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..."
It was gonna happen eventually
by
L-Wave
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· Score: 3, Interesting
I go to the local video game store (yes, a franchise) and what do i see? I can get any linux game for 10 bucks or under. If you consider the Windows version costs roughly 30 bucks or more, this is a huge loss to companies. Loki did some really great ports, but i think linux still has yet to prove itself as a gaming platform.
-- I SURVIVED THE GREAT SLASHDOT BLACKOUT OF 2002!
Re:It was gonna happen eventually
by
lightfoot+jim
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· Score: 2, Interesting
Brainiac: Do you really think cheap games is the killer app that will drag down the Windows monopoly and bring users to Linux?
Most home pc owners I know don't ever do word processing. Nearly all own at least a few recent games. Selling ports of games that have already been out for windows for weeks just doesn't make good business sense, but if there were a large number of games that came out for linux first or linux only, I imagine a lot of people would switch.
-- The state is the great fiction by which everyone tries to live at the expense of everybody else. ~F. Bastiat
They'll open source everything that they can. That would at least be a silver lining.
-- (B) + (D) + (B) + (D) = (K) + (&)
Retrospective
by
Anonymous Coward
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· Score: 1, Interesting
The main Linux gaming site, LinuxGames, has a retrospective article posted talking about Loki and what they did for Linux gaming and what they contributed to open source.
Looks like they (LG) were too optimistic about Loki pulling out of the bankruptcy nosedive in that article.
One has to wonder: where does this leave the support for the games that are already out there? What happens when a new glibc causes old games to fail to start? What happens when an incompatibility with SDL or XFree86/OpenGL or anything else crops up? Do those games just die?
And what does this mean for future games, like those whose engines are already ported to Linux (like Unreal/Unreal Tournament and Quake 3)?
Red Hat should buy them.
by
grub
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· Score: 5, Interesting
Root^H^H^Hed Hat should buy Loki's assets and licenses. They have a somewhat successful business already, a gaming division for "their" OS would be a nice feather in their cap (cap.. heh, no pun intended)
-- Trolling is a art,
Re:Red Hat should buy them.
by
Anonymous Coward
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· Score: 2, Interesting
red hat is moving towards the server side.
if any linux company were to buy loki, it would be Mandrake. they have a gamers edition, which includes the SIMs, and fresh cash from their recent IPO
Re:Back to Nethack
by
MrResistor
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· Score: 3, Interesting
I've really enjoyed Tribes2 the past several months. I suppose the patches will stop, the servers will disappear...
Well, at least that's one Linux port that's keeping pace with the windows version. Too bad it's headed the wrong direction...
Everythign about Tribes2 makes me really sad. I bought the windows version when it first came out. It was unstable, but not too bad. I've definitely seen worse. There were a lot of patches that came out in quick succession, but the patches were done very poorly. A patch couldn't be applied to an install with a previous patch, and you couldn't back out of the patches. You had to uninstall it and reinstall it, with all the required reboots, everytime a new patch was released, which in that first month was about every other day. That was the only reason I stopped playing it.
I was planning to buy the Linux port aafter they'd settled down with the patches for a bit, but there's no way I'll have the money by the end of the month. It seems like they could have sold a lot of stuff if they'd given a little more notice.
-- Under capitalism man exploits man. Under communism it's the other way around.
When Indrema died so did loki
by
linzeal
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· Score: 1, Interesting
Linux gaming isn't going anywhere without a console to take it there. "The Dream Lives On"
Re:This is what happens....
by
Wakko+Warner
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· Score: 5, Interesting
We all know Windows games never get pirated.
They get pirated all the time, but what they lose in piracy they make up for in legit sales. Lots and lots of legit sales.
The problem is that Linux is run by only 0.24 per cent [slashdot.org] of desktop users. You can't support a proprietary software company with 0.24% of the market.
The problem is that nobody bought their games; doesn't matter how many Linux users there are. Loki sold their games in stores nationwide and on their website. They're there for the purchasing. Unfortunately, they're also there for the taking elsewhere on the Internet. If everyone who stole their copy of "Railroad Tycoon 2" or "Sim City 3000" or "Postal" had supported Loki and paid for it instead, we wouldn't be commenting on this story right now.
- A.P.
-- "Remember when the U.S. had a drug problem, and then we declared a War On Drugs, and now you can't buy drugs anymore?"
The irony of it all
by
Anonymous Coward
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· Score: 1, Interesting
Just back on October 24th, Draeker was putting down Transgaming/WineX and declairing traditional port to be a better way of supporting Linux. Now, just one day short of 3 months later, Draeker is declairing that his company's traditional ports come without technical support.
I still recall at ALS '97 that Linus declair Wine as one of the most important projects for Linux. As a long term support method, API redirection projects will continue to bring more prioritary apps to Linux than a port here or a port there. And when the Loki ports break down on glibc v3.0 or whatever, the open source WineX API redirection will continue to work. For Loki port, unfortantly, providing just the SDL library layer is not enough for ensuring long term use-ablity.
