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..."
humm, this blows
by
MaxQuordlepleen
·
· Score: 3, Insightful
I'm sure it will be said a dozen times again in this thread, but I'm bummed.
I've got five Loki products cramming my hard drive, and even though their products were sometimes indifferently supported and somewhat uneven in quality, I'm really sorry to seem them go as I'll have no reliable source for new products.
I'd imagine the contracts to support UT and QIII were pretty huge for them, it was a bad sign when they went away...
Re:humm, this blows
by
garcia
·
· Score: 3, Insightful
Sorry but the games that they ported were already out for a long ass time, didn't really catch my eye, and I really didn't see a need for them.
As far as the comment in another post about how people wanted the Linux binaries for free: I don't think that users should have demanded it but I also don't believe that they were entirely wrong for asking. I don't want to pay $whatever for an old game and I certainly don't want to pay twice for a game I already own.
I am VERY sad to see a company that worked so hard at doing something that was ignored by the community but I don't see how they could have thought that they would turn a profit anyway.
Linux users are so used to receiving games for free (and other apps) I guess they just believe that all apps should be free (this is IMHO as I pretty much refuse to pay for any software).
Sorry Loki, you had a great idea, it was just too slow and too early.
Re:humm, this blows
by
dougmc
·
· Score: 3, Insightful
Sorry but the games that they ported were already out for a long ass time, didn't really catch my eye, and I really didn't see a need for them.
And that's why Loki failed. They ported old games.
By the time a Linux port is available, the Windows version has gone up and down the charts. The people who really wanted that game already bought it, finished it, and have moved on to the next game.
Now, if Loki could get Linux ports out the same day as the Windows version was released, things would be different...
Linux users are so used to receiving games for free (and other apps) I guess they just believe that all apps should be free (this is IMHO as I pretty much refuse to pay for any software).
That might be a small part, but it's a very small part. You can find lots of good free Windows software too if you just look.
Here's the real clincher -- as a Linux user, why would I pay $50 for a Linux version of Quake 3 when 1) the Windows version of Quake 3 is in the bargain bin for $10, and 2) I bought Quake many months ago (for Windows) when it first came out. And I only paid $30 for that!
What's the big deal...
by
Mapultoid
·
· Score: 2, Insightful
... with running a dual-boot system? I understand the desire to get Linux on every desktop that some people have, but it seems to me that Linux ahs strengths and weaknesses. Frivolous wasting of time, such as videogaming (ignoring/., of course) is not it's strong suit. Windows is great if you want waste your time. Why not let Linux do what it does best, be productive, and get better at those things, and let Windows be the big time waster? Is it really so difficult for a person who really wants to play games to get a copy of Windows and slap it on their machine for playing games? Let Linux do what it does best and don't waste money on projects that in the end may not help the system continue to build its reputation.
--
Ben Garrison, a mindless idiot who will be the first against the wall when the revolution comes.
Re:What's the big deal...
by
Sloppy
·
· Score: 2, Insightful
There are several reasons for not wanting to do that. Some are lame, and some aren't.
The most obvious one, I think, is that rebooting is a pain in the ass and counter-productive. Just a couple of hours ago, I was playing the "download a tarball, configure, find out I'm missing a library, go find it, download, repeat" game. While waiting for libxml2 to download, I fired up Heavy Gear 2 and spent a few minutes LAACing and VHACing some enemy gears. Reboot? Uh, I'm downloading. I don't want to reboot when my computer is in the middle of something, that's just silly.
Another thing.. I don't have Windows. Yeah, I guess I could trivially pirate a copy from work if I wanted to, so that's not a big deal. But it's something. I'de probably have to juggle partitions too, just to get it to boot. I also remember how hostile I've seen Windows act when you try to install it on a machine that already has other OSes on it. Adios, boot sector and boot manager. That's a lot of hassle to go through just to play games, compared to how easy it has been to enter my credit card number on a web form.
I don't trust Windows. If I were to install it on a machine, it would have write access to the hard disk and access to my network inside the firewall. That's just reckless.
The final reason: Windows is disgusting. I hate the sight of it and I don't want it anywhere near me and I'm sure not going to let it into my house. Bitterness and anger aren't what I want to feel while I'm trying to relax. When I'm at home, I want things to be pleasant. Windows has too much baggage -- emotional, aesthetic, and idealogical -- for that ever to be possible.
-- As copyright owner of this comment, I authorize everyone to defeat any technological measure which limits access to it.
Loki made some excellent ports, including ports of games that were originally written with Direct X in mind. I was very pleased to be able to buy a Linux
version of Quake 3 Arena from them.
IN the case of Q3A, all Loki handled was distribution. Id did the Linux port themselves.
Re:Color me shocked....
by
Bremen24601
·
· Score: 5, Insightful
No, the problem is not that we won't pay, the problem is that most people still have a win9x partition to play games on and we don't want to wait a few months for a linux version.
Also despite great strides in the desktop area I still think of my linux boxen as development platforms or servers, I don't play games on them, I program and do real work. Putting mere games on them would be demeaning to them!
-- Blessed are the young, for they shall inherit the national debt. --Herbert Hoover
Damn, I bought a second copy of Descent3 because I wanted the Linux version! I still want my Deus Ex!!! NO!!!! I owned all the games I was willing to buy, and _REGISTERED_ each one! I don't want to see them go!
Yeah...I was going to buy SC3K Unlimited and maybe Civ...:(
However, this isn't the end of the linux gaming world. When Linux has more desktop market share among the masses (note when, not if), someone else will come along and be the next Loki. Maybe even some of the same folks! Wouldn't that be cool?
Don't despair.
At Hyperion, an alternative platform game software porting company I work for, we've produced titles for Linux as well as MacOS and AmigaOS. The Linux versions simply bombed, with the Amiga versions outselling them by a good margin. The *AMIGA* versions! The Amiga market, by a good estimate, is around 100 times smaller than the Linux community.
What we got from Linux users were not sales, but tons of email demanding that we put up the binary executeables on an ftp site for free so they could download them and use them with their Windows version of the game. For some reason they just couldn't grasp that it cost us money to both license and port the software, and that we didn't see a red cent for the Windows version they bought. It didn't matter, all they wanted was free beer.
As a Linux enthusiast myself (active in my LUG, promoting Linux wherever I can) it really saddens me that so many users will clamor for Linux games but won't actually pony up the money when they become available. It's very, very depressing.
::goes to cry in his non-free beer::
James Sellman -- Hyperion Entertainment -- http://www.hyperion-entertainment.com/
Re:I'm not really surprised
by
captaineo
·
· Score: 5, Insightful
Hi James,
What we got from Linux users were not sales, but tons of email demanding that we put up the binary executeables on an ftp site for free so they could download them and use them with their Windows version of the game.
Maybe this is a clue towards a better marketing angle for your services? Linux customers are in this strange situation where the majority of them also run (and buy games for) Windows. So naturally they see a Linux binary as an incremental "nice-to-have" add-on, whereas they won't look twice at a standalone full-price Linux product.
