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Scott Draeker Interview About Loki's Demise
An Anonymous Coward writes: "News forge is running an interview With lokigames president Scott Draeker. Looks like the leaked email wasn't a hoax after all. A very sad day for Linux. AOL? Redhat? IBM? someone please help these guys."
NewsForge: What happens to Loki's employees? (There were about 10 before the latest news, Draeker says.) Have they all been laid off?
Draeker: We laid off our development and support staff last Friday. I understand at least one already has an employment offer elsewhere.
It used to be that programmers had to turn away jobs. Now of 10 with some real Linux programming skills, only one has a job offer.
Probably proves the old adage, "It's not what you know, but what you know about Windows programming."
I may be off base here, but it seems to me that Linux users want Linux games, not Linux ports of windows games. Yes, I know plenty of people who play Quake on Linux, but compare its popularity to say, nethack. My guess is that nethack, simple as it is, would be way ahead. Nethack is open source, which carries alot of weight with many Linux users, including me.
Since Loki only worked on ports of existing games and didn't (as far as I have heard) purchase full rights to the existing games' source code, what gives them the legal right to release the original authors' code into the public domain? Are they just doing it because there's nobody left to sue?
Any way you look at it, though, it will definitely be a victory to open source to have such a substantial amount of game source code out there now.
Mr. Uptime
Free Open Source Naked Ladies!
Then support capitalism. "Open Source" and beerware won't work unless there is commercial and profitable incentive for it to work.
Someone needs to figure out how to make the people happy AND make a profit. This communistic ideal is never going to work properly if you want these companies to last... Making a game is not a "group study," its a tough, 60 hour a week, full-time job. And people need to get paid.
Maybe we need "Open Source Money Pools" where you can vote what kind of game you want. I'm sure that'll happen.
"AOL?, Redhat?, IBM? someone please help these guys."
Why? You seem to be missing the main point of Loki's business model. Loki took games that the game developers considered unprofitable to port to Linux and paid royalties to these game developers to port these games to Linux.
Now, with Loki having gone out of business, it has proven the developers' original point: Linux gaming is just not economically profitable. Heck, even John Carmack says (and I quote): "[T]he linux market is not viable for game developers to pursue. Linux ports will be done out of good will, not profit motives."
The harsh reality is that no one is going to bail Loki out. At this point, Linux games remain unprofitable. As long as gamers have good 3D support and decently easy game setup in Windows, they will continue to use Windows. My advice is to move on and not pursue the issue until Linux gets more desktop market share.
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The fact that Loki is going under shouldn't be a surprise: they filed for bankruptcy in August of 2001, according to this Register article.
Anyway, this might be a good opportunity to buy some Loki releases cheap. However, according to the article, we shouldn't expect discounts right away. Scott Draeker said "I don't think there will be any huge discounts right away -- maybe in six months..."
I mean, it's very sad for the Linux desktop people, but I've always felt that Linux's real strength was as a low-midrange server 0S, which is what I use it for (quite profitably) both at work and at home.
Mostly, when I hear news like this, I want to tell people 'right tool for the right job'. Right now, the right tool for gaming is Windows. I wish it weren't so, but I also wish that the cheapest place to buy quality hand-tools wasn't Sears Roebuck.
Until the tools change... and this means an infrastructure change to Linux like any of the Wine-focused distros are harping... Windows will continue to be the best platform for games, just as MacOS continues to be the best platform for many multimedia tasks.
Rather than bemoaning YALCB (Yet Another Linux Company Bankruptcy...) contribute to projects like WINE and LindowsOS. Also, Linux GUI's and apps have all gone well past the point where they should be spending as much time on usability and compatibility as they do on technology development and application power:
Example: One of the complaints I hear most frequently from Windows users who switch over to a big name distro like Mandrake or RedHat complain about the speed of Gnome or KDE up against Windows GUI. The speed hit can be explained and fixed through several settings, program switches, and even kernel optimizations, but if I'm a Joe-Sixpack who doesn't wan't to support Microsoft, but sees this behavior and can't fix it easily, then I'm probably going to stay with Windows.
If you want Linux to be a gaming OS, it has to be just as easy to use and configure for everyone as the other gaming OS.
The next Slashdot story will be ready soon, but subscribers can beat the rush and slashdot the links early!
Linux is free software.
People who use free software are cheapskates who won't buy anything.
