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The problem is elementary, my dear Watson - they didn't create the OS that they're selling.

99% of all linux distros could DIAF and nobody would notice the difference. They all use the same software, the same kernel, the same window managers, the same services ... come on, enough already!

Both linux and android are suffering from fragmentation. About the only free OS that isn't is BSD, with FreeBSD being more popular than all the other *BSDs combined.

I blame the GPL for much of this. Getting the software for free but paying support is not going to work for consumers, not for an OS, not for games, not for productivity software. Open source has become like app development - a few big names make money, and 99% either starve or become beggarware or adware. Why? Because people in this market have gotten too used to the idea that the right price for everything is $0.00. Look what happened to Loki Games as just one of many examples.

And too often, you end up getting exactly what you pay for. In this case, an OS that has long ago abandoned first principles. UIs that keep adding more bling. A moribund (do I dare say "dead") marketplace where, because of the GPL, you can't split development costs over product sales for the next year, because the first one to buy is going to give it away, or sell it at a reduced cost to the next one, and so on, and so on ...

That's all well and good for little titles that people throw together in their spare time. But when somebody actually gave desktop Linux users a legitimate chance to purchase Linux versions of A-list titles by major studios (And threw a good portion of their revenue back into development of open-source tools and libraries that would have helped other companies do the same thing.); the Linux community responded resoundingly with rejection by refusing to buy in anything close to the numbers necessary to keep the business afloat. So nice as the Humble Bundle average is (And the HB have recently abandoned the indie, cross-platform philosophy anyway.), color me unimpressed by desktop Linux users' willingness to pay.

Mac users, OTOH (Since the overall topic *IS* iTunes.), do buy in the numbers necessary to keep outfits like Aspyr and Feral afloat and bring A-List titles to the platform (Even though they are often a bit later than the PC release and the hype has usually died down by the time of the port.)

That's all well and good for little titles that people throw together in their spare time. But when somebody actually gave desktop Linux users a legitimate chance to purchase Linux versions of A-list titles by major studios (And threw a good portion of their revenue back into development of open-source tools and libraries that would have helped other companies do the same thing.); the Linux community responded resoundingly with rejection by refusing to buy in anything close to the numbers necessary to keep the business afloat. So nice as the Humble Bundle average is (And the HB have recently abandoned the indie, cross-platform philosophy anyway.), color me unimpressed by desktop Linux users' willingness to pay.

Mac users, OTOH (Since the overall topic *IS* iTunes.), do buy in the numbers necessary to keep outfits like Aspyr and Feral afloat and bring A-List titles to the platform (Even though they are often a bit later than the PC release and the hype has usually died down by the time of the port.)

Actually, checking the loki games page (still up after all these years... ) it was HeavyGear - very MW like :)

http://www.lokigames.com/products/heavy-gear2/

It seems like, unless Dell, HP, etc take Linux seriously by putting it on their machines and advertising it on the front-page of their stores, Steam will meet the same fate. Lots of companies have tried porting games to Linux, but I don't think anyone is buying.

http://www.lokigames.com/
http://www.tuxgames.com/

Microsoft keeps trying to get people to switch to Linux; maybe, Metro will finally push some over the edge.

Loki released a great Bungie game for Linux http://www.lokigames.com/products/myth2/
Work is still going on for the game on OSX and Windows via http://projectmagma.net/downloads/myth2_171/
All the best with LGP, ports are great fun for any OS :)

Unreal tech has been running natively on Mac and Linux as this was done years ago. You don't remember or haven't played Unreal Tournament 2004? Although that was the last Epic games title to run on Linux. UT3 was promised and still hasn't been ported to Linux and released publicly.

Even the original Unreal Tournament was ported to Linux, but by Loki Games and not Epic: http://www.lokigames.com/products/ut/

Point: Loki Games no longer exists.

I think that proves the point.

