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Michael Simms of LGP and TuxGames
jvmatthe writes "The scene for native Linux games has been sleeping for months now, given the demise of Loki. Now LinuxGames has posted a very interesting interview with Michael Simms, who leads both TuxGames and Linux Game Publishing (LGP), which details his views on where Linux gaming has been, where it stands now (including comments on WineX), and where it may be going in the short and long term."
We as a community of users are still not being good advocates. It's more than advocacy - it's basic manners and the ability to communicate.
If you flame or abuse somebody, you give them the excuse they might be looking for to ignore you.
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Rather than splitting the *nix games development effort, back the only *nix that's getting any real support today and write for the Mac OSX. If the effort is split (and let's face it, it isn't - as of today it's all behind OSX - anyone seen WC3 for Linux ). Drop the dead donkey.
Bad analogies are like waxing a monkey with a rainbow.
is a killer app, a game which isn't available on another platform, which takes advantage of the special properties which open source and linux operating systems can offer... like really long uptimes... like keeping the game on in the background all the time in a minimal mode, so that it acts likes a server using p2p for playing (like doom3) when you're not playing it.
:-)
a massively multiplayer elite-a-like? a massively mutliplayer first person perspective action/RPG based in a bladerunner type city?
expandable using user programable add-on modules?
Oh, and release it under a license which doesn't allow for ports to non open-source operating systems
The hardened open source/free software crowd doesn't pay for their OS, their web browsers, their web servers, their database servers, their mail servers, their mail programs, their office suites, their graphics packages, or *any* other piece of software. There's no reason to believe that there's a market for games, either. I certainly wish any commercial Linux software vendor well, but with little hope.
If ever there were a way to destroy a company before it's doors even open, THIS is it.
It was given a chance. It was called Loki. Some people bought games from them, but nowhere near enough to keep the company going.
Hmm... I really should have reserved judgement for this guy - I thoroughly agree with this. (HAvent I been told never to be too quick to judge before...). The MAC has been aimed at by mainstream games companies lots in the past, and you buy games like Quake 3 and HL for it no problems.
:
Yes Mac OS X runs a nix environment, but it also has Mac specific graphics and sound high level APIs which have been around a while and have been developed parallel to Dx. Efforts need to be focused on X86 linux boxes, both in terms of code and image so that companies will be willing to attempt to port games to it and feel justly renumerated. My own company produce for the PS2 console, and we port our game to almost every language, and every country - but we gave up on china- the translation is too expensive, and about 4 guys will buy it and everyone else will buy their pirate versions. Not that I agree that it is quite as bad as that but thats the company line....
So
1) Develop and maintain API's which allow reasonably high level access to most gaming hardware - from Graphics(3d accelerated + all features like per-vertex-shading etc) to Sound(including Dolby Pro - screw DTS as they require massive licensing fees), to Networking and controllers/joysticks.
2) Buy these games, try them, tell us what they are like - use word of mouth as its the best form of advertising.
3) Dont pirate these games - By pirating them you will only ensure there wont be many more.
4) Use constructive criticism, bug reports for both APIs and games.
5) If you really want free games - Get involved - write games yourself. Far too many of the games that are free lack imagination and good artwork and appear to be little more than tech-demos. Artists, coders and designers are needed to fuel this.
If you want this thing to happen- you are all gonna have to work for it....
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You say:
"We're a Linux development company and we'd like to partner with you to port your product X to Linux.
"We're willing to pay you up-front for your developers' time to get us up to speed with your codebase and we'll take Y% of profit on sales of the Linux product.
"In other words, we're taking all the risk and you can't lose."
If they're not likely to make money from it so they can't afford to do it.
Most Linux users are there for stability, because they believe in it, etc. Thus the Linux gaming market will be mainly for people who are not hardcore gamers - just programmers, geeks, etc who are looking for the occasional game.
Most of the hardcore PC gamers that I know are fed up with Windows and are seeking other alternatives, or an escape if you will. They also tend to be somewhat anarchist towards large overdominant corporations like Microsoft. With the money that they spend (cough cough, some of them anyways) on games exceeding hundreds of dollars in itself, the last thing that they want to spend money on is an OS. Thus linux is the perfect platform for them.
Give the poeple a door and they will walk through it.
-Tolerate my intolerance
So lets spend less time writing windows emulators and more time writing killer apps. Its really that simple. Leave the nasty broken APIs, buggy dll's etc well alone and concentrate on making linux powerful in its own right. I dont emulate office- I run OpenOffice(in fact I use it on a windows box too). I dont run WINE. The only layer of windows I emulate at all is the SMB protocol(SAMBA) so I can do file and print sharing.
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