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LGP Announces Two More Titles
dolson writes "Earlier today Linux Game Publishing announced the next two titles that they will be porting to Linux. They are both made by Grim, a Swedish development company, and they are called Ballistics and Bandits: Phoenix Rising. One is a high-speed racing game, and the other is a driving/action game."
What is the best selling linux game of all time and how does that compare to the best selling PC games?
Just curious. I myself bought the Quake 2 games for Linux but that was a couple of years ago. I primarily play console games now.
-- You see, there would be these conclusions that you could jump to
Nothing like shitty old games that nobody has heard of to light a fire under linux gaming! Good thing nobody is developing original games for linux!
On one hand yes. I wish these developers every possible success.
On the other hand. Well, I haven't heard of Grin, or it's games. Sorry. I can't recall seeing anything in a PC Gamer, or a box in a software shop.
There's no planetbandits.
Oh well. I wish everyone involved the best.
YAULSS. Yet Another Useless Linux Slashdot Story
Huh?
Every time I see the title of that new game I think of the hugely awesome Amiga game by (I think) Psygnosis.
but is it really worth the effort? If you really wanted to play games on your computer just run a dual-boot for god's sakes. I know Windows is expensive, but I'm sure you can find a copy of windows 98 for pretty cheap, and that (as far as I'm awayre) should still play most games. It will certainly be able to play all the games that have been ported to Linux so far.
Because you can recompile programs and drivers optimised for your proessor. If more game engines were open sourced then gamers will beable to get more vital fps and polys out of their hardware. Try it, games usually DO run faster then their windows counterparts when they are compiled from source!
Its another convincing arguement for open source, because linux DOES PUSH my older hardware to limits that windows just cant!
I pointed out that there isn't much point to running Quake and whatnot on a server, and he agreed, saying that if Linux ever really makes it to the desktop these companies that were just targeting it in the first place because it was "the next big thing" will revisit it.
I know many people will bemoan the fact that they cannot get some brand new highly known game to run on Linux. The reason why is simple: Economics.
:). And also lets the customer actually have more of a voice...
OTH, having LGP port lesser known games has opened up a whole new world to games I would never have known about, because they don't have the publisher to spam all the well known gaming magazines with reviews etc. Also, not having the huge publisher gives the smaller developer a chance to release the game they want
I'll be getting these games for sure, a little more expensive than the Windows versions, but thats a small price to pay in terms of having to run on an OS I don't like to use.
StarTux
I clicked on their reseller link and clicked on the one line they had for the US. That page only had Quake for Linux under the software category.
How do they expect to make a profit if they're only reseller for the US doesn't carry their stuff?
This is extremely good news to Linux and open source OSs in general. Eventually this will pay off. Now we just need to support these guys by buying the titles.
On the Win32 side, Ballistics was one of the first games to use DirectX 8 vertex and pixel shaders, which where introduced with the Geforce3.
Here's a Maximum PC review. It got a 7, with gorgeous graphics but not too much content. Interestingly, it only listed for $30.
Every time I read or hear abou ta new driving game, I just think of the fuss back in 1976 when an arcade game based upon a really bad B movie of the same title came out
Actually, what I'd like to know is if these games actually compete with titles on "that other operating system" enough to tell my kids, Mandrake 9.1b1 is enough for you skippy?
--- have you healed your church website?
Anyone smell a clever product placement here?
.
SIG:Slashdot: indymedia for nerds.
Well - I think its fantasic that something like this is happening. And I'd have to agree with some comments posters made above. The fact that no *big-name* game houses make games for Linux simply opens up the door for smaller companies who are willing to create/port games for the Linux community.
Free OS + Poor Quality, more Expensive Games = ?
I just dont see the cost savings on the free OS in terms of being a game player.
Slashdot
News for Linux. Complaints about Microsoft.
How are we going to play these games on Linux, when setting up 3D is such a dark-art voodoo nightmare? I cringe when thinking of trying to make OpenGL work.
In Other News... LGP will begin selling its newly ported games for linux on www.thinkgeek.com
We as voters have given up essential liberty. We hoped to purchase a little temporary safety. We in fact deserve neither
I bought Return To Castle Wolfenstein for my brother as a christmas present because we really like the multiplayer demo - and because Linux version was available.