Have you considered giving these people exactly what they ask (for a small fee of course)? I mean, don't produce or ship a full boxed product, just sell downloadable Linux binaries for say 20% the purchase price of the full game (and maybe charge a bit extra for optional tech support hand-holding). This way you get less revenue per sale, but you might make a lot more sales. Of course the economics of this business model might not work out; I just hope it's something you've considered.
Re:I'm not really surprised
by
Some+Dumbass...
·
· Score: 5, Insightful
What we got from Linux users were not sales, but tons of email demanding that we put up the binary executeables on an ftp site for free so they could download them and use them with their Windows version of the game.
This goes back to the dual-booting problem. Linux and Windows both run on x86 hardware, while MacOS and AmigaOS do not (I assume most gamers are using x86 CPUs, not SPARCs:). Thus dual-booting to play games is an option for the Linux crowd only. Then there's Wine and (especially!) WineX, the latter being x86-Linux-only right now. My point being, most Linux users have the option to run Windows games somehow, awkward and unpleasant though it may be.
Meanwhile, Linux gamers had to wait an awfully long time for most games to come out after the Windows version was released. When they did, they cost twice as much as the Windows game because the Linux game was "new". If they already bought the Windows (or Mac) version, tough, they get to pay again. Given all this, I'm not surprised that the Linux game market didn't work out. There were some pretty strange economic models involved. Linux gamers have options that users of other OSes don't have. Yet they were being asked to put up with long delays and higher prices just so that they could have The Linux Version of a game. Of course it didn't work. If Linux users had no options, maybe they'd put up with this stuff. But alas, we do, and thus we tend to demand our games more-or-less on time and more-or-less reasonably priced. If they're not, we buy the Windows version. (In general... I personally own 6 Loki games, plus UT bought from TuxGames).
So now, let's look at those complaints from the perspective of someone who can dual-boot or use WineX. You got complaints from people who already had the Windows version. That is, they already paid for the game once. (I assume they could pirate the Linux version just as easily as the Windows one, so let's assume they have legit copies) There's a good chance they could get that game running on dual-booted Windows, or barring that, Wine/WineX. Isn't it obvious why they don't want to have to buy the game again? "Free beer"? Not from their point of view! They figure that they paid once already, so why pay again ("I'll just dual-boot instead until I can get WineX working...")? Obviously, this doesn't work for Hyperion:) But you see my point, right? The Linux market just wasn't going to work as well as other non-Windows markets, because we tend to have access to Windows. Yes, this may be terrible for Linux; but as far as the mob is concerned, second-class treatment just won't cut it.
I do want to thank you and Hyperion for porting some commercial games to Linux. Thanks for helping us out, especially given that it didn't work out financially for you. (Hindsight is 20-20 and all...) Good luck with the MacOS and AmigaOS markets.
Death of Gaming on Linux
by
indaba
·
· Score: 1, Insightful
Well, that's it guys, you've just read the obituary of commercial gaming on linux.
Go and buy a X-Box, PS2 or N-Cube, 'cos that's the only place that the majors will pour dev money into in the future, esp as these games get more and more complex, ie approaching Hollywood $$ levels of investment to deliver.
Why ? It wouldn't surprise me if M$oft stop developing DirectX etc on the Windoze PC platform and only dev/push it on the X-Box in order to drive sales towards the X-Box.
From the end user POV, with gaming on PC's - why should I spend 2x or 3x as much for a souped up games PC that can play modern games.
I did that analysis , then went out and bought a PS2 with GT3 - works for me:- )
The worst part of this is that trying to be a Linux gamer will be alot harder, since there's almost nothing coming down the pipeline anymore. I really don't want to use Wine or WineX if I can avoid it. In my experience, Loki's ports have been superior to, if not equal to, the Win32 port's quality.
Maybe I will just because a bitter ex-gamer, and only play Doom 3 (which will by then, probably be the only newish commercial Linux game). Serious Sam will be nice too, but by the time its done, it probably won't be big in the lanning scene, which is where I do most of my gaming.
Delay between Windows and Linux port did them in?
by
Masem
·
· Score: 5, Insightful
Most of Loki's port came out 6 to 12 months after the Windows version was released. Now, maybe 5-6 years ago, this would be reasonable, but in today's age, the average lifecycle for a game with a multiplayer element is at most 3 months, with only a few notable exceptions (Half-Life Counterstrike, for example). After that initial 3 months, while people will still be playing these games, there's definitely a lack of servers for that game. While single-player elements can be used 'indefinitely', the lack of a usable multiplayer element when the port is released is a bad selling point.
Understandably, Loki's method couldn't allow them to start the port much earlier, as it seems they waited until a 'popular' game emerged from new releases. The same thing appears to be happening with the Mac market, but maybe not as apparent as a Mac owner doesn't have the same dual-booting option that many Linux users have. A better method, as demonstrated by id, is to work on the port at the same time, either in house or with outside help, such that the binaries for all systems of interest can be released near-simulateously.
--
"Pinky, you've left the lens cap of your mind on again." - P&TB
"I can see my house from here!" - ST:
Re:No reason?
by
NineNine
·
· Score: 2, Insightful
Well, since you're new to "business", the reason a company usually stops selling a product is because they're not making any profit on that product.
How this impacts *my* company
by
b.foster
·
· Score: 5, Insightful
I work for a small, moderately successful custom software company. We've got 95 employees and serve mostly medium size businesses in the U.S. that need us to engineer supply chain and inventory management software.
You may wonder why a bombshell in the Linux games market impacts us. Well, I did as well, until I started hanging out with my boss and understanding the way the marketing department works. And now I know that Loki's death is yet another nail in the coffin of the concept of ever using Linux on a client site again.
The problem here stems from the fact that customers purchase buzzwords from us, not solutions. Our software is simple - it can be implemeted in FORTRAN and run on VMS, for all we care. In the late 1990s, we began a massive shift from NT to Linux because, well, our clients asked us for a massive shift from NT to Linux. They didn't care that it was free (they still paid us for our "official" copy of Redhat which we made with our CD copies). They wanted it because it was fashionable. And that is why the tide has turned on us Linux fans now. Linux is out; it is not a hot topic anymore. Companies are asking for what they believe to be the "tried and true" solutions, and most of those come from Redmond and from Big Blue (and we aren't talking OS/2 here). If we stuck to our guns and sold Linux products, we would lose a lot of business and wind up in va's situation - barely alive. It's sad but that's the way it is. I want nothing to do with Windows but if I don't learn it, I will inevitably cost my company money and lose my job as a result.
What can we do to turn the tide in our favor again? Learn to write. Offer to write a computer advice column in your local/school newspaper and encourage users to pursue Free solutions. When somebody writes in with an Outlook problem, steer them toward Pine or Mutt. Take the time to teach people how to use Linux - if you let them sink or swim, they will take the path of least resistance and make billg richer. Nobody said it would be easy, but the only way our grass roots movement can succeed is by pursuading users to switch, one at a time.
Bill
I had hope for Loki Games..
by
X-Dopple
·
· Score: 3, Insightful
..but after spending hours trying to get Quake 3 Arena and Unreal Tournament to work, I had little hope for their future. I checked their support newsgroups some time back; Unreal Tournament support was active with about 4000 posts. Let me detail my experiences with Unreal Tournament:
- Downloaded and installed it with Windows CD.