And BTW, based on the forum responses in the slashdot-linked article, it reminded me why Linux is not (and probably never will be) widespread on the desktop: just to get the damn OS (of whatever distro you chose) running, you have to go to a forum filled with people like them and beg for help only to get a bunch of asstard responses, and then come back again whenever you're trying to find/learn another new program.

No thanks.

Perhaps including the word "asstard" in your request dictates the type of response you get...

It's not wine: it's native. The now-defunct company Loki Games ported Alpha Centauri to Linux. You might be able to buy a copy from someone. It's a fantastic game.

Point: Loki Games no longer exists.

I think that proves the point.

And BTW, based on the forum responses in the slashdot-linked article, it reminded me why Linux is not (and probably never will be) widespread on the desktop: just to get the damn OS (of whatever distro you chose) running, you have to go to a forum filled with people like them and beg for help only to get a bunch of asstard responses, and then come back again whenever you're trying to find/learn another new program.

No thanks.

If Loki Games can still have a patch page up, I'm sure Valve can manage.

Unreal Tournament 2000 is available fro Linux, and runs on modest specs. Linky. Spiderweb also has a Linux port of Exile III though it is notoriously buggy and its recommended you use Wine.

No game is without its flaws, but Descent 3 delivered a unique gameplay experience for Linux and other operating systems:
http://www.lokigames.com/products/descent3/
It deserves mention in the list, perhaps in lieu of one of the more ordinary first person shooters listed.

I bought (as in paid full price for) most of the games that Loki (remember them) ever ported to Linux. I still play Alpha Centauri sometimes - it still runs on modern Linux (though sadly their port of Civ3 no longer runs - doesn't get on with modern libraries in some way I haven't bothered to diagnose). I bought Neverwinter Nights when it first came out, because it was available in a Linux port (and it still runs very nicely, and yes, I still sometimes play it - mostly user-generated content, too). And I'm one of the only 597 people world-wide who have so far pre-ordered Apricot.

And that's kind of the point.

It costs money to develop commercial games; quite a lot of money. The people who develop them want to sell them. If there were enough Linux users prepared to spend real money on games, we'd have more commercial games. Over the last few weeks I've been playing (and really enjoying) The Witcher. It runs on an updated version of Bioware's Aurora engine, so presumably it wouldn't be hard to port it to Linux. But I don't expect we'll see a Linux port, because Atari, who sell it, clearly don't think enough of us would pay for it. And sadly I think they're probably right.

I've haven't found many open source game projects which are compelling to me. There are plenty of good ideas out there, and half-finished projects. Globulation is quite polished and seems to me quite innovative, and plays well; but it's also quite shallow - you'll enjoy it for a week but you won't still be playing it in a year. Oolite is genuinely good and you might still be playing it in a year - but that's largely because it is a faithful reconstruction of Elite, which is one of the great classics of computer games. Flightgear may be good but it isn't my thing.

To create a new game takes a lot of vision and a lot of work. Until you've done a lot of work it's hard to communicate the vision, so it's hard to recruit people. And even then, too many of the talented people prefer to tinker with some project of their own which they'll never get finished, than co-operate to deliver someone else's vision. I'd like to be wrong on this. But what I see on Freshmeat is lots of 'alpha' and 'beta' projects, and very little that's genuinely playable.

Did you mean these guys? http://www.lokigames.com/ ?

Not so much as you may think. How large a percent of the windows market will buy a given game, seeing as there are so many windows games? Now think that the linux/bsd markets have near zero competition for anyone who sells to them. Big difference between people who use an OS and people who will buy games for that OS.

With OSS, the bug is usually discovered quite quickly, and the patch is usually not far behind.

You neglect the primary reason for this phenomenon; the Open Source community actually listens to the users when a new version is released.

Cutler Beckett: I'm listening...
[Elizabeth aims a flintlock pistol at Cutler's head and pulls the hammer.]
Cutler Beckett: I'm listening intently.
And now for something completely different.

There are plenty of fun games that are native to the Linux platform[...]