The problem is that the demo is a much better product than the commercial version. I'm talking about the multiplayer network game here - single player game is about the same in both and works well.
Installation required that windows install should be run first and then some files should be copied from the place A to place B.
Install text actually recommended Wine if Windows installation was not available. This was actually not that bad since Wine was easy to install and it worked well for RTCW installation. It could have been done better.. like using normal files that the linux installation could have copied.. or could have just told you to copy certain files from the CD.
Anti piracy features like CD keys cause much more trouble. It is actually recommended (by their support pages) that you keep a pause after changing server. Keys are checked on connect and it might look like multiple use of the same key if you change servers too fast/often/whatever.
Demo doesn't check/need any special keys and you are never rejected for CD_KEY failure. My heart always jumps because I don't know if someone has generated the same key with some key generator software - only way to continue playing in network then is to buy another copy (Yeah, right..) or use some generator yourself.
Even more trouble is caused by anti cheat features. There's a Punk Buster installation bundled with the game and most servers require it. We were never being able to join any server that had this feature enabled. Either we didn't have a correct version installed. There are many different versions used on different servers and they are not compatible. Only servers where PB was disabled allowed us to join.
After a lot of this PB trouble we also patched the game hoping some of this trouble would go away. After that it didn't allow us to join to any server. Client "wasn't pure" any more. Support pages say that we were trying to join an incompatible server. I'm sure this was not our fault since server was on the same patch level.
So.. using Linux instead of Windows caused quite a bit more trouble than Windows installation would have. After all this the game don't even work when patched correctly and causes constant trouble when working. I'm never going to recommend buying this game for anyone after going through all this shit. That might be a hit for their Linux sells? Perhaps not.
I'm sure they would sell this game a bit more for Linux too if it was more usable. At least I won't by another copy for my own computer like I had planned.
The increasing distribution of Linux in the industry is mainly due to the fact that there are no decent games for Linux so that people play less and work more, increasing efficiency and profit.
If now such nerd companies develop better and better games for Linux most companies will switch to other powerful, game-free platforms like Solaris or OpenBSD.
In the long term this might be a very big setback in the competition with Microsoft. You might argue now that you will gain more distribution on private computers - but people are already using Windows for this task which is much better suited and a complicated unix system is not the right thing for non-professional private users. And the gaming industry (even MS) is moving more and more towards Playstation like boxes these days.
This playing thing was really a big problem until Linux, I remember an admin saying that they had to install Linux on electronic cashier systems (the big ones with a 15" monitor used in travel stores) because some secretaries found out how to install Doom on them.
Owner of a Mensa membership card.
One industry insider compares the community to the Macintosh community ("Small but fanatical", in his words).
Which game company discontinued its Mac ports, and when they got deluged with shitmail the president made some really snotty comment like "If people feel so strongly about Mac games maybe they should buy some"? I'm going nuts trying to remember.
Somehow I doubt the reason was piracy among Linux users... It's more likely Linux users bought the game from their local shop for their Windows partition, rather than mail-ordering from a distant location, and paying more to boot.
For example, the Bungie game Myth 2 Soulblighter: there was a MacOS version and a Windows version, with about 45% and 55% respectively on each platform. Loki ported it to Linux. However, out of the many thousands who played it online, I only ever _heard_ of several _individuals_ who were playing it online on Linux, and at least one of those was a programmer who worked at Loki!
Now considering how much more likely high-tech Linux users are to play a game online, and even if a whoopingly low 5% of buyers played it online, that means Loki sold well under 1000 units.
If they did that badly with Soulblighter, how badly did they do with other titles? No wonder they weren't making any money.
Can you buy Super Mario Sunshine for the Xbox? No, but you dont whine about it.
Can you buy Halo For game cube, No.
Shut the fuck up, if you want to play ALL the games, then buy all five platforms. (Windows, Linux, PS2, Gamecube, Xbox)
I've mirrored the demos of the games here:
Brett Glass to the rescue
When it comes to games, I urge you all to ditch your "only Open-Souce" principles.
The goal of gaming is to have fun. Stop worrying about device drivers, monitor drivers, serial numbers, low ping connectivity, mouse drivers, keyboard configurations, etc. and just play fun, easy-to-use games on a traditional console gaming system.