-./UnrealTournament. Takes an eternity to load, but I blame that on my slow hard drive and K6/2 500.
- Crashes: Cannot find Glide drivers, even though Glide v3 was installed (Voodoo Banshee, by the way), and libglide.so was sitting plainly in one of the main/lib directories, I forget which.
- To cut a long story short, I was sent on a wild goose chase, trying hack after hack after hack (DRI, Utah-GLX, recompile OpenGL^HMesa, recompile kernel) until I finally decided that I will never try one of Loki's games again unless they can successfully make Unreal Tournament work on a Banshee. Mandrake 7.2, BTW.
Asking on IRC was futile, as my problem was unique.
This experience isn't new for me. LinuxGames.com's instructions on emulating UltraHLE in WINE must involve some sort of magic, as I have never been able to get that working. Quake 3 Arena's demo segfaulted on startup.
Sorry to see you go, Loki.
Re:I had hope for Loki Games..
by
Lemmy+Caution
·
· Score: 3, Insightful
This entire conversation - or rather, the reality that it represents - is one of the reason why linux gaming is so handicapped. SDL, Glide2, Glide3, Mesa, DRI, DRM, nvidia drivers, ggi - the web of interdependcies, conflicts, workarounds, kernel patching, and other nonsense you have to go through to get games (and only games - Linux is substantially easier to work with in just about every other domain) working is enough to drive one bald.
I am going to bookmark this post.
by
schwap
·
· Score: 2, Insightful
When someone asks me why there are no linux games (my little brother does), I can refer to this. I hear a lot of people complain that software costs too much or that they didnt get this thing or that thing for free. I sometimes wonder if these people can balance their checkbooks.
Re:This is what happens....
by
AHumbleOpinion
·
· Score: 2, Insightful
...when you try to sell games to cheap-ass Linux users
No, the real problem is that the vast majority of Linux gamers are already customers of the Windows developer/publisher. I.e. they dual boot or use wine.
The perceived Linux game market and the actual Linux game market differ by multiple orders of magnitude. The actual market consists only of those people who will not buy the Windows version of the game or who will buy a second copy to support their preferred platform. There is no large block of new sales waiting to be tapped.
And a hearty round of thanks to all the Warez dudes out there. Remember, piracy is a purely victimless crime; anyone actually put out of work when a product doesn't sell is obviously making stuff up, we all know programmers drive Ferarris and do lots of coke.
*sigh*.
-- My blog: http://www.seebs.net/log/ --- My iPhone/iPad app: http://www.seebs.net/seebsfrac/
Re:Way to go!
by
Anonymous Coward
·
· Score: 1, Insightful
For warez to have done damage to them, lots of people would have had to have been doing it.
Even pirates are smart enough to know you don't play games on Linux.
Linux Ports != Linux Games
by
xtal
·
· Score: 5, Insightful
What I saw of the 'linux gaming' movement, I wasn't too pleased with.. the idea was noble, but in reality, a) computers are cheap, so I have another machine to play games on besides my linux workstation and b) the ports were either a pain in the ass to get running, or my 3D card was a pain in the ass to get running, or xxx yyy was a PITA to get running. Sorry, no sale. It would have been nice to see a killer title emerge on the linux platform - but Tux Racer just isn't going to cut it *grin*. I think that's what linux gaming was going to need to get off the ground. Games rely too heavily on things that are very platform specific - e.g. controllers and game APIs, and 3D accelleration. Linux loses.
I'm not sure this is all Loki's fault though. Has anyone else here been introducted to OS X recently? I got a Ti Powerbook because I needed a machine that would work for 4 hours on a battery charge. No big deal on the OS, as long as it runs vim (and it does, through XDarwin, natively). OS X is flawlessly integrated. It reminds me of what my amiga was back in the day - a great platform, where everything worked. No, it isn't completely open source. But, "It works".
My beef: Aqua and OS X is what Redhat SHOULD have done when they released linux. Take the open source start, hire a team of developers to make everything work flawlessly and consistantly. Glue it together with GREAT developer tools and documentation. Make new hardware work without three kernel recompiles and a prayer to ye gods. Get solid APIs people can build applications from on a bulletproof kernel. Redhat missed out, and I think the failure of gaming to catch on is a symptom of this bigger problem.
There's sure a lot of successful games for OS X. Even native ones.
-- ..don't panic
Re:Linux Ports != Linux Games
by
Anonymous Coward
·
· Score: 1, Insightful
Redhat should have played the role of Apple or Microsoft for the linux world
You don't get it. There is not a vast market out there that is unhappy with Windows as a desktop platform.
On the other hand, there is a large market of people that want to replace proprietary UNIX hardware with a commodity solution. This is the market that RedHat focuses on, and ignoring the slashbots and sticking to servers and engineering/development workstations is one big reason that RedHat is profitable and Loki is out of business.
Re:Linux Ports != Linux Games
by
Dr_Claw
·
· Score: 2, Insightful
I agree with most of your points, and what I've seen of OS X looks as fantastic as you say. I could do with a portable computer (mainly as something that takes up very little space in my bedroom) - I sold my old laptop earlier last year - but sadly I can't justify the cost right now. If I could, I'd buy one of Apple's offerings.
Where I disagree though, is that RedHat should do what you suggest. Whilst they are definitely the company in the best position to do so, it's not currently worth their while. IMO some of the other distros make better choices for people coming from windows who want nice looking graphical desktops which are easy to configure their system from. RedHat is keeping up, but it's not advancing on that. The reason for this is because RedHat needs to be profitable, and sales to desktop users aren't currently going to make that happen. Their profit comes from being good for business who will buy their support and advanced packages (remember RedHat doesn't just produce a Linux distribution). Whilst that's the case, they will continue to focus on providing what their paying customers (other companies) need.
Having said that, I would like to see what you suggest happen, and I think it would be a good thing. I just don't think RedHat are going to do it anytime soon. As the Linux desktop market becomes more viable then perhaps we'll see a shift towards this behaviour. I could see closer relationships with more hardware vendors being a logical start (rather than making desktops nicer).
Re:No!
by
Anonymous Coward
·
· Score: 1, Insightful
You can say many things about the "VC people", but it's rather silly to call them "short sighted". "...how quickly the VC dried up"? "...a lack of investment fortitude"? Give me a break. The NASDAQ hemorrhaged about 4 trillion dollars over the course of a year or so, most of it wasted on companies that never produced anything the slightest bit economically useful for society, and only then did the VC's finally get the good sense to pull their feet out of the fire.
I've read most the post
by
I_redwolf
·
· Score: 5, Insightful
... On this thread regarding "Why don't you just dual boot". I've got 4 loki games I bought from loki simply because I don't use windows. I don't want to support Microsoft (a company found to be a monopoly which abuses its power mind you). In their quest to basically control what I do with my computer, control what I do online, and control what I do with my career because I like computers. Not only that but I don't care how many games there are for windows if it means I have to pay for a windows license I will not do it. I'm very pleased companies like ID are making ports available and so I support them, I supported Loki.. and I will continue to support any company who will please me with such pleasures as games for Linux. I never used to buy ID games, ever.. I used to just get a copy from a friend but now that they port to Linux I've bought their quake2 set, quake3 and rtcw and will continue to buy from them because they make good games and are now porting to my platform.
