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Gentoo Games
TheSurfer writes "Today, Gentoo announced the creation of Gentoo Games, 'a gaming technology company created to deliver innovative Linux-based game technologies to the public'. They also released a GameCD with the full version of America's Army. For more information, see the threads in the forums here and here."
Their logo looks very like the Nintendo Gamecube logo.
Are they going to produce a super optimized distro for games?
Are they planning to aggressively port popular games to Linux?
Are they planning to develop games from scratch?
From the announcement, it suggests that they're doing 1 and/or 2...
Daniel Robbins and the rest of the Gentoo crew have done an amazing job with Gentoo as a Linux distro, and even though it's a relative new-comer, it has exploded onto the scene as a force to be reckoned with. I really believe that they will be as huge a success in the game industry as they were in the Linux distro field, they are competent coders and they know what the average Linux user wants, because they ARE your average Linux users. Also, I've had a few chats with drobbins in #gentoo on freenode. When was the last time you saw the head of your favorite distro kick it wif da homies on #IRC. He was even providing basic support for total newbs. Maybe that's why there's so many of us Gentoo zelouts who just won't shut up about it :)
Everyone is entitled to their own opinion. It's just that yours is stupid.
How does this work? Ideally it would the CD would have the following: - A micro kernal with just the services needed by games (LAN, video, sound, disk management, not much else). This would install itself on your HD for future use, auto-update if the one on the CD is newer. - Smart driver finder (searches the disto currently installed on your machine for the necessary drivers) - Game files (obviously) This would have a number of advantages, from console like loading (stick the CD in, turn PC on, quick boot and run). To optimizing the operating environment (no unnecesary services running, should be easier to agree to standards for a micro-kernal like this). Could also be run in UML so you don't have to reboot. Hopefully this would give games developers at common target to aim at whilst also making the games easy to install and run (would only really use HD space if needed, shouldn't be a problem at all) Quick, I'd better patent all that ;o)
For the US forces, at least, it was damn near a video game. So it's not really trickery, then.
Whether or not there's something wrong with making war into a video game for one side is OK just depends on which side you're rooting for.
Not sure whether the game is free, or cheap, or regular price.
But some show on Tech TV last night (Tech Live?) had a piece about the game.
Apparently the army has its own game development team and they are creating this game in order to show people graduating Highschool who are facing the question of "what next" what the army has to offer, etc. Basically its propaganda, a recruiting tool. And the Army seems to be pretty open about this. Unless of course there are other reasons for it. Maybe hidden survailance software, or the theme song goes along the lines of "Ymra eth nioj".
But the main reason I love gentoo is a good, working BSD style ports system. I've uninstalled Windows on my desktop, which was the last place I had it running... thanks Gentoo, and everyone in the Linux community. I will only buy games that have a native Linux port, and since UT2003 and NWN will last me a long time if nobody ports, I'll keep my money, and donate some to Gentoo and others who are advancing the cause of Freedom.
My Linux Command of the Day site : LCOD