Re:Every Amiga is 'game ready'
by
Anonymous Coward
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· Score: 1, Interesting
In the case of Hyperions titles, that's not necessarily true. Most or if not all of their titles require PPC and 3D support. Now the Amiga community is small at best, but the number of people that have machine with (expensive) PPC cards and a 3D video cards is a miniscule part of that small community. Given how the Amiga titles have outsold the Linux versions, this makes the situation all the more disappointing.
It actually works totally the other way around. *WE* pay a software company for the right to port the game. We have to pay a big chunk of money up front. These companies do not see fit to make Linux versions of games, so we have to give them money to convince them to do it. While we have also done some contract work (where we were paid to write code) this isn't really how it works for games for any OS besides Windows. Somebody has to pay the original publisher for the rights.
Regarding the number of people who play games under Linux... Well, there certainly has been a clamor for them. While it's true that most installations of Linux are running as servers, there are also many desktop installations. Certainly a larger number than any other alternative OS except perhaps MacOS. We get quite a few requests for ports, and in general there seems to be quite a clamor for Linux games (if you read any website frequented by the Linux community). Loki, as the predominant Linux gaming company, received heaps of praise.
As far as social simulation and other interesting not-common-on-American-PCs genres go... Well, I sure wish we'd release some of those. Unfortunately it is still a niche market, and given that we already cater to a niche market it would be a niche within a niche.:-(
I hope with growing acceptance of Linux there might be a revival of Linux gaming at some point.... But for the time being the attitude seems to be Everything-On-Linux-Must-Be-Free-Beer. People who are willing to buy Windows games are unwilling to buy the Linux version (even though they claim that they want it). Instead they expect it to be supplied for free. I really hope this changes in the future.:-(
James Sellman - Hyperion Entertainment - http://www.hyperion-entertainment.com/
Yes, we're aware of the problem. Something changed in nVidia's drivers after we finalized the game that broke it. I personally led a beta testing group and SiN did indeed run just fine on the GeForce line of cards. After the problem occured we tried to figure out what was changed that was causing it to fail but because of nVidia's complete lack of interest in working with other developers we weren't able to easily identify it. We considered spending more time working on it but by that time the sales were so disappointing we put a freeze on all Linux projects (this freeze is not permanent hopefully but it's understandable why we have it.)
Actually, a bunch of us at Hyperion really, REALLY hate nVidia. They are the prima donnas of the graphics card manufacturing community. We repeatedly asked them for information concerning the functioning of their cards and for the large part they refused our pleas. Their attitude is that everything has to be done internally and they refuse to cooperate with others. Companies like ATI and Matrox have been very cooperative with us, giving us the information we need to make sure our stuff works properly with their hardware. 3DFX, while they still existed, were also somewhat helpful in providing information (though not as good as ATI). There was a problem with the Voodoo GL drivers that actually caused the game to crash when we had glowing objects onscreen in Shogo, but fortunately due easy-to-access information we were able to include a workaround.
I wholeheartedly encourage everyone to NOT use nVidia hardware until they open up a bit with the information so that people can actually SUPPORT their cards. There are many other great companies that make great cards you can buy from. My personal favorite is the ATI Radeon series but there are other worthy contenders as well.
And yes, I know Loki games don't have problems with the new nVidia drivers. And no I don't know why.:-( Loki, to their credit, were more devoted to Linux and certainly did work harder to fix incompatibilities. If someone who's reading this knows what's causing the crash, please let us know. I wish we could afford the time to root out the problem but unfortunately we need to spend it on other projects so we don't wind up like Loki.:-(
James Sellman - Hyperion Entertainment - http://www.hyperion-entertainment.com/
Until Win/Lin versions released together...
by
penguin_dance
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· Score: 2, Interesting
...this will not change.
This shouldn't come as any surprise.
For Christmas I got Mandrake 8.1 Gaming Edition with The Sims. Very cool and just like the Windows version. The only thing is, on my Windows machine, I've got all 3 add-on packs too. Would I have bought The Sims for Linux had it not been packaged with the upgrade? Probably not.
Until Linux games get released at the same time as the Windows games this won't change. People who have already bought the game under Windows, *most times* don't want to buy it again 1-2 years later just so they can use it under Linux. And they don't want to wait, hoping it will be one of the few ported to Linux, unless that's the only OS they're using AND the Win version doesn't work under Wine.
-- If you've never been modded as "flamebait" or "troll," you've never tried to argue a minority viewpoint here!
OK, perhaps I was a little harsh.:-/ We did get some feedback from the Linux driver team but the last I heard it didn't result in getting the problem fixed.:-( For the large part though I do stand by the fact that nVidia is next-to-impossible to work with. Other companies provide us with specs, etc.
