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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
I've never really tried gaming on linux, but from what I've hear it's pretty difficult to get the games going. It can take hours sometimes to get systems set up to play the games correctly.
I wonder if anyone else has other experiances. A lot of people belive that most linux users who play computer gams have a windows partition for that.
But who knows.
autopr0n is like, down and stuff.
"Oh, and release it under a license which doesn't allow for ports to non open-source operating systems :-)
1. Write brilliant game.
2. Exclude vast majority of potential buyers.
3. Profit!!
Bit of an optimistic guess I think, given how many people who run Linux also have windows machines / partitions for gaming.
/dev/dsp? Still, if it differs too much from Windows then games will not get ported. We need DirectX on Linux!!!
Linux's problem was that it was always a pain in the ass to get one of these games running. Does this version only work on Voodoo cards with Glide or does my Nvidia card work with it? Who knows? Who cares? People used to Windows games certainly don't. They click setup, the game installs, and uses DirectX and away they go. Linux needs DirectX or something similar to offer a standard interface to video and audio APIs. I suppose we have OpenGL but is there a standard audio interface?
That is not "insightful". It is totally false. Many Linux users *pay* for their distributions. Many *pay* for commercial software.
GPL advocates aren't any different than Windows users, when it comes to playing games. Most of them are willing to pay for commercial software, as long as it is of high quality. As a matter of fact, I'm willing to bet that there is a whole lot more illegitimate gaming on the Windows side. I've known LOTS of Windows users that refuse to pay for any of their software.
For the record, I've paid for the following on my Linux box in the last few months:
Slackware 8.1
Lycoris
Mandrake
Return to Castle Wolfenstein
Q3A
OpenSound.com sound drivers
Two Opera licenses
And I'm getting ready to buy a bunch of games from Tux Games. Neverwinter Nights is on my list. Perhaps if there was more software available, then Linux users would be buying more. The point is that there isn't as much right now, and most of what is available is GPL. We use, and advocate good GPL software because often, it is better than the commericial alternatives. But right now, the commercial games still have it. There aren't many GPL games that can match the amount of money and manpower that go into these big, commercial projects. Good, advanced GPL games are showing up, but not at the rate of commercial games.
Did it ever occur to you that some people love GNU/Linux, not because it is free, but because it is the best, most powerful x86 alternative to Windows? Maybe that doesn't make sense to you. How much have you paid for software lately?
There will be a market for Linux games. It just needs to be given a chance. Hardware drivers are very stable in Linux, and things like SDL make it really easy to write cross platform games. Linux's OpenGL implementation also seems faster than on Windows. It is growing as an OS, and getting more users. You don't really think that they all want to miss out on these games, do you?
There isn't much of one at the moment, granted, because most of the people who use linux are part of this hardened free-software crowd, but if Linux on the desktop becomes more widespread among your average computer user (fingers crossed), then there will be lots of people who would pay for quality games if they were produced for Linux.
There's a fairly strong argument that producing a decent library of games that run on Linux would help increase it's use on the desktop.
Back in the day, this same thing played out over OS/2. I would say that Linux is more popular (and better than) OS/2, but it was a similiar situation in that a number of people thought if there could be/would be an OS/2 gaming market that OS/2 would succeed on the desktop.
Short story version is OS/2 didn't succeed on the desktop and OS/2 games sold in minimal numbers.
The interesting thing is this; OS/2 had Windows emulation. In fact, it had better Windows emulation then Linux does today [this is arguable in that Windows today is a different animal then it was then, but the point should stand]. And you know what, Windows emulation didn't help OS/2. It didn't help because anything that is a windows emulator is destined to break because you-know-who controls the windows API and the windows gaming API. If you start to be successful in writing something that doesn't actually require windows to run windows apps, then you-know-who will BREAK the API and you will forever be playing catch-up.
The short answer to getting your now broken app to run again is to what? That's right, reboot and run it under Win32, where it was written and where it runs correctly.
You know you're a geek if you've ever replied to a tagline.
I've found that Linux works wonderfully as a gaming platform. OpenGL apps are perfect, assuming you have drivers. nVidia, PowerVR, Matrox, and even some ATi cards have good 3D acceleration in Linux.
/dev/dsp to a Virtual Mixer device. All of this can normally be done for $25-$50, depending on the hardware and options that you want. It is worth it if you value excellent sound. Odds are than all AC-97 compliant sound chips will work with these 4-Front opensound.com drivers. I really advocate 4-Front as a provider for sound drivers. Their tech support is top notch, and they offer a great product, availble for most Unix platforms.
