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Why Aren't More Linux Users Gamers?
tops writes "MadPenguin.org wonders why more Linux users aren't gamers and attempts to answer that question. The article suggests, 'As far as I'm concerned, it all comes down to a choice. Expect the gaming industry to follow the Linux doctrine or instead, build up a viable, cross platform gaming market that includes us, the Linux users.' The article urges publishers to consider Linux users as a viable market, and requests that game developers target Linux as a platform during the pre-production phase." What do you think are the most important obstacles barring the big game publishers from reaching out to the Linux market more than they already do?
I have some experience trying to round up Linux gamers over the past couple years and what I've found is that there are some out there, but a lot of the people in my local LUG just weren't interested in playing games. I've hosted many events to try sparking interest, I even supplied the computers, but only a few people came each time. Perhaps the most common type of people that use Linux are now the ones that don't play games much anymore. Or at least not FPS, etc. Plus I found a lot of people made the excuse that they didn't have decent hardware for 3d games. Ironically, we might have better luck with Linux games if we had what we have now back in the 90s.
Because I'm not interested in playing games. My interest piqued with Doom and SimCity 2000. I don't have the interest in gaming. It'd be the same if I ran Windows Vista.
alike.
N
You are in a twisty maze of little passages, all alike.
E
it is pitch dark, you are likely to be eaten by a grue.
[DAMN!]
"Flyin' in just a sweet place,
Never been known to fail..."
A Linux user AND a gamer?
You CANNOT be a virgin twice.
And your mom only has ONE basement.
Because we waste all our time on /. fragging Microsoft.
Rich And Stupid is not so bad as Working For Rich And Stupid.
I think that, on the whole, we prefer creating games to playing them, that's not that we don't enjoy playing games, though. Speaking for myself, when I first start playing a game I enjoy it. But unless the game is really brilliant (and there really aren't too many of those for me), I soon start looking for ways to "game" the system, make it do things it wasn't meant to, preferably benefiting me in the process.
I honestly don't think a lack of games on the Linux platform inhibits me, considering I own a PS2, PS3 and a WII. I actually haven't played many PC games in quite some time.
I have better things to do with my time than use Windows or play computer games.
The biggest obstacle: DirectX. It's API is only available on Windows, no other platforms, and (especially with DirectX 10 and Vista) Windows seems to go out of it's way to make OpenGL unattractive or non-feasible. That makes it difficult for game companies to target both Windows and non-Windows systems from the same codebase.
The lack of good games and the wine-x payed for system that lets you run windows games is not as good as games built for liunx.
Trying to run non free software on Linux eliminates a lot of the advantages of running free software. Who wants to go back to the world of driver hunting? Sure, it can be done, there are distributions that make it easier and there's a lot of cool gaming that can be had but it still takes effort, almost as much as it does to keep up a Windows box.
The market is growing and now is a better time than ever. The death of XP has a lot of gamers looking at Linux. They are going to be trying. Distributions like PCLinuxOS and Ubuntu are going to make them very happy for a while. If the card makers come out with free drivers that work well in the next year or so, those new users will never look back.
Submitter:What do you think are the most important obstacles barring the big game publishers from reaching out to the Linux market more than they already do?
The "Games for Windows" campaign. I'm unsure on what the sticker requirements are for that MS programme, but I know this: I've not seen a single Games for Windows game that didn't require XP or Vista.
In my opinion, it's Microsoft exercising a monopoly position in the Gaming Industry, but try proving it.
Windows has detected an undetectable error.
The die-hard gamers will keep a Windows XP partition to play the games -- or they will get a console.
I love games too much to sit around waiting for the day I can play them on the PC, and since I don't have Windows I just buy consoles.
It's just not worth it anymore.
Since Linux use free software, they expect it. The gaming industry doesn't see much profit in spending money developing a game that people will scoff at paying money for.
Making a game is expensive, so logically you want to release it to the biggest audience you can so that you can reap the most profit (or at the very least make enough to hit the break-even point). Windows, with 85% of the OS market, has the most promise of giving you the highest audience in PC gaming.
One word, directx. I hate to say it but it rules the market and microsoft isn't going to be opening the source to that any time soon. Why on earth would developers waste the manpower to develop for such a niche market. I hate to play the devils advocate (I run gentoo as a desktop OS) but it's just not going to happen.
I am full of goo... black evil goo
There are plenty of Linux users who are gamers. Most just don't game in Linux...
Clearly linux would be more popular as a mainstream OS if it supported native ports of all of the common games. As far as I am concerned, I would have switched a long long long time ago to linux if all of the games out there were compatible. I am so sick of Microsoft XP. I would love to run Gnome and have all of my eggs in one basket.
Linux comprises about 1% of the desktop / notebook OS installed base. Even if ALL of that 1% were people that buy and play games regularly, it probably would only account for 10% that of the Windows game user base.
Given the ideology of a lot of Linux users, a lot of that 1% might never pay for a game or want to use commercial / closed source software.
The windows market completely dwarfs the mac and Linux markets, especially for games, which leads to most bang for the buck coming to the windows side. Ironically, because of this factor, windows gaming is starting to lose out to consoles in terms of resource focus by the game companies.
I am not intending to stereotype, although it will probably come across that way anyway. From my personal experience in working with *nix, hacking away to do various things, is the game. I spend the majority of my time trying new things and configurations instead of playing games. Although now my BSD-based laptop (OS X) allows me a wider selection of games to play compared to my FreeBSD workstation. Even when I ran Linux though it was the same; for me at least.
Confucius say: "Man who associates with smarter men than himself is smarter than the men he associates with."
IMHO this is just because average Linux user is spoiled.
Linux user does not want to BUY software, when in everyday life he or she just uses package manager for searching needed tools.
Linux user tries to avoid closed source software, becuase it does not run well on his costum built kernel compiled and optimized specifically for his mojo.
Windows and Mac users are not that spoiled, they get used to the fact that most of the software you need to buy or crack, that you need to look for it in different places and not just by using yum/apt-get/pacman etc.
LiFe iS bEAuTiFul
I used to be a big gamer, back in the day. But nowadays I mostly code/hack for fun. Shrug. I think gaming was akin to masturbation - it feels good, but compared to coding, you're wasting your talents.
I could go home at night and play video games. Or I could go home and play with the alpha release of Ubuntu (insert your favorite distrib). Both things are fun. Both require creativity. Both satisfy my need to be playing with digital technology. Both teach me new things.
However... The world isn't all that much better if I've beaten a level at some game millions of people have already beaten. But if I've squashed a bug in Ubuntu? The world benefits quite a bit.
I heard a great quote on the state of PC gaming on the Games For Windows podcast last week, saying that PC games are very profitable but don't have the same revenue as console games, and the big publishers are only interested in volume and revenue. I think this can be directly translated to the Linux argument - it is very likely that if you dedicate a small team to port a Windows game to Linux enough people will buy it that there is a net gain, but the sheer number of people who will buy the game is not sufficient to convince studios to make this happen. Companies like Popcap, Big Fish, and WildTangent have proven that a small programming effort can be very profitable, but industry leading publishers like EA and Ubisoft pretty much tune out any product that will not be purchased by at least 1 million people.
What "death" of XP are you referring to? XP is still the preferred OS for gaming and will probably remain in that position for at least another year or two.
What kind of question is this? Linux users aren't gamers because of the hassle of gaming on linux. Wine is great and all, and I"m constantly impressed that such an ambitious project works as well as it does, but even the games that it runs perfectly still require some futzing with. Directx 9 features are being implemented currently but come on - dx9 is 5+ years old now. Combining that with wine regressions, game patches that break wine compatibility and its just not worth the effort. I'll either boot into windows or go play a game console.
In the strictest definition of game, Linux users may have a lower % of gamers than other platform users. But by a looser definition, their platform is an enjoyable pass-time as they tweak their installs, optimize components, and explore the world of the platform. Rather than building points in a fragfest, they prefer to rebuild kernals and increase performance scores of their machines.
Two wrongs don't make a right, but three lefts do.
The biggest problem with targeting Linux, be it for games or any other commercial program, is ambiguity and the 'moving target' nature of Linux.
Ambiguity: How do you support Linux? You can't, really. What you have to do (in a practical sense) is support a distribution of Linux - for example, Fedora or Ubuntu. But then what of all the others? For every grateful Ubuntu user, there's going to be an irate Gentoo user who complains that his system isn't 'supported' (replace Ubuntu and Gentoo with any two differing distros). How do you support Linux, when 'Linux' is such a general term, and the variations can be so different?
Moving Target: What do you support? FC5? 6? 7? 9? The latest-and-greatest? Two years' worth? The last two versions? This gets especially complicated if they try to support more than one distribution. Do you target the latest two releases of Ubuntu, and the last three of Fedora? The latest two of each? What if Ubuntu releases faster? What if it has more 'latest and greatest' support (libraries, Xorg, etc.). What about drivers? Will these distros work properly with the included drivers? with binary drivers? will the game work properly with both?
How do you deal with support? Do you train your support monkeys on Windows, then run them through a six-week course on Fedoras 5 through 9, and the last three Ubuntus? What if the users are using an older Ubuntu that isn't support (but on which it should work)? What if a user has problems with the stock (open-source) NV driver? Do you recommend the closed-source one? What if they don't want to use that one, for whatever reason? What if they use it and then upgrade their kernel and it stops working? More likely, what if the system upgrades it for them?
What about DirectX? It doesn't port. You'd have to rewrite with OpenGL, OpenAL, rewrite your networking code, your 2D acceleration code, image handling, surfaces, media playback... or I suppose you could pay more to license Crossover's tech, similar to the move EA made for Mac games... but that increases your costs as well. You'd have to replace all of your Win32 API code (simple, common stuff like opening files, etc.) with cross-platform wrapper functions or #define statements. You'd have to test on both platforms.
Can it be done? Of course! Blizzard does it. If you inspect the Blizzard binary, you find a collection of strings, including 'Win95', 'Win98', 'Win2K', 'WinME', 'WinXP', 'MacOS9', 'MacOSX', and 'Linux'. Interesting. But is it worth it for most companies to hire programmers to write cross-platform code? Or is it just easier to target the large, stable, reliable, stationary target that is Windows, and leave the 2% gain that a Linux version might provide?
Don't forget, companies have existed to bring games to Linux. They failed. There's a reason.
If you're planning on doing a lot of gaming, you're not going to run linux. You're not going to run OS X, either. You're going to run Windows, because like it or not, most of the big games are Windows-only.
hot foreign sheep.
Since I don't (yet) use any flavor of Linux, can someone enlighten me on this question: Would installing a game on Linux be like installing a game on a Windows or Mac in the sense that you have the same base OS to work with? In other words, if you have "Greatest Game Evar!!!", could you install it on Debian, Slackware, Ubuntu, etc in the same manner (putting the disc in the drive and installing) or is there tweaking involved above and beyond setting game parameters (sound, graphics, help, etc)?
If the answer is no, you have to configure each game install on each machine differently, then that may be part of the problem.
We will bankrupt ourselves in the vain search for absolute security. -- Dwight D. Eisenhower
Right up there with "Why aren't more desert-dwelling organisms fish?"
... well yeah, thats about it. ;)
besides, WOW runs in linux, so what else do you need?
2: Hundreds of distros? Give me a break.
3: The name Linux is confising to newbies. They download a Linux distro that actually sucks at every metric and try it out. They then realize that they cannot do most of what we using other OSes can do. They blame Linux in general.
I, for one, think the biggest issue is that Windows and Linux are totally different operating systems.
While I agree that one codebase is a big part of it, I would also say that testing has quite a lot to do with it. Unless you have a decent rate of return on it, why test for more platforms than you really need to? And in Linux, the situation is SEVERELY exacerbated by the number of distributions, as enough of them (even the "big" ones) do it "enough differently" to completely screw you over on the small things. LSB is a great idea, but how much is it REALLY implemented?
So basically, even if you were doing cross-platform already with a library that supported it (let's say you were already doing Win and Mac, and the Mac was using OpenGL) with minimal code changes necessary, you'd STILL have a huge testing burden on any Linux port, with a questionable amount of return in purchases, along with needing to test the changes with every new sub-version of the distros you choose.
For non open-source games (virtually all of any size), they just don't have the people to find the 500 different "hacks" necessary to get it to run near-perfect on all of the iterations out there. But with Win and Mac, it's MUCH easier to be much more certain, easing both the Testing and Support burdens.
Many Linux users simply dual boot if they want to play using Windows. We know how.
If a Linux version came out, we'd buy that one instead of the Windows one. So no net increase in sales. From the publishers perspective, should they spend money developing a Linux version when it won't increase sales? No.
Having said all of that, I'd play more games using Linux if Wine could get passed the bullcrap CD authenticating copy protection system that the publisher's use. I do not have the time to go out and find no-cd cracks just to enjoy a game.
The easiest system for me is when I've done all my useful stuff on my PC, including clearing my kids out of the room, then its reboot into Windows and enjoy. My kids are 4 and 5 and they boot into Ubuntu or Vista depending on what they want to do on the computer. Its second nature to them. My wife, on the other hand, sticks with Windows because she is used to it. The default on grub is vista because she wants Windows, but tends to walk out of the room during boot up.
If only we could fall into a woman's arms without falling into her hands
Because 1) I can't walk into a store and buy Linux games. 2) The few Linux games out there are not the games I want (currently playing The Witcher).