Hours and hours of Armagetron, Nethack, Linux Racer and Abuse, eh? The story goes that Linux will become a gaming platform when the Linux community actually starts paying for the games. Pity that Loki isn't still around; alas, they were before their time. I wonder who takes-up the baton now? Transgaming? Their support is laughable (by comparison) and many simple questions go completely ignored. Unlike Loki, they only support a platform of compatibility, not a movement of straight-porting to Linux-kernel architecture.

Still, plenty have made the jump and are doing best they can with compatibility.

But above all, use what works for you. If you don't like Linux, don't use it.

Well said. So very freedom-of-choice of you. But then...

[...]you'll eventually be forced to use something other than Windows.

Ha ha! Irony!

Many in this community would be quick to point-out that we are a "nation" who believes in the choice of the individual. That is the primary reason any form of Linux is in the home and not locked-away in large, expensive schools and research corporations.

Appreciate the reason that people use Window$; it comes ready-to-go. Despite the fact that it only remains in that state for a few days, the "out of box experience" can not be denied.

Nobody is really forced to use Windows, likewise, nobody will ever be "forced to use something [else]". Our choices are guided by the Market, and the Market favors M$. It's a plain truth in business, but it's also a plain truth that no, one power in the Market can withstand the attention forever. Goliath will fall.

IE7 has already pissed me off to no end. I have customers who benefit from my web design. The measures of "protection" and "security" in IE7 have kept me from presenting updated content, or previewing new drafts, because the page is not "aged enough" or is "untrusted". Why would we want a product that treats the world as suspect but is ready to consider it's "home" domain a trustable resource? Call it what it is! It's a "blacklisting" product, and it doesn't even follow "whitelisting" protocols; for sites that are entered as trustworthy are still denied due to some black-box programming that is "included for our safety." FUD Indeed! Feh!

Do you mean that it's good for games, as long as you don't like popular games? ;-) The range of bizzare and not terribly well executed logic games that run natively on Linux is indeed very high, but they are not what the vast majority of people would call 'fun' (IMO due to poor execution, and gameplay that's of very limited appeal).

Even counting all the older games that have been ported, such as titles from the now defunct Loki - some of which are excellent - there are still fewer decent titles there ever were for Apple's System 6, sadly.

At the moment, the range and sophistication of web based games seem to be overtaking that of native Linux titles. I think cross platform game development kits like BlitzMax are probably the only way to turn things around on the gaming front (and help get out of the vicious circle of "no games = no gamers and no gamers = no game developers specifically targeting Linux").

The lack of triple A titles is obviously always going to be a problem, but I think with enough half decent titles you could build up enough of a consumer base to warrent more and more offical ports of existing titles.

The Radio Shack/FIRST Vex Robotics Starter Kit is definitely worth a look if you're serious about getting into the field. The long awaited programming module is even available now. The kit can also be upgraded with a wide array of sensors, motors and gear sets available from various dealers around the internet.

Of course, Lego Mindstorms is always good for a quick fix if you want to play around before getting too committed.

Finally, for the wannabe robot expert in all of us, you might consider trying Mind Rover: The Europa Project to create virtual autonomous robots on your computer and make them compete.

Oh, and for those who want the robot experience without getting their hands dirty, try checking out Mind Rover: The Europa Project for PC/Mac. It may be old, but it's still fun.

I'm not picking a fight, but I have a couple of issues with your post. First, I spent over $500US in the last seven months on Linux games. I think this is profitable for someone. When Win95 came out there was a transition. People didn't rush out to buy native Win95 versions of thier DOS games.

There are too many Linux distributions, none of which have a big enough of the Linux market to be considered the de facto standard Linux distribution to develop for and build a customer service department to support.
I bought just about every port that Loki did and I didn't have any problems playing them on on any >= 2.4 kernal version SuSE, RedHat or Ubuntu. Instead of a customer service department, how about a good technical support forum? The Linux Standards Base is your friend.


