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Linux Port of Disciples 2 Announced
bobz writes "Happypenguin is reporting that Linux Game Publishing has announced the next game they'll port to Linux will be Disciples 2: Dark Prophecy a turn-based strategy game that was well-reviewed but not terribly successful commercially. /me breathes a sigh of relief that it's not another first-person shooter."
a turn-based strategy game that was well-reviewed but not terribly successful commercially. /me breathes a sigh of relief that it's not another first-person shooter
Why in the hell would you port a game that won't bring in money? Honestly, porting games that bring in a TON of cash commercially do poorly in the Linux market, so who thinks that porting an unsuccessful game would bring in a profit?
Good quote, too many chars. Seriously, the slashdot 120 char limit sucks!
The fact that theres too damn many of them.
Some of us want to play games that don't involve a first person perspective and blowing things to bits. Games that involve wider strategies, or more detailed plot structures or charachter development or improvement. Some of us just don't have the 1337 5ki11z to be good at FPS, ans prefer strategy or role playing games.
Thats whats wrong with First Person Shooters.
... but is this the right approach?
I'm a gamer, I'll admit, and I love seeing the great new games that come to market. And even moreso, I love it when these games work in Linux. Currently, I can get nearly every game I want to play to work in Linux. For the ones that don't, I wait patiently...
However, I wish I could say the same for my friends - lots of them are thoroughly intrigued by the idea of Linux, and really want to switch to only Linux - but lack of support for newer games hold them back. I can certainly get what I want to play to work, but when my friends ask "But will Battlefield 1942 work?" I have to say "No." I think that work has to begin on either porting massively popular games, or convincing more devlopers to develop for Linux (although I am happy with progress so far!).
As a side issue - wouldn't it be in LGP's best interest to work on porting games that are more comercially successful? I know that there's more to it than just getting people to switch to Linux, but I'd like to ensure that they can stay in business too!
Illegitimi non Carborundum.
Well, editor, that may be your opinion, but to us gamers first person shooters are most 1337 game there is.
I don't have 2 weeks to play a simulation or turn based game, or figure out a plot based walker, but I do have half an hour at the end of the work day to frag my IT buddies and then turn it off and walk away.
My passion for the past year has been bzflag, the 100% open source multiplayer game made in the mold of battle zone. It is a little slower and more deliberate than the action packed quake or unreal, but I found that it takes real skill to keep your frag/death count positive.
bzflag handle: xxxl
still mourning the death of games.astercity
music lover since 1969
Couldn't agree more.
The fact is, I'm really quite good at first person games, but the more THINKING that's involved, the better. For instance, I prefer capture the flag to deathmatch, and prefer Return to Castle Wolfenstein to Quake 3 (much more strategy, in my opinion). Even better are the games that combine the best of FPS and add RPG elements, such as System Shock 2 or Deus Ex.
What's great about Disciples II is that it's turn-based, which makes it great for the thinkers who aren't into twitch gaming, but makes network play rather tedious. If you haven't played it before, the gameplay is almost exactly like Heroes of Might and Magic, but with a dark and dreary gothic look to it. Brings out the Necromancer in you!
The speed of time is one second per second.
OK, don't take this as a troll (and no I'm not just saying that to Karma Whore), but what kind of a choice is this for a Linux port? Having never played the game myself, I won't comment on whether it's good or not, but I can comment on the interest this will recieve with your average gamer: 0.
Seriously, if you're going to go to all the trouble of porting a game, why wouldn't you want to port a big-name title that might actually generate some interest? Where's The Sims? Where's Civilization 3? Where's Warcraft 3? Where's Unreal Tournament? Hell, where's the Half Life client?
Is it just the developers that make this difficult? Are the small guys (or obscure games) the only ones willing to play ball? Are there GPL issues at work here? I really can't understand how a developer/publisher would object to some company wanting to port their game to another platform, assuming they could work out some kind of deal where the original developer/publishing house would get a portion of profits made. Is it a fear of quality control? (Which, if true, is really funny if you've patched...er, played a major release video game in the past 5 years).
Seriously, this is not meant to be an anti-linux troll or flame. I'm really interested in what the major road-block here is. Sorry to any Disciples 2 fans out there, but releases like this will do next to nothing to generate interest in big-time Linux gaming.
No, it's not news. It's a port of a crappy game, it's not being done for a good commercial reason, and it's not going to set the Linux community (or even gaming community) on storm.
/. reports on stuff that their parent company or even distant cousin companies do they note the relationship. Frankly, Michael shouldn't have been the one to approve the story, and whoever did should've noted the relationship between a /. editor and the story.
Furthermore, posting it without noting the relationship is bad journalism. It's a conflict of interest. At least when
Of course, it's Michael. Why is anyone surprised? At all?
wouldn't it be in LGP's best interest to work on porting games that are more comercially successful?
.com boom?) of buying rights to less successful games. They're going to be much cheaper, and thus require much fewer sales to recoup the costs of. With the dearth of Linux games, users are going to buy the game if it interests them whether or not it's a big-name title. For example, I never would have heard of Disciples if I was still using Windows. But because I use Linux and I crave HOMM-like gameplay, I'll be buying the only new game in that genre, namely Disciples 2. What's the point? To make money. Not a ton of money, but to make money. If LGP can profit off of Disciples, then they can afford to do another game. Maybe a bigger-name game. Each game they can profit off of grows not only themselves but the Linux game market. With a slow, conservative approach they have a much better chance of being successfull than if they bought a $300,000 game, lost $1 mill, then went bankrupt.
Short answer: No.
Long answer: A game that is commercially successful is going to cost more to get a license for. Loki apparently payed several hundred thousand dollars for the rights to some of their games. Unsurprisingly, the immature Linux gaming market wasn't large enough for them to recoup their costs. That, along with mismanagement, is what buried Loki. LGP, not wanting to go bankrupt, is taking the much more conservative business model (remember that, from before the
The reason you think work has to begin on porting massively popular games seems to be because of a common, but incorrect line of thinking: That Linux has to become a major desktop success right now. It doesn't. Modest, sustainable growth in Linux gaming is the correct method, and the one that will work. Maybe the size of the market will reach a critical mass and be able to grow much more rapidly, but trying to force that day to come sooner by over-reaching is a recipe for failure. LGP learned this lesson from Loki, and I think they learned the right one.
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