Just ask the right linux users. Pretty much everyone I know games to some degree. Methinks this is just a slashvertisment probing for a sensitive issue to encompass.
"Why aren't more ELLE readers men?"
"Why aren't more M:TG players female?"
"Why the heck do automatic transmissions shift gears by themselves seriously what is up with that?"
I like basketball!!1!
There are plenty of Linux gamers out there. You can find the greatest concentrations of them on multiplayer servers such as Wesnoth, Nexuiz, Urban Terror and Tremulous. I even heard that there were more UT2k4 Linux players than Mac OS, which makes the current state of the Linux UT3 client all the more frustrating.
I used to dual-boot Windows/Linux, especially when I had Mechwarrior 3 and Quake 3. After a while, I realised I just didn't reboot to Windows to play games anymore - Quake 3 worked on Linux and Mechwarrior eventually gathered dust. The inevitable next step was to reclaim that disk space and wipe Windows off the system.
So - it's a "build it and they will come" scenario. There aren't that many AAA titles released for Linux, hence there aren't that many AAA titles being purchased. Meanwhile, the user-created games are seeing a significant number of players. I don't thinks a question of "Linux gamers are cheapskates" either - the UT2k4 player figures show that commercial games can reach a significant gaming audience on Linux.
Cheers,
Toby Haynes
Anything I post is strictly my own thoughts and doesn't necessarily have anything to do with the opinions of IBM.
User installed base and social demographics. Developing for Linux users is not profitable. Especially since those people who are for open source seem to be more apt to pirate media and and software. Just look at the vocal majority on Slashdot. They dont want pay for media, will openly break DRM. They don't respect private property. Who in their right mind would develop a product who's profit model is based on unit sales for a community of thieves!?
None of the linux users I know are interested in gaming. Not because Linux is poor for gaming, but because they simply don't want to play games all that much. There is a small but vocal annoying minority that insist linux users don't play games because they can't however. Welcome to the real world, if you represent 1% of the market and are primarily interested in using FREE software, companies are not going to spend money trying to access your tiny and considerably more whiny / hard to please market. If you want to play games, buy a games console or use a platform that games are made for. Don't shut yourself in a tiny unprofitable corner of the market and cry woe is me nobody is making games for us. No one makes games for you because it would be very hard to make money doing it.
Linux was/is known as being an OS for nerds. As it becomes more mainstream, that is changing, and as certain other OS's are having issues, more people are looking at Linux and seeing a much more user friendly OS than it was even 5 years ago. I have moved 3 friends who are NOT nerds over to a dual boot in the past 4 months, and most of them prefer linux, but I gave them the dual boot so they could return to their comfort zone if necessary.
As more non-geeks move into Linux, the market for paid games will grow. A lot of people point to games on linux "failing" a few years ago. Well, a lot has changed since then, and will continue to change. So what failed a few years ago may be more viable now or a year or so in the future.
Also, I think that the stereotypical "nerd" Linux user wants high quality games. I know I was thrilled when I found out UT 2003 ran on linux. And since it was high quality enough, I bought it. Most of the games released today are lowest common denominator games that are basically all the same, and just trying to make a quick buck. The innovative or even good games will get bought. Just don't expect people who are quality oriented to just pick up some game based on a couple of screenshots on the box.
On the other hand, we are more forgiving of OS games because we respect the philosophy (typically), and we can forgive shortcoming as they are typically in almost permanent beta.
In summary, as more people are moved to linux, games will be more viable, but only the real quality ones.
nuff said...
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[qoute] What do you think are the most important obstacles barring the big game publishers from reaching out to the Linux market more than they already do? [/qoute] hmmmmm, could it be the number of potential customers, maybe? I didn't bother to RTFA but I think this is a given. Look at the Mac, those people outnumber Linux on the desktop and they don't get any games either. First: Do a bit of math Second: Get yourself a console of you want to play games.
Linux users don't play games much because there aren't many games on linux. Logically it follows that the things that attracted linux users to linux are applications other than gaming. It's a self selecting population. Furthermore there is the problem of network effects for game players and developers. Most games are going to be developed for the platform(s) used by the largest groups of game players which presently are consoles and the Windows operating system. Sure, cross platform games can be developed but the economic trade offs are generally make the investment unattractive. Plus if the users of linux generally are interested in things other than games, why develop games for that platform?
Then there is the problem of development tools. So many man years have gone into tool development for games on platforms other than linux that it is hard to justify the investment. Then there is developer talent. Most game developers have lots of expertise in game development on platforms other than linux. Sure developers could make the investment but the return just doesn't look attractive. There is little competitive advantage to be gained by developing the tools and expertise in house for a very marginal market. If they help with externally developed tools they potentially have a free rider problem. Not insurmountable and not always a problem (heck open source thrives in spite of it) but it is a factor to consider. What it comes down to is that hiring the development staff, getting adequate tools, and then selling enough extra copies of a game to get a return on that investment appears to be quite difficult on linux. It's not that it is technically impossible, just that it is economically unattractive right now. Only thing that will change that equation is if the market share of linux increases and increases significantly.
I have a Linux box that I use everyday. It's a P2-400 with a 16mb graphics card.
I have a Windows PC that's a glorified Xbox. It's a Core2Duo with 2Gig of RAM and a video card that makes up almost half of the total price of the PC.
There's a HUGE chicken/egg problem with Linux Gaming. You can do most everything you want without a monster PC on Linux. So if they did make a game for Linux, nobody would have the machine to actually play it.
With Windows, MS serendipitously coded their OS so bad that you were required to buy a new machine just surf the web. This put most the machine in a state where they weren't 'that' far off for gaming.
In the article just this morning about Tim Sweeney, he complained about that very issue. "Intel Extreme Graphics" can help you surf just fine, but it can't play games worth crap. That means those people are no longer even capable of playing the new games and it makes the PC market (even Windows) less attractive.
Sure there's the platform dependant API (DirectX) in place of what should be a generic type thing (OpenGL), but that's only half the problem.
(The interesting thing about my theory is that it applies to Apple as well. They were left out of the gaming market because for the longest thing their 'hardware' was just pathetic in that regard.)
--Welcome to the Realm of the Hawke--
The people who have been writing games have been writing windows DX games for a long time. The Developers that release Linux and Mac Games (id and Blizzard) write their games and their engines from scratch to be cross platform. But when company X licenses the Unreal Engine and don't know how to specifically use platform independent modules and GL, it isn't cost efficient to then rewrite it for linux. The problem arises in the fact that most developers don't think about alternative platforms while writing and look at it as an afterthought, which isn't a cost viable way to include linux support in a game. The only "way" is to write the code to be platform independent using GL. With the Current push for DX10, many companies are backing off on this because its not the most "cutting edge" (in the eyes of the Gamers who don't use linux).
Communism, its a party!
I use Linux exclusively (seriously, the only Windoze computer I use is my WM5 phone). I also play games.
But I play console games almost exclusively. I love tinkering with my system, but I don't want to fuck around with things just to play a game. Even Windows PC gaming is a PITA. It's like "Oh no, you have to buy a $500 video card just to enjoy this game". Fuck that, I just put a disc into my Wii or PS2 and just have fun. There's less hardware turnover for consoles: a new console generation comes out once every 6 years or so; PC hardware is obsolete annually.
It also helps that the Wii is a far more fun platform than anything else, and there's no PC equivalent.
I'd imagine that many other Linux users feel the same way: I'd guess that the percentage of heavy Linux users who are diehard console gamers is greater than the percentage of heavy Windows users who are diehard console gamers.
I support the Center for Consumer Freedom
So, some people want games for Linux and are waiting on the established companies to take the risk and time and effort to provide them. Well, it's not going to happen. Linux is viewed as too unpredictable a market to put that kind of money into. After all, can anyone name a single company that makes a profit selling consumer software for Linux? Not big business support, just software for single home PCs?
Add to that the moving target that all the different distros make and things get interesting for anyone writing up a business proposal to take to their bosses.
If anyone out there really believes that there is a market for Linux games, then start your own company and make a game. If the market is there, you could very well strike it rich. After all, if Linux ever does become the dominant OS, or even in the running, being the established games developer on the platform would be a sweet spot to be in.
However, if you don;t think that starting your own company and risking your own livelihood on Linux gaming is a smart idea, why should anyone else?
I was talking to a friend about this very issue last week. He's a Linux user everywhere, I'm a Unix admin with Linux and Windows bouncing into my life intermittently. We ended up coming to a few clear conclusions.
1) People who make the head-first dive into Linux do so KNOWING that they're mostly leaving behind games. Hard-core gamers won't give up Windows, because that's where the games are!
2) Developers are somewhat reluctant to write games for Linux because of the strong 'live free or die' mentality of the open-source community. If it's not difficult then they might port a game to Linux, but writing professional-quality unique games for Linux will equate to closed-source, and are likely to be shunned by much of the potential market.
Way back 'in the day,' the OS/2 community got gaming right (although a bit too late). Galactic Civilizations came out, and was quite a good game. The community clamped down on it like a bulldog with lockjaw, and paid money (cold, hard, cash!) for it in fairly large numbers. If the OS had survived as a desktop platform, it would have done well as a gaming platform.
Major commercial products are by and large going to pass Linux by, because open-source in some cases will be considered inappropriate, whereas closed-source will ostracise the end users. In neither case is there an easy route to generating a profit, which is after all how companies operate.
"People who do stupid things with hazardous materials often die." -- Jim Davidson on alt.folklore.urban
Combine that with the open-source nature of a lot of *nix users (ie, if it's not open source, I won't use it), the number of distributions, and the rest, and you can see why most game companies don't target any *nix.
More Linux users aren't gamers because the gamers aren't (as an overreaching generalization) switching to Linux. People don't switch platforms if the things they do aren't easier on the target platform. Gamers are no different than AutoCAD geeks or Photoshop mavens.
The old cliche "build it and they will come" applies. But in today's "gotta make the next quarter's number" world, nobody's going to build it if the customers aren't already there.
Wall St. is the bane of capitalism's existence.
I agree that XP will last a year or two, but the gamers are going to sniff out the problems: such as Halo II being able to be run only on Vista...and as reports have told, Vista plays the same games slower. Vista plays the same games but more slowly. Thus, I am sure that the gamers thinking ahead are already wondering where to move to from here. http://www.theinquirer.net/en/inquirer/news/2006/10/07/vista-gaming-will-be-10-to-15-per-cent-slower-than-xp
Linux users are too busy spending time tweaking their boxes to have time to play games.
I only please one person per day. Today is not your day. Tomorrow isn't looking good either. - Scott Adams
Linux users are tool makers, and gamers like to be entertained and challenged. The intersection of these sets is small. Builders like to make things, while gamers need to compete. Toolmakers vs gamers yeilds a small set.
---- Teach Peace. It's Cheaper Than War.
IMHO it's 2 things, the first being that MS provides an unmatched toolset, and they do so in a quickly. This then bubbles up to the middleware, and we see things like the Torque Game Engine Advanced become windows only, because the development speed of things like OpenGL aren't as quick as D3D.
How can I believe you when you tell me what I don't want to hear?
Open Source users will play Open Source Games. We are far from the level of windows games, but it is progressing. Battle For Wesnoth costs me many hours of my free time. I heard that some FPS are decent. A year ago I tried Open Arena which looked like a decent Quake 3 clone. I guess they have improved since then.
The Wise adapts himself to the world. The Fool adapts the world to himself. Therefore, all progress depends on the Fool.
...but I don't play games all that often because there just are not that many modern games for Linux. I spend all my days in Linux doing development work (well, I do run Windows in VMware for development also). I hate having to reboot because it requires me to shut down all the VM's and everything else I normally have going on.
I own UT3, Crysis and other modern games but rarely play because it requires me to reboot into Windows. I still fire up Q3 and UT2004 every so often and while these games are fun, they are old and just don't have the pop of something really pushing the hardware.
I am a gamer though. I have the machine for it (8GB of RAM, the new G92 8800 GTS card, etc) but there just are no games to play.
The ratio of people to cake is too big
Because there's a zillion different Linux distributions and every single one of them would need a different binary.
Not gonna happen...
No sig today...
I think what they really mean is: why don't linux users *buy* more games for linux.
Linux users may use console games, or have a windows partition.
I'm a gamer and a Linux user you know what brought me to Linux? The Wii. Don't get me wrong, Linux is great and all but I don't want to shut down everything i'm doing to dual boot just to play a game a little while. Linux games? Uh, I tried them... tried everyone on a "top ten" best native games for Linux. Short answer: I'm not that desperate. WINE plays some of the games some of the time, but there aren't that many platinum games = works out of the box. Usually you have to tweak some here, override a dll there, download a crack for the copyright protection etc. Plus I just had some regressions, Sam & Max was working in 0.9.54 but not in 0.9.57, always fun. In short, if you want to play games (beyond solitaire and minesweeper-clones), Windows is the only choice on the PC.
Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
The simple truth is that gaming on PC's, regardless of the operating system is dying a slow death. I'm a long time fan of PC gaming, but when given that:
1) a gaming PC is substantially more expensive than a console
2) you frequently have driver and other compatibility problems
3) a number of PC games are launched in a rather buggy state
4) the overall performance level of consoles has improved a lot in the latest generation
There's just not a lot left that PC games can claim superiority on. Linux gaming is even more dead because it's a very small subset of PC gaming with a lot of complexities that make support very difficult. It costs more dollars per gamer to develop and support the platform, and on top of that, you've got an industry full of people that have a ton of DirectX experience which does no good on Linux (Wine aside).