I could ask our engineers again what finally resulted from talking to nVidia... Unfortunately it's kind of moot now as management is leery about spending time (and thus money) on the Linux market when even the tiny Amiga market is more responsive.:-(
If we have time at some point I can see if we can get the problem fixed, but our guys are super busy at the moment.
Believe me we're not happy that our game crashes on current rev nVidia stuff. It doesn't exactly reflect well on us.:-(
James Sellman - Hyperion Entertainment - http://www.hyperion-entertainment.com/
Re:I'm glad they are gone.
by
theoddone33
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· Score: 2, Interesting
I just decided that I'm never, ever, ever signing up for TransGaming simply because you posted this. I might have considered it before, but not any more.
If you think that there are only 2 ways to get games in Linux, the Loki way and the TransGaming way, you are mistaken. Open your mind and you might end up better off in the long run.
Re:I'm not really surprised
by
Time+Doctor
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· Score: 2, Interesting
This is perhaps the most true comment I've seen.
It is almost always free binaries which people want. Not just demanding them, but _Expecting_ them. Perhaps in the end, this kind of attitude from the large majourity of gamers is what killed Loki.
-- Check out ioquake3.org for a great, free, First-Person Shooter engine!
Re:What's the big deal...
by
entrigant
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· Score: 1, Interesting
What's the big deal with running a dual boot
system? I'd be happy to tell you. For an
admittedly small few of us windows isn't just
a pile of bugs... it doesn't work at all. I
have tried every version of windows that has
support for all of my hardware, and not a
single one even boots once I install all my
drivers and apply patches to fix known bugs.
Linux however supports all my hardware as
well, and it not only boots.. it runs fast
and reliable for as long as I need it to. It's
people in similar situations that dual booting
is utterly useless.
We actually considered this, unfortunately most major publishers specifically prohibit making their products downloadable -- even after credit card verification. It opens up a big can of worms like credit card fraud and the like so they generally prevent us from doing such things in the license agreement.
In the future as we move more towards distribution of stuff over the 'net, perhaps these attitudes might change, but as it is this is simply not possible. The companies like having that physical box, that keeps the product "real" and makes it harder for numbers to be fudged about the number of copies produced, etc. I do understand this perspective and agree with it somewhat, but the obvious advantages of digital distribution I think will in the end override these concerns. These same issues affect the movie and music industries as well, and they are only just now sticking their toes into the digital content distribution market (after thoroughly sueing a lot of people I might add.:-( ).
We'll see what tomorrow brings.
James Sellman - Hyperion Entertainment - http://www.hyperion-entertainment.com/
Re:Entertainment and limited leisure time.
by
Time+Doctor
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· Score: 2, Interesting
Honestly, the nvidia drivers are so easy to get set up as long as you already have a reasonably current version of X4.
-- Check out ioquake3.org for a great, free, First-Person Shooter engine!
Re:I had hope for Loki Games..
by
Time+Doctor
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· Score: 2, Interesting
You mention a number of Libraries and I don't believe they are really that hard to get working. With one exception, MESA/DRI for X4 is extremely frustrating. Nvidia drivers however are cake to install. Most of the commercial games for Linux (http://www.icculus.org/~zakk/gamelist.php?license =commercial)
came with all the required libraries besides GL, which is up to the user or the user's distro to get working.
-- Check out ioquake3.org for a great, free, First-Person Shooter engine!
How I see the games and entertainment software
by
Anonymous Coward
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· Score: 2, Interesting
First to say if true it is a sad day. But remember someone else will start again.
What do I see in the world of Free Unix and games is that we need to concentrate on getting development environments going. What do I mean by this?
As I see it Loki just ported games after their shelf life expired. What we need is Linux games created first then ported to Windows. This way we trully see if a Game sells the OS or the OS sells the game. How is this done? Again to repeat is create a quick game development environment.
What should this package have?
1. Sound System that cross platforms to Windows.
2. Basic Install Shield system which allows the developers to forget this aspect of the development.
3. Graphic Rendering packages that allow the artistic part.
4. Some game dynamics package.
All this is easy to say but hard to write. So Open Source development is in order here. That is make some game ideas that could share library packages. Those Library packages are LGPL or BSD licensed for Comercial development. These are then used my the Comercial houses to create the games for Linux, BSDs, MacIntosh, and Windows in one go. Make the development environment not on Windows will allow the Linux or other be ported faster.
How to sell the new game which is developed and shipped for Linux first? Because we need to get the largest market. Simple have a version of Linux be attached to the game which can be installed on any M$ Windows platform and be executed from a running Windows Icon. This will make the system a Linux Box either taking complete control until finished or being a Process. Either way if the person has a pure linux system it will be installed there as a native app, minus the special linux version.
Hence above is a good project to work with. Instead of WINE how about Linux Is Not Emulated (LINE) project.
