Loki Porting Alpha Centauri, Sim City 3k and More

kato writes "Loki has just announced that it will be porting the following games to linux: Alpha Centauri, SimCity 3000, Soldier of Fortune, Interstate '82, and Heavy Gear II. Pre-ordering should begin soon at the standard places: Loki, Handeye, etc. No word on exactly when they'll be released, though. "

Comments

The future of games under Linux

[mauddib~]

My oppinion on games under Linux is very simple.
Linux still needs some improvement to make it just as good for games as Windows or DOS.
Compare Windows/DOS with Linux
Windows/DOS :
Single user: no security problems, so coders have much more freedom in accessing hardware
Good libraries: I can tell you many bad things about Windows, but DirectX is a good library
Good hardware support: nuff' said
Linux (or any other unice)
Multi user: coders have less freedom because of kernel design which prohibits direct access to the hardware unless run as suid root.
Libraries: I've got to admit: mesa is getting better and better. It wouldn't be bad if we had mesa as standard for every game developed under Linux
Hardware support: Get's better and better (look at nvidea's fast driver support for it's latest card)

Looking at the differences: Linux is not far from it's goal as gaming platform. But do we really _need_ those games? I don't know for sure, but for as far as I know, most gamers still use Windows as their main platform, and I think they don't really see the need for changing to another os.

From a game maker company

[D3]

Out of respect for not posting the name and info from a private e-mail I will not list the company or personal name of where I got this information. In the process of e-mailing the V.P. of engineering for a well known game company (on a topic other than games) I asked him about his take on Linux support/development. Note, this was not anyone associated with Id Software as might be implied below.

"Glad to hear you have enjoyed some of our games. I think Linux has a
chance...but it will be slow going until sales and profits convince
publishers that it's a wise investment to do Linux versions. Currently what
happens, is a Linux porting group will offer to do a port of a Windows game.
The porting group gets a decent royalty for Linux sales and the original
developer and/or publisher don't have to pay for the port...so for them,
it's basically risk-free. (note that this doesn't apply to Id Software
since they mainly support everything for the fun of it (their words, not
mine) because they can). :)"

So everybody support Loki as best as we can and the game makers will respond by making games on Linux.