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I would never touch windows ever again if games ran smoothly or I could actually get Wine to run properly under Ubuntu (all sorts of error messages that I couldn't google for help/out of date help/nobody wants to help/cedega is shit). Of course that and a lack of more native Linux games is certainly another issue as well.
All I want is like XP-level performance in games in Ubuntu. That would be enough to stop XP, vista, and Windows 7 in their tracks for certain.
Serious Linux users (that is, contributers, hackers, and tinkerers) don't have time to be gamers. Lets face it, gaming is often a full time job. Games these days involve a significant time investment. Especially online games. I've personally found it difficult to get involved in online games because it seems like everyone else online spends 16 hours a day playing and there's no way to compete. For example, I tried to play some casual Urban Terror (free FPS) and kept getting my ass kicked all over the place. I'd get like 1 or 2 kills if I was lucky. It just wasn't very fun at all. Not like I remember the casual after-hours Duke Nukem 3D/Quake battles at work where nobody was really a "gamer," per se.
That said, I've started playing EVE Online again after a 2.5 year hiatus. Which while still requiring some investment, doesn't necessarily have the same head-to-head competition. I don't feel the urge to constantly "grind" because my character advances (in skill) whether I am logged in or not. Oh, and it has Linux and OS X clients now.
I think we might see more Linux gamers if there were more games like EVE Online that didn't require too much time investment to remain competitive/engaging.
"THERE IS NO JUSTICE, THERE IS ONLY ME." -Death
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I just don't like paying for stuff and refuse to pay $50 for a game.
And here's the real reason why companies don't bother with Linux.
I only please one person per day. Today is not your day. Tomorrow isn't looking good either. - Scott Adams
Between this article and the Tim Sweeney interview there's been a disturbing amount of gaming evangelism today. Sweeney makes these comical statements that all computers need to have fast graphics cards and be gaming-ready, when really that just takes away the choice of ordering more affordable hardware away from consumers and businesses that have no interest in gaming. And then there's this article which implores the Linux community to care about gaming. If a gamer goes to a LUG and finds that the people there just aren't interested in gaming... who cares? They'd probably rather be hacking.
Getting Windows to play nice with just about anything (including Linux). Isn't that the game?
I'm a Linux user and a huge gamer. Make it easier for me to play games via Linux (be it Wine, Cedega or providing the game to run native) and things will really change.
Isn't this putting the cart before the horse? Of the deployed base of hundreds of millions of PC's (including all OS's and platforms) in the world, how many of those are used by "gamers"? 1%? 5? Now take 5-10% of that number. The result is going to be small no matter what.
I have a suggestion though; certainly one reason there aren't more Linux Gamers is that there aren't more Linux games. This may be a Catch 22, but no one said those don't really happen. Game companies have pretty much universally shunned the smaller platforms, both Mac and Linux, and that's only to be expected, it's hard enough to make a buck on the PC.
But one of the major reasons for this, IMHO, is the lack of a single platform. No, I'm not talking about the underlying disto, I'm talking about the lack of something similar to DirectX. On Windows there is a "gaming platform" and I can design to it, on the other OS's there is a plethora of packages that solve one of the many problems, but nothing that wraps them all up.
May I humbly suggest that there needs to be a single "OpenGP" (as in Gaming Platform) that _really_ works on the (new) Mac OS and Linux?
Maury
Just getting firefox to run, with sound and flash is the game. When that's done and you win move on to a more obscure distro and play again!
Really, as long time linux user/tinkerer who hasn't played much in the way of games since tetris came out in the arcades. FPS games and sports games really have no attraction for me. It's the tinkering that is fun.
/* No Comment */
MY POST WAS NOT OFFTOPIC! He listed a link that can't be seen and he got an extra point for that! Furthermore, here is proof that Halo II is VISTA ONLY! http://www.megagames.com/news/html/pc/halo2pc-vistaonly-bungieqna.shtml http://ve3d.ign.com/articles/reviews/738/Halo-2-Vista-Review But if you want to crack, that is up to you. http://www.next-gen.biz/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=6146&Itemid=2 Seriously, get it together you moderators.
I don't follow the progress of the gaming industry, but I'm guessing that most developers will be either releasing DirectX 9/Windows XP ports of their games for quite some time or eventually abandoning the PC market and focusing exclusively on consoles to combat this problem. If Microsoft isn't willing to step up to the plate and fix these issues with Vista than the market will move on to something else.
As for Halo 2, I believe that a hack was released that allows for it to run in Windows XP.
I used to be a pretty serious gamer. Then I installed linux and slowly started spending more of my time doing that and less time gaming. I just found it a lot more fun to learn about how to use UNIX or messing around with the system than playing games. I like to say that linux became my game. Eventually I transitioned in to actually helping develop the system I used and that was pretty much the end of my serious gaming days.
Strangely enough, I've been getting back in to gaming little by little over the past few years, although not on PC's. The sorry state of the PC gaming market has been discussed elsewhere, so I won't add to that, but I've been using games as a way to spend time with my girlfriend, which is something I simply can't do with linux. So we play the PS2 and the Wii and we've just started looking at good old board and card games over the past few days. It's not just me either, many of my hardcore linux developer friends are buying wii's and such these days. I never thought I'd return to gaming, but it's worked out very well as a social tool for this penguin.
"I may not have morals, but I have standards."
Chill Kev - it'll be alright. I get upset with bad mods too but you just gotta roll with it. Karma isn't real. Not slashdot karma anyway. It will all be o.k.
It's hard to believe that's how Micronians are made. Why don't we see it right now by having you both kiss one another?
Microsoft has stated they will cease selling Windows XP as of June 30, 2008. When you can't buy new copies anymore, it's essentially dead, even if those of us who have it still use it for a while yet. Kind of like a chicken after you cut its head off.
Little girls, like butterflies, need no excuse. -- L. Long
1. There are more important things to do.
2. MS used its market share to dictate to the graphics hardware companies those operations which must be done in hardware. That, combined with...
3. SGI blew it with OpenGL. I haven't heard much from Khronos yet. Is there anything buzzworthy going on there?
4. Somebody should throw some money and programming time at libSDL. Would porting the relevant portions to consoles and extending where necessary be useful? (Just throwing up an idea.)
In my case (and many of my Linux using co-workers), we got into Linux from the enginering and scientific workstation world. Linux is a natural progression from Sun, HP-UX, AIX and other old 'high end' desktops. There was never much gaming there, so not much got ported when we moved to Linux.
Others (in the IT world) picked up Linux for servers as replacements for 'big iron' systems. Later, they migrated it to the desktop. There isn't much call for gaming on servers (the backends of multi-user games aside).
Windows came up from the bottom, so to speak. It started ot with all the lightweight apps and was as much a recreational/hobby platform as one used for serious business. Gaming is a natural application for this group of users.
Back at my last job as a cog in the corporate machine in the aerospace business, one could always tell the engineers from the PHB wanna-bees by what they had on their desk. UNIX workstations for the engineers and Windows for people whose lives depended on writing memos and PowerPoint presentations.
Have gnu, will travel.
The biggest reason that I've heard that holds any water as to why there isn't any commercial game development on Linux (or the *BSD's) is the problems with cross-platform development. Which was true once upon a time. As in, the cost to do it was quite high.
/say/ it's fine.
BUT, today what do we have? We got games being developed not only for the PC/XBox, but also the PS3, Wii and toned town version(s) for the PSP and/or the GBA/DS. Clearly there isn't much of a fear/cost with regards to cross-platform development any more.
My opinion as to what the next reason will be is licensing. The bulk of the useful tools on the Linux Distro's are (L)GPL'd. Now, I know that the dynamically linking to a lib that is LGPL'd is ok, but not to one that is GPL'd. Also, has anyone taken a look at (at least Ubuntu's) libc? It's LGPL'd. Anyone here want to dl LIBC? Because that'll be necessary to alleviate any legal ambiguity regarding libc's usage even if the Linux people
Quite frankly, I see this free (as in RMS's definition) software thing as having shot itself in the foot. RMS wanted an "us" v.s. "them" thing:
http://www.gnu.org/licenses/why-not-lgpl.html
And guess what. He got it. Congratulations.
And I'm going to hold my breath until I get them! ..blue..bluer..bluest..
Just another "Cubible(sic) Joe" 2 17 3061
What in the end this boils down to, is for them to make the engine able to work on linux they would have rebuild the engine from line 1. And then with all diff version of linux software packages dependent on the distro of linux, its a a very hard process to make sure your game will have everything needed to run on that machine. havin it compile all what it needs from src is hard since some will have compile issues and will need debug, Most gamers don't really wanna spend the time to debug 1000 lines of code just to get game to work.
it's down to hassle point blank! Linux is moving on too fast even for games developed for that platform, take a look for example at Alpha Centauri try installing it today on Linux you'll be sure to be in for hours of tinkering and frustration to get it working. Same goes for almost all games made for Linux, they may work well for a few years but then bang things change with X11 for example and the game was designed using older API's and things don't just work! This is why I've argued in the past we need a solid gaming SDK for Linux that doe's not break older software.. I'd even go to the extent and recommend a new solution for packaging libs for games! so they can just be included with the game without having to worry about installing old libs etc on a system.
I think Sweden will beg to differ.
Oh, buy. Right. %lt;troll>Well I guess Linux is dead then?</troll>
How are sites slashdotted when nobody reads TFAs?
1. Promise to deliver a version, as good as the Windows version, of your game for Linux if at least X persons sign up and pays Y amount of money.
2. Let these persons pay for the game in advance to a third party, like a law firm.
3. This third party, together with some technical expertise, decides if the linux version meets the quality criterias. If yes, the money is transferred to the game company.
OK, so this isn't intended as a troll, though no doubt everyone will look at it as such. Oh well.
The common perception is that linux users refuse to pay for anything. And it's not that far off.
How many of you played games released by Loki? Now, how many of you personally paid for that game, and installed it only on your own computer or computers? Maybe I got a bad sample, but I've asked that question in three different linux mailing lists at about the time Loki went under.
In all three, the response to question one was overwhelming -- nearly everyone had played one game or another from Loki, and had it installed. Question two? Well, generally ten or fifteen people would get together to buy the game, then make copies of the CD for anyone who wanted it. There were a few people who bought their own copies, but not enough. Say 20-25% of the total users.
So why don't we have commercial games for linux? Because that perception is a lot closer to true than it ought to be.
Now I'm going to go hide behind that wall over there, and hope I'm safe from the flames this draws...
Unless you are going to claim that existing games are the problem (which they are), DirectX is really only a minor problem. It isn't really the "API to beat" -- we don't have to develop some "DirectX killer." All we really need to do is educate people about what's already out there (OpenGL, SDL) and maybe create some better documentation.
Microsoft may try to go out of their way to make OpenGL irrelevant, and there may have been a time when vendors could get away with it not being a priority. And then Doom 3 came out, and suddenly everyone was scrambling to patch their OpenGL implementation to run it well, even on Windows. So it should easily be possible to develop a solid game on GL these days.
And even if it wasn't -- for the most part, the basic 3D stuff is the same. There are more than a few games which can use either. And there are at least a few game engines which you can buy, off the shelf, which support both, or at least OpenGL, some with Linux ports -- so you could start with a working Linux version on day 1.
Oh, and Doom3 also used DirectX on Windows, for things other than the 3D. You're probably thinking of Direct3D...
No, the biggest problem is the same as it always was. There aren't many Linux gamers, which means: Very few mainstream games on Linux, driver support is often half-assed and is driven more by workstation stuff (Quadro), and most of the Windows-only games are Direct3D only, with no effort made to make them work well under Wine (with notable exceptions, like WoW). All of which combines to make Linux a very hostile platform for gamers, which explains why there aren't many Linux gamers.
It's the same story as with every other type of app tying people to Windows. The difference is, there are at least a few areas where Linux has some powerful offerings (open or closed) which are as good as or better than the Windows competition -- I do non-.NET web development, which means it really doesn't matter much what my machine runs, and the server is probably going to run Linux. You could even make a case for things like the Gimp, OpenOffice, and GnuCash. But you can't really make the same case for games -- partly because the best we've got, really, are id games (at least on the client), and partly because each game is unique, so for the most part, gamers are going to want to play a wide variety of games (many of them new).
This means that while I can always hope, it honestly looks to me like gamers are the last people that would completely give up Windows, whether or not they toy with Linux.
Don't thank God, thank a doctor!
http://uncyclopedia.org/wiki/Linux#Gaming
But there just aren't very many games to buy. Loki gave us a few, so did Atari. If you wanna play the coolest new things, they're only available for windows or perhaps the xbox 360. In fact, the xbox 360 may be part of the reason nwn2 sucks and/or doesn't play under linux. Eff that game.
The question, "why aren't there more linux gamers" is spurious. The question is: why aren't there more linux games!! The answer is like HD content and HD TVs. Who goes first? Do they make games for you to buy and then encourage you to buy them or do you buy them and encourage them to make them for the platform you like.
I'm aware it's made no difference at all. But when I buy a game, I make sure to write a note on the registration card that I'd much rather have bought the linux SDL/OpenGL version and I'd even have paid a premium to do so.