Iain
Loki never had VC
by
Anonymous Coward
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· Score: 5, Interesting
At least, that's what the employees were told. In fact, several efforts at securing real VC were prevented due to reluctance by the owner(s) to part with any shares in the company.
When the fecal matter had clearly hit the rotating blades, an outside consultant was brought in to try and get the company funded, merged, bought, or something. He tried for six months, and never got anywhere -- in part because so much debt had already been accrued. Also, at least one structured deal, liquidating existing boxed product, fell through when the partner filed for Chapter 11 (and had already taken possession of the game boxes, but not paid the remuneration owed).
The debt caught up with the company, and the creditors started demanding their money (including the 1/4 million owed to the company that printed all those nice boxes and manuals that the first 10 or so titles came in).
WAY over-producing the Q3 tins (due, in part, to the enthusiasm of the Slashdot crowd (which has never been backed up in sales), and due in part to mis-judgement of the market), burned through what capital there was A LOT faster than it needed to be.
Add lack-luster sales of all titles other than CTP, and decreasing sales from title to title, and there's not a lot to sustain it there.
Re:Delay between Windows and Linux port did them i
by
Time+Doctor
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· Score: 2, Interesting
You're right, the few users who actually bought Linux games, and kept buying them weren't enough. As far as QuickTime goes, there isn't any native player for the sorenson (which is the popular kind) codec mov files. The only player which is available, is via the 'crossover plugin' which uses wine.
-- Check out ioquake3.org for a great, free, First-Person Shooter engine!
Re:Linux Ports != Linux Games
by
xtal
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· Score: 3, Interesting
I hope I got people thinking about some possible reasons why Loki had a hard time. You don't learn anything from a failure if you don't know why..
Let me clarify a few points. Yeah, the looks on the Ti Book kick ass. But so does how the OS looks and acts - not to mention the good start projects like fink.sourceforge.net have. XDarwin is great. I needed a machine that'd run for four hours and be thin and light as well. Sony or Apple. Sony's tech support is HORRIBLE (in my opinion). So off to apple I go. I'm really, really glad I chose the Ti book - it introduced me to what some commerical providers can do with the open source communities good starts. Apple brought their best foot forward, and the OS community brought theirs. The results astound me.
But enough about that. I work developing ASICs and embedded systems for a variety of industries in a research lab. I run linux on my primary desktop right now - about as modern a system as you can get, a watercooled athlon, even. Ximian Gnome has come a long way - but it looks like it's going to be woven into the Solaris/SUN fold, and synergies will appear there the way they did with Apple and BSD, I'm sure. FWIW, the design packages I use (Cadence Family) all run on high end Sun workstations. Mentor Graphics has some limited native linux support. Doesn't matter as long as I have a X client.
Redhat does NOT currently offer developers anywhere NEAR the level of support and integration apple does through their developer tool releases and their documentation available through their web site - all gratis. The design of the OS is great, the tools are great, the look and feel is just right - one button be damned.
What Redhat SHOULD have done in my opinion - and to their credit, you're right, they are moving in this direction - is that they should have stepped up to the plate to make sure that common hardware - like, 3D accellerators - are all supported fully by the window manager and display system and are available to games in a user-friendly way. No XF86Config to edit, no nothing. Plug it in and it works. Apple did this with OpenGL. Redhat should have made sure that there is a way for people to watch movies and DVDs without going through 1001 semi-legal hoops, twitches, and jumps for a half working solution. Apple did this with their Quicktime player and iDVD. Apple controls their base motherboards, yes. They work closely with third parties like NVidia and ATI to make sure their cards are supported. Other companies like creative are coming around to provide support, as well - backed by Apple as the provider of corporate sanity and legal guarantees. One thing I'm learning as I get older is the world isn't black and white. Closed source and open source CAN play nice together.
Redhat should have played the role of Apple or Microsoft for the linux world. Yes, they don't control the hardware. They damn well could have worked a lot closer with third party hardware people like NVidia to get their things working right out of the box, so companies like Loki aren't left with 100 line README files on how to make a game work on a given platform. Trying to keep this rant on topic, Loki tried to fit itself in the middle when the installed base wasn't ready and their sales figures reflected that.
What is really troubling to me is that now I can see projects like XDarwin, Fink (fink.sourceforge.net) derailing the effort to get linux on the desktop. Efforts by Sun to intergrate the fruits of open source development - remember, open source users benefit when the installed base goes up - will also further hurt linux on the desktop. Gnome 2.0 with Ximian updates on Solaris is going to make my Sunblade machines a lot more attractive looking!
Apple has a real winner here, and I encourage more people to try OS X. The user experience is something I really missed - reliability and a solid application base.
I really, really, really hope someone at Redhat or any of the major commercial distros looks at what Apple (and Sun, to a lesser degree) are doing and come up with a similar strategy. I don't want there to be any more Loki style failures in the future.
