Loki And BSDi Team Up For BSD Games

I just got word from the fine folks at LokiSoft announcing that they are partnering with BSDi to produce games for BSD. Very cool -- my hat is off to all involved. Here's the press release.

Loki and BSDI Partner for FreeBSD Games
Loki to Certify Games for Use with Linux Compatibility Features

San Jose, California -- August 15, 2000 -- Loki Software, Inc., the leading publisher of best-selling games for the Linux operating system, today announces a strategic alliance with Berkeley Software Design, Inc. (BSDI), the foremost supporter of the FreeBSD Project.

Loki introduced fully-supported, shrink-wrapped commercial games to the Linux community in 1999. While Loki has released Alpha and PPC versions of their games whenever technically feasible, FreeBSD users had been left to their own devices to make the games function on their open-source operating system of choice.

Through this new partnership, Loki and BSDI will work together to ensure Loki's gaming titles are compatible with FreeBSD using the Linux-compatibility features. Certified games on this configuration will be fully-supported by Loki.

"Many people do not take games seriously, and this is a mistake," said Jordan Hubbard, Vice President, Open Source Solutions. "Availability of Loki's industry leading line up of Linux games is a huge win for us, as we realize full well that games drive a large part of the overall acceptance of any operating system, even a serious operating system like BSD."

"We are excited to be announcing our official support of FreeBSD's Linux compatibility libraries," said Scott Draeker, president of Loki Software. "FreeBSD users have been enjoying their Open Source operating system for years, and many of them have been playing our games."

Loki is now preparing several A-one titles for certification, including the highly-anticipated SimCity 3000 Unlimited and Sid Meier's Alpha Centauri with the Alien Crossfire expansion pack. Other popular programs to be certified soon include Quake III Arena, Soldier of Fortune, and Descent3.

Specially-marked certified games will be available from The FreeBSD Mall in addition to Loki's Web site store.

Comments

How about 3d support, though?

[Masker]

Now, with games like Quake III Arena being produced for Linux, we have pretty decent 3d acceleration support from 3dfx and (shudder) nVidia. But what about the *BSDs? I don't think that I've seen anyone (including utah-glx, which is what I use) claim to support *BSD. I wonder who will step forward first to add 3d acceleration support (I'm imagining that the hardware vendors will have to at least help out a bit...).

Anyone know (or care to guess)?

Daemon?

[Signal 11]

Call me cynical, but why is it that the first game they ported has pictures of daemons chasing linus torvalds and his evil team of ninja penguins?

I have to admit, however, the "Code Dungeon" looks kinda cool... fight flaming perl zealots and FUD-wielding slashdotters. Can't wait for the playable demo!