Imagine if you weren't allowed to use roads because a bus company complained about your driving 3 times. --skunkpussy
"I think there's also the perception that a lot of Linux users don't like to pay for things."
Funny, my perception has been that Linux users have a lower per capita piracy rate than any other platform.
There's code to write, there's systems to set up, there's new software to explore, there's books to read;
and then
There's kids to cuddle, wife to romance, outdoor things I like to do, maybe even cook a chocolate cake!
How do YOU find time for games?
I was busy being a geek and... well... being alive!
technical writing / development
I think it boils down to Psychology. I'm a huge fan of Linux, but not a very big fan of games. Sure, I've played AD&D in the past. I have the latest Nvidia drivers for my machine and can play UT2004 whenever I'd like, and it runs just as well in Linux as it did in Windows.
But I also think my mindset is that of a nuts-and-bolts engineer. I want to know how things tick, take them apart, break them and put them back together again. I think a long time ago I was mystified with the idea of magic and slight of hand. So I started studying it myself. Guess what? Some of the mystery went away. And I was bored.
I think plenty of self proclaimed "gamers" are fascinated about the idea of being whisked away into a fantasy world. Much like the older ones of us feel when reading a book. Some of my younger friends and relatives who are gamers act this way. Should they become programmers, and find out what it really takes to make a game, or perhaps some of the shortcuts taken, it takes that magical feeling away. So there's no interest there, or it's lost very quickly. They also seemed baffled when I wasn't really impressed with their gaming systems, when a very powerful computer was a better tool. They were looking to play, I was looking to work.
I always thought the idea of being a "gamer" was a funny label. Games are easy to play. I read books so am I some sort of extreme "reader". Books are easy to read... both have a certain foundation to them, you're taken on a journey and a certain level of imagination is involved. Writing books is harder than reading them, just as playing games is easier than writing them.
So for me, games, I can take them or leave them. Ok they're cute. But I would call myself a "gamer" just much as I'd call myself a "shoe-tier" or "tic-tac-toer" or "peanut-butter-and-jelly-sandwhich-maker".
FLR
It's not going to die at all. Computers are always going to be more ubiquitous than consoles and a great target for games because there are just so many of them already. The install base of computers is huge, and casual games are just beginning to tap a large portion of the potential. Whether these casual gamers will ever move beyond casual games is up for debate, but that doesn't mean that they're not games.
Consoles are gaining popularity, and that's good. But they'll never come equipped with a keyboard and mouse because people already have one of those (a pc). RTS games are better and many people prefer the PC FPS experience. Valve develops for PCs almost exclusively, with their console offerings being really bad. Coincidentally, they're also one of the most popular publishers in the industry right now. Civilization has yet to make a console release, and it'll probably be sub-par.
Finally, it's cheaper to develop a small game for a PC than a console, so independent companies release on the PC a lot. XBLA is changing that, but it's not going to change overnight and it's not going to completely dominate.
So, the importance and dominance of the PC as the gaming platform is being diminished and will continue down that road for a while, but it'll never die. The install base and the setup will keep it going for a long, long time.
I use Linux as an operating system in an ISP, in numerous businesses as mail and web servers, as routers, and as database servers. I have enough real-life puzzles to solve every day just involving the mix of Linux and Windows or Linux and the network. Why would I want to go home and solve pretend puzzles?
No one ever had to evacuate a city because the solar panels broke!
Note to self: preview. Oh well.
How are sites slashdotted when nobody reads TFAs?
Cease selling != cease supporting. I remember games supporting Windows 98SE long after it ceased being sold because the market share was still so much larger during Windows XP's early years. I can envision a similar scenario with Windows Vista and Windows XP, especially since it seems that we've "peaked" in terms of general-use hardware performance this time around.
I've got 5 ascended nethack characters who beg to differ!
10 PRINT Gamers don't switch to Linux because there aren't enough games.
20 PRINT Games companies don't switch for Linux because they aren't enough gamers.
GOTO 10
Dealing with lawyers would be a lot less tedious if they all looked like Casey Novak.
well, it's tangential to linux gaming at least, so, I was reading in the cedega fourms that cedega is very CPU heavy, and was wondering, does cedega support multi-core/multi cpu? and does it work best with 2 cores? or would 4 core cpus work even better? I won't be building a system specifically for cedega soon, but knowing the answer will help me when the time comes. i already tried searching the forums and all i could find out was one person with a 4 cpu/core setup had to use a command to disable frequency scaling to 'double' his framerate in wow. he didn't mention if multi cores helped cedega any though.
https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/free-sw.html
I hear this every other year and its complete BS.
:P (if you are using on your crappy TV well, then you are getting what, 640 x 480 resolution, its a joke, you might as well hook it up to your PSP other small screened device). Never mind all the other stuff a PC can do over a console than just game.
#1) A gaming PC has ALWAYS been substantially more expensive than a console.
#2) PC games have always had driver and compatibility problems.
#3) Many PC games have always launched in a buggy state
#4) lol! Yes the Wii, the best selling console is certainly a powerhouse!
Seriously though, yes the 360 and the PS3 have raised the bar a bit performance wise for consoles. However neither is close to being as powerful as even a mid-range computer let alone a high end gaming machine.
Honestly also if you are trying to compare apples to apples you really should include the price of the 1500$ HD TV you need to hook up to your PS3 or 360 to take advantage of the graphics. So 2000$ for your system. Sure you can use the TV as a TV, but I can also use mine as a Computer, so there.
Not to mention that the best RTS are all PC, and the best FPS are all PC, and the best MMPRPG, I can keep writing letters together all day... I can also emulate only console games on my PC if I really want to. I can also play older games. I know both the 360 and PS3 has some backwards compatibility, but not nearly as much.
I am not even going to get into the red button of 360 death, or the lack of games for the PS3.
I know last year I was faced with a decision, PC or 360, and I went PC and haven't looked back. I had an xbox, and it was kinda fun but really it ended up being a Halo 2 playing device that could also run DVD's. Then it was done. Now it plays DVD's (badly).
Don't get me wrong, some day it may happen, where gaming on the PC is dead, just not any time soon.
I already have Linux, don't need other games!!! :)
Seriously, IMHO the real problem is a general lack of interesting games...
Why bother with driver hunting / S.O. tainting and so on?
Elen sìla lùmenn' omentielvo
I play UT2004 on Linux. But the box I picked up at the store will run under Winders.
Well, i don't have a copy of Winders to check, but the box says it will run there.
-- Stephen.
but but we play games on Linux, I still has not completed the level when GCC is shouting bad words playing Kernel Hacking
Disclaimer/Plug: I don't work in the video games industry, but I have close ties to a few people who do. Also, I've written my own cross-platform game engine or game development framework that allows OpenGL and Direct3D to be used interchangeably as the rendering engine.
So, with ever improving cross-platform middleware, why are game developers still ignoring Linux, by and large? If they can target Windows XP, Windows Vista, XBox 360, PS2, PS3, and Wii with one title, surely Linux couldn't be hard to add it the list. I'll tell you, it isn't because game developers know how to use Direct3D only or that OpenGL is no good.
When I questioned a friend in the industry about it, he said in the end that the only real reason for ignoring Linux is the time and cost of testing another platform. If they aren't going to profit enough from the release to pay the additional testers required, they won't even break even on the venture. The fact is, testing procedures require much work duplication across different platforms, even when the code doesn't need to be rewritten or significantly modified. So, from what I understand, it all comes down to testing cost.
Insert self-referential sig here.
Anyone whos manually installed the graphics drivers for ATI and NVIDIA
would be aware of the gaping holes in the driver performance and compatibility especially on ATI Drivers.
cant enable this cant enable that, cant see the full graphics memory, random hangs and screen corruption, the problems are endless.
If somehow you manage to get all thru that then theres wine , cant enable this, cant read that etc etc.
This from a guy who paid subscription for transgaming and Loki game softwares. So now i have a 40 Gig partition for XP.
-Sundru
While your post may not have been off-topic, the link he posted *can* be seen. I just clicked on it and here's the first few lines from the text:
"Million of Halo 2 fans/Windows XP users are rejoicing due to the fact that yesterday, a team of hackers known as "Razor1911 released a patch that allowed Windows XP users to install Halo 2 on their PC. A while back Falling Leaf Systems announced that they were to release compatibility drivers legally so that XP users can play Halo 2, but Razor1911 claimed that they beat them too it, and there's no doubt that they're right. Although there are still compatibility issues with the new patch, Halo 2 does run on most Windows XP machines, mostly in single player mode - there have been many complaints regarding the online multiplayer. Razor1911 has also released a re-pack pirated version of Halo 2 that should run better than the original Vista DVD, which included the patch with it. Along with Halo 2, Razor1911 has also released an XP patch for Shadowrun."
Oh yah, it also seems like you were wrong about Halo II being Vista only....
"We'll need 2000 crickets, 4 cans of Easy Cheese, and the fluid from 18 glowsticks for this plan to work...." - ph0n1c
Q: Why don't game developers publish more games for Linux? :-/
A: Linux doesn't have enough market share to justify the effort of cross-platform programming. (Translation: There aren't more Linux users)
Q: Why aren't more Linux users?
A: There aren't enough games for Linux. All the good games require windows.
In other words, there's no real incentive ($$$) for game publishers to make Linux or cross-platform games.
Once I e-mailed a company why didn't they make a Linux version of their game, and they very politely sent me down a pipe. Since then, I haven't spent a single cent in games. I say screw them, and I don't care how much money they lose to piracy.
What you're saying is 100% true, but this is the problem: what PC is sufficient for gaming?
I don't know anybody who doesn't own a PC. But I also know very few people with PC's that are capable of gaming. Don't get me wrong, there will still be some market out there and the independent home brew developers will definitely continue. There will be plenty of room for people who want to play more casual games, but the market for PC games akin to what we see on consoles today will continue to dwindle.
This sig has been temporarily disconnected or is no longer in service
Where do you get the idea that PC gaming is more expensive. The sweet spot for gaming graphics cards is about $200-$300. An Xbox is $350, a Plastation 3 is $480, and a Wii is $270 (if you can find one).
The majority of linux users are power users or IT professionals that have other things to do.
(/enable_realism)
Games are a waste of time and, IMHO, neither a form of art, yet.
(back_to/.)
Math is beautiful... e^(pi*i)+1=0
(Score: 5, Empathetic)
Starting Score: 1 point
Moderation +3
70% Empathetic
30% Sarcastic
Extra 'Commiserate' Modifier 0 (Edit)
Karma-Bonus Modifier +1 (Edit)
Total Score: 5
People who use computers for non-productive tasks are Lame.*
*exception = slashdot readers
Help end the use of Sigs. Tomorrow
I might play with them!
I prefer to spend my time on computers doing the following.
I guess I just don't have the will power to do both. I even only read
My experience with Linux is that I spend more time tweaking the system than using the system.
The only options seem to be use wine (which is a crapshoot you spend too much time tweaking) or play games that a made for Linux that look more like tech demos than games.
When one can install steam or gametap, download everything and play it with minimal tweaking (less than 5 minutes per game) then the market will pick up for Linux gaming.
I want Linux gaming to work well, it just doesn't yet so I use windows.
09 F9 11 02 9D 74 E3 5B D8 41 56 C5 63 56 88 C0
Not sure what it says, but basically to play Halo II on XP you need a certain version of DirectX 9 and a loader for Halo II that tricks the game into thinking the platform is Vista.
:)
I'm half way through the game now
Your head a splode
"Open Arena", and "UFO:Alien Invasion" These just became available for Fedora 9 and I'm loving it. Next project: getting WOW to work...
"If god did not exist, it would be necessary to invent him" --Voltaire
It's that simple really.
If I were into gaming full-scale I'd be using Windows. Unbelievable (I *hate* Microsoft & Windows), but then again I'm not a Gamer or Game Developer, I'm a developer. A guy I know is an avid gamer and the team lead of a Half-Life 2 Total Conversion Mod for StarWars. He - of course - uses Windows as his Desktop.
Another thing I'm seeing is that OSS gaming has just about lured in all the Linux gamers anyway. It's not *that* different in the Windows world. Counterstrike is still the most popular multiplayer out there - and that's a mod, not a commercial game.
I suspect once Linux gains critical mass due to HW prices plummeting and the ever gaining crowd of Ubuntu followers (a distro that finally did enough things right to foster critical mass) we'll at the same time see OSS gaming finally catch on. Linux is getting more and more interesting for the non-hardcore-lowlevel developers and thus we're seeing an ever growing set of OSS games, some of which could kill off entire gaming genres (check out the OSS RTS Spring to see what I mean).
It was 8 years ago when jBuilder, the prime Java IDE, would cost thousands and thousands of dollars. I can still clearly remember. Today we have huge companies competing with each other over who can give away the best software for free. Eclipse vs. Netbeans, Glassfish vs. jBoss, etc. We are seeing that with a lot of other stuff in the software area too. Webkits, Office packages, etc. Once that has crept out all over the place we'll see the same happening in gaming.
The games of the future will be plattforms payed for by a fee or premium accounts. Games will be free and mostly - so I suspect - open source. Because no one will even care.
We suffer more in our imagination than in reality. - Seneca
We all know Windows market share dwarfs Linux market share. However, what we must really take into account are the number of users that only use Linux, and do not have Windows installed. I believe this figure is really small.