Just my 0.02. cdn, even.
-- ..don't panic
Re:Delay between Windows and Linux port did them i
by
Anonymous Coward
·
· Score: 1, Interesting
the average lifecycle for a game with a multiplayer element is at most 3 months
And do those flash-in-the-pan games make any money? I doubt it. And if they aren't profitable on Windows, there's no reason to port them elsewhere.
The fact is that _most_ game buyers do not buy a game within the first few weeks of release. My local CompUSA still has stacks of UT and HalfLife (and RR Tycoon, and Sims, and so on) for sale, and those are all old games which somebody is still buying. And if those are still selling on Windows, why wouldn't Linux users go buy them, if these Linux users in fact exist?
(I suspect that the game industry works much like the music or movie businesses -- only a small percentage of your product is profitable, but the part that is is extremely profitable. Problem is, you can't tell what will make money until you actually go and make it.)
Re:huh? I already got free.
by
rseuhs
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· Score: 3, Interesting
As far as social simulation and other interesting not-common-on-American-PCs genres go...
I think this was a major reason for Loki failing - they concentrated on the American market where Linux is scarce on the desktop.
I've made a small statistic on the basis of newsgroups. It shows that in the average American, non-technical newsgroup there, about 0 to 5% are posting with Linux, in the average German, non-technical newsgroup, about 5 to 25% post using Linux.
Even with less than 1/3rd of the population there are almost certainly more Linux-desktops in Germany alone than in the U.S.A.
Re:This is what happens....
by
RickHunter
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· Score: 3, Interesting
What universe are you living in? I've never once seen a Loki game in stores. If I had, I would've snapped it up immidiately. Unfortunately, I don't order games online much, if at all. I buy games that look interesting in the store, when I have some free money and free time. Since I can't predict either ahead of time, having to wait weeks for a game to arrive just doesn't work.
That said, that wasn't Loki's fault. Most gaming stores believe that all gamers run Windows (or, even worse recently, that all gamers use consoles), and thus don't want to stock Linux games because there's no market for them. Which becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy. No desktop success because no games -> no market for games -> no games stocked -> back to square one.
Slashdot Mirror
I go to the local video game store (yes, a franchise) and what do i see? I can get any linux game for 10 bucks or under. If you consider the Windows version costs roughly 30 bucks or more, this is a huge loss to companies. Loki did some really great ports, but i think linux still has yet to prove itself as a gaming platform.
I SURVIVED THE GREAT SLASHDOT BLACKOUT OF 2002!
They'll open source everything that they can. That would at least be a silver lining.
(B) + (D) + (B) + (D) = (K) + (&)
Looks like they (LG) were too optimistic about Loki pulling out of the bankruptcy nosedive in that article.
One has to wonder: where does this leave the support for the games that are already out there? What happens when a new glibc causes old games to fail to start? What happens when an incompatibility with SDL or XFree86/OpenGL or anything else crops up? Do those games just die?
And what does this mean for future games, like those whose engines are already ported to Linux (like Unreal/Unreal Tournament and Quake 3)?
Root^H^H^Hed Hat should buy Loki's assets and licenses. They have a somewhat successful business already, a gaming division for "their" OS would be a nice feather in their cap (cap.. heh, no pun intended)
Trolling is a art,
Well, at least that's one Linux port that's keeping pace with the windows version. Too bad it's headed the wrong direction...
Everythign about Tribes2 makes me really sad. I bought the windows version when it first came out. It was unstable, but not too bad. I've definitely seen worse. There were a lot of patches that came out in quick succession, but the patches were done very poorly. A patch couldn't be applied to an install with a previous patch, and you couldn't back out of the patches. You had to uninstall it and reinstall it, with all the required reboots, everytime a new patch was released, which in that first month was about every other day. That was the only reason I stopped playing it.
I was planning to buy the Linux port aafter they'd settled down with the patches for a bit, but there's no way I'll have the money by the end of the month. It seems like they could have sold a lot of stuff if they'd given a little more notice.
Under capitalism man exploits man. Under communism it's the other way around.
Linux gaming isn't going anywhere without a console to take it there. "The Dream Lives On"
An Education is the Font of All Liberty
We all know Windows games never get pirated.
They get pirated all the time, but what they lose in piracy they make up for in legit sales. Lots and lots of legit sales.
The problem is that Linux is run by only 0.24 per cent [slashdot.org] of desktop users. You can't support a proprietary software company with 0.24% of the market.
The problem is that nobody bought their games; doesn't matter how many Linux users there are. Loki sold their games in stores nationwide and on their website. They're there for the purchasing. Unfortunately, they're also there for the taking elsewhere on the Internet. If everyone who stole their copy of "Railroad Tycoon 2" or "Sim City 3000" or "Postal" had supported Loki and paid for it instead, we wouldn't be commenting on this story right now.
