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More Bioware For Linux?
GNious writes "Bioware has a thread about porting the upcoming game Dragon Age to Apple Mac OS X and/or Linux. Debate include such topics as porting houses, physics engines and the value of the market, with an enormous amount of requests for such games as Neverwinter Nights 2. With the potential for selling upwards of 1000 copies (counting individual requests) of a game at possibly $50 each, is the decision to exclude a platform and the associated revenue the correct one, or are the petitioners the ones that have gotten it wrong to think that their ca 1-5% marketshare matters?" I think the unfortunante reality is that in today's gaming market, you find that fewer people are willing to take a chance on the sales for these smaller markets -- too hard to predict revenue, and too hard to (some would say) to do the porting.
The problem with counting requests like that is that there is not a lot of follow through. I'd say that half or less of those people requesting will actually purchase the game. I myself bought a copy of Neverwinter Nights 1 as well as UT2004, Quake 3, Doom 3, Sim City 3000 and a few other games that work under Linux. Provided that I would have enough time(have a daughter now) I will buy a copy of NWN2 if they make a Linux client. But from what I've seen and heard from many people in the past, a lot of gamers talk talk talk and don't buy. Its easy to say "Me too", but most can't or don't pony up. Then again, there are probably a lot of people who don't say anything, but end up buying a copy to use for Linux. They need a better metric for counting the number of used Linux clients.
The potential to sell upwards of a thousand copies at 50 bucks a piece. Man, they could make, like, 50,000 dollars on that! I can't see why they wouldn't invest hundreds of thousands or possibly millions for a return like that!
porting? why not just *trying* to make it platform independent from the start?
That's how the market works. The fewer people willing to buy something, the less they'll be willing to invest in porting it. If you really want to help get these games ported, work to increase Linux's market share. The more people that use it, the more ports you'll see. That's just the way it is.
-Eric
SJW: Someone who has run out of real oppression, and has to fake it.
If the potential is only 1000 copies at 50 bucks, why would any company bother? 50,000 will pay one low level programmer with no testers, no marketing, not even budget for changing the system requirements graphics on the box. Porting to Linux is nice, and for the companies that do it god bless them, but to expect it is a bit outside reality. Like most Linux projects it has to be a labor of love since it has no room for being a labor of profit.
The only way I really see any growth in the Linux games market is either an exponential growth in Linux users or companies adopting an open source partnership to allow games to be ported by volunteers.
I think the unfortunante reality is that in today's gaming market, you find that fewer people are willing to take a chance on the sales for these smaller markets -- too hard to predict revenue, and too hard to (some would say) to do the porting.
The really smart gaming houses that know their titles will be successful (look at Id and Blizzard) also know that coding their titles to be portable is the way to go, even if they don't want to target other platforms. It encourages good coding practices and makes a better program. Most of them rely heavily on OpenGL and do plan to port their games at least to the mac as part of their original strategy. If your game is almost finished and you're just now considering portability and other platforms, you screwed up. You might as well wait till it is out and see how popular it is before going after other platforms.
Some might say the Mac or Linux markets are insignificant, but the truth is a lot of companies make good money from the Mac market. Lets not forget to include consoles as well when considering portability. I've seen some companies cite the practices of MS owned gaming houses as reason not to make games portable, but that is pretty laughable when you consider it. Also, I've seen some people point to horribly botched porting projects as reason to avoid it. Instances where a Linux port came out a year and a half after the Windows version, was buggy, was a game that required a community, and where the port was more expensive than the Windows version and was more buggy than using the Windows version in WINE. That too is pretty sad.
Coding for portability and aiming at Windows, the mac, and one or more consoles can seriously increase the revenue from a game, but it has to be part of the original game plan and you have to code with that in mind. Porting after the fact can make money, and if you have a very successful title outsourcing the port can make some pretty safe money, but not nearly as much of it. I don't see a reason for any big publisher (not owned by MS) to not target multiple platforms from the outset. Anyone want to bet the MMORPG that topples WoW's supremacy is another simultaneous cross-platfomr release?
Most games these days have patches on a somewhat regular basis. Each additional platform you launch the game on requires that you include that platform in your ongoing development costs.
