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Transgaming Bringing Windows Games to Linux (?)

Posted by CmdrTaco on from the i'll-believe-it-when-I-see-it dept.

An anonymous reader wrote in to point us to transgaming which is trying to get the DirectX APIs on Linux, and make it possible to run DirectX games on our OS. What is perhaps more interest is their perspective on how to get paid for their work. Not sure how I feel about this whole thing.

2 of 288 comments (clear)

  1. Subscription Policy by toral · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Their subscription policy sounds like it has been developed with some thought, but I see some potential problems.

    First, I would be bothered investing in TransGaming's product knowing that my return could possibly dry up due to other people pulling out.

    Steven King tried this method a while back with a mixed result. Sure, he made a bit of money selling it directly to his readers, but the forced honor system he set up didn't end up working. Luckily for his fans, King continued to release the other chapters.

    What we have seen thusfar in street performer protocols is that they really don't help the little guy. King could afford to conduct his experiment -- he has some money to burn, and a rather loyal following.

    Second, with a 'nobody' like TransGaming, their product has to carry all the weight. It would have to work incredibly well - be fast, stable, and versitile - before I could see them getting any subscription. This is going to be incredibly hard when a 100% perfect product already exists to do this: Windows.

    Most linux users I know still dual boot to play games. This doesn't really bother them, and it shouldn't; you use the right tool for the job.

    I agree it would be nifty to be able to play DirectX games in Linux, but from their website it sounds like this is another rolling emulation system and it will probably have to go through some serious updating before a new game works under it. It sounds like to get a new game working, the subscribers first need to vote on it, then help test it by sending in bug reports.
    This is a lot of work for a game that out of the box will run fine in windows. I miss the appeal.

    I don't like being cynical about these types of things. Someday someone will break the system and find a good way to make money off of open source. For this reason I don't blame these guys for trying. I just think that in their case, it is going to be rather hard to achieve the quality of software that subscribers would feel entitled to when they could just boot Windows instead.

  2. Re:Their "open source philosophy" by BenHmm · · Score: 4, Interesting

    It's actually just a formalised version of the same philosophy that most open-source projects go by.

    It could be also rewritten as
    "Although we like coding for the sake of it as much as the next guy, we do have better things to do than do something that has no support at all. If, after all our hard work, no one gives us anything back we're going to do something else more appreciated. Now, some people like appreciation in the form of praise, we prefer cash."


    It is really human nature, and is entirely fair enough. I hope it works too: the community does need a half way point between doing open source for the fun of it, and writing closed source for money.