For instance, you cannot expect Macintosh users to have Windows installed. Therefore, you are expanding your number of potential buyers by producing a Mac OS X version. It was especially true at the time of the PowerPC, now it is less clearly cut at the time of Intel processors.
On the contrary, if you produce a Linux version, there are a lot of chances that people buying it would have bought the Windows version otherwise, since they have access to both operating systems. You are only cannibalizing your Windows sales.
I found this article to be amusing because it challenges a belief that I had about linux users; that being their ability to provide for themselves. For all this talk all about "open" and collaborative work, you'd imagine there'd be a huge community for home brewed games and entertainment titles. All of my "nix" friends boast about their "freedom" and lack of "closed systems" and constantly deride my choice of OS (OSX), but it seems their self proclaimed reliance and independence has also given them a dearth of gaming titles. My advice: roll your own and quit bitching!
There is no security when liberty is sacrificed.
The reason I started using torque, years ago now, was its unrivalled cross-platformness.
Oh, how things change:
1) Torque Game Engine, the original ideal of commercial cross platform code for games, now doesn't officially support Linux. The most recent release [1.5.2] was the first to compile on linux out of the box since early 1.3 versions, totally handled by community only. The kicker being that they'd never even commit patches the community [myself included] posted, even when those patches influenced nothing except the linux platform.
2) Torque Game Builder ran on Linux originally. They've dropped the Linux port and called it "community supported" on Linux. In fact, due to a bunch of pathologically platform-dependant decisions, it's borderline impossible to make it work on linux.
3) Torque Game Engine Advanced, the original promise was to have linux & mac versions out with the first major release - GG haven't even bothered with any graphics except directx, and have said they never will.
4) Torque2 - the new engine they're building. Again, they say they'd like to do linux and mac support, but have also said that they won't be getting those out in the first version
5) InstantAction.com - ostensibly platform independant, but there's no mac or linux versions of the browser plugins yet, let alone any games you might want to play
Blah. There was a time when I championed GarageGames as a paragon of cross platform, especially linux, support.
I never managed to get a real game written with Torque. Nowadays I'm using Ogre, and my development is actually progressing, and working on linux and mac as well as windows without a second thought.
Gary (-;
Maybe people who feel the CLI is superior to a GUI and prefer to use VI to interact with a computer's configuration aren't necessarily going to have a large intersection with graphics happy button mashers?
Over the same time period, the (real) cost of the average gaming-PC has slowly but consistently dropped.
When the cost of a new gaming-PC drops to equal the cost of the latest console (likely in two, maybe one or three more generations), then the difference between "PC gaming" and "console gaming" will cease to be relevant. It won't die, exactly; it will be subsumed. And it'll happen in about 7 to 12 years.
At that point, "hot rodding" PC-gaming hobbyists will be in the same class as "hot rodding" car-racing hobbyists: they'll still be around, but not even the manufacturers of the objects of their desire will care.
Those who fail to understand communication protocols, are doomed to repeat them over port 80.
Microsoft has stated they will cease selling Windows XP as of June 30, 2008. When you can't buy new copies anymore, it's essentially dead, even if those of us who have it still use it for a while yet.
Oohhh...so you BOUGHT your copy.
If you've never been modded as "flamebait" or "troll," you've never tried to argue a minority viewpoint here!
The answer is one I see here on Slashdot all the time: "I only boot into Windows to play games"
As long as this is true game companies have zero incentive to make Linux native games.
CDE open sourced! https://sourceforge.net/projects/cdesktopenv/
They think in abstracts rather than think by reacting to stimuli. D&D is more enjoyable to most Linux Geeks I know because it requires the same type of thought. Sokoban is another game a lot of Linux geeks I know enjoy. The way you think affects not only what you do but what you enjoy.
I'm sorry, I'm to tired to be witty at the moment so this message will have to do.
I use Linux and Game but on a XP box I want to play whatever game my friends are playing and don't want to have to work to get it to run. With very few out of the box supported game Unreal....and a couple others it just dosn't work. But Linux could rule this world with the event of Vista which is to clunky to run game efficiently most Gamers still user xp think of a Linux OS that is setup for max performance for gaming......
Like most Linux users, I work with computers all day (when not in various meetings). When I get home the last thing I want to do is spend time on the computer. That leaves the 40 minute train ride to and from work. I use this to catch up on t'internet (3g dongle), do some fun work, or very very occasionally play a game.
I don't have time to learn a new game, I'd rather bash something arround that I know. I've bought a dozen or so games for Linux in the past, some are still unwrapped, none have made it onto my current laptop. If I play something on the train it's either openttd, or dosbox and railroad tycoon (the original one).
When the train pulls into the station, I hit suspend, throw the laptop in the bag, and it stays there until the next morning (unless something major breaks and the 24/7 team can't cope).
Direct from the apt/synaptic repositories:
Freeciv (Civilization clone) or is it a Civ II clone?
OpenArena (Quake clone) thanks to ID being all generous and stuff
Oolite (remember Elite?) a decent 3D space trading/piracy/combat simulator based on the old 80's classic
Ur-Quan Masters (port of Star Control 2) color me old, but I remember playing this on a 286
There are some other good games for Linux that come in the regular Debian or Ubuntu repositories, many of which I have not tried. You should check them out.
BTW does anybody know how to get Warzone 2100 to work under Ubuntu? I have tried it on a desktop machine and 2 laptops and every time it froze the machine by way of the video card.
World of Warcraft: 10fps under Wine.
If you want productivity, with exposed tools and command-line speed, Linux is the way to go. Windows is the convergent gaming/media platform, but it isn't for serious work. But its well locked down and great for games like FPS and click-the-dialog-boxes, slowly becoming one with the console.
Let's not forget about Loki Software's well-publicised collapse; now, it was embezelment that killed them, not a bad business plan. But to the people who pay the bills for gaming development, all they remember from it is "Linux == FAIL".
Those who fail to understand communication protocols, are doomed to repeat them over port 80.
...and Ms. Pac Man and Defender on Xmame. Does that count?
<voice type="John Cleese as the Jewish Official in Life of Brian">Blasphemer! Blasphemer!</voice>
The opposite of progress is congress
It's a difficult thing to survey.
I'm a linux user (since 1992) and a computer gamer (since 1976).
So how does this work in your study? I'm a linux user and my main
gaming machine runs windows XP.
-fb Everything not expressly forbidden is now mandatory.
He'll be shitting himself and trying to look in all directions at once as he moves deeper in. :-)
I don't always use unix-like operating systems; but when I do, I prefer FreeBSD.
If we got decent games on Linux , i would move start away, and i think a lot would as well. Only reason i am with Windows is because of the games. If it was doable, Linux would grow huge imo
I used to use my PC for gaming, but I don't have the luxury of spending all my earnings on upgrades every 6 months, and I can get high quality graphics on console games at a lower price. Fiddling with graphics drivers and patches just to get a playable game is annoying, and PC games don't have that much variety anymore. Some games you just can't get on PC, like Katamari, Mario Galaxy, or Ratchet & Clank. I'll use a PC for emulators instead of digging out an old console, and if I'm somewhere else I take my DS. I just use my PC for the internet, organizing my personal data, graphics apps, storing and ripping audio and video for my portable players, storing digital photos, programming, and composing music... but not really for games. I don't even feel like playing flash games when I can just play DS. Anyone else have similar habits?
Twinstiq, game news
Huh? Most products either work out of the box on Windows or come with a driver for it in the box. Even if it doesn't (I've never see it) how hard is it to find the manufacturer's web sight and download one?
I've never had to do this "hunting" thing you're talking about when I used Windows. I have on Linux, didn't find shit, but I did hunt for quite a while. I've seen the end user have to do everything from compile the driver to recompiling the kernel, to get some hardware working on Linux.
Sorry, but I'm gonna have to wave the bullshit flag on this "hunting" thing that I would have to do if I went Windows again. There are good reasons to leave Windows, but this just isn't one of them.
I want this account deleted.
When I switched of OS X, I knew that it wasn't a gaming platform. Same when I was a Linux user (97-2002). I knew that to play games I either needed Windows or a console. At the same time, I switched to OS X for reasons totally unrelated to gaming. I WORK in OS X. Many people WORK in Linux. I do it because this is the best machine for me to spend 12 hours a day on working. I was simply growing up and didn't have time for games, or really care about them. I cared more about getting my job done and doing it well. I very much more wanted that than I wanted a gaming system that did a halfassed job at my work. If I want games, I'll go and buy a Wii or PS3 honestly. I have bootcamp loaded with XP for occasional gaming, but my machine isn't really up to spec for heavy gaming asides from portal or such.
Tibbon
tibbon.com
It is more like why more PC gamers are not using Linux. I am a PC gamer and I would love to migrate to Linux, which would make me a Linux user. I do not want to pay a MS tax to play PC games.
The main problem is lack of DX API in Linux. If you haven't noticed, video hardware certifies itself against DX API and games are written to DX, not openGL. If MS would extend their library and charge a fair royalty to the development shops, then Linux gaming will be a reality. However, I am sure MS has thought about this and it must be worth it to lock gamers in to a platform as opposed to building out the DX market.
One last comment: there is a fallacy floating around in this thread. If a user has a free OS as a platform, that means they want everything open sourced or free. This is not the case and I would say you would be hard pressed to prove that.
I dual boot Ubuntu and XP Pro. Tried Vista late last year and hated it. It was slow on my box and a lot of games didn't run, or at least run well, on it. Don't have a DX10 card, so it wasn't really necessary on that front. Now, I use my computer for online classes, email, personal finance, word processing, and then the other 90% of the time for gaming. I've tried to do all of that on Linux and came pretty close thanks to Wine. But the problem is that while some games work like a charm many of the ones I play either have little buggy issues, weird graphics anomalies or don't work at all. I get a lot of games through Steam, and although the individual games work fine (generally) I have to install an entirely new copy of the game on my Linux partition which is pretty inconvenient. Especially if the game turns out not to work.
The bottom line is that my PC is my main gaming "console", and for that purpose XP works with the least amount of fuss and the most success. That's not to say that Linux can't or couldn't be a great gaming platform, just that I know for a fact that if I buy a game it will work in Windows. If it doesn't work in Windows it certainly won't work in Linux. It might work on both, but Windows is a known factor. Patching and driver hunts in my experience are no worse on Windows than trying to fine-tune Wine and hunt down drivers in Linux.
In several months I'm going to throw together a new PC specifically for gaming and I'll probably be using Vista on that for the DX10 support. My current computer will then be a dedicated Linux machine, for movies, music, stuff like that. But, for whatever reasons, as it stands now Linux is just not the most reliable or the most convenient gaming OS.
This unbiased moderation brought to you by the Porcine Aviation Group!
It has been the same deal for the last few generations: When the consoles first come out, they are on par, perhaps even a bit better, than the highest end PC hardware. Of course PC hardware doesn't sit still, so rather quickly they are eclipsed.
This isn't surprising, especially since the majority of the development on their graphics hardware comes from the PC side. The chips are specialized for the consoles, often doing things like sharing memory with the CPU (which their PC versions can't do) but one only has to look at the architecture to see many things shared with the PC counterparts.
There's no reason to believe this is going to change any time soon. A new console will come out and will be top of the line. PC graphics will trudge along as always and pass it, until another new console comes out.
I agree that XP isn't dead - it's actually the choice of OS for gaming for myself and most of my friends. Why? Vista simply is too bloated and expensive (XP is free at my college). I love Linux, but I haven't found many commercial games at all I can run on it (without Wine).
I'm mainly a Linux user for my everyday work, and I'd say I buy and play more games than the average user generally would. The only reason every one of my machines is dual booting Linux and Windows XP is due to the fact that I simply need XP for my games.
I've switched a couple people from Windows to Linux, however they've all been dual-boots. The main issues are games, a few utilities like Catia, and Photoshop. I imagine that I'll also be dual booting until these issues are addressed by the software companies. I believe the "games aren't free, so Linux users won't buy them" idea is a minority opinion. This statement kind of seems true, simply because those in that category tend to voice their disapproval more adamantly.
It's simple....
Gamers don't use Linux because games don't work on Linux.
Games don't work on Linux because Game developers won't make money by selling them.
Because gamers don't use Linux.
Because games don't work on Linux.
Because developers won't make money selling Linux games.
Because gamers don't use Linux.
No, it is not.
Just kidding. Actually all the Linux users I know also game.
...but it still takes effort, almost as much as it does to keep up a Windows box. I'm sorry, but give me a break. What effort is required to keep up a Windows XP box for gaming? I swear, sometimes you guys just crack me the fuck up. I must be the one exception to the accepted rule of Windows users. I have never had a virus, never had a bot installed, only ever had one serious driver issue and that was because I was using a really off-market audio card for multi-channel audio recording in Win98, and never had a BSOD that wasn't my fault by doing something incredibly stupid in some code.At some point you need to realize that FUD is slung from both camps, except the OSS community simply seems to be far more vitriolic.
I love the idea of Linux and FOSS, but I doubt I will ever fully embrace the culture due to the users that I have come into contact with, both here and at various user groups I have attended.
Mod me down - whatever.
So lets see, you think games companies should target a bunch of people who don't like paying for software ...
Combine this thread with another: http://games.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=08/03/10/1239205
Why not have Ubuntu on PS3?