Finally, once you manage to get things working on a couple distributions, a new release comes out that invalidates your existing application. And in another 6 months another release of Linux is going to come out and invalidate your work again. A developer has a hard time keeping his game working under one distribution from one version to the next. Now multiply that by 10-20 for the most popular Linux platforms each releasing new versions every 6 months.
See above. All my Loki games have worked since SuSE 6.4/RedHat 7.0. As a user space game programmer why should you care about kernal changes. Just code to SDL/OpenGL (Both are backwards compatible).

Game applications are the most strenous and sensitive to the capabilities of the platform. Windows is pretty standard with DirectX. On Linux you don't know what's going to work; the very philosophy of choice with Linux translates to everyone's machine is just different enough in a way that makes developing a game for Linux a real frustration.
Thats nonsense. Code for the lowest good versions of SDL and OpenGL. You will be suprised on how many different distributions of Linux it will run on.

Shipping source code to your customers and expecting them to build it every time they upgrade their machine or switch distributions isn't a solution.
I have purchased over 20 commercial Linux games, none came with source. Are you trolling? You have never purchased/installed a native Linux game yet your an authority on shipping source with a Linux game? I call bullshit.

I buy my Linux games from here: http://www.tuxgames.com/ (No I'm not affilated with the site).
Check out the loki games from here, http://liflg.org/, pay special attention on how the installer works. You can get the installer sources for free from here: http://www.lokigames.com/development/setup.php3

As a Windows developer, you can always code your game/application to work with wine. http://www.winehq.com/ It seems to work OK for Google http://earth.google.com/earth4.html.

Your post does disgrace Interplay, SirTech, MindScape, SSI, Origin and many other great gaming companies from the 80s/90s that did (Intel/Non-Intel CPUs/OSs) cross-platform games.

Enjoy.

Probably not. Loki thougth there was a marked and ported some games over to Linux (I bought the SimCity version). They closed shop after three years. Then again, the marked might be a little different now from the way it was four years ago (lots of newbie distros, like Ubuntu, Xandros, Linspire etc, that have brought in non-developers to Linux)

News from Loki
Loki is closed. Thanks for your patronage.

I think I'll take a pass on that. I'm not paying AGAIN for a game I've already bought just so that I can run it in linux without a virtual machine, especially if the publisher no longer exists and there's no guarantee of continued support (only promised that patches will still be available.)

Thanks for the tip, though.

Let's not forget Savage and Unreal Tournament 2004 with their direct LINUX products, and the whole slew of things the kind folks at Loki port and work on.

The more people use BSD/Linux/Amiga/whatever, the more companies will develop games for BSD/Linux/Amiga/whatever.

I mean Pingus is fun for a while... but it doesn't take the place of Dawn of War. Neither can Heroes of Might and Magic III for Linux if you could manage to scrounge up a copy. (No, you can't have mine.)

There is some hope for Cedega, though I'm not currently impressed. It's not going to be able to replace my XP partition any time soon.

One of the ironies of modern electronic gaming is that the most free (as in GNU, ironically) and viable gaming platform is Windows. It's better than the locked down, DRM ridden consoles. Think of it, you can get horse armor on PC by making it yourself instead of paying for it. That's closer to Free Software than the current console model "it'll cost you, and don't dare try to hack our console." Of course, Vista may tip this, I think MS is learning some lessons from being a console maker.

Yes, the situation sucks. The real problem is that Microsoft still plays Monopoly with our PCs. It has very little to do with consumer choice.

Loki Games agrees with you. Unfortunately they shut down their business that was porting games to Linux.

All irony aside, you have the right idea but Linux has a lot of room to grow before it can be a competitive platform in the gaming market.

"... unfortunately this urgency of this new release drew resources away from the web team and they were left with a pentium 166 to host the web site..."
Well done to the transgamming guys. Hopefully then can step up to where loki left off.