I wish this new slashdot crowd would stop being so goddamn "wishy-washy" and make a decision or stay with windows because most of your posts are absolute dribble; "Stand for something, or fall for anything" is what they say. Most of you just fall for anything.
Re:It was gonna happen eventually
by
yobbo
·
· Score: 3, Insightful
Yes, but the fact that you could go to your local video game store and find linux games there is a start at least...
Re:SiN didn't work...
by
dieman
·
· Score: 2, Insightful
Once I talked to Nick Triantos in passing at LWCE 2000 he was *very* interested in knowing about bugs in the driver and/or in the opengl implementation. I really doubt that you were either talking to the right people or you were asking the wrong questions. Trying to force a company to 'opensource' a driver isn't going to get you any help.
it's still a little beyond me why Loki was able to bring some games to Linux but not Mac OS X
(1) Competition. Loki would face several more experienced Mac porting houses that have well established track records, excellent contacts and history with the developers/publishers who have an interest in Mac titles.
(2) Experience. IIRC Loki has some former Apple people but this does not necessarily mean they had the experience necessary to port games to the Mac. This manifests in two ways. First, programming knowledge for the platform, Linux is very different from MacOS X (more later). Second, a jealously guarded library that developed over time. A typical Windows to Mac library and tools set (even more later) takes a lot of time, consider it overhead. It only becomes a great asset when you get to the point that it can be largely used as is for a new porting contract. An established porting company can perform a port more quickly and for less money than a new company in part because such libraries and tools are already paid for.
Linux is different: MacOS X may have it's roots in NextStep and FreeBSD but that does not mean that MacOS X programs are Unix apps. The vast majority of MacOS X apps and games are usually using Apple's Carbon API, this lets them either target MacOS 9 and X or reuse much of their existing code (recall libraries and tools mentioned above).
Libraries/Tools: Many developers have no interest in targeting anything except Windows and they code accordingly. Their involvement in ports may only be that they cash the check from whoever is buying a license for MacOS/Linux/etc. A porting house has two options. #ifdef all the Windows specific code or write some code that translates/emulates the Windows calls/data. The latter case is advantageous if you expect to be in the business for a while.
You know, Microsoft really isn't above sponsoring this kind of behavior
Can't we just acknowledge that some problem might possibly exist in the Linux community, and attempt to fix it? Do we really need to invent a Microsoft conspiracy to make ourselves feel better about Loki closing?? You honestly believe that out of however many Linux users there are in the world, that there aren't at least a few obnoxious ones out there that would demand making a binary freely available? Besides, at first glance, it seems natural: "I already paid for this game, why should I have to pay for it again?" At least until one actually sits down and thinks about the economic and business factors involved (see other posts in this thread). Loki could have changed that model, by showing game manufacturers that Linux is an economically viable gaming platform. Unfortunately, it didn't work out. Don't blame that on Microsoft.
Re:huh? I already got free.
by
Anthony+Boyd
·
· Score: 5, Insightful
What we got from Linux users were not sales, but tons of email demanding that we put up the binary executeables on an ftp site for free so they could download them and use them with their Windows version of the game. For some reason they just couldn't grasp that it cost us money to both license and port the software, and that we didn't see a red cent for the Windows version they bought. It didn't matter, all they wanted was free beer.
I'm also having trouble imagining the demanding weenies you describe. The Baton Rouge LUG is small, but most of the people there were NOT like this.
Awww... hell. I'm at the cap, let's burn a little.
I am really exhausted by people who just say "I don't (see|believe) it" when someone describes an issue they're having. Let me help my fellow Linvocates.
Saying "I know lots of people, and I've never seen them act as you describe" doesn't mean the problem doesn't exist, it (usually) means you don't have enough experience in the area to know what you're talking about.
Saying "I've done it lots of times and I never make that mistake" doesn't mean other people avoided the mistake too, it (usually) means you have no life and other people do.
Saying "Your real problem is blah" doesn't actually solve the issue for the person, it usually just makes them give up on getting the help they needed.
Why do I bring this up now? Because Loki is closing and another Linux developer here is telling us what a real issue is -- our "collective image" to some software companies apparently boils down to greedy "w@r3z d00d." You can say the people you know don't act like that, but it doesn't change the fact that people you don't know apparently are acting like that. And until we, as a collective group, can agree to change that collective mindset, we're going to collectively find our butts on the curb while companies pass us by.
Part of the reason why I'm "exhausted" by these kinds of responses is that everywhere I see it happen, things get fucked up. Mac apologists are notorious for telling people who point out problems with Apple to leave. "You don't like it? We don't need ya, get the hell out." The problem is that they do leave. And you end up with Quicken leaving the Apple market for a while. Anyone remember that? The workarounds sucked. We've got boatloads of Windows refugees out on Linux newsgroups saying "I didn't understand this" or "this part is too hard." It's a usability goldmine out on Usenet, but Linux users (and developers!) are basically just giving them the finger with comments like "I don't have that problem" or "well, you're just too stupid for this OS, I guess" or any other number of witty retorts that solve nothing. And as this happens, we see Linux lose momentum. Look, you want Linux to succeed, to be more than a source-code ghost-town 10 years from now? Then drag everyone along for the ride, and if they tell you they're uncomfortable, then make them more comfortable. Build momentum, acknowledge people's problems.
Re:I'm glad they are gone.
by
Alex+Belits
·
· Score: 3, Insightful
What kind of performance hit do you take when you run a graphics intensive game under X?
Same as under any other platform if you use a hardware-accelerated OpenGL.
I don't play games on my Linux box but I have noticed certain applications that crawl under Linux but perform very well in Windows or MacOS, even with lesser hardware. Flash and Blender just to name a few.
Your card is running as 2d-only because it's either unsupported, or you are too lazy to install an OpenGL driver -- and probably is a piece of junk because everything non-junk has some decent driver already. As for Flash, its Linux port simply sucks because Macromedia knows about Linux as much as I know about the inhabitants' of the Andromeda Nebula taste in paintings.
-- Contrary to the popular belief, there indeed is no God.
Re:SiN didn't work...
by
Arandir
·
· Score: 5, Insightful
The Linux community needs to stop pushing nVidia. I don't know why they do, but they do. You see the lists and boards choked with newbies trying to get their cards to work, yet the GeForce still seems to be the recommended card fo Linux. Huh?
The "Linux guy" where I bought my Matrox G450 didn't want to sell it to me. He insisted I buy an nVidia instead because it was better supported under Linux. I had to walk away and get another salesperson who would sell me what I asked for. I've had Linux guys tell me I should take back my G450 because nVidia was better. I've seen posts on boards where some guy wants to know what the best card is and gets a dozen replies favoring nVidia.
-- A Government Is a Body of People, Usually Notably Ungoverned
Re:This is what happens....
by
abdulla
·
· Score: 2, Insightful
i think the real problem was there business model, to pay the developers to have the right to convert there games, shouldn't it be more that the developers should pay them to covert the games and then the developers boxed it in with the windows copies or put an alternate linux binary on the website for use, that would have been a smarter way to do things, they earn money from the developers paying them for linux compliance and sdl would thrive.
they got greedy, they believed they could become fat cats off there alternate busniess model, but it was the cause of there doom
This sucks, and it's the fault of Linux users.
by
aussersterne
·
· Score: 5, Insightful
I see all these people saying "if you're a gamer, you want the game now and you want it cheap, so why pay a premium for a late Loki game when I can just dual-boot?"
