Slashdot Mirror
Transgaming Bringing Windows Games to Linux (?)
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.
Does NOONE do any research on slashdot anymore? Look here! *sigh* :-)
And I wonder why my articles keep getting rejected.
[--- PGP key and more on http://www.root42.de ---]
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.
Oh, come now. People deserve to be paid. If you don't want to pay $5 a month, you don't have to....If $5 a month is worth it to you to play DirectX games with WINE, then great, go for it!
People don't have some kind of obligation to give away their code open source. Many do, out of the goodness of their heart. These people are willing to do so, but they want some kind of compensation. I think this is a good thing....one big problem with OSS is that it is too reliant on volunteers and others who don't have a real stake in getting the job done. Thats why so many projects never get off the ground, never work, or never get finished.
Hopefully, with some kind of monetary compensation, it will provide more of an assurance that this project would be taken to completion (if such a thing truly exists in software). And it sounds like very useful software, so lets cross our fingers.
I know thinking that someone deserves money for their work is evil, so feel free to mod this down...
The real problem for these guys is that their planned revenue is by far to little. 20.000 * 5 only makes them $100.000 a month.
:(. Lets be optimistic again and say we will do with only 10 people for all this. Now we have a monthly cost of 4.000x2x30=240.000 USD.
This may sound much to a private person but there is just no way in hell that they are going to be able to developing something as huge and fastmoving as DX for only 100.000 a month. It's doomed to fail. They need a larger userbase than 20.000 or charge more than 5 dollars a month.
The problem for many dot-coms and open source companies is that the people starting and running them just don't understand what kind of money it takes to run even a small company.
In a typical small company without heavy marketing costs and such things the cost for a employee is abour twice his or her salary. Sickness, vacations, training, taxes etc etc makes this the typical number.
Lets be as optimistic as possible to try to give them a chance at all. Lets say they will be able to do this with only 20 developers (say 10 people developing new versions and 10 supporting the current one). Lets say each developer has a salary of only 4.000 dollars a month (very low developer salary in the US). This makes the monthly costs for the developers 4.000(salary)x2(typical employee cost)x20(number of developers). This makes a monthly cost of 160.000 USD. Our budget is already blown away.
Now, you will need some more people, some administrative people, a webadim, a secretary, some project leaders, some people writing documentation and yes, you will need law people
However, you have to be a magician to get good software developers anywhere in the US/Europe/Canada for only 4.000 a month. And pulling a project like this with only 20 developers would be a amazing archivement.
To be realistic I think they need atleast 400.000 USD a month to have a chance at all of succeding in the long run.
I really wish them the best but they will have a tough time pulling this off.