- A.P.
"Remember when the U.S. had a drug problem, and then we declared a War On Drugs, and now you can't buy drugs anymore?"
Just back on October 24th, Draeker was putting down Transgaming/WineX and declairing traditional port to be a better way of supporting Linux. Now, just one day short of 3 months later, Draeker is declairing that his company's traditional ports come without technical support.
I still recall at ALS '97 that Linus declair Wine as one of the most important projects for Linux. As a long term support method, API redirection projects will continue to bring more prioritary apps to Linux than a port here or a port there. And when the Loki ports break down on glibc v3.0 or whatever, the open source WineX API redirection will continue to work. For Loki port, unfortantly, providing just the SDL library layer is not enough for ensuring long term use-ablity.
In the case of Hyperions titles, that's not necessarily true. Most or if not all of their titles require PPC and 3D support. Now the Amiga community is small at best, but the number of people that have machine with (expensive) PPC cards and a 3D video cards is a miniscule part of that small community. Given how the Amiga titles have outsold the Linux versions, this makes the situation all the more disappointing.
Regarding the number of people who play games under Linux... Well, there certainly has been a clamor for them. While it's true that most installations of Linux are running as servers, there are also many desktop installations. Certainly a larger number than any other alternative OS except perhaps MacOS. We get quite a few requests for ports, and in general there seems to be quite a clamor for Linux games (if you read any website frequented by the Linux community). Loki, as the predominant Linux gaming company, received heaps of praise.
As far as social simulation and other interesting not-common-on-American-PCs genres go... Well, I sure wish we'd release some of those. Unfortunately it is still a niche market, and given that we already cater to a niche market it would be a niche within a niche. :-(
I hope with growing acceptance of Linux there might be a revival of Linux gaming at some point.... But for the time being the attitude seems to be Everything-On-Linux-Must-Be-Free-Beer. People who are willing to buy Windows games are unwilling to buy the Linux version (even though they claim that they want it). Instead they expect it to be supplied for free. I really hope this changes in the future. :-(
James Sellman - Hyperion Entertainment - http://www.hyperion-entertainment.com/
Actually, a bunch of us at Hyperion really, REALLY hate nVidia. They are the prima donnas of the graphics card manufacturing community. We repeatedly asked them for information concerning the functioning of their cards and for the large part they refused our pleas. Their attitude is that everything has to be done internally and they refuse to cooperate with others. Companies like ATI and Matrox have been very cooperative with us, giving us the information we need to make sure our stuff works properly with their hardware. 3DFX, while they still existed, were also somewhat helpful in providing information (though not as good as ATI). There was a problem with the Voodoo GL drivers that actually caused the game to crash when we had glowing objects onscreen in Shogo, but fortunately due easy-to-access information we were able to include a workaround.
I wholeheartedly encourage everyone to NOT use nVidia hardware until they open up a bit with the information so that people can actually SUPPORT their cards. There are many other great companies that make great cards you can buy from. My personal favorite is the ATI Radeon series but there are other worthy contenders as well.
And yes, I know Loki games don't have problems with the new nVidia drivers. And no I don't know why. :-( Loki, to their credit, were more devoted to Linux and certainly did work harder to fix incompatibilities. If someone who's reading this knows what's causing the crash, please let us know. I wish we could afford the time to root out the problem but unfortunately we need to spend it on other projects so we don't wind up like Loki. :-(
James Sellman - Hyperion Entertainment - http://www.hyperion-entertainment.com/
...this will not change.
This shouldn't come as any surprise.
For Christmas I got Mandrake 8.1 Gaming Edition with The Sims. Very cool and just like the Windows version. The only thing is, on my Windows machine, I've got all 3 add-on packs too. Would I have bought The Sims for Linux had it not been packaged with the upgrade? Probably not.
Until Linux games get released at the same time as the Windows games this won't change. People who have already bought the game under Windows, *most times* don't want to buy it again 1-2 years later just so they can use it under Linux. And they don't want to wait, hoping it will be one of the few ported to Linux, unless that's the only OS they're using AND the Win version doesn't work under Wine.
If you've never been modded as "flamebait" or "troll," you've never tried to argue a minority viewpoint here!
I could ask our engineers again what finally resulted from talking to nVidia... Unfortunately it's kind of moot now as management is leery about spending time (and thus money) on the Linux market when even the tiny Amiga market is more responsive. :-(
If we have time at some point I can see if we can get the problem fixed, but our guys are super busy at the moment.
Believe me we're not happy that our game crashes on current rev nVidia stuff. It doesn't exactly reflect well on us. :-(
James Sellman - Hyperion Entertainment - http://www.hyperion-entertainment.com/
I just decided that I'm never, ever, ever signing up for TransGaming simply because you posted this. I might have considered it before, but not any more.