This from people who complain about the "Microsoft Tax."
Well, folks, you have to decide: are you going to be a "hardcore gamer" and pay the Microsoft Tax you claim to hate so much just so you can have a game three months sooner or $10 cheaper, or are you going to put your money where your mouth is and support Linux companies?
I for one own every game Loki released, and I paid for every one of them, even one or two I didn't care for, just to support Linux gaming. I can hear the crazy free-market folks already who will flame me (as they do every Loki story) saying that the market should decide, that I shouldn't have bought games I didn't like, that Loki should fail if it is destined to fail.
Well, apparently it was. Feel better now? I certainly don't. Too bad so few Linux users are willing, as I have been, to put my money where my mouth is. On a similar note, I also bought the Corel Draw for Linux and Corel WordPerfect Office for Linux retail software packages before Corel withdrew them due to (direct quote from a sales inquiry to Corel) "lack of interest in non-free software."
I'm beginning to think that Linux will never grow out of Free Speech and Free Beer. Both are great, but alone they are not enough to make for a full life, or to build a userbase beyond geek-freeks.
Goodbye, Loki. I for one will miss your excellent ports when I am struggling to keep the truly abysmal but ever-so-free "Wine" emulator [or *sigh* not an emulator] running over the next few years.
-- STOP . AMERICA . NOW
Re:huh? I already got free.
by
Anthony+Boyd
·
· Score: 5, Insightful
Good post, but there's a fundemental difference between the Linux community and the Mac community -- The Mac people actually like the idea that their platform is used by millions of iMac-buying lusers. Fundementally, the Linux people are trying to get away from that culture and associate the OS with a certain level of l33tness.
OK. Let me ask you this: are Linux people also happy to have Eazel out of business and VA teetering on the edge? Do we want video card manufacturers to refuse to give us drivers? Are we trying to discourage Dell's Linux efforts? Are Linux people happy to see Loki closing their doors? From the posts here, it appears they range from indifference to disapointment. I don't see many people celebrating it. My point was not that we need to cater to "lusers" who have nothing to contribute. But we just witnessed, 4 posts above ours, a highly qualified insider at Hyperion give us good information that was almost immediately discounted with commments like "My friends don't act that way, you must be full of it." Is the Linux community so hell-bent on being 133t that we're going to flip off people who are more qualified than we are? These are not lusers! We are just stupid if we persist in being this self-destructive.
My Loki Rant Again(tm).
by
Anonymous Coward
·
· Score: 1, Insightful
The problem was the fact that they were porting games.
I walk into my local EB, looking for Heavy Gear II. I'm informed that they no longer restock the Windows version. Their last copy sold a few days earlier at the hefty price of $10.
Then the sales lady informs me they've a copy of the Linux version for ~$50. My response? "Erm, no thanks."
I go to Gamestop. Windows version, cheap as hell, Linux version, ouch.
Loki's main downfall was that by the time they got their ports out, the Windows versions were already on the discount bargain rack - selling for a miniscule amount compared to the Linux versions.
The gaming market today is made up of a large group of all but professional gamers. Just as we want our new kernels and distributions the day they're out, these people want the new games the day they're out. Loki couldn't deliver to these types - big chunk of business lost right there.
The casual gamer? I think, as we've seen, that the casual gamer market isn't enough to keep a company afloat anymore. At least not when the casual gamer has a choice between blowing $10 for a game and blowing $40-50 on the same game..
Honestly, though, I don't hold it against Loki. I'm sure they had restrictions and other difficulties on how fast they could pump games out.
If we want games on Linux, we have two routes to choose from. One is to wait for a decent desktop for average users. Yes, average users, and yes, I said decent. KDE isn't decent - it mimics Microsoft's desktop. I've yet to meet anyone who hasn't told me of some random problem or difficulty they have with MS's desktop. Some, like Blackbox, are freakin' beautiful for the power user, but not for the common denominator. The rest.. Well, for the most part, they suffer from varying types of obscurity. Not being known, or not having sufficient documentation (I remember the last time I tried to theme in E!..:p)
With a decent average-user type desktop, Linux will broach into the mainstream of grandmothers and average joes using it. With that will come commercial support for games.
The second route? It's the most likely. The Q2 engine has just been open sourced.
How many here are musicians? How many are self-styled Masters of the Pixel? How many have made a custom model/skin for some other 3d game?
I won't ask for coders - I know we abound.
Think about it - the Q2 engine is a sexy piece of software. It still looks great, even though it's aged a bit.
Why aren't we pounding out our own games? We've got the coding talent, and we've plenty of other talent. It's not something like a kernel where only coders can contribute - games require music, graphics, etc.. This is something where almost any Linux user can help out with.
Oh, I'm not fooling myself into thinking one or two high-quality games will cause various Linux companies to have to buy new cd burners from a sudden rush of consumers.
But hey - we'd have some games, and we'd inevitably draw interest from those crazy MS Windows gamers.;)
Why Gamers Deserve Linux Ports
by
BadBlood
·
· Score: 3, Insightful
IMHO, Linux gamers deserve Linux ports of their favorite games from the original developers. Why? I believe you cannot have a successful ONLINE multiplayer game without the support of Linux-based dedicated servers.
Quake 1 and 2 set the stage as their Linux ports allowed server administrators to set up dedicated servers and donate their bandwidth. Because there were SO MANY servers, there were SO MANY clients and each game flourished.
No enter the original Unreal. No Linux port. No Linux dedicated server. Multiplayer options were null (and for reasons based in less than steller network performance).
Enter Unreal Tournament. Epic wises up and ports it to Linux - for free. Tons of dedicated servers spring up and the game flourishes even to this day.
Half-Life's Counterstrike also has a dedicated server and that game continues to flourish. I consider it a mistake that Valve has not released a client as the multitude of servers continues to keep the game popular.
That's why I salute id, even though their Linux ports are not simultaneously released, they do recognize the service that Linux based dedicated servers give to them. Therefore they continue to port games to Linux (and for other technically sound reasons).
I realize my arguement holds only for multiplayer titles, but that's what got the ball rolling originally. Those of us that have hosted Linux dedicated servers do indeed deserve a little condiseration from the developers for a Linux client.
Slashdot Mirror
...
I'm sure it will be said a dozen times again in this thread, but I'm bummed.
I've got five Loki products cramming my hard drive, and even though their products were sometimes indifferently supported and somewhat uneven in quality, I'm really sorry to seem them go as I'll have no reliable source for new products.
I'd imagine the contracts to support UT and QIII were pretty huge for them, it was a bad sign when they went away...
... with running a dual-boot system? I understand the desire to get Linux on every desktop that some people have, but it seems to me that Linux ahs strengths and weaknesses. Frivolous wasting of time, such as videogaming (ignoring /., of course) is not it's strong suit. Windows is great if you want waste your time. Why not let Linux do what it does best, be productive, and get better at those things, and let Windows be the big time waster? Is it really so difficult for a person who really wants to play games to get a copy of Windows and slap it on their machine for playing games? Let Linux do what it does best and don't waste money on projects that in the end may not help the system continue to build its reputation.