Gamecube and X-box are the two best choices these days. You can get a Gamecube for $139 (half of a day's salary) and all you do then is simply chuck one of the many amazingly fun games into the device, turn on your TV, and start smiling.
An X-box is as low as $199 and now includes special new controllers and two great games in this starter package. It's a great bargain, and with their new online play, it's better than ever. You can turn everything on and be playing HALO against someone in China and someone in France in less than 15 seconds.
Really cool!
When it comes to games, I don't care if it's Linux or Microsoft or whatever, I just stick to the proven console games that always work since all the hardware's the same. It makes life so much easier.
Reply or e-mail; don't vaguely moderate. Ex-O'Reilly/MIT employee, now a full-time Google employee.
I play Ballistics a while ago at Six Flags. They had a few cabinets running the game on WinME, and all I can say that it is extremely FAST. Very, very cool game. But I agree, never heard of it until that point.
-- Kircle
From the screenshot gallery:
This gallery shows screenshots from the Diesel Engine(TM) rendered environments of Ballistics(TM).
How can you make a racing game with a Diesel engine??
This junk won't sell. If it does it is to a zit faced geek attempting to convince his friends Linux can play 3d games too. Meanwhile at home their laughing uncontrollable and playing ravenshield on windows machines.] RIP LGP
I think Tux Racer is about the coolest game I've ever played. My very favorite course is "Who Says Penguins Can't Fly?" although I have become somewhat partial to "Path of Daggers" lately. Anyone else out there love Tux Racer?
Its still using X Windows? Bleh, pass.
X windows is a bloated bitch. Its the worlds largest strap on.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
I keep hearing "oh, these games aren't AAA titles, they must suck. Well, some of the most pure fun games I've played are obscure titles like these. They have nice graphics (not bleeding edge, but pretty) and fun gameplay. They not be the deep, sweeping experience of something like HalfLife, but they're still good entertainment. If the price is right, this games might be a good buy.
A deep unwavering belief is a sure sign you're missing something...
Now I have a healthy collection of Linux games on my box, including a fair number of Loki ports, some of the source code released games (Abuse, Freespace 1 & 2, Aliens vs Predator), and a bunch of improving open source projects, from Vegastrike to Foobillard. And Black & White and the other Windows only games don't provide sufficient allure to make me reach for the reboot.
LGP seems to have the right idea. The games they are porting are good games in their categories and they aren't costing a fortune for the porting rights. They are also managing to get games in more genres than just first person shooters. I hope that LGP hangs around long enough to break even or preferably show a profit. I hope that the Linux desktop market is starting to expand at a sufficient rate that the future for Linux gaming actually exists and that LGP is in a good position to reap the rewards.
Cheers,
Toby Haynes
Anything I post is strictly my own thoughts and doesn't necessarily have anything to do with the opinions of IBM.
Ballistics and Bandits are games that take a unique spin to current games. Ballistics could be called the first supersonic racing game, where your insane speed turns a game of reaction into more of a game of pattern. The developers at E3 2001 were able to complete most of the courses at full supersonic speed, where we could barely make it at subsonic speed.
The game is one of the first to introduce pixel shading and other features of the GeForce 3.
Bandits I know less about, sadly. I've been sitting around waiting for word of Grin's ever-in-development game, Vultures. The guys at Grin were nice enough at E3 2001 to give me their concept-art posters they had posted in their booth (Kentia Hall). From what I remember the game has gone under a couple design revisions, but the detail they paid in the rendered weapons and the concept art I have is amazing. It should be a game I wont be able to miss. That is, if it ever does get released.
So what if these arent Popular games? They use cutting edge technology and were probably easy to get a hold of (Grin is full of nice guys), so maybe the lessons learned from porting these games will enable LGP to publish those games you are clamoring for?
Again I'm taken back to my argument that people shouldnt purely deride games. If they are supported through either fans or at least constructive criticism, the whole industry benifits.
--onyx--
We don't have the programs you want, but do have programs.
I'd be interested in learning the opinions and observations of others. Meanwhile, I shall continue to support the developers of Linux products, as opposed to megacorporate closed-source proprietary/predatory fat cats.