'Then start them out with "The Incredible Machine"'

Wow, I had forgotten about that awesome program! Another "game" my kids are going to get to play is going to be Mind Rover . It's a nice intro to EE logic and it's loads of fun to boot.

There is no market. Please check out this defunct website to remind yourself of that: http://www.lokigames.com/.

Loki - The Games that Linux People Play (or not)
* As you may know, Loki filed a voluntary Chapter 11 petition on August 3, 2001. We will be filing a motion to convert the case to a Chapter 7--a liquidation. At that time all of Loki's assets will be transfered to a U.S. Trustee appointed by the Court. The Trustee's job will be to sell those assets to the highest bidder.

We'd like to thank everyone for their support these past three years.

Seriously, until there's a huge installed base of people who use linux as their desktop, it does not make economic sense to port. Once there's a big enough market, it will make economic sense. You won't have to request at that time, it will happen automatically. For years websites I worked for only cared about supporting IE because it was 95% of the market. Once FireFox got around 8% of the market, that attitude changed. Simply a matter of where it makes sense for a business unit to focus their energy to get the most bang for the buck.

"There is no way you can assume that the Mac is more viable than Linux for game sales. Nobody knows because they *haven't tried*.

Loki is closed. Thanks for your patronage.
-- from Lokigames.com

What's the best way to arrange for a commercial port of games software to the Linux platform?

Loki Entertainment Software contracts with successful computer entertainment software companies to port their best selling titles to Linux.

Is it worth talking to lone enthusiastic hackers about collaborating?

No.

Would I save myself a lot of hassle by selling the porting rights to an established Linux games company?

Yes.

Loki used to port a few major titles to linux, but alas they are no more and since them dying off linux gaming has gotten even worse, if that was even possible.

Im often reminded of Loki's work, a large portion of which was run from http://www.lokigames.com/ , and all the installer work thats been done -- http://www.liflg.org/.

Its proven that Games run natively in linux fine. UT2004 clearly proved this. I still support Transgaming in their aims, but ultimately, for PCgamers , its native installers that we need to support, not wrappers to emulate the envoirnment.

The solution here is not to run Windows games, but to find more ways to convince major game developers that they should release ports to linux directly.

Ironically, one way to convince the major game developers to have native Linux port is to have transgaming succeed.

When Loki Games existed, I enjoyed playing Heroes III, Kohan and Myth 2 on my Linux box. Too bad Loki could not last.

The ports by Loki were decent, especially for games where performance isn't critical. For e.g., playing Kohan was fine, but then try speeding up the playback to 8x (800%), and I notice it was playing maybe just at 3x the speed... on Windows, it really could playback at 8x.

I think the market for Linux gaming has to grow a lot more before game companies can justify the engineering cost of native Linux port. Some way to grow Linux desktop is through improvements on KDE/GNOME, OpenOffice, FireFox, Thunderbird, etc., but efforts like transgaming also help grow the Linux desktop share.

Descent 3 on Windows did; I presume Linux Descent 3 also does.

One of those arguments is that we need commercial developers for Linux. Lo and behold when a commercial developer ante's up and makes product for Linux - they are beat up for their decision.

Perhaps you're reading into this wrong, or missing a few points.

1. That's fine but it isn't open sourced.

You know what? That sometimes mean a awful lot, to an awful lot of people.

2. Bahhh we have an opensource equivalent already.

That's a HUGE point though.
It's not like there was some incredible innovation done in this case. It's not like it's a new product, or something that's missing, something like Photoshop. It's a frikken cd burning program, something which there are literally dozens and dozens of - and superb ones at that - already.

3. It doesn't work on my weird (read low marketshare) version of Linux.

Since when is a Fedora/Redhat platform a "weird (read low marketshare) version of Linux"?

Why can't we be positive? Why can't we embrace Ahead for their efforts and simply say - Good Job on your (read) 1st version?

