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Gamespy on Linux Gaming
Grond writes "Gamespy has an editorial about the future of Linux gaming. A few interesting solutions to the sales problem are discussed." This is a topic that seems to come up about every month or two. I think there are a lot of people that would leave Windows behind entirely if a few more games were released in non-Windows versions. But as long as you have Windows, the game manufacturers know that they need not put the extra effort into releasing a non-Windows version. See "Chicken and Egg".
The problem is that most game manufacturers choose to program in the platform dependent DirectX instead of the platform independent OpenGL. DirectX is a classic example of Microsoft's "embrace and extend" philosophy in that it is less flexible than OpenGL but integrates well, and is easier to code, for the Windows platform.
Game developers wonder why they should deal with a more difficult API (even though there are some nifty effects that can be obtained--see Quake), when there is only a limited market for games on the Linux platform. Since most people who run Linux are already demonstrating your willingness to dual-boot w/Windows for games, porting games to Linux will not sell many more copies. There is simply no compelling economic reason to port.
Lenny
ByteMyCode.com: A Web 2.0 code sharing community.
is that it's designed with a very specific purpose in mind. To provide a framework to do 'proper' polygonal rendering.
Direct3D on the other hand, is a thin layer over 3D hardware. Microsoft, as usual, is very pragmatic. If some video-card company comes out with a crazy feature like an 8 Dimentional Voxel based chip(or more realisitically a ParticleEngine(tm) chip), it'll get incorporated into D3D, and Microsoft will write a software version for cards that don't. It doesn't matter that the technology will be dead in six months.
OpenGL, on the other hand, has been criticized because they're slow to add extentions. But the OpenGL additude is that it does basically everything it's supposed to anyway. Some crazy 8D Voxels or particle engines have nothing to do with Polygon rendering. True or not, it prevents you from using all the cool new tricks on those $400 dollar videocards.
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Jonathan Swift
Well as for promoting Linux, we're trying.
I'm a member of the Linux Users of Victoria (here in Australia) and our Games Sig does all it can to help people run games on their Linux platform. From helping people simply install Linux, helping with driver issues and configuration, general information about games and hardware, and of course, fragging each other silly in LANs.
As it is, we're running a LAN soon called Blast Radius 3 that is catering specifically to gaming under Linux. We're allowing Windows and Mac users as well, but the idea is to showcase Linux as a Gamers Platform, and give them a taste of all the things we can do under Linux.
So do your part, Linux gamers. Organise a special interest group specifically for Games at your User Group. Start organising Tech Nights to help people get their systems up and running, informal and then formal LANs, and help other people catch the fever that is Linux Gaming.
Basically, those games that are written to use OpenGL have rather easy development paths to operating systems other than Windows.
By binding Direct3D so tightly to the Win32 API, they make porting the appliation to a non-Windows API much more difficult.
And the same goes with Macintosh computers - Apple doesn't have its own proprietary graphics API; they use OpenGL. And, just about any game you see in OpenGL appears on a Mac in no time at all. Loki can port the same app to Linux without much trouble either.
For cross-platform game development, we have to start seeing more use of OpenGL, rather than D3D.
-- Sometimes you have to turn the lights off in order to see.
I dont see Linux becoming a threat to Windows on the desktop at all. With DirectX 8.0 coming out and Nvidia's new Geforce3 about to hit the market, it would only get all the more better with the new Vertex Shading capabilities and such. I am not downplaying the fact that OpenGL would very well pick up, and with ID touting OpenGL as the only API they would ever code against (although I would only take this with a pinch of salt), its sure to get interesting.
Linux could however be used for multiplayer games for them to run on a rock solid, stable and scalable server. I just dont see it making a niche for itself on the desktop market.
Rapid Nirvana
I mean, how many people didn't think twice about getting a PlayStation or N64 just to play games? Did you think that getting one was betraying Linux in some way?
I'm no MS supporter, but XBox is going to change almost everything in less than a year. The game market for the Mac and Linux is going to dry up, because you can target Win32 and get XBox as well. That's going to be hard to resist, esp. if the XBox is as cheap as everyone expects.
-jon
Remember Amalek.
I mean, if even Quake3 doesn't sell for crap on linux, how can you blame companies for not making the plunge?
Tribes 2 is the next major title coming up, it's one of the biggest games coming down the pike, and they are going to have a near simultaneous Linux release.
Personally, I'd love to see it do extremely well, but I have a feeling, as others probably share, that Linux users don't buy games for linux, and Tribes2 is going to fail on Linux, and leave future developers with little chance of making that jump.
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