Expert Opinions On Linux Gaming's Future

jg21 writes "Following on from yesterday's Slashdot coverage of the idea to launch a games-based Linux distro, LinuxWorld Magazine has held a Gaming Round Table involving Chris DiBona, Ryan Gordon, Timothee Besset, Gavriel State, and Joe Valenzuela about where Linux currently stands and how it will one day become a premier gaming platform. 'It became perfectly clear to me that most of the technological issues are already solved, and that the others won't take too long to fix once the game publishers really get into the mix,' reports Dee-Ann LeBlanc, Gaming Industry Editor for LinuxWorld, who coordinated the round table. Well worth reading."

Comments

Where's the games at?

[ObviousGuy]

It's nice to talk about creating a "gaming OS", but the key component here is that you need some games.

Sokoban and Mahjongg only get you so far..

OpenGL exists on Linux, what else are game developers missing?

Re:Where's the games at?

[adug]

Unfortunately, what developers are missing is the market. Top notch games are very costly to produce. There is just no way that developers can make money, or even break even with the small desktop marketshare that Linux commands.

There might be some truth to "If you build it, they will come" but in reality, unless there are an awful lot of people clamoring for the ballpark, it's not gonna happen.

Re:Where's the games at?

[LordK3nn3th]

Does the average Joe know how to install the drivers, or even how to turn off X so the drivers can be installed?

Also, ati and Nvidia haven't released open source drivers. It would be so much easier for the average person if the kernel could come with those video drivers already loaded in.

Re:Where's the games at?

[Anonymous Coward]

Which is why we need to encourage developers to start creating games with cross platform in mind. That way compiling the binaries for different OS's including linux and including them on the cd would not really add a huge anount to the budget, but will get more sales with the linux crowd

falvious
Editor
Linuxgaming.net

Re:Where's the games at?

[OneFix at Work]

Umh, OpenGL is really no different, the only difference is it leaves the hardware developers the job of deciding how to support additional features. As for games in todays market, when you are talking PeeCee, you are talking 2 companies nVidia and ATI. Both have their own proprietary drivers for every card made in the last few years.

OpenGL is perfectly fine, not to mention the fact that the existance of OpenGL apps on Windoze makes it easier to port apps and games...but to be honest, the existance of OpenGL on Linux has nothing to do with games and everything to do with 3D Modeling. OpenGL is just how it's done and the fact that there is legacy hardware support for OpenGL means that it will probably remain the low-level standard for 3D Linux apps.

Re:Where's the games at?

[PhoenixFlare]

But what exactly is the barrier to a significant userbase? Linux is free and you can install it on a partition on your HD; you don't have to get rid of Windows to run or even try Linux. So what is the barrier? If you can't even get people to take something for free you know you have a problem.

I think you're missing something - to the majority of computer users, setting up a dual-boot system or doing pretty much anything along those lines is scary, complicated, and unless they have a geek friend or extremely precise help, dangerous to their system(s). Hell, i'm willing to bet that most people don't even understand how data is stored on their drives, let alone the concept of partitions.

And even if you do somehow get a casual gamer to install Linux, what is there to play? Sure, there's Quake, the UT series, NWN, and a relative handful of other games, but that won't keep forever. And that's IF the person even likes any of the games available in the first place.

And the free games included with many distros are in the same boat - as someone said in the previous thread, it creates excitement when you see the huge list available, then it slowly dawns on you that it's (almost) all board/card games and mediocre clones.

Conversely, get more games included like Frozen Bubble and a few others, and there might begin to be a chance of holding someone's interest.

As a developer...

[Anonymous Coward]

...Linux is a pain to develop a good game client for. DirectX games are not easily ported, and most games are DirectX. This means most professional game developers are fluent in DirectX. DX makes things a lot easier than writing for every sound/video card out there.

Further, Linux editions of games lose money. Quake3 for Linux sold dismally, while people were buying the Windows version enough to be dunking the CDs in their coffee. And the Linux client was released first: if ever there was an opportunity for a killer-app game to help boost Linux, that was a great time.

Loki went out of business by doing the smart thing: bootstrapping itself with porting Triple-A titles from Windows, to earn some cash and develop a library to live on. Who's going to look at the Linux market and see it as viable when id and Loki can't make a good go of it?

And Linux users are habituated to not paying for Linux software, as a rule. Not that they don't, and not that there aren't vertical markets where people are paying good money for Linux apps, but the OSS community is, well, a hard community to pry money out of.

I say this as a developer of Windows games, who runs Macs at home and who has compiled a few Linux kernels in the past. Developers have enough to do to create a modern game while taking advantage of the assistance of things like DirectX: taking on the burden of developing the same thing without that help, for a community that likes their software free (both kinds of free),... that's a lot to expect.