If you think that there are only 2 ways to get games in Linux, the Loki way and the TransGaming way, you are mistaken. Open your mind and you might end up better off in the long run.
This is perhaps the most true comment I've seen.
It is almost always free binaries which people want. Not just demanding them, but _Expecting_ them. Perhaps in the end, this kind of attitude from the large majourity of gamers is what killed Loki.
Check out ioquake3.org for a great, free, First-Person Shooter engine!
What's the big deal with running a dual boot
system? I'd be happy to tell you. For an
admittedly small few of us windows isn't just
a pile of bugs... it doesn't work at all. I
have tried every version of windows that has
support for all of my hardware, and not a
single one even boots once I install all my
drivers and apply patches to fix known bugs.
Linux however supports all my hardware as
well, and it not only boots.. it runs fast
and reliable for as long as I need it to. It's
people in similar situations that dual booting
is utterly useless.
In the future as we move more towards distribution of stuff over the 'net, perhaps these attitudes might change, but as it is this is simply not possible. The companies like having that physical box, that keeps the product "real" and makes it harder for numbers to be fudged about the number of copies produced, etc. I do understand this perspective and agree with it somewhat, but the obvious advantages of digital distribution I think will in the end override these concerns. These same issues affect the movie and music industries as well, and they are only just now sticking their toes into the digital content distribution market (after thoroughly sueing a lot of people I might add. :-( ).
We'll see what tomorrow brings.
James Sellman - Hyperion Entertainment - http://www.hyperion-entertainment.com/
Honestly, the nvidia drivers are so easy to get set up as long as you already have a reasonably current version of X4.
Check out ioquake3.org for a great, free, First-Person Shooter engine!
You mention a number of Libraries and I don't believe they are really that hard to get working. With one exception, MESA/DRI for X4 is extremely frustrating. Nvidia drivers however are cake to install. Most of the commercial games for Linux (http://www.icculus.org/~zakk/gamelist.php?license =commercial)
came with all the required libraries besides GL, which is up to the user or the user's distro to get working.
Check out ioquake3.org for a great, free, First-Person Shooter engine!
First to say if true it is a sad day. But remember someone else will start again.
What do I see in the world of Free Unix and games is that we need to concentrate on getting development environments going. What do I mean by this?
As I see it Loki just ported games after their shelf life expired. What we need is Linux games created first then ported to Windows. This way we trully see if a Game sells the OS or the OS sells the game. How is this done? Again to repeat is create a quick game development environment.
What should this package have?
1. Sound System that cross platforms to Windows.
2. Basic Install Shield system which allows the developers to forget this aspect of the development.
3. Graphic Rendering packages that allow the artistic part.
4. Some game dynamics package.
All this is easy to say but hard to write. So Open Source development is in order here. That is make some game ideas that could share library packages. Those Library packages are LGPL or BSD licensed for Comercial development. These are then used my the Comercial houses to create the games for Linux, BSDs, MacIntosh, and Windows in one go. Make the development environment not on Windows will allow the Linux or other be ported faster.
How to sell the new game which is developed and shipped for Linux first? Because we need to get the largest market. Simple have a version of Linux be attached to the game which can be installed on any M$ Windows platform and be executed from a running Windows Icon. This will make the system a Linux Box either taking complete control until finished or being a Process. Either way if the person has a pure linux system it will be installed there as a native app, minus the special linux version.
Hence above is a good project to work with. Instead of WINE how about Linux Is Not Emulated (LINE) project.
Iain
When the fecal matter had clearly hit the rotating blades, an outside consultant was brought in to try and get the company funded, merged, bought, or something. He tried for six months, and never got anywhere -- in part because so much debt had already been accrued. Also, at least one structured deal, liquidating existing boxed product, fell through when the partner filed for Chapter 11 (and had already taken possession of the game boxes, but not paid the remuneration owed).
The debt caught up with the company, and the creditors started demanding their money (including the 1/4 million owed to the company that printed all those nice boxes and manuals that the first 10 or so titles came in).
WAY over-producing the Q3 tins (due, in part, to the enthusiasm of the Slashdot crowd (which has never been backed up in sales), and due in part to mis-judgement of the market), burned through what capital there was A LOT faster than it needed to be.
Add lack-luster sales of all titles other than CTP, and decreasing sales from title to title, and there's not a lot to sustain it there.
You're right, the few users who actually bought Linux games, and kept buying them weren't enough. As far as QuickTime goes, there isn't any native player for the sorenson (which is the popular kind) codec mov files. The only player which is available, is via the 'crossover plugin' which uses wine.
Check out ioquake3.org for a great, free, First-Person Shooter engine!
I hope I got people thinking about some possible reasons why Loki had a hard time. You don't learn anything from a failure if you don't know why..