Beef.
Ok, lets repeat this one last time: Halo is for Vista Only. Just because you can crack it does not mean that it was meant for XP or anything else. Do people go around saying that Mac OS X is only for Mac computers: YES! Yes they do. And yet, we know of hacks that allow Mac OS X to run on Intel chips (and I don't mean "FlyAKite," I am talking about the actual Mac OS X. So, with that, just because you can crack something doesn't make it not only Vista. Taking that software (game) as it is, it was released for Vista only. Case closed.
And stoolpigeon, thanks, I appreciate it. I get carried away sometimes. I will keep your words in my mind when writing posts from now on. Thanks.
And yes, the link is working now, but it was down moments after the post, to all those that were concerned about this. Actually, their whole website was down. : (
From my observations, the main reason Linux users aren't gaming is because they're very smart. They're not easily entertained. They quickly break games down mentally into it broad groups of actions (even if subconsciously) and the repetitive nature of modern games becomes a thorn in their side very quickly. They want real tools to interact with game worlds, not the illusion of power. As an example, in most modern MMOs, characters get weaker every time they gain a level (I'm not referencing a specific game here). At first level, you can kill something the same level as you in a few seconds. At 20th level it takes 2 minutes to kill a creature the same level as you. At 100th level it takes 10 minutes to kill something equal to your level. The fact that your abilities are labeled "Super Fireball IV" or "Giant Axe Chop VII" doesn't mask the fact that even if you're doing more numbered damage, the creatures have higher health relative to your ability, giving the feeling of actually getting weaker as the game tries to maintain the illusion of power with higher numbers and bigger explosions. When that's coupled with the repetitive nature of the game, in that every battle comes down to using the same abilities in the same order, it's not really a game so much as a finger exercise and it's about as fun as a typing tutor. Ignoring MMOs, we have FPS games which haven't progressed any since Quake 1. Graphically, they're superior. Functionally they're the same. A bunch of identical people running around with really big guns. Network latency plays a huge role in FPS games, but it doesn't have to. If there were more strategic elements to the game the emphasis on split-second timing would be dramatically reduced. Intelligent people want more tools to interact with the world. They want their actions to alter the game environment. Blow a hole through a wall, deform the terrain with explosions, knock down trees... that's not even the most basic list of what a player should be able to do in a 3D game. More damage, more muscular characters, bigger armor, larger explosions, and better graphics are all surface improvements over the previous generation of games. They raise the initial impression of a game, maybe sells more units, but they don't add replay value to a game. Intelligent people play a game repeatedly when it has something to offer them in terms of intellectual discovery. Finding new ways to use spells, equipment, and character abilities, interesting interactions with the games physics, those are things that appeal to players in the long term. Linux users have a way of seeing through the superficiality of a game much quicker than an average player would. They're not wowed by the graphics so easily, they see a game and go "I get it. Like Quake but with bigger map files." or "Oh, neat. They put a GUI on a random number generator and called it a game." Linux users would be gamers if people created games at the caliber they need.
Basically all games of the FPS type (which is a pretty important type of game in the market) are better played with a mouse and preferably close to a screen at eye level. Try competing with Quake III PC players on a PS2... /David
Then what would it be?
It certainly isn't logical.
I don't always use unix-like operating systems; but when I do, I prefer FreeBSD.
Now, look! No one is to stone
anyone until I blow this whistle!
http://www.sydney-webcam.com
Wait, is that a game or a linux install?
-Styopa
Because gaming on a PC is passe. I don't know anyone who plays games on a PC anymore. Gamers either have an XBOX, Wii, Playstation or, in some cases, all of the above. In my case I have been, and am, happy with my Atari 2600.
Think about it: Linux users aren't dropping hundreds of dollars on OS upgrades, software suites, firewalls and anti-virus software. We have all that for zero cost. We're not wasting money on over-priced crap software that has free open-source alternatives which means that we have all of this extra money to spend on high-quality software that does provide something we want and can't get through open source. Good games fit into that category but certainly are not alone in that regard. Look at the number of Linux users that have been begging and pleading for a Linux version of Photoshop.
Linux is for business, windows is for playing games. Why doesn't Linux's marketing department cash in on that?
Oh... wait...
haven't had driver issues in years. But, I am also the guy that doesn't mind upgrading my computer. It's like a never ending technology tree that I hope to have the resources to research until I die.
And in response to the price argument....if you aren't playing your console on a 30" TV then you are leaving a HUGE amount of the total cost out.
Sure Halo is for Vista only, but when has anything like Terms of Service meant anything to the music listener, games player, whatever. If a person can't legally get what they really want, they will try it illegally, especially of the costs are non-prohibitive.
Note, I am not encouraging piracy, just looking at reality... non-regional movies can be obtained, DRM free music are easily found, games with password protection (80's-90's) and security measures are cracked and easily obtained by the average user. (Remember "Don't copy that floppy"?) So what's to stop them from downloading an exe patch that allows them to save $150 on a new OS they wouldn't be able to install properly anyway?
Taking that software (game) as it is, it was released for Vista only. Case closed.
You are making this sound like an absolute. [Warning: possible bad analogy approaching] Taking the music industry, just because a song is released with DRM attached, does that mean it can only be a DRM song?
There are free software games out there, enough to make my inner gamer love Linux...
Copyright infringement is "piracy" in the same way DRM is "consumer rape"
Here is my beef with all the linux distros. They do NOT include demos or shareware versions anymore, not of some serious games. So you've gone through all the hassle of installing and partitioning, and it even detected your video! and your sound! Hurrah! OF COURSE you want to see if there's 3D acceleration! And OpenGL support!
RedHat included the text-only version of Quake, for f*cks sake. No, I don't want TuxRacer. idSoftware already released the source code, so we get the text only version of the game. Gee, Thanks, RH. I suppose I can READ it off the ascii version of the game.
Mandriva throws in some games, but I'd be hard pressed to think that freecell is going to show off the graphics capabilities of my HW.
Now that the distros can detect your HW a little bit better, isn't it time to throw in some serious racing or FPS game to show off what Linux CAN do with your box? We already KNOW it can browse the net, or do office and email. Show me some o that insane polygon pushing as soon as it's up and running. Not today's equivalent of pong.
WARNING: Smartphones have side effects--most of them undocumented.
"we know of hacks that allow Mac OS X to run on Intel chips"
Umm, you are aware that all the new Macs are running Intel chips, right?
"But this one goes to 11!"
ya'll talk like nobody ever released a linux game and made money on it. id has been doing this for years and guess what they have support that isnt dist-specific =P this whole topic is flamebait. but i know i come home and play Enemy Territory:Quake Wars(oct07) every nite on my debian install. im sure there is a nice m$ kickback for using DirectX over OpenGL. Im really hoping after the flop of Windows7 m$ will give up on their software monopoly and just make xboxen =D
Ever reinstalled from scratch?
When I grow up, I want to have Christopher Walken hair.
Not to mention that even cease supporting != disabled, at least not yet. Those who run illegal copies don't use MS support anyway and Service Packs can be provided by friends who have legit copies. I know I'll continue to run XP until I'm forced to run Vista (and I have yet to come up with a reason where I'd be forced to switch). Many users still run Win98; what MS does concerning the lifecycle of a product does not affect end users unless you are a corporation.
this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom. -- Lincoln, Gettysburg Address
The second a game developer advertises being Linux compatible, it will be expected to support its game under Linux. Think about that for a second-- "Linux" means more than just a kernel to a software developer. It can mean dealing with an assortment of kernels, with an even larger assortment of distributions, all which look different in superficial ways, as well as a handful of package managers (it's easy enough to build a package for an assortment of distributions, but WHY?).
Enter the customer service call center rep. You know, the person who goes through the troubleshooting cards or answers the tech support questions. It's bad enough when they have to walk through the basics of troubleshooting on a Windows platform with a bunch of end users who don't really know what they're doing, but what about when you throw a bunch of gamer nerds who maybe just know enough about Linux to be dangerous? How is that rep going to even know where to start without a LOT more knowledge than a call center or tech support department is willing to pay the prevailing wage for? Please.
The de facto solution seems to be for software companies to develop for Windows while maintaining a modicum of compatibility with Wine (or the Cedega gaming frontend for it), but officially disclaim all support for anything besides Windows. Some game manufacturers seem to do just that, they'll work out the worst problems if their beta just won't work under Wine/Cedega, but leave the bulk of little fixes to the compatibility layer developers and the end users.
I think the best solution, which nobody really seems to be working on, would be to come up with some sort of standard (say, "Games for Linux"), which a distribution could be certified for. Perhaps a tool like Cedega that could establish a certain level of performance compatibility, whereby if it will install and passes the hardware/software tests, you'd know the software would also run natively. Even now, Cedega works pretty well in this capacity, but it does introduce performance limitations (not everything in Windows can be simulated identically or better), and a considerable amount of overhead. Anyway, such a tool/certification would at least give developers a target to aim for, and simplify support matters considerably.
But even then, it's easier for developers to just discount the small percentage of Linux users who want more native Linux games, either proclaiming, "Let them drink Wine!" or just refuse to provide a product that can be forced to run correctly on Linux or Wine, because let's face it-- if you need that game badly enough, you'll just dual boot or buy a second Windows box for gaming. And that solves their problem.
It's wishful thinking. The idea that "a lot of gamers" would be "looking to Linux" as an alternative to Vista is silly. Gamers are not going to flock to Linux and camp out there, without games, until the gaming industry comes to them. Gamers will go to a platform where they expect the next generation of games to be available. In other words, they'll end up on Vista. The only way gamers will switch to Linux on the desktop is if they switch to console gaming.
At the moment the only significant consumer movement towards Linux is by people who want to save money and/or use low-end hardware. It's a small phenomenon, and the gaming industry has no interest in those people anyway, regardless of what platform they use.
>What do you think are the most important obstacles barring the big
>game publishers from reaching out to the Linux market more than they already do?
Why would anyone port gaming software to a platform that
1. Has a tiny desktop user base (servers aren't used for games).
2. Has crappy video card drivers, so all games will be slower than on windows.
3. Has users who have shown a strong resistance to paying for software.
4. Is on a platform that everyone can just dual boot into windows with.
5. Has wine.
6. Requires that every application be tweaked to work with each specific distro.
7. Regularly breaks backwards compatibility (the C++ ABI has changed a number of times in recent history. Sound has changed a number of times, and still isn't really standardized.). Who wants to buy a game that will stop working when you upgrade your distro?
Linux really isn't for games. Linux has it's own market on the server side and the embedded space, but it is not, and is unlikely to ever be a viable commercial gaming platform.
Even MACOSX, which has solved a number of the problems that Linux game developers face, still doesn't have nearly the game market that windows has. Games are usually ports that come out as much as a year or two after they come out for windows. Additionally, games usually run faster on windows.
In the 90's and 80's, there was a strong industry creating games that were only for Macintosh, as at one point Macintosh held a very strong marketshare and competed pretty effectively with does and windows 3.1. Bungie was originally a mac developer, and halo was originally planned as a mac first game. Various developers like Ambrosia software (of maelstrom and escape velocity), spiderweb software (of Exile), and DeltaTao software (of spaceward ho) created awesome games for the mac, but eventually started making their games for windows as well, or switched over to porting windows games to mac more than making original games.
That said, you should check out Nethack and Freeciv the next time you are on Linux. They aren't in the same tier as blockbuster commercial games, but I find Nethack in particular to be pretty enjoyable.
Just flat out wrong.
A) XP is far from "dying"
B) Gamers have never looked at Linux as a gaming platform, because quite simply - it isn't one.
"But this one goes to 11!"
Just not gamers on Linux.
Logical fallacy - Why aren't Linux users not gamers.
1. Linux users use game consoles to game on.
2. What is needed is more Linux coders or developers who are game developers.
3. What is even more necessary is Linux people to work on graphics libraries that support in-game calls.
4. What is even more missing are Marketroids who can market and sell said Linux games to the Linux users.
5. And, last but not least - why aren't Linux users willing to spend $100 to buy a Linux game? I bought five myself back in the day, but not enough other Linux users did, so the market cratered.
Be careful what you ask for, you might get it. Just because a game runs on Open Source like Linux or BSD doesn't mean it will be open source too. For example, Mac OS is now BSD based, but you don't see that many open source Mac games that are very popular.
-- Tigger warning: This post may contain tiggers! --
Not everyone out here has pirated Windows XP.
Little girls, like butterflies, need no excuse. -- L. Long
I agree that XP will last a year or two, but the gamers are going to sniff out the problems: such as Halo II being able to be run only on Vista...
Halo 2 won't run on XP? That's news to me seeing as how I played Halo 2 on XP.
CCP is one of the few companies that is working hard for it's Linux fans. I enjoy playing eve-online as I am a casual PC gamer and this game works with my time. I had made it work roughly with wine, but the official release made my life much easier and one less game to switch over to windows for.
Nitpick: There was a PS1 release of Civ 2. I can confirm that it was indeed a disappointment.
Hey, I finally got my first freak! Took you long enough!
"What do you think are the most important obstacles barring the big game publishers from reaching out to the Linux market more than they already do?" Linux gamers. Linux gamers are tech savvy enough to have both Linux and Windows. The linux sales the publishers would make are currently windows sales. So why bother? Plus, I guess that the gaming cracker/P2P/PSx hacker crowd is overrepresented among linux gamers.