Companies need people buying their stuff to survive.
No one using Linux will buy stuff.
Companies go under.
SIMPLE! Who the hell's gonna support Loki, Salvation Army?
With Mandrake creating a "Gaming edition", why don't they pick up where Loki left off? That seems pretty logical to me.
>Windows will continue to be the best platform >for games, just as MacOS continues to be the >best platform for many multimedia tasks.
I hate to mince words here, but dig this: Some might argue that *BeOS* is the best platform for many multimedia tasks. But it's gone the way of the dinosaur because almost *nobody* used it in that manner, regardless of how well designed it was.
Likewise, I would argue that *Linux* is the best platform for gaming...if you're ready to cope with a limited selection of games. I won't bore you with FPS benchmarks, but Linux (3rd party drivers and all) has evolved to a point where it can spank Windows 2000 and XP on a regular basis every time a part-time gamer wants to turn that badass mail server in the back room into a temporary gaming box. The file system is faster and more efficient. A user can easily give any game close-to-realtime priority if fragging a friend is foremost on her/his mind, picking up 5-10 extra frames per second in the process...
My point is that Windows is *not* a superior gaming platform compared to Linux, just that it is far better supported by game developers and hardware manufacturers alike. Until that changes, we will all find ourselves downloading the new DirectX version 37.
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I have no signature.
When's the last time you saw a linux user whining about IBM? They've been betting their future on linux if you haven't noticed.
...Loki is a business, and if they don't have a viable business model, it's their problem. When you start a business you either make it successful or you don't. It's nobody elses problem to make things work, and it's especially nobody elses problem to infuse cash into a business that has proven time and time again that it's not viable.
I'm not saying Loki was a bad company. I'm saying that the business they were in was not robust enough to sustain Loki. Even the best of the best can only sell ice cubes to eskimos for so long. The Linux gaming market just isn't there, folks. Make your peace and move on.
I wish the folks at Loki (and the former employees) all the luck in the world, and maybe some day Linux will have a viable game market that will bring them all back together again. For now, though, it's not there. Pooling money together to keep Loki alive for the few people who bothered to buy their games is just plain silly. Ditto for asking RH/IBM/AOL to bail them out.
Loki wasn't in the business of charity; nobody should be asked for charity to keep Loki in business.
Well, that's exactly what's going to happen.
The same could have been said for Corel's products -- there is nothing else comparable to Corel Draw for Linux or Corel WordPerfect Office 2000 for Linux, but both have been discontinued due to nonexistent sales. I'm lucky enough to own both, but people who want to buy WordPerfect Office 2000 for Linux today are out of luck, because Corel won't sell it to you and neither will anyone else.
In fact, it was Corel's second try... Corel Draw 6 (IIRC) was released for Linux years ago, and pulled due to lack of sales.
I see a lot of people here complaining that it's about capitalism vs. communism, or about "they didn't release the games I want" but I think, when it really comes down to truth, things look something like this:
It's nothing to do with a utopian fantasy about free software... Linux users just want free beer. It's a sad thing for those of us who want to use Linux for anything else. We get told over and over "Use the right tool for the right job. What you want is Windows." Hmmm, Windows to run office software. Windows to browse the Web with a decent browser. Windows to play games. Well, as it turns out that's all I use a computer for these days.
So, in essence, what the "community" tells the rest of us, day in and day out, is "get lost and go back to Windows." Not because of any principle, but because they're deathly afraid they might become mainstream.
Sad for those of us who have never owned windows. I came up through the Unix world, starting in the mid '80s and I'm comfortable with *nix systems I still have a VT100 (yes, a real one) sitting in the corner that I use for some things. But if they're saying that Linux is for coding only, and thus modern Unix is for coding only... I guess I've outgrown Unix and will have to invest in Windows.
Ramble, ramble, ramble...
Back to on-topic... in short, yes, the games, and all of the hard work, will likely disappear into a black hole.
STOP . AMERICA . NOW
Loki went out of business because not enough people paid them for their product. Whether or not it is a problem with the Linux community having to pay for software, or if it is because Linux does not have enough of the core gaming market is up for debate. Either way, you can't operate a profitble business without customers/users.
If Loki been able to get some big name games to the platform things may of been different. Sorry, but Postal is a crap game that was crap on PC and no amount of good will can make a 2-3 year old crap game a viable product.