Ben Garrison, a mindless idiot who will be the first against the wall when the revolution comes.
version of Quake 3 Arena from them.
Truly this is a shame.
"You spoony bard!" -Tellah
No, the problem is not that we won't pay, the problem is that most people still have a win9x partition to play games on and we don't want to wait a few months for a linux version.
Also despite great strides in the desktop area I still think of my linux boxen as development platforms or servers, I don't play games on them, I program and do real work. Putting mere games on them would be demeaning to them!
Blessed are the young, for they shall inherit the national debt. --Herbert Hoover
Damn, I bought a second copy of Descent3 because I wanted the Linux version! I still want my Deus Ex!!! NO!!!! I owned all the games I was willing to buy, and _REGISTERED_ each one! I don't want to see them go!
I am unamerican, and proud of it!
They already have released everything open-source that they could. The companies that they did the ports for required that the source remain closed.
I am unamerican, and proud of it!
What we got from Linux users were not sales, but tons of email demanding that we put up the binary executeables on an ftp site for free so they could download them and use them with their Windows version of the game. For some reason they just couldn't grasp that it cost us money to both license and port the software, and that we didn't see a red cent for the Windows version they bought. It didn't matter, all they wanted was free beer.
As a Linux enthusiast myself (active in my LUG, promoting Linux wherever I can) it really saddens me that so many users will clamor for Linux games but won't actually pony up the money when they become available. It's very, very depressing.
James Sellman -- Hyperion Entertainment -- http://www.hyperion-entertainment.com/
Go and buy a X-Box, PS2 or N-Cube, 'cos that's the only place that the majors will pour dev money into in the future, esp as these games get more and more complex, ie approaching Hollywood $$ levels of investment to deliver.
Why ? It wouldn't surprise me if M$oft stop developing DirectX etc on the Windoze PC platform and only dev/push it on the X-Box in order to drive sales towards the X-Box.
From the end user POV, with gaming on PC's - why should I spend 2x or 3x as much for a souped up games PC that can play modern games.
I did that analysis , then went out and bought a PS2 with GT3 - works for me :- )
Darren Kruse CCNP CCDP
WAN/LAN Networking Consultant
mailto://darren_kruse@hotmail.com
www.geocities.com/darren_kruse
The worst part of this is that trying to be a Linux gamer will be alot harder, since there's almost nothing coming down the pipeline anymore. I really don't want to use Wine or WineX if I can avoid it. In my experience, Loki's ports have been superior to, if not equal to, the Win32 port's quality.
Maybe I will just because a bitter ex-gamer, and only play Doom 3 (which will by then, probably be the only newish commercial Linux game). Serious Sam will be nice too, but by the time its done, it probably won't be big in the lanning scene, which is where I do most of my gaming.
Understandably, Loki's method couldn't allow them to start the port much earlier, as it seems they waited until a 'popular' game emerged from new releases. The same thing appears to be happening with the Mac market, but maybe not as apparent as a Mac owner doesn't have the same dual-booting option that many Linux users have. A better method, as demonstrated by id, is to work on the port at the same time, either in house or with outside help, such that the binaries for all systems of interest can be released near-simulateously.
"Pinky, you've left the lens cap of your mind on again." - P&TB
"I can see my house from here!" - ST:
Well, since you're new to "business", the reason a company usually stops selling a product is because they're not making any profit on that product.
You may wonder why a bombshell in the Linux games market impacts us. Well, I did as well, until I started hanging out with my boss and understanding the way the marketing department works. And now I know that Loki's death is yet another nail in the coffin of the concept of ever using Linux on a client site again.
The problem here stems from the fact that customers purchase buzzwords from us, not solutions. Our software is simple - it can be implemeted in FORTRAN and run on VMS, for all we care. In the late 1990s, we began a massive shift from NT to Linux because, well, our clients asked us for a massive shift from NT to Linux. They didn't care that it was free (they still paid us for our "official" copy of Redhat which we made with our CD copies). They wanted it because it was fashionable. And that is why the tide has turned on us Linux fans now. Linux is out; it is not a hot topic anymore. Companies are asking for what they believe to be the "tried and true" solutions, and most of those come from Redmond and from Big Blue (and we aren't talking OS/2 here). If we stuck to our guns and sold Linux products, we would lose a lot of business and wind up in va's situation - barely alive. It's sad but that's the way it is. I want nothing to do with Windows but if I don't learn it, I will inevitably cost my company money and lose my job as a result.
What can we do to turn the tide in our favor again? Learn to write. Offer to write a computer advice column in your local/school newspaper and encourage users to pursue Free solutions. When somebody writes in with an Outlook problem, steer them toward Pine or Mutt. Take the time to teach people how to use Linux - if you let them sink or swim, they will take the path of least resistance and make billg richer. Nobody said it would be easy, but the only way our grass roots movement can succeed is by pursuading users to switch, one at a time.
Bill
..but after spending hours trying to get Quake 3 Arena and Unreal Tournament to work, I had little hope for their future. I checked their support newsgroups some time back; Unreal Tournament support was active with about 4000 posts. Let me detail my experiences with Unreal Tournament:
./UnrealTournament. Takes an eternity to load, but I blame that on my slow hard drive and K6/2 500.
/lib directories, I forget which.
- Downloaded and installed it with Windows CD.
-
- Crashes: Cannot find Glide drivers, even though Glide v3 was installed (Voodoo Banshee, by the way), and libglide.so was sitting plainly in one of the main
- To cut a long story short, I was sent on a wild goose chase, trying hack after hack after hack (DRI, Utah-GLX, recompile OpenGL^HMesa, recompile kernel) until I finally decided that I will never try one of Loki's games again unless they can successfully make Unreal Tournament work on a Banshee. Mandrake 7.2, BTW.
Asking on IRC was futile, as my problem was unique.
This experience isn't new for me. LinuxGames.com's instructions on emulating UltraHLE in WINE must involve some sort of magic, as I have never been able to get that working. Quake 3 Arena's demo segfaulted on startup.
Sorry to see you go, Loki.
When someone asks me why there are no linux games (my little brother does), I can refer to this. I hear a lot of people complain that software costs too much or that they didnt get this thing or that thing for free. I sometimes wonder if these people can balance their checkbooks.
...when you try to sell games to cheap-ass Linux users
No, the real problem is that the vast majority of Linux gamers are already customers of the Windows developer/publisher. I.e. they dual boot or use wine.
The perceived Linux game market and the actual Linux game market differ by multiple orders of magnitude. The actual market consists only of those people who will not buy the Windows version of the game or who will buy a second copy to support their preferred platform. There is no large block of new sales waiting to be tapped.
And a hearty round of thanks to all the Warez dudes out there. Remember, piracy is a purely victimless crime; anyone actually put out of work when a product doesn't sell is obviously making stuff up, we all know programmers drive Ferarris and do lots of coke.
*sigh*.