It's not as simple as "just recompile it for Linux, duh". Every time I see someone scream for some MMORPG to release 'the Linux client we know you have', they always forget to include the recurring dev cycle costs.
If the cost to make it + the cost to maintain it > the additional revenue it brings in... then it doesn't get made.
Given that I know QUITE a bit on the subject (Heh... I port games over to Linux and right now I'm off that for a little bit doing driver development consulting for one of the two aforementioned players in 3D...), I think I should comment.
Most of the extensions aren't ATI or NVidia specific that are usable. To be sure, they offer those, but most of the
extensions are ARB or EXT extensions- they're intended to be used by either player and are typically provided by
the same. The reality is that OpenGL 2.1 and DX9/10 are intrinsically identical except for programming style.
Besides, you should abstract out your engine components if you've any aspirations to target the next gen consoles-
DX10's NOT on PS3 or Wii, but OpenGL ES 2.0 IS and it's a clean, easy to use subset that ports back to MacOS and Linux.
I am not merely a "consumer" or a "taxpayer". I am a Citizen of the State of Texas
I can see 1000 games as a target for Linux releases. Linux geeks are often (but certainly not always) gamers but people don't install linux to play games. If you want optimised video drivers and if you just want the damn game to 'just work' you keep a Windows machine or Windows Partition. Not to mention the lag in patches.. it's no fun bringing your linux rig to lan party only to find out that you can't join the game because the V. 1.1 patch is not available for you yet.
The 1000 number for OS X is a joke though. Seriously, Any decent game should sell more than 1000 copies on the Mac. There are far too many Macs in use in homes for a GOOD game to not sell reasonably well. The Mac has issues.. it's rare to see them with really good video systems. The recent Intel machines have solid offerings but they aren't fantastic ( Elder Scrolls would play like crap on a stock iMac with underclocked X1600 video). I have, however, played Battlefield 2 at native rez with decent settings on a 1st gen Intel 17" iMac and it ran great. It beat the hell out of my Athlon X2 3800 w/ AGP Nvidia 6600GT. The current iMacs are much nicer too.
The bigger problem, as I see it, is that the gaming industry is in a lull. I don't see any really compelling titles. I love WW2 era FPShooters but the Genre has been played out to death. The Battlefield series has been solid but every new version is just a new veneer on the same game. To me and my friends, EQ and WWC MassivelyMulitPlayer games are played out. The frustration of dumping time into them has long since outweighted the enjoyment (I never did try World of WarCraft.. I got burned out before that).
Really, I walk through the gaming isle at Frys and nothing excites me and I've been looking to have another lan party. There's literally dozens of FPS War games but none stand out and I'm not going to try them all so I can tell people to buy one just for a night at my house.
The other problem is crappy coding though this is more minor issue. If the developer houses wrote tighter code, there'd be a larger range of medoicre machines that could run that code. Remember when the big guns were Doom3 vs. HalfLife2.. HalfLife2, to me, looked every bit as good overall and it ran MUCH better on less than cutting edge hardware. Doom3 was the killer benchmark for a while and the lighting system does look nice but the HL2 engine looks great and I really enjoyed the game (more so than the 'turn the corner and shoot' story line of Doom3). IMHO, HL2 is a superior game because the sum of the whole package is superior [visuals, story, environment, gameplay..]. The impressive thing is, Valve pulled this off without forcing everyone to run out and drop $500 on upgrades. If Valve, for instance, started supporting OS X, I'm sure they'd be able to run on a pretty large Mac installed base. Everything over the Mini should run HL2 fantastically. [other noteable crap-tastic games I'd never buy for a Mac.. BF Vietnam.. which crippled my Radeon9800Pro back in 2003, EQ (HORRIBLE CODING) and even EQ2 which seemed un-reasonably slow on decent PC hardware)
If we had good, compelling games.. I'd guarantee that a port of a GOOD game to OS X would sell a hell of a lot more than 1000 copies with annual sales of Millions of computers and poor enterprise market penetration (most macs go home or at least into EDU markets).
I'm not feeling witty so bite me