Let me clarify a few points. Yeah, the looks on the Ti Book kick ass. But so does how the OS looks and acts - not to mention the good start projects like fink.sourceforge.net have. XDarwin is great. I needed a machine that'd run for four hours and be thin and light as well. Sony or Apple. Sony's tech support is HORRIBLE (in my opinion). So off to apple I go. I'm really, really glad I chose the Ti book - it introduced me to what some commerical providers can do with the open source communities good starts. Apple brought their best foot forward, and the OS community brought theirs. The results astound me.
But enough about that. I work developing ASICs and embedded systems for a variety of industries in a research lab. I run linux on my primary desktop right now - about as modern a system as you can get, a watercooled athlon, even. Ximian Gnome has come a long way - but it looks like it's going to be woven into the Solaris/SUN fold, and synergies will appear there the way they did with Apple and BSD, I'm sure. FWIW, the design packages I use (Cadence Family) all run on high end Sun workstations. Mentor Graphics has some limited native linux support. Doesn't matter as long as I have a X client.
Redhat does NOT currently offer developers anywhere NEAR the level of support and integration apple does through their developer tool releases and their documentation available through their web site - all gratis. The design of the OS is great, the tools are great, the look and feel is just right - one button be damned.
What Redhat SHOULD have done in my opinion - and to their credit, you're right, they are moving in this direction - is that they should have stepped up to the plate to make sure that common hardware - like, 3D accellerators - are all supported fully by the window manager and display system and are available to games in a user-friendly way. No XF86Config to edit, no nothing. Plug it in and it works. Apple did this with OpenGL. Redhat should have made sure that there is a way for people to watch movies and DVDs without going through 1001 semi-legal hoops, twitches, and jumps for a half working solution. Apple did this with their Quicktime player and iDVD. Apple controls their base motherboards, yes. They work closely with third parties like NVidia and ATI to make sure their cards are supported. Other companies like creative are coming around to provide support, as well - backed by Apple as the provider of corporate sanity and legal guarantees. One thing I'm learning as I get older is the world isn't black and white. Closed source and open source CAN play nice together.
Redhat should have played the role of Apple or Microsoft for the linux world. Yes, they don't control the hardware. They damn well could have worked a lot closer with third party hardware people like NVidia to get their things working right out of the box, so companies like Loki aren't left with 100 line README files on how to make a game work on a given platform. Trying to keep this rant on topic, Loki tried to fit itself in the middle when the installed base wasn't ready and their sales figures reflected that.
What is really troubling to me is that now I can see projects like XDarwin, Fink (fink.sourceforge.net) derailing the effort to get linux on the desktop. Efforts by Sun to intergrate the fruits of open source development - remember, open source users benefit when the installed base goes up - will also further hurt linux on the desktop. Gnome 2.0 with Ximian updates on Solaris is going to make my Sunblade machines a lot more attractive looking!
Apple has a real winner here, and I encourage more people to try OS X. The user experience is something I really missed - reliability and a solid application base.
I really, really, really hope someone at Redhat or any of the major commercial distros looks at what Apple (and Sun, to a lesser degree) are doing and come up with a similar strategy. I don't want there to be any more Loki style failures in the future.
Just my 0.02. cdn, even.
..don't panic
the average lifecycle for a game with a multiplayer element is at most 3 months
And do those flash-in-the-pan games make any money? I doubt it. And if they aren't profitable on Windows, there's no reason to port them elsewhere.
The fact is that _most_ game buyers do not buy a game within the first few weeks of release. My local CompUSA still has stacks of UT and HalfLife (and RR Tycoon, and Sims, and so on) for sale, and those are all old games which somebody is still buying. And if those are still selling on Windows, why wouldn't Linux users go buy them, if these Linux users in fact exist?
(I suspect that the game industry works much like the music or movie businesses -- only a small percentage of your product is profitable, but the part that is is extremely profitable. Problem is, you can't tell what will make money until you actually go and make it.)
I think this was a major reason for Loki failing - they concentrated on the American market where Linux is scarce on the desktop.
I've made a small statistic on the basis of newsgroups. It shows that in the average American, non-technical newsgroup there, about 0 to 5% are posting with Linux, in the average German, non-technical newsgroup, about 5 to 25% post using Linux.
Even with less than 1/3rd of the population there are almost certainly more Linux-desktops in Germany alone than in the U.S.A.
What universe are you living in? I've never once seen a Loki game in stores. If I had, I would've snapped it up immidiately. Unfortunately, I don't order games online much, if at all. I buy games that look interesting in the store, when I have some free money and free time. Since I can't predict either ahead of time, having to wait weeks for a game to arrive just doesn't work.
That said, that wasn't Loki's fault. Most gaming stores believe that all gamers run Windows (or, even worse recently, that all gamers use consoles), and thus don't want to stock Linux games because there's no market for them. Which becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy. No desktop success because no games -> no market for games -> no games stocked -> back to square one.