to give up Photoshop. There are more clueless people than educated people so why go after the smaller market will probably won't change because their job depends on something where as average person doesn't really care as proven by Mac's increasing popularity.

That's fine, they're more than welcome to go after them (because I have a workflow that works for me, and Linux has no part of it on the desktop), but they're going to keep failing at it. Why? Because open-source developers don't know how to go after the clueless people. That's really what it boils down to. Even Firefox, one of the few cases where an open-source product demonstrates definite advantages, has a small market share (although with Chrome and IE8 coming, Firefox is looking fairly fucked). The open-source community does not, in many cases, want users. They want contributors. The two mindsets (targeting clueless people and contributors-not-users) are fairly incompatible.

Linux still has some issues, no doubt, a lot of which have to do with accessibility which, again, doesn't affect most people.

You mis-spelled "usability." Linux--or GNOME, at least--is remarkably accessible, to the point of making programming for their platform a huge pain in the ass (anyone who's ever had to create a custom GTK+ widget knows exactly what I mean). What Linux is not is usable, for most people. Put someone passably familiar with a computer at a Linux desktop, and to do anything beyond open up Firefox, they will be at a loss. (Most people don't learn the concepts, they learn by rote. Which means that you'd better be copying Windows, or you've lost a lot of them right there.)

What companies need to do is start funding game development that is OS neutral or on Linux. It will be a loss at first but if they push that's what'll bring people to Linux.

Why would they do that? When consoles are right there and when closed-source programming for wide distribution on Linux is fucking insanely difficult? When OpenGL is, to be frank, shit on Linux, compared to Direct3D on Windows or the Direct3D-lite-ish API on the XBox 360? Not to mention that sound systems, among other areas, are so horrible as to be almost not worth even considering.

Companies should go against their own interests in hope of a vague future payoff? Sorry, but magic fairy wishing won't get you far.

(My favorite line from the freetard-brigade comments in that post I linked: "Time to put on your humility hat, not your ridiculing asshole hat. You need us, we don't need you. There is a lot of black magic and dragons in linux development, and one of them will eat weeks of your time if you aren't careful." WRONG! Instead, Jon just said screw-you to Linux and saved himself some time. And if there was a credible attempt to get users to Linux, wouldn't they first make developing less of a chore...?)

That's the whole reason MS decided that maybe it should eat its own lunch by killing off PC gaming to promote the 360. Gaming is the only thing windows has that most people care about and can't find some sort of acceptable alternative elsewhere.

If you think people will magically switch to Linux for games, you're out of your tree, sir. Exchange (Exchange clients on Linux are terrible, Evolution is the best of them but it's a crashy mess) and Office (OpenOffice isn't a seamless drop-in replacement, so yes, for many people it is out) alone are enough reason for companies to stick to Windows. And where business goes, consumers follow.

He's right though. Ideas are cheap. Anyone can have them and so everybody does. I'm sure quite a few monkey-men 40,000 years ago thought "hey why don't we stop flinging crap at each other in trees and walk upright on the ground?" but then went back to crap-flinging because going down amongst the non-tree-climbing predators was too scary.

I think this misconception that ideas are inherently valuable comes from the high school system. In school all children do more or less the same amount of work - the amount needed to pass. Obviously that's a broad generalisation, there is some scope to differentiate yourself by amount of work. But generally nobody will respect you for it, except maybe your parents. Your peers certainly won't. And there certainly isn't as much scope for differentiation as there is in real life.

The result of this is that children learn to differentiate themselves by what they do rather than how much they do. Producing a piece of art or an essay which has a novel take on the assignment, or an elegant solution to a maths problem - this is valued and will win the pupil high praise. Producing something merely twice as long as somebody elses submission, even if the quality is not compromised and thus value is doubled, typically won't.

The life lesson taken away is clear - novel ideas are valuable and should be appreciated. They should win praise and, as people mature financially, be rewarded with money.

But this is the inverse of reality, in which the thing people are ultimately judged by is the work they produce, and often the major differentiator is the amount of effort involved. If I'd written a 2 page essay describing a revolutionary platform game in which the player bends time I'd indeed win some praise for this, but it probably wouldn't get me anywhere. But if I actually built said game and turned it from abstract idea into concrete product, now that's the stuff reputations (and hopefully bank balances) are made of.

All this is kinda off topic though, as the OP didn't imply he (she?) was trying to make money off being an ideas guy. He even said open sourcing it was an option. But I too have been approached with "great ideas" before .... I tell you what I want, you make it actually happen, and we'll split the proceeds. These people are asking to have their idea "stolen" and then feel stiffed when somebody else goes onto become big on the backs of their idea. I've never actually done that but it seems some of the problems surrounding Facebook boil down to this.

"Hayes discusses the division between graphical artists and coders, who often clash because their aims are so disparate and their areas of expertise do not necessarily overlap."

Really?
Have you seen this game?

The clash comes because of EGOs, it's as simple as that.

Looking at Braid's website it says it will be out for PC sometime in 2008, but it appears that it isn't quite yet.

Looks like 3 more have dropped out as well:

http://braid-game.com/news/?p=21

5 games in total have quit in disgust. Good on em indeed!