My blog: http://www.seebs.net/log/ --- My iPhone/iPad app: http://www.seebs.net/seebsfrac/
What I saw of the 'linux gaming' movement, I wasn't too pleased with.. the idea was noble, but in reality, a) computers are cheap, so I have another machine to play games on besides my linux workstation and b) the ports were either a pain in the ass to get running, or my 3D card was a pain in the ass to get running, or xxx yyy was a PITA to get running. Sorry, no sale. It would have been nice to see a killer title emerge on the linux platform - but Tux Racer just isn't going to cut it *grin*. I think that's what linux gaming was going to need to get off the ground. Games rely too heavily on things that are very platform specific - e.g. controllers and game APIs, and 3D accelleration. Linux loses.
I'm not sure this is all Loki's fault though. Has anyone else here been introducted to OS X recently? I got a Ti Powerbook because I needed a machine that would work for 4 hours on a battery charge. No big deal on the OS, as long as it runs vim (and it does, through XDarwin, natively). OS X is flawlessly integrated. It reminds me of what my amiga was back in the day - a great platform, where everything worked. No, it isn't completely open source. But, "It works".
My beef: Aqua and OS X is what Redhat SHOULD have done when they released linux. Take the open source start, hire a team of developers to make everything work flawlessly and consistantly. Glue it together with GREAT developer tools and documentation. Make new hardware work without three kernel recompiles and a prayer to ye gods. Get solid APIs people can build applications from on a bulletproof kernel. Redhat missed out, and I think the failure of gaming to catch on is a symptom of this bigger problem.
There's sure a lot of successful games for OS X. Even native ones.
..don't panic
You can say many things about the "VC people", but it's rather silly to call them "short sighted". "...how quickly the VC dried up"? "...a lack of investment fortitude"? Give me a break. The NASDAQ hemorrhaged about 4 trillion dollars over the course of a year or so, most of it wasted on companies that never produced anything the slightest bit economically useful for society, and only then did the VC's finally get the good sense to pull their feet out of the fire.
... On this thread regarding "Why don't you just dual boot". I've got 4 loki games I bought from loki simply because I don't use windows. I don't want to support Microsoft (a company found to be a monopoly which abuses its power mind you). In their quest to basically control what I do with my computer, control what I do online, and control what I do with my career because I like computers. Not only that but I don't care how many games there are for windows if it means I have to pay for a windows license I will not do it. I'm very pleased companies like ID are making ports available and so I support them, I supported Loki.. and I will continue to support any company who will please me with such pleasures as games for Linux. I never used to buy ID games, ever.. I used to just get a copy from a friend but now that they port to Linux I've bought their quake2 set, quake3 and rtcw and will continue to buy from them because they make good games and are now porting to my platform.
I wish this new slashdot crowd would stop being so goddamn "wishy-washy" and make a decision or stay with windows because most of your posts are absolute dribble; "Stand for something, or fall for anything" is what they say. Most of you just fall for anything.
Yes, but the fact that you could go to your local video game store and find linux games there is a start at least...
Once I talked to Nick Triantos in passing at LWCE 2000 he was *very* interested in knowing about bugs in the driver and/or in the opengl implementation. I really doubt that you were either talking to the right people or you were asking the wrong questions. Trying to force a company to 'opensource' a driver isn't going to get you any help.
-- dieman - Scott Dier
it's still a little beyond me why Loki was able to bring some games to Linux but not Mac OS X
(1) Competition. Loki would face several more experienced Mac porting houses that have well established track records, excellent contacts and history with the developers/publishers who have an interest in Mac titles.
(2) Experience. IIRC Loki has some former Apple people but this does not necessarily mean they had the experience necessary to port games to the Mac. This manifests in two ways. First, programming knowledge for the platform, Linux is very different from MacOS X (more later). Second, a jealously guarded library that developed over time. A typical Windows to Mac library and tools set (even more later) takes a lot of time, consider it overhead. It only becomes a great asset when you get to the point that it can be largely used as is for a new porting contract. An established porting company can perform a port more quickly and for less money than a new company in part because such libraries and tools are already paid for.
Linux is different: MacOS X may have it's roots in NextStep and FreeBSD but that does not mean that MacOS X programs are Unix apps. The vast majority of MacOS X apps and games are usually using Apple's Carbon API, this lets them either target MacOS 9 and X or reuse much of their existing code (recall libraries and tools mentioned above).
Libraries/Tools: Many developers have no interest in targeting anything except Windows and they code accordingly. Their involvement in ports may only be that they cash the check from whoever is buying a license for MacOS/Linux/etc. A porting house has two options. #ifdef all the Windows specific code or write some code that translates/emulates the Windows calls/data. The latter case is advantageous if you expect to be in the business for a while.
You know, Microsoft really isn't above sponsoring this kind of behavior
Can't we just acknowledge that some problem might possibly exist in the Linux community, and attempt to fix it? Do we really need to invent a Microsoft conspiracy to make ourselves feel better about Loki closing?? You honestly believe that out of however many Linux users there are in the world, that there aren't at least a few obnoxious ones out there that would demand making a binary freely available? Besides, at first glance, it seems natural: "I already paid for this game, why should I have to pay for it again?" At least until one actually sits down and thinks about the economic and business factors involved (see other posts in this thread). Loki could have changed that model, by showing game manufacturers that Linux is an economically viable gaming platform. Unfortunately, it didn't work out. Don't blame that on Microsoft.
Awww... hell. I'm at the cap, let's burn a little.
I am really exhausted by people who just say "I don't (see|believe) it" when someone describes an issue they're having. Let me help my fellow Linvocates.
Why do I bring this up now? Because Loki is closing and another Linux developer here is telling us what a real issue is -- our "collective image" to some software companies apparently boils down to greedy "w@r3z d00d." You can say the people you know don't act like that, but it doesn't change the fact that people you don't know apparently are acting like that. And until we, as a collective group, can agree to change that collective mindset, we're going to collectively find our butts on the curb while companies pass us by.
Part of the reason why I'm "exhausted" by these kinds of responses is that everywhere I see it happen, things get fucked up. Mac apologists are notorious for telling people who point out problems with Apple to leave. "You don't like it? We don't need ya, get the hell out." The problem is that they do leave. And you end up with Quicken leaving the Apple market for a while. Anyone remember that? The workarounds sucked. We've got boatloads of Windows refugees out on Linux newsgroups saying "I didn't understand this" or "this part is too hard." It's a usability goldmine out on Usenet, but Linux users (and developers!) are basically just giving them the finger with comments like "I don't have that problem" or "well, you're just too stupid for this OS, I guess" or any other number of witty retorts that solve nothing. And as this happens, we see Linux lose momentum. Look, you want Linux to succeed, to be more than a source-code ghost-town 10 years from now? Then drag everyone along for the ride, and if they tell you they're uncomfortable, then make them more comfortable. Build momentum, acknowledge people's problems.
My Greasemonkey scripts for Digg &
What kind of performance hit do you take when you run a graphics intensive game under X?
Same as under any other platform if you use a hardware-accelerated OpenGL.
I don't play games on my Linux box but I have noticed certain applications that crawl under Linux but perform very well in Windows or MacOS, even with lesser hardware. Flash and Blender just to name a few.
