Posted by
michael
on from the chopping-off-heads dept.
nicku writes: "According to this email to retailers that was leaked, LokiGames is closing on January 31. I'm sad to see them go, I own 3 of their excellent ports..."
No more N64 controller...anyways, ya, sucks that Loki isn't doing well, but honestly, the Linux game market isn't nearly as profittable as the Windows one. Maybe it's because a lot of Linux users have a Win partition and rather than wait for 'Awesome Game X' to get ported, they buy the Win version...
-Henry
-- "Useless organic meatbag" -HK-47
opensourcing everything
by
antistuff
·
· Score: 5, Informative
It looks like a lot of people are saying that loki should make everything opensource. Rather than respond to each thread, ill just post the general response here. They cant. They dont actualy make games, they port them, and the orriginal maker still has the copyright for it. Loki isnt allowed to just release the source to it. Rather than release the source, I hope they sell all their games for like $10 or somthing in a going out of buissness thing. I only bought three of thier games and there are a couple more I would like.
Loki is _not_ dead because they entered a market that couldn't support them. Scott has mentioned several times that he had no intention of showing a profit for a few more years, at least. Loki's intention was to become the defacto standard for porting games to linux, and to capitalize on that ability in a year or two more down the road, when Linux sales _really_ started to generate revenue. At that point in time, they would have developed all the tools necessary to port games to Linux (like an installer, SDL, and so on), and have shown that they have the skill to do it quickly and professionally when they were handed the ball.
The problem for Loki came when all the venture capital dried up. It shouldn't for them, their plan was always sound, and based on profit in a year or two more. Their problems started when the market crashed, and with how quickly all the VC dried up.
Some very short sighted people pulled their money out of Loki, and they... well, they suck;) Don't invest in a five year plan, and then pull out 1/2 way through just because the market crashes.
Loki, a victim of circumstances, and a lack of investment fortitude. The sad part is that if Loki could have lasted until the summer, I'm sure that VC would have returned.:/
Re:SiN didn't work...
by
puetzk
·
· Score: 4, Informative
excuse me? I have beautiful accelerated 2d AND 3d on my Radeon 7500, using the opensource drivers included in XFree 4.2.
The opensource ATI drivers are IN XFree86! they do very much exist, and they rock it up (about 90 FPS in quake3 at 1024x768, the 'pretties' all on:-). Nothing groundbreaking, but at $99 OEM not shabby. The card even does dualhead (and I'm using that, so it's not wasted).
Plus, I have decent 2d performance, unlike my roomate GeForce3, which could get pasted to the wall by my old mach64 in 2d, much less anything current. The GeForce mad-fast in 3d, I admit; but that's all you get, and it is plenty unstable too:-(
Matrox has weak 3d cards (albiet spectacular 2d), but quit lying about the radeon support. It is right there, in the standard XFree86 and kernel codebases, without needing any extra parts. It could hardly get any simpler:-)
-- The Matrix is going down for reboot now! Stopping reality: OK. The system is halted.
Slashdot Mirror
No more N64 controller...anyways, ya, sucks that Loki isn't doing well, but honestly, the Linux game market isn't nearly as profittable as the Windows one. Maybe it's because a lot of Linux users have a Win partition and rather than wait for 'Awesome Game X' to get ported, they buy the Win version...
-Henry
"Useless organic meatbag" -HK-47
It looks like a lot of people are saying that loki should make everything opensource. Rather than respond to each thread, ill just post the general response here. They cant. They dont actualy make games, they port them, and the orriginal maker still has the copyright for it. Loki isnt allowed to just release the source to it. Rather than release the source, I hope they sell all their games for like $10 or somthing in a going out of buissness thing. I only bought three of thier games and there are a couple more I would like.
Mess Stuff Up
Loki is _not_ dead because they entered a market that couldn't support them. Scott has mentioned several times that he had no intention of showing a profit for a few more years, at least. Loki's intention was to become the defacto standard for porting games to linux, and to capitalize on that ability in a year or two more down the road, when Linux sales _really_ started to generate revenue. At that point in time, they would have developed all the tools necessary to port games to Linux (like an installer, SDL, and so on), and have shown that they have the skill to do it quickly and professionally when they were handed the ball.
... well, they suck ;) Don't invest in a five year plan, and then pull out 1/2 way through just because the market crashes.
:/
The problem for Loki came when all the venture capital dried up. It shouldn't for them, their plan was always sound, and based on profit in a year or two more. Their problems started when the market crashed, and with how quickly all the VC dried up.
Some very short sighted people pulled their money out of Loki, and they
Loki, a victim of circumstances, and a lack of investment fortitude. The sad part is that if Loki could have lasted until the summer, I'm sure that VC would have returned.
excuse me? I have beautiful accelerated 2d AND 3d on my Radeon 7500, using the opensource drivers included in XFree 4.2.
:-). Nothing groundbreaking, but at $99 OEM not shabby. The card even does dualhead (and I'm using that, so it's not wasted).
:-(
:-)
The opensource ATI drivers are IN XFree86! they do very much exist, and they rock it up (about 90 FPS in quake3 at 1024x768, the 'pretties' all on
Plus, I have decent 2d performance, unlike my roomate GeForce3, which could get pasted to the wall by my old mach64 in 2d, much less anything current. The GeForce mad-fast in 3d, I admit; but that's all you get, and it is plenty unstable too
Matrox has weak 3d cards (albiet spectacular 2d), but quit lying about the radeon support. It is right there, in the standard XFree86 and kernel codebases, without needing any extra parts. It could hardly get any simpler
The Matrix is going down for reboot now! Stopping reality: OK. The system is halted.