Computer geek peddles bootleg porn from city hall
Warms my heart to see others play this game too...
I liked it as lot, but my brother suffered from serious Elastomania addiction, for a long time.
"First lesson," Jon said. "Stick them with the pointy end."
...Linux desktops are only going to appeal to consumers to the low end. Since if you're paying $500 for a computer it's no big deal to tack on an extra $50 dollars for a Windows license. But at $200 that extra $50 seems like a lot, especally with the lower profit on cheap hardware, the vender won't want to eat the cost of the OS himself.
Low end computers can't run games like this, they just don't have the 3D hardware. If linux is going to see more games besides a few oddballs (like these two) and the occasional blockbuster (UT2003) than it'll have to make inroads into the general desktop market. Or else much cheaper 3D hardware that has linux support.
Selling games that were released on Windows a year or two ago is not a good buisness model; customers with dual boot machines can often get your game for windows for $10-$20 in the bargin bin. And how many non geeks out there have a linux box that can run UT2003 (or something like it) and are running linux only?
Hi! I make Firefox Plug-ins. Check 'em out @ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/youtube-mp3-podcaster/
The terrain suffers from horrible terrain popping (greater resolution triagles instanteously replace the lower detail version, very noticable if the change is large enough), even up close, and there's not even a hint of geomipmapping! Maybe they wanted to run on lower-end systems, but I have a freakin' GeForce 4! Descent 3 also has the popping problem (even with all of the graphic options set to the max, it's still noticable), but I doubt Outrage will ever release a 1.5 patch that would fix it (even if they did, they probably would not have somebody build a Linux patch.) Floating point operations for Checksum computations forever!
Anyway, I wish LGP the best and I cannot wait to play the new games.
And, like, what were you expecting them to use instead? DirectFB? SVGAlib? A kernel module? GGI? Berlin? Glide? Think about it, man. If you want to play OpenGL-based games (which these are or will be), then currently you're stuck with X (DirectFBGL supporting the Radeon just isn't enough). If you are only interested in software-rendered games, then you can always stick to playing Quake and Wolf3D with SVGAlib.
Get Some Grammar.
Hey no linux without GNU...
CIA Factbook 2002 (US):"Since 1975, practically all the gains in household income have gone to the top 20% of households
...because while I'm using Windows for gaming, I know a friend of mine who's trying to get as much as possible to work on Linux. I constantly hear him needing to tweak something to get it to run/play smoothly/get sound working etc, even on Windows games that supposedly "works" to run from Linux. He gets most stuff working, but if I was doing the same I'd get a pre-tweaked setup from him.
:)
I think they're doing the smart thing, smaller games are it. Look at it from the producers side, if they refuse to licence it for a port they earn nothing. If they do, there's a chance they might earn *something*. Compare that to a big game that the producer assumes will sell "big" on Linux and charges accordingly. I'm pretty sure the work and cost for porting a game has little or no relationship to its popularity.
Besides, "unknown" games aren't that bad in a market with little competition, assuming you just want some game you'll enjoy, not only the latest wiz-bang things. I mean I still like to play my C64 games on emulator, or old DOS games. Though I must say I'm enjoying Warcraft 3 for the time being
From a friend of mine I know of a little girl that's hooked on Tux Racer. I'm sure it could be any one of a hundred other games, but it's Tux Racer because it's there, and it's free. I'm sure there are "better" games around, but that doesn't really matter...
Kjella
Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
Hey if you dont like dont use it!
Its not realy made for gamers!
CIA Factbook 2002 (US):"Since 1975, practically all the gains in household income have gone to the top 20% of households
That is so much BULL*&^%!
Hell, if I buy a system, it has to be close to/ on the cutting edge. When I bought my current desktop box, the Athlons had only been out for a couple of weeks and I bought the fastest stepping (650Mhz) I could lay my hands on. My laptop sports a 2GHz P4m. My next machine will be faster and feature a GeForce 4. And guess what the OS on all these machines is? Linux. Yes - Linux. And I play games on these machines as well as develop on them. Don't assume that everyone who uses Linux does so because it is cheap/free. I use linux because I can configure every last damn byte in the box and the OS and surrounding products generally do what I want rather than having to fight with strange UI decisions that can't be sidestepped.