We can, but unfortunately, they aren't the first (they aren't even the first to do a cd burning utility) for Linux. We've seen just how 'less than satisfactory' other things have turned out before... for whatever reason.
Skepticism is only natural, and healthy, in a case like this.

Heh, i remember the corporation which ported games to Linux/x86: Loki - The Games That Linux People Play. Or was it Pay? Cause they're gone too, unfortunately. Due to deception? I don't see why.

How soon people forget Loki. They took your premise of, "People will pay for good ports of Windows games," and built a business around it. Guess what? People didn't pay. Whether it was because the game world moves so fast that something even six months old is relegated to the bargain bin, or because the typical view of, "Linux is free, and thus any software for Linux should be free as well," held by many Linux users did them in is hard to say. I suspect it's a mixture of both, and other pressures. The moral of the story is that people won't pay for game ports, at least not in the numbers you need to break even, let alone profit at the porting business. If the port doesn't sim-ship with the Windows product, you're screwed. Even if it does ship at the same time, you need some massive marketing to let folks know that there's a Linux version. If you bundle it in with the Windows version, you have no way of tracking how many sales are for the Linux version, and if you have separate versions you risk pissing off your customer base ("I bought this game, but it doesn't work on my Windows machine." "You bought the Linux version. Install Linux or exchange it for the Windows version." "You suck. I'm not buying your games anymore. I'll just warez them and play them for free.").

Now we're into a catch-22. You need to get games ported to Linux to bootstrap Linux game development, but you can't get enough people to buy the port to sustain a business. What Linux needs is a couple dedicated professional gaming studios writing Linux-only games (similar to Bungie and the Mac back in the Marathon days). Good luck selling that one in a market where if your game doesn't sim-ship on PC (Windows), PS2, Gamecube, XBox, and GBA, you're not going to make a profit (and even if you do pull it off, you still may not make a profit).

None of this is to say that Linux can't be a games platform. Anything can be a games platform (calculators, wrist-watches, set-top boxes like Tivo, you name it, chances are games have been written for it). More, Linux does support popular 3D accelerators, it supports OpenGL and has a decent framework for other bits (input/output, audio, networking, 2D graphics) in the form of SDL. Everything is there except for the marketshare to make it profitable, and the professional development studios to make commercial-quality games on Linux as a first-class platform. I don't know how you get there from here, but I'd suggest talking with others in a similar situation (*cough*Apple*cough*) and see what develops. Too bad the decentralized nature of OSS makes it difficult for a key set of players to be indentified for those types of discussions.

In the meantime, you're going to have to continue booting into "winblows" (hey, real mature there, buddy!) to play the latest mega blockbusters. And I don't want to hear any crap about how games "used to be so much better". If you want to start that discussion, you'll first need to relinquish your rose-colored glasses and recognize that the majority of games (movies, music, books, web sites, ...) have always sucked, will continue to suck, and the only reason why the past seems "better" is because you've forgotten all the shit that came before.

I would neither say Linux sucks any more than I would say that games are only produced for Windows.

The truth is that there are a number of pre-written interfaces for the porting of games from one platform to another. Off the top of my head there are the libraries which Loki Software wrote and which they now allow others to use. There are a number of such packages at SourceForge including the wxwindows and others. So the lack of packages which you can use to have a game come out on all platforms is untrue.

The ONLY reason I can think of is INERTIA. Microsoft frowns upon companies which produce games for other platforms (since it can mean the loss of a sale of their OS et al) and I am sure that Microsoft does nasty things to companies who want to produce software for any platform other than the Microsoft platform. (As was shown in the AntiTrust case against Microsoft.) And while it may be true that DirectX is geared towards games; the last time I looked at NeverWinter Nights and others - they use OpenGL -or- DirectX. And sometimes both together.