Sound options are pretty good too. The default kernel drivers work well, especially with cars that have built-in hardware mixers, like the SB Live cards, and some Yamaha products. The ALSA project also has good drivers for some cards. If you want extra functionality, it is worth it to pick up some commercial drivers from www.opensound.com. I use these with my Santa Cruz, and have control over the front, and rear DSPs. I can spatialize my audio with my KDE mixer. The drivers also have a DirectSound-style mixer, which mixes audio in real-time, and routes it to the DSP. This is truely real-time too, not like aRts, which claims to be real-time, but is still very latent. The OpenSound driver is a real, kernel level module, with real-time priority. It can also mix over 50 audio streams at one time, if you pay for the "Virtual Mixer Pro" upgrade. Plus, even the basic mixer will route hardcoded audio that tries to access
With proper video and sound drivers, things like SDL make it really easy to run games in Linux. MESA 3D provides for great OpenGL acceleration, and is very fast and pretty.
Now, if only game companies would get on those ports! I am ready to buy.
Most Linux users are there for stability, because they believe in it, etc. Thus the Linux gaming market will be mainly for people who are not hardcore gamers - just programmers, geeks, etc who are looking for the occasional game. I find it hard to believe the market will really rumble, since on the same hardware most people can install and run Windows games on their M$ OS of choice. There are exceptions of course, but I'd put my money on them being few and far between.
However, as implied in the interview, the key is predicting the future. Getting in on the ground, becoming a respected name in Linux gaming, could be a good strategy ready for one of several possible events:
I think the second point is most likely what Linux gaming could be all about. The console market is shifting towards a more "Home Entertainment System" with DVD and networking. Add a hard drive, get TiVO-esque services, run Linux for an OS and push Intel/Microsoft aside with a decent, lower cost alternative to the PC. Plenty people I know have VCRs, DVDs, HiFi etc without ever thinking they'll need a PC, but might like a games console that does all the above. The lines between devices are blurring more and more, and Linux could be the heart of some of the newer generation devices.
Conversion Rate Optimisation French / English consultant
THE PROBLEM WITH COMMERCIAL GAME PORTS (WITH A FEW NOTABLE EXCEPTIONS):
The problem with Loki was that their games releases lagged the release of the same game under Windoze by six months or more. Whilst the Loki version of the game was about the same price as the original ON THE DAY IT WAS RELEASED, by the time the Linux version was out at $40, the Windoze version was available at $19.99 or less.
Anyone with a dual-boot machine (pretty much a necessity for SERIOUS gamers who love Linux) would either buy the Windoze game as soon as it came out and not wait for Loki to catch up - or they'd wait - and be disappointed to find that the Loki version was so expensive.
Linux is still too small of a market for the big games companies to want to drain their valuable developer resources either co-developing the Linux version or having their programmers help out a third party with co-developing it. That means that we are doomed to seeing that six month lag.
Quake is an exception - the Linux versions of that series were done more as a hobby by the developers than as a viable business. They lost money on it.
THE PROBLEM WITH FREEWARE GAMES:
(...And I speak from bitter experience. I wrote 'Tux The Penguin: A Quest for Herring' and TuxKart).
It takes a team of programmers at least a couple of years to write a game that comes even remotely close to the quality of a MODERN commercial game...and that assumes that you can find OpenSource Artists and Musicians (which you can't - trust me).
That's OK - I could live with that - anything worth doing is worth the commitment. But these games have a 'shelf life' of just a couple of months
and then there are no more downloads, your work is gradually forgotten. That's to be expected - most games are something you play for a few weeks and then you are looking for something different. Remember that only one in THIRTY commercial games ever sees a profit.
So you spend years of your life developing something - only to find that your rise to fame is extremely short-lived. That's not a very rewarding experience.
Also, the 'Bazaar' effect where lots of people come on board a working software project to make it better either doesn't happen - or is a waste of time because the game has fizzled in popularity before the effect can build up to a useful degree.
If you 'commit early' and release your game before it's fully polished then people play it once, decide that it's crap and never return to play it again.
It's just not like most other OpenSource development. If I had written another GIMP or an Apache or even some other small-but-useful application, my work would be used and appreciated by others for years to come. Other developers would improve upon it. I would feel that all the effort was worthwhile.
Games are a lot of fun to write though - that's what keeps me doing it.
DEPRESSING CONCLUSION.
I think there will be no significant numbers of good Linux games until there are perhaps ten times as many people using Linux as there are currently. At that point, there might be enough of a market for the mainstream games companies - or smaller startups - to make commercially viable Linux games.
Meanwhile, there are more than 50 versions of Tetris and over a dozen Bomberman clones - because those games can be written quickly and without the skills of a dozen great 3D artists.
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