Maybe they should of looked at the charts more and sold out. Who wants to be a millionaire? sold bucket loads. Yeah it is shallow, but it is mass market and a damn sight more likely to sell than The Return of Postal-Unplugged Special Edition.
Oh, and for all those people who say things like "I use Windows ONLY for games" why bother saying that? Does it make any difference if you use Windows for ONLY games or if you use Windows for everything? Do you feel proud that you pay the same amount to Microsoft for their operating system but don't use it for anything (apart from games)?
Their weight in gold? How many truly successful commercial linux enterprise software companies are there?
Loki sold it's games far too cheap.
I love Heroes III, and play it all the time.
I too wanted to
People who use Linux *love* using linux. It's
the platform we chose.
I still remember how flabergasted I was a the
price (like $9 or something) I paid for Heroes III.
Loki made one, fundamental mistake. They
should've charged $30-$60 for the games and
done a good job on them, maybe made them better
on Linux. I would have still bought Heroes III,
and Loki would have had maybe 8X the revenue.
The Linux game market is most certainly *NOT*
dead. Loki's business model of selling the
games so cheap was the error here.
If Linux companies had produced Linux-only or Linux-first games that were original and playable, most would still be in business. How can you compete by porting something that's already out for Windows, if most of your user base can already dual-boot into Windows and sees little reason to wait for the Linux version to come out? Not a good business plan, unfortunately.
Although not the most technically advanced game, Tux Racer is a good example of the possible success of Linux games. If even a simple Linux-only game as this can achieve as many fans as it has in the Linux market, larger projects that were creative and Linux first had a good chance of success. But a port of SimCity 3000 months after you could already play it on your computer in Windows? Good game, bad business.
I see a lot of people concluded from this that the Linux gaming market is not viable. While that may be the case, Loki in no way demonstrates it.
The problem here is they port a game after it is popular, with a lead time of at least 6 months to get from Windows to Linux. The Linux users who also like to play games alot are typically on x86 architecture, and have some version of Windows (even 95) lying around. Is it worth it to wait 6 months to a year to play a game on Linux, especially since by then the Windows version is in the bargain bin at 1/5 the price of the Linux version.
*If* there is a potential viable Linux gaming market (and that is a big *if*, the Linux desktop userbase is already small compared to Windows, and of those users, I would venture to say that most don't really care that much about games.), then the only hope to see it come forth is if the playing field is level, meaning that releases would have to be simultaneous, equally available (on the shelves), and equally priced. Given the circumstances, only Transgaming can have a short enough lead time to really sell enough to have any good numbers.
XML is like violence. If it doesn't solve the problem, use more.
the whole free software, open source thing doesnt really cut it with games.
with the majority of popular games coming out now, mainly in the land of FPS and RTS, you can gain access to an SDK within days of the games release, as well as normally a section of source code with which to rewrite sections to make your own mod or just to tinker with the game, making the whole 'port games to linux because its open source etc etc' a moot point
and with every developer and his mother trying to release another version of quake, c&c etc, and all the 'its like <genre defining classic> but quicksave is now F10 instead of F6' games coming out, its hard enough to make money without charging the large amounts companies already do for games.
how could a company that is rewriting already existing games for an operating system that is really only a niche market *in the land of gaming* (note this point before you flame) expect to cope? even though they dont have all the issues with art, music etc, these things dont convert themselves. and the amount of people that downloaded a full OS for free, then a browser for free, then everything else for free arent gonna wanna pay just to play games. i think this whats happened to loki has proved this point.
<redundant>
windows is the premier gaming platform, and its gonna be a hard thing to change. sure, i whinge like the rest of us when IE crashes for the millionth time for no good reason, and i despise all the 'invasion of privacy bullshit that makes me use Eudora and Netscape/Opera instead of Outlook/IE, but games wise, you arent gonna get a better platform.
</redundant>
So the problem with Loki's business model is that it was porting games that were already available. The only people interested would be those people who don't run Windows, but want to play the games - that's a minority of gamers. The vast majority of gamers just want to play the game; since it was already released for Windows, they have no need to get it again for Linux.
Now if they were producing new games for Linux, that'd be another matter entirely. But they're producing games for Linux that the hardcore gamers all already have for another platform; there's little incentive for them to buy it again.
10 PRINT CHR$(205.5+RND(1)); : GOTO 10