Your card is running as 2d-only because it's either unsupported, or you are too lazy to install an OpenGL driver -- and probably is a piece of junk because everything non-junk has some decent driver already. As for Flash, its Linux port simply sucks because Macromedia knows about Linux as much as I know about the inhabitants' of the Andromeda Nebula taste in paintings.
Contrary to the popular belief, there indeed is no God.
The Linux community needs to stop pushing nVidia. I don't know why they do, but they do. You see the lists and boards choked with newbies trying to get their cards to work, yet the GeForce still seems to be the recommended card fo Linux. Huh?
The "Linux guy" where I bought my Matrox G450 didn't want to sell it to me. He insisted I buy an nVidia instead because it was better supported under Linux. I had to walk away and get another salesperson who would sell me what I asked for. I've had Linux guys tell me I should take back my G450 because nVidia was better. I've seen posts on boards where some guy wants to know what the best card is and gets a dozen replies favoring nVidia.
A Government Is a Body of People, Usually Notably Ungoverned
i think the real problem was there business model, to pay the developers to have the right to convert there games, shouldn't it be more that the developers should pay them to covert the games and then the developers boxed it in with the windows copies or put an alternate linux binary on the website for use, that would have been a smarter way to do things, they earn money from the developers paying them for linux compliance and sdl would thrive. they got greedy, they believed they could become fat cats off there alternate busniess model, but it was the cause of there doom
I see all these people saying "if you're a gamer, you want the game now and you want it cheap, so why pay a premium for a late Loki game when I can just dual-boot?"
This from people who complain about the "Microsoft Tax."
Well, folks, you have to decide: are you going to be a "hardcore gamer" and pay the Microsoft Tax you claim to hate so much just so you can have a game three months sooner or $10 cheaper, or are you going to put your money where your mouth is and support Linux companies?
I for one own every game Loki released, and I paid for every one of them, even one or two I didn't care for, just to support Linux gaming. I can hear the crazy free-market folks already who will flame me (as they do every Loki story) saying that the market should decide, that I shouldn't have bought games I didn't like, that Loki should fail if it is destined to fail.
Well, apparently it was. Feel better now? I certainly don't. Too bad so few Linux users are willing, as I have been, to put my money where my mouth is. On a similar note, I also bought the Corel Draw for Linux and Corel WordPerfect Office for Linux retail software packages before Corel withdrew them due to (direct quote from a sales inquiry to Corel) "lack of interest in non-free software."
I'm beginning to think that Linux will never grow out of Free Speech and Free Beer. Both are great, but alone they are not enough to make for a full life, or to build a userbase beyond geek-freeks.
Goodbye, Loki. I for one will miss your excellent ports when I am struggling to keep the truly abysmal but ever-so-free "Wine" emulator [or *sigh* not an emulator] running over the next few years.
STOP . AMERICA . NOW
OK. Let me ask you this: are Linux people also happy to have Eazel out of business and VA teetering on the edge? Do we want video card manufacturers to refuse to give us drivers? Are we trying to discourage Dell's Linux efforts? Are Linux people happy to see Loki closing their doors? From the posts here, it appears they range from indifference to disapointment. I don't see many people celebrating it. My point was not that we need to cater to "lusers" who have nothing to contribute. But we just witnessed, 4 posts above ours, a highly qualified insider at Hyperion give us good information that was almost immediately discounted with commments like "My friends don't act that way, you must be full of it." Is the Linux community so hell-bent on being 133t that we're going to flip off people who are more qualified than we are? These are not lusers! We are just stupid if we persist in being this self-destructive.
My Greasemonkey scripts for Digg &
The problem was the fact that they were porting games.
:p)
;)
I walk into my local EB, looking for Heavy Gear II. I'm informed that they no longer restock the Windows version. Their last copy sold a few days earlier at the hefty price of $10.
Then the sales lady informs me they've a copy of the Linux version for ~$50. My response? "Erm, no thanks."
I go to Gamestop. Windows version, cheap as hell, Linux version, ouch.
Loki's main downfall was that by the time they got their ports out, the Windows versions were already on the discount bargain rack - selling for a miniscule amount compared to the Linux versions.
The gaming market today is made up of a large group of all but professional gamers. Just as we want our new kernels and distributions the day they're out, these people want the new games the day they're out. Loki couldn't deliver to these types - big chunk of business lost right there.
The casual gamer? I think, as we've seen, that the casual gamer market isn't enough to keep a company afloat anymore. At least not when the casual gamer has a choice between blowing $10 for a game and blowing $40-50 on the same game..
Honestly, though, I don't hold it against Loki. I'm sure they had restrictions and other difficulties on how fast they could pump games out.
If we want games on Linux, we have two routes to choose from. One is to wait for a decent desktop for average users. Yes, average users, and yes, I said decent. KDE isn't decent - it mimics Microsoft's desktop. I've yet to meet anyone who hasn't told me of some random problem or difficulty they have with MS's desktop. Some, like Blackbox, are freakin' beautiful for the power user, but not for the common denominator. The rest.. Well, for the most part, they suffer from varying types of obscurity. Not being known, or not having sufficient documentation (I remember the last time I tried to theme in E!..
With a decent average-user type desktop, Linux will broach into the mainstream of grandmothers and average joes using it. With that will come commercial support for games.
The second route? It's the most likely. The Q2 engine has just been open sourced.
How many here are musicians? How many are self-styled Masters of the Pixel? How many have made a custom model/skin for some other 3d game?
I won't ask for coders - I know we abound.
Think about it - the Q2 engine is a sexy piece of software. It still looks great, even though it's aged a bit.
Why aren't we pounding out our own games? We've got the coding talent, and we've plenty of other talent. It's not something like a kernel where only coders can contribute - games require music, graphics, etc.. This is something where almost any Linux user can help out with.
Oh, I'm not fooling myself into thinking one or two high-quality games will cause various Linux companies to have to buy new cd burners from a sudden rush of consumers.
But hey - we'd have some games, and we'd inevitably draw interest from those crazy MS Windows gamers.
IMHO, Linux gamers deserve Linux ports of their favorite games from the original developers. Why? I believe you cannot have a successful ONLINE multiplayer game without the support of Linux-based dedicated servers.
Quake 1 and 2 set the stage as their Linux ports allowed server administrators to set up dedicated servers and donate their bandwidth. Because there were SO MANY servers, there were SO MANY clients and each game flourished.
No enter the original Unreal. No Linux port. No Linux dedicated server. Multiplayer options were null (and for reasons based in less than steller network performance).
Enter Unreal Tournament. Epic wises up and ports it to Linux - for free. Tons of dedicated servers spring up and the game flourishes even to this day.
Half-Life's Counterstrike also has a dedicated server and that game continues to flourish. I consider it a mistake that Valve has not released a client as the multitude of servers continues to keep the game popular.
That's why I salute id, even though their Linux ports are not simultaneously released, they do recognize the service that Linux based dedicated servers give to them. Therefore they continue to port games to Linux (and for other technically sound reasons).
I realize my arguement holds only for multiplayer titles, but that's what got the ball rolling originally. Those of us that have hosted Linux dedicated servers do indeed deserve a little condiseration from the developers for a Linux client.
Praying for the end of your wide-awake nightmare.