And pretty much, that's it. Full stop. Driver support? Fear that Linux users are cheap bastards won't buy closed source? Yeah, they'll be mentioned, and they may be valid, but it comes down to the bucks.
The problem is that the market for games doesn't function like the market for other software. A word processor, a spreadsheet program, tax software, etc. -- most of these programs have lower development costs than games, particularly when seen over time. (That is, Photoshop 10 builds on the functionality of Photoshop 1-9, and PS 10 started with PS 9's code base.) But by the same token, the word processor and spreadsheet generally sell for a higher price than the game. Yet that's not the worst of it. The worst of it is that games, by their nature, have short sell-through periods. After an initial burst of sales at introduction, Office 2007 is still going to keep selling at pretty much a constant rate until Office 2010: A Bloat Odyssey or whatever its next version is replaces it, but Grand Half-Portal Turismo 4 probably has about six months to make 90% of the sales it's gonna make. Unless it's the next Halo, in a year it'll be in the cutout bins.
The reason there aren't many Linux or Mac games is, bluntly, that the economics of the gaming industry are really, really brutal. If you're making a PC game and then decide to make a Mac port of it, you can reuse the art and other media files but only some of the code (a big amount if you're using Transgaming's Cider engine, perhaps), so your development man-hours may only go up by, say, 20%; testing man-hours will probably go up 50% or more, though, because that's a new product as far as QA is concerned. This means extra staff, extra time, or more than likely both. The problem is, that the market you're making this new platform for is much smaller, and your window to make back your money isn't actually much greater. And, of course, if you put off the Mac port until after the PC original is out and has made back its money, your market's actually shrunk; there's not so much excitement about that game 18 months after it came out.
And think about it: it's only just now, with the Mac market share maybe kinda flirting with 7% depending on how you ask and whether a strong headwind is blowing through the Manhattan Mac store, and with the Cider "use your Windows code and it'll only be a little hacky, we promise!" engine, that we're starting to see bigger-name companies take tentative steps into the Mac market. (And I suspect that's in part because Blizzard treated the Mac as a first-class citizen for World of Warcraft and has apparently done fairly well in doing so; of course, WoW is one of the few games that isn't subject to the "make your money back quick before you're irrelevant" rule.)
How big do you think the Linux desktop market, i.e., not servers, is compared to the Mac desktop market? Because Linux has been about to break through on the desktop within two years for, uh, over a decade now, and I'd be surprised if it's much more than one percent. In other words, all the problems the Mac faced just from small market share, Linux also faces, and the numbers are even more grim.
Is this a trick question?
Net Applications gives Linux 0.65% of the market. In line with the Intel exec.
Operating System Market Share for February, 2008 W3Schools is more charitable. But in their stats Linux has shown 1% growth in four years, Vista 7% growth in one. OS Platform Stats
If you develop for the XBox 360 you get the PC market as a bonus - and vice-versa. If you are in the big leagues you get a say in the evolution of DX10 hardware and software.
After ten years, there is a still a market for the boxed set of Half-Life 1 There is no incentive for the gamer to migrate to Linux if any game he has ever owned can play under XP and Vista with a minimum of tweaking.
The high end video card becomes the entry level card in two or three years. It will have a mature set of drivers. Gaming on a budget is perfectly feasible even under Vista.
I have 3 Linux devices:
1) My file/torrent/postgresql/coldfusion/apache server
2) My Dell 9300 laptop, which I bring to work to make everyone ooh and ahh. Well and that it extends as my 3rd screen via Synergy; I can surf and IM securely without having to trust the configuration of our work WinXP machines, plus also SSH to my home machine to transfer work back and forth.
3) My Maemo device, a Nokia N810
So I would say I am a Linux user.
However to go from the fact that there are hardly any games installed on my Linux installations to that I don't game is a fallacy.
For hardcore gaming I'll fire up my quad core, watercooled PC/workstation which is running XP and Vista.
All about the right tool for the right job.
ISO certified == THX certified
99% of the games for Linux either suck, or they're just basic 'doo-dad' type games (which are fine, but not really what we're talking about), or they're just ANCIENT.
So, basically Linux has no games worth mentioning, thus NO GAMERS RUN LINUX. Thus no game companies support Linux. Ad infinitum.
Every 3-4 years this comes up. Actually a goodly number of game companies HAVE released a Linux title or two. Obviously Id has had ports for a long time of at least their older stuff. Kohan was released for Linux, and MindWare (Something like that) had one or two games. Altogether you can count the commercial linux releases of mainstream games on one hand. It isn't going to change. The vendors couldn't move the product, and the gamers aren't going to use Linux over Windoze until the majority of titles they want are available.
Now, what likely WILL happen is game consoles, PVRs, settop boxes, and HTPCs (and home desktops) will pretty much merge into one seamless whole, and which OS do you think they'll run? You guessed it. At which time there will be plenty of 'Linux' games. Of course by then nobody will really even notice. Give it 5 years. You will probably NEVER be able to run them on your "PC" but the games will run on Linux.
"Malo periculosam, libertatem quam quietam servitutem." -- Jefferson
Well, first, they want a homogenous platform. They tolerate the world of Windows PCs, because its a huge market, but they aren't too happy with the unpredictable nature of that environment compared to consoles. Linux environments are less predictable in terms of hardware and software than Windows environments.
Second, they want a market that is large enough to justify the development expense.
Neither of those work in Linux's favor.
Seriously though, I see a fairly large population of gamers running Linux. We would like more Games though, please. Doing the OSGGFG, I've found there are several large niches of emptiness in open source gaming, just waiting to be filled.
The big guys aren't going to care until they notice that there are as many eeePCs and (k)(x)(ed)ubuntu users as there are wii's and PS3s.
On the other hand, there is always the mindset that Linux users don't buy software. I paid for Halo, HalfLife(both), Jedi Academy, UT (all of em), unfortunately they ring up as windows purchases. Maybe a new effort to package the existing working software with a community effort like wine, could lead to a closer relationships with the gaming industry (shudder) and better track sales figures. Only Canonical could pull something like this off, and we should encourage Mark and Co to do so.
On the gripping hand, I could be persuaded to wait out the mainstream gaming boys. I see a constant rapid improvement in Open Source Gaming. We haven't reached critical mass yet, but in the long run we'll be fine.
OSGGFG - Open Source Gamers Guide to Free Games
Shameless plug for a good game:
The Savage2 team is planning on releasing a native linux client within the next couple of weeks. Currently it's only available on Windows, but it's a pretty fun game. It's like the original Savage, but better.
Sorry forgot to include this kind of relevant information. ;)
:)
The server is an old AMD-3200 Newcastle with 1.5gb of memory; nothing special but does the job, although I am struggling to get power saving configured.
The Dell was top of the line when I bought it 3 years ago, and got new life when I put Ubuntu on it, it's really a perfect fit and so much better than Vista. 2.13ghz CPU,2gb memory, Geforce 6800 with 256mb of memory. The 17" 1920x1200 screen coupled with the cube makes it very cool, the windows users are typically thinking it's something brand new going by how quick it performs.
Well any crappy old PC is a lean mean Linux machine waiting to be born
ISO certified == THX certified
It happens on both systems.
I've been left hunting for drivers several times on Windows, most recently for a USB-to-serial converter from a major manufacturer. I bought it new, plugged it in, and started using it. Windows seemed to detect it and handle it fine. After a few days I found out that when I unplugged the USB connection, half the time the driver would freeze Windows. I couldn't find the CD that came with the device, so I went to the manufacturer's web site. Even though I had the model name and product number of the device, I couldn't find the driver. I gave up looking several times, but the crashes kept sending me back. Eventually I sent an email to the manufacturer, and I got back a download link for a single file. What was I supposed to do with the file? I had no clue. I tried modifying the URL to the file to find another page, but no luck. I had to use Google to find install instructions. Then, after I installed the driver and rebooted, the behavior wasn't completely fixed. The crashes became less frequent, but they still happened often enough that I gave up on the device and bought another USB-to-serial converter, which turned out to have a similar problem.
I also have an old Dell that I couldn't install Windows XP Pro on because partway through the install process, the screen became garbled. It seemed like XP tried to load a better driver for the video card and ended up using one that was a little bit off. That was especially frustrating because the box came with Windows 2000 on it, and I had reinstalled Windows 2000 on it from scratch (using a retail copy of Windows 2000 Pro) in the past. I thought Windows XP's driver support was a superset of Windows 2000's, but maybe Microsoft stopped including a suitable driver for that model on its Windows install disks. I didn't bother hunting for a Windows driver; I just installed Linux.
I believe you have the gaming companies' priorities confused. They really don't give a **** what platform Microsoft is pushing. They only care where the money-paying market is, and as far as PCs go that is — overwhelmingly — Windows XP.
The only major gamer advantage in Vista is DirectX 10. However, DX10 is dubious in terms of exclusivity: see the Halo II comments about the reality of "Vista only" games. DX10 is dubious in terms of technical advantages: I run Crysis just fine on my new super-rig, which deliberately has XP rather than Vista installed and is therefore limited to DX9, and frankly I'm not sure I prefer the DX 10 "improved" version anyway judging from the numerous screenshots in reviews. And finally, DX10 is dubious in terms of hardware, because even many serious gamers don't have fully DX10-capable cards and decent drivers to match yet, and the occasional gaming masses won't have for some years.
I predict, quite confidently, that Vista will never be the major games platform that XP has become, simply because it is in direct competition with its predecessor and will be for years, and worse, it is in competition with consoles for a lot of the custom, and consoles already have by far the largest share of the gaming market. Given that, I expect consoles to overcome their limitations with input devices for some gaming genres a lot faster than Vista will overcome everything from bad PR via relatively tiny market share among gamers to the numerous technical problems it seems to have, and in the meantime XP is dominant outside of console world anyway.
If you disagree, post your argument. (-1, Overrated) isn't your personal censorship tool for views you don't like.
I believe this article take things upside down. GNU/Linux is a great developing platform. As a result it attracts developpers. It isn't that there are no linux gamers. There are as many linux gamers as there are developers that are also gamers. Why would you want to turn developpers into gamers?!
Civilization: Revolution is coming out for PS3, Xbox 360 and the DS soon, and from what I've read it's not too bad. Unfortunately they Wii version is on hold at the moment, as I was hoping the Wii controls would finally bring a lot of these "PC Friendly" games to consoles.
So, let them stop selling it. Savvy home users will continue to install it and if needed, pirate it and tell MS and Vista to jump off a really, really tall fucking cliff -- with sharp sticks at the bottom.
Democrats and Republicans are like AIDS and Cancer, I want neither!
I played WoW (World of Warcraft) this weekend for about 3 days, but I didnt play it in Windows.
I got it working absolutely fantastically in GNU/Linux (SuSE 10.3) very easily. Everything was turned up (except grass density, that caused noticable choke) and I was pulling about 90-120 FPS steady. I am on a fairly beefy machine, but I am not SLI'ing, nor am I going to extremes to get this setup. The _ONLY_ driver I have ever had to hunt for, for my current system is my Graphics Driver (nVidia). As for configuration, all I had to do was double-check that wine was using ALSA, and use the command "wine WoW.exe -opengl".
The only reason I switched back to Windows was to play Team Fortress 2, not because I cant play TF2 in GNU/Linux, but because there are a few key features missing. I cannot use the friends list (for steam) in GNU/Linux, and I do not have Ventrilo reliably setup just yet. Should I be able to get the Friends list working reliably, I will play TF2 in GNU/Linux as I get about 45-90 FPS with almost all settings on.
As for Gaming in GNU/Linux, there are many ways to improve the situation.
1) Actually play games in GNU/Linux. Yes, you like the OS, now actually use it. Does the game you want to play not quite work properly? Try another. Get in the habbit of using GNU/Linux ACTUALLY FOR GAMING. You'll start to find that you might like GNU/Linux more, and actually be more motivated to assist others with Gaming in GNU/Linux.
2) Support teams that work on getting more Gaming in GNU/Linux. Groups such as wine ( winehq.com ), cedega ( transgaming.com ), linux gamers ( linux-gamers.net ), and I am certain there are many more. You can support these groups in many ways on many levels. Support them by finding bugs, telling the devs about the bugs, voting on bugs you want fixed, reporting good/bad/terrible performance reviews, _DONATE_ to the teams, buy them pizza, challenge them to their favourite game, _WRITE CODE THAT FIXES BUGS_, recommend certain groups/apps that help to people, etc.
3) Talk to your gamer friends about your experiences. Maybe they will join you.
4) Show the devs of teams that you play their games in GNU/Linux, contact them, request better support or possibly even native deployment of the games in GNU/Linux. There are several dev teams that already release games natively for GNU/Linux (ID Soft, EPIC Games, CCP (Eve Online)).
5) Think up new ways to stir up support for gaming in GNU/Linux.
The fact of the matter is, it is getting easier and easier to game in GNU/Linux, we need to start increasing the visible support for gaming in GNU/Linux by actually doing it, writing about it, talking to dev teams, talking about it publically ourselves, etc. We as a community need to DO and GROW. The rest will follow.
"The death of XP has a lot of gamers looking at Linux"
Six guys plus you sitting in your mother's basement smoking pot does NOT = 'a lot of gamers'
The vast majority of gamers barely know what Linux is, let alone are considering it as an alternative.