Oh yes - number of Linux software packages BOUGHT: about 20. Total purchase outlay - $500+. Amount of pirated software on any of my machines: 0.
Cheers,
Toby Haynes
Anything I post is strictly my own thoughts and doesn't necessarily have anything to do with the opinions of IBM.
I'll post to Slashdot when LGP announces a game release "like Disciples 2", and it gets denied. What's that about?
The other games that LGP ported/produced earlier didn't really please me. But it looks like they have now moved up to so more interesting games, games which I would never have normally seen. I'm glad to see that they are concentrating on porting games that they can successfully sell, unlike Loki. I'm also glad that they are staying away from big publishers. Porting a game for $20,000 and selling 50,000 copies is a much better bet than porting a game for $500,000 and selling 800,000 copies as I imagine loki wanted to.
Netbooks, they come with Linux or a $3 copy of Windows. Either way, Microsoft loses.
Gee how about some more mind numbing football games too? Quit with the sports/racing games and make something that takes a little intelligence to use.
Is that the one? I played that game quite a bit. Kind of like a combination of pinball and hockey... except with lots of balls and demons.
Meh.
I spoke with one of the devlopers. Real nice people. To summarize his statment, they are not yet a full-time LGP staff and unlike Loki they are choosing game titles that do not summon exaggerated licensing fees. Loki dove head-first into porting software to Linux and admirably performed verry well despite their financial loss in an earlier Linux market. LGP has the benefits of Loki's base (snickering) because:
1) LGP has chosen to utilize the verry mature Simple Direct Media Layer (http://www.libsdl.org)
2) Interacts with a more mature and aware market for Linux
3) chose applications that do not tend the verry-high royalties Loki crippled under
4) the applications chosen have merit in their gamplay, fun-factor, and presentation.
Majesty Gold! Disciples 2! Bandits! These are fun games that were ignored in the Microsoft Windows markets simply becase there were much more "shiny lures" that attracted all the "fish." LGP spear-headed Tzar, but then decided not to based on the comments of a minority of people in the Linuxgames.com and Happypenguin.org forums. LGP is well on its way to fill the void that Loki over-marketed and here we have a verry predictable startup mustering its nets around as many herring as possible. LGP is in hopes of marketing to all isles of the Linux gamers: Athlon, Pentium, PowerPC, and a few others. We, and owners of our computer software and hardware, have received LGP with baited hering breath.
But I'm sure you already Gnu that.
Right? I mean it's only 10+ Megs to download now...
Fuck Beta. Fuck Dice
In this day in age for now anyway a company that just port Windows to Linux games is bound to go under quick. What you should be doing is not focusing yourself on porting games but doing something else that will give you stablility and port games on the side like Transgaming. They make WineX and also do an occasional port. They have a good buissness model and are sure to last for a long time.(unless Microsoft buys them out)
Dude, just look at that Zelda game on the Gamecube!
That just _screams_ harcore!
... has
oh crap, never mind, I should have read the F* article first...
"Whoever would overthrow the liberty of a nation must begin by subduing the freeness of speech."--Benjamin Franklin
No, not "because it's Microsoft". I may be a Linux zealot, but I'm not insane.
No, the reason I will not buy an Xbox is because I refuse to help MS demo/test it's goddam drm systems. The Xbox is a PC with DRM builtin, that only runs MS signed software. Palladium will be essentially the same thing. THIS is was MS wants to turn PCs into.
If you don't want to help them do that, don't buy an Xbox.
Sticking feathers up your butt does not make you a chicken - Tyler Durden
It's quite sad that people would react this way, instead of just deciding the learn something new so they are prepared if they ever need to use it... But, there you go, people are like that.
I think it's the same for software companies who respond to requests for Linux ports with vitriol, instead of just saying, "not at this time". They have no *nix experience, and hence are scared of Linux taking hold in the industry.
Anyway, that's what I think.
Sticking feathers up your butt does not make you a chicken - Tyler Durden
Someone isn't doing their job in moderator-land.
This troll offered no reasoning as to complain for any such quality of games being ported to linux.
This troll lies, there are original games created for Linux and the games chosen by LGP are of verry strict quality standards from the most elite of gamers/developers.
Where are the moderators? Why have you not done the daily work?