Also, don't forget that Microsoft is now into the gaming industry big time and companies which have been bought by Microsoft (like the people who brought you Myth I & II ) will tend to only produce games for the Microsoft platform. (Or to release for the other platforms only after exhausting all income paths for the Microsoft platform.) So any game a Microsoft held company creates is probably going to stay running only on the Microsoft platform for quite a while before it is released to other platforms.

The real question which is not even being asked is that if Microsoft has actually converted their programs to run as native programs on the Macintosh (which is BSD based), then why don't they release their programs for Linux? The answer (to me) is that this is just one of the ways they can take a stab at Linux to get back at Linux users (ie: to punish them) for not just continuing to use their products. But then I've seen a lot of companies do very petty things just because one or two people in high ranking positions are upset with how something isn't going their way. But that is (as I've said) just my feelings on this subject.

To be fair with Microsoft: The original poster should have known better to get a router, use the built-in firewall, install a good anti-virus piece of software, install a cookie catcher (like SpyBot), get RegCleaner, and Empty Temp and then, on a regular - weekly basis - clean their system up. We have been really lucky or watchful (I don't know which) with our systems in that we have as of yet to get a virus or to allow cookies to remain on our systems for more than a day or two. SpyBot does a great job of keeping our system clean (I've donated a couple of times now to try to help out) and BitDefender does a great job of keeping viruses in check. Once a week run all of the above and clean the system up. Then scandisk and defrag over night. By doing this our systems have stayed virus/cookie free and we do not have a lot of crashes (unless I'm programming something and step on memory or something like that).

For ages they never had a title ported to Linux.

When Vivendi bought Sierra they dictated Tribes 2 should be stopped being produced for Linux.
check out Tribes 2 "sold out" ref: Loki Games

The code is there - the binaries are there - the cost is zero -
they allowed Windows users to download a free Tribes 2 .. but won't allow even Linux users purchase one any more.

I say .. fucking die the lot of them.

I accept economical ones but those were not. .. These people deserve having their scrotum ripped off - and their bleeding balls up be forced up their nostrils.

MS-fearing Mega-corps will do anything to stop gaming coming to Linux and Mac.
Because when that happens - the Desktop war is over.

From LokiGames website: Loki is closed. Thanks for your patronage. Tried & failed already.

Why pay when Linux users use a free OS. Everybody expects their games to be free.

What game companies should do is like linux companies make money: release the game for free but charge for tech support. Of course, when someone figures how to do the MUST-HAVE exclusively on Linux then things will change... not likely.

I miss Loki

What about that few-year period when Loki made games for Linux, and nobody paid for them, so Loki went out of busines?

RPM is great for distro packages but it utterly sucks for 3rd party apps.

"install shield" for linux exists. here is where it has lived for years.

it works great, is nice and graphical and can deal with KDE,Gnome other desktops as well as a text console.

yet there it sits unused by programmers.

Civ: Call to Power has been ported to Linux by the now defunct Loki Games. It's quite easy to find copies of it online, however.

Their whole catalogue is also listed on their site, here.

--Jon

Civ: Call to Power has been ported to Linux by the now defunct Loki Games. It's quite easy to find copies of it online, however.

Their whole catalogue is also listed on their site, here.

--Jon

Anybody knows if theire is a market for linux games?

You bet! Loki is just raking in the cash!

Isn't trying to be compatible with MS what killed OS/2? If people can code for windows and run elsewhere, why code for unix/linux natively?

While it's never easy to guess what killed a particular company, one could argue that that has already killed Linux native gaming.. If you can play a Windows game by simply rebooting to Windows or emulating them, who will pay a premium price for a special Linux-only package? Who will take the risk of porting? Thus Linux users are unlikely to see in the direct future what MacOS users can have - dedicated game versions for their platform of choice. I think the whole "let's emulate Windows!" movement has obvious good points on the short term, but on the long term it's dangerous. Don't you want to have special Linux software section at your local CompUSA store?

The server used to be at ftp://ftp.lokigames.com/ and a Linux T2 newsgroup is at news://news.lokigames.com/loki.games.tribes2.