Maxis Developer on Linux Game Porting

friedmud wrote in to tell us about a comment from a Maxis developer, Don Hopkins, who did a partial linux port of "The Sims". You can find his post here (3rd one down, comment from Don Hopkins titled "Reality check from a game developer") in a LinuxGames.com forum. I don't know if I agree with his assertion that Wine is the best way to have games happen on Linux but his comments on the economics of Linux games development and especially the costs of keeping versions concurrent on multiple platforms are insightful.

Comments

I just don't get it...

[Xerithane]

... we have SDL. we have OpenGL. I fail to understand the logic that game companies harbor to not write cross-platform games. I've done some development with SDL and it's a really good toolkit. Sure, it needs some more work but everything does. OpenGL is awesome, and it's not controlled by one proprietary source.
Taking some extra time to port to linux and ship it on the same CD as the windows version doesn't seem like a bad idea. His talks about Wine are fine and all, and I can understand that.. but I really dislike his dismissal of whether or not it is native. AFAIK Wine still requires Windows. That is bullshit. I want a game to run on Linux. Linux. Not windows, not wine. Wine is Not an Emulator, Right?
It doesn't seem to take much to build a game using existing cross-platforms toolkits that rival Direct3d. OpenAL seems to be the largest gap to bridge.. but, this is a pointless rant so I'll end it.