I really don't know what this article means.. I play "knetwalk" and "xbill" for like 5 hours a day.
*plays the Apogee theme song music*
Perhaps so. But as more DX10 titles get released, people will begin to migrate just for that. I have a lovely 8800GTS card that does DX10 which I am under utilizing because I choose not to go to Vista, mostly because I have only a couple of DX10 titles. I do have MS FSX, which does have DX10 support in XP with the SP2 patch...
Little girls, like butterflies, need no excuse. -- L. Long
Claus
"There for it was released for VISTA ONLY."
That's funny! Here I thought I had played it on my Xbox all those years ago.
"A person is smart. People are dumb, panicky dangerous animals and you know it." - K
We like games just fine. We just prefer them to be GPL'ed. That way we can 'redistribute' them to our friends without feeling bad about breaking laws.
All kidding aside, I'd pay for a game that ran on Ubuntu even if it wasn't free. I think it might help generate a market trend away from windows.
I might have to go back to vista when starcraft 2 comes out. I'm buying it for nostalgic reasons. Maybe I'll try getting it to run under wine.
The indentation limit's been reached! My reading space is going to collapse! Claustrophobic!!! X-(
*RIP*
*Woosh* There went 8:00pm EST...
I'm one of them, but Ubuntu didn't make me very happy, because there still weren't the games I wanted available for it (UT3 in this case).
For every expert, there is an equal and opposite expert. - Arthur C. Clarke
Comment removed based on user account deletion
You'll need to include the $1500 TV you'll need for console gaming to be fair.
Since you obviously use your computer for things other than gaming, it's called a sunk cost. You'd buy those bits whether you were gaming or not.
- Linux games suck. Yes, we know there is a port of [fill in years old game title here] on Linux. Yes we know we can play Tuxracer or whatever the hell it is. No, we don't want to play them. Linux needs new titles if you want gamers. That is, when a new title is released on Windows/PS3/XBox 360, we need it on Linux as well. Till then, ---->
- OpenGL != DirectX. DirectX > OpenGL. DirectX brings a lot to the table besides just graphics -- and what it does there is much better than OpenGL. I know, a lot of you want to argue this, but "sorry". Linux needs it's DirectX. With that said, OpenGL and other similar projects are a good start, but it's not there yet. For it to work, there needs to be a full package like DX provides: Easy to use and understand _up to date_ libraries, SDK(s), graphics/sound/networking/etc. APIs. The whole thing.
- Partially #2, we all know "Linux is about choice". Hell that's great, but there needs to be a choice we can make that works in Home Gaming Desktop arena. Standard windowing system APIs, standard "DirectX" type package,
.... the list goes on. Right now there are standardS (see the "S" there) for each of them. That doesn't work.
Someday Linux will get there. It'll be a great day.Custom fonts and no mod points. sigh...
You should know that using custom fonts on slashdot is the same as being a child molester in prison.
Loki had a lot of problems. There model was that they would pay in advance to get games to Linux and make up for it on the back side in sales. One problem, Linux people are cheap... REAL cheap. Instead of selling millions, they barely sold into the 10's of thousands. That and a plethora of other mismangement reasons forced them to shutdown.
The problem with Linux gamers is that they DEMAND a free ride. Same goes for any other piece of software on Linux that actually has a >$50 price tag.
I play games under Linux, I have OWNED some Loki titles (yes... some of us actually decided to support the effort rather than rip them off). I do own a REAL copy of Tux Racer (which puts the free version to shame btw). UT2004 is STILL one of the best commercial produced games for Linux oddly enough... but the game is NO LONGER available for Linux (beware if you buy a new one).
I own a copy (yes... OWN.. that is... I paid for it) of CrossOver (actually I own 5 licenses) and I have a purchased STEAM account through which I can play (for example) Half Life 2... with few problems on Linux. I also own Linux Doom3, Quake IV, Descent 3, etc, etc,... ALL for Linux.
Are there a gazillion games that play under Linux like there are for Windows? No.... but IMHO, you're either for Linux gaming because it's Linux, or you might as well be playing using a console (which removes Windows from the equation anyhow).
Probably the best thing to bring games to Linux IS the plethora of free games that are coming out. Some of them are pretty good and that might make Linux a more viable market for commercial games. I will say that UT2004 was a game done right for Linux. Loved to see more of that. It's worth the money.
Driver Hunting? If you are referring to driver hunting for windows, I am sorry to inform you that this hasn't been an issue for YEARS. As for the effort for keeping up a Windows box - it takes almost zero effort.
Getting proper drivers USED to be a problem back in the days of DOS games when Windows 2.11, 3.0 and 3.1 were still started from the command prompt. By the time Windows 95 rolled around, *almost all* hardware vendors shipped Windows drivers with their hardware, and game programmers were moving aware from writing to the hardware interface and instead writing to low level Windows primitives. After Windows 95, the only games that had driver issues were the OEM versions of games that were packaged with hardware since they were written specifically for a certain video card. An example of this was the nVidia Edge 3D card that shipped with Panzer Dragoon and Descent. How do I know this? I worked on the port of Descent to nVidia's 1st generation chipset, the nV1. This version of Descent was a Windows 95 native application that would only run with an nVidia card.
Since about 2000, game developers have been writing to Direct X, and letting windows handle the details of the video card. Back in the Windows 95 days, Windows was pretty stupid regarding hardware recognition, and Linux was pretty smart about recognizing hardware. However, once it became established that the OS should detect the hardware and be able to find the drivers for it, Microsoft didn't take much time to figure out how to do this and provide a TON of drivers on the Windows installation diskettes/CDs. Any special hardware that you purchased came with Windows drivers. Drivers have not been an issue for years.
The market for linux games is non-existent. To produce a top notch game these days costs several million dollars (the average cost was around $2M when I left the gaming industry 7 years ago) and the common perception, whether correct or not, is that linux users won't pay for a game. There might be some inroads on the MMORPG side of gaming since they make their money by charging you a monthly fee, but the standard boxed software market will not make a game for linux until it is established that linux users will pay for software. Given the emotional/religious arguments over OSS/Free Software/commercial(closed source), companies aren't going to deal the the hassle.
"Microsoft has made computing accessible to a population who would otherwise not be able to use computers" - B. Kernigha
It was also on the Super Nintendo
Now if they could do that with the large majority of DX9 games,then it would be easier to get gamers to switch.But until then I'm hanging onto my XP for gaming and if MSFT kills off DX9 trying to force folks onto the stink that is Vista I'll just have to start getting some of those games that I missed when they were new.Because I wouldn't go back to Vista if they paid me.
ACs don't waste your time replying, your posts are never seen by me.
I suppose I'm a Linux Gamer. A mature one, no less. I have a 3yo 3Ghz w/hyperthreading, no dual core goodness for me yet. I just grabbed the last of the 7600GT AGP cards to eke a year or two more from my Mythbuntu system.
I'm finding there's plenty of material out there to keep my wallet safely closed. I play a little Freeciv, Savage, World of Padman, Pioneers... but what FPS do I keep coming back to?
Return To Castle Wolfenstein: Enemy Territory. Nearly five years old, but it's free as in beer, runs like a dream on my system, and the community is thriving with loads of servers and maps. And... most of the kiddies are away trashing the sequel, Quake Wars.
Sure, it don't have no lens flare. You think I care? I have a half hour gaming window and I enjoy every minute of it.
Why aren't more Linux users gamers? Because they're too busy trying to figure out how to make ls output in color. That's why.
From my experience the past weekend the number one problem facing PC Gamers is not any of the things listed above. In point of fact, all of those things have been true since the very beginning of PC gaming.
However, some of the 4 need not be true (although they are truisms)
1. My brand new Dual core 2.0ghz gaming rig cost me less than the Xbox 360 that I really wanted (but couldn't afford.)
2. Sometimes the hardware is crap, sometimes the drivers are crap, sometimes the firmware on the hardware is crap... Whatever the case all hardware/software combinations have this problem (The original Xbox didn't go from hardware version 1.0 to 1.6 in 2 years for no reason.)
3. The Xbox (again I know) was softhacked through buggy games...
4. This is always the case, PCs always catch up from things learned on the latest gen consoles before the next gen is out. It's a cycle.
To return to the focus only slighty
Four reasons Linux isn't gamed on:
1. Linux isn't developed on. If most games lived on linux people would run Linux. Instead we have to live with Cedega, which is ok, but every game has to be manually configured (yes yes the wiki, but some shit still doesn't work, or wasn't documented thorougly etc...)
2. The one thing Windows has is the benefit of "should work" (not "will work") Linux is "might work..."
3. Once the 360 is old enough my platform of the day will be able to emulate it.
4. It's a cycle... PC's are truly the best gaming platform for gamers, but Consoles are more accessible and easier to get going. (Which can make them better in certain circumstances.)
Thank you Counselor Troy. Now I will state the equally obvious: Not everyone out here has bought Windows XP.
How much did you pay for the SLI cable?
What do you think are the most important obstacles barring the big game publishers from reaching out to the Linux market more than they already do?
1. Lack of market share. Linux simply does not have the market share to make porting games to the platform economically feasible.
2. Lack of hardware support. Particularly regarding audio hardware. Sound card support has been a problem for Linux as long as people have been trying to run it as a desktop system. Lack of DirectX support doesn't help Linux either.
Of course not. This is Slashdot. There's at least what, 5 or 6 Linux users here.
If you believe everything you read, you'd better not read. - Japanese proverb
I was using a 5 year old PC (with an 2 year old video card) to play games until recently. It worked fine. When I upgraded, I gave it to my brother, and he's still using it to play games.
I spent about $1200 in parts, including a $300 video card. That was the only concession to gaming. I'd have bought exactly the same hardware otherwise. Of course, I'd still need to spend $100 or so on a video card anyway.
Well, I am one of those hard-core FPS gamers and prefer my Gentoo for gaming. It's a good thing that the games I like happen to work on Linux too. I actually bought Quake Wars for that reason alone originally. There is one exception though, Crysis. I recently had to start dual-booting to Vista to play that one unfortunately. Thought I'd never install Windows again. But believe me, as soon as Crysis starts working under Wine, I'll ditch Windows in a heartbeat.
Read the rest of this comment...
The way I see it there are two big problems: First there are large portions of the Linux community that have theological issue with the existence of commercial software. That's right I said THEO-logical. I like GPL software as much as the next guy, and I think it's a great way to public-domain something you've worked on in an unexploitable fashion, but I don't think it should be required of everybody as some sort of moral right of the user. Second is the simple fact that Windows is built on decades of trying to keep at least partial binary compatibility. That and Windows has a slooooow product cycle which allows for support and testing of a few discreet versions. The bewildering array of distros and versions is enough to drive a tech support manager to suicide by itself and almost ensures that binary distribution is impossible except for a few key distributions. At least that's my impression, things may have improved these days with LSB but I've honestly never tried moving complex programs in binary from one Linux box to another and I've never seen it suggested.
Maybe some users don't use the PC as a gaming platform. I'm a linux user but use my ps3 as a gaming platform (my ps3 has linux too XD)
Video drivers quality was always the problem under Linux for me. For example, the proprietary drivers from ATI is unstable and, sometimes, slow in following up with xorg. The radeon opensource driver is more stable, but missing quite few opengl methods so even GoogleEarch won't work. The situation should change very soon because ATI/Intel have started to release the specifications. Nvidia is under the public pressure as well.
I think you didn't RTFA this is about Linux users not Lunix users.
I don't understand why that's presented as an issue of self-control. If someone intends to use "vulgarity" and they then use it, they are in fact controlling themselves; they are doing what they set out to do. I do agree with you that getting that upset over nothing is immature behavior.
Also, what's with the font? What is the purpose of that?
Yeah, it sucks that I have to boot into windows once or twice a week if I want to play Call of Duty 4, but who the hell really cares if Linux is a gaming OS? It works for me because I do a bit of computational physics research (and other bits of programming that would make nearly everyone else here either laugh or cry), and I put Ubuntu on my mother's and sister's machines so they can use the internet without having to keep up with six maintenance programs, but why should we care which OS is used by people who think computers are toys?
What pisses me off with respect to FOSS adoption is that the loaf of bread I buy at the grocery store for two bucks (and its ingredients) has probably passed through half a dozen corporate entities on its way to the shelf that all pay for windows licenses. How much of that $2.00 is the Microsoft tax? If it is not best expressed in scientific notation it is certainly too much.
And who wants to deal with 'lite speak, or however the hell it is spelled, in Linux forums?
I suppose you might call me a serious gamer, and I'm certainly someone who would love to give up windows for linux, I've been running ubuntu for a while now and its great... i just find i never use it because i play games more than anything else. iv tried in the past to play games on linux but its a disaster. trying to set it up, set up wine, things crash, wine crashes, working with the console.... i mean i don't mind tinkering around but it all gets a bit much when sometimes i just want to play a game.
Also as far as I'm aware theres no SLI support, and if there is you still take a performance hit on linux, and I didn't spend $1000+ on GPUs to take a performance hit. Its the same reason I went from vista back to xp. (well, one of many, many, many, many reasons.) It was the difference between playing Crysis on medium to playing it on almost very high, which is a big deal, on medium it just looks like every other FPS. And please no arguments about how graphics aren't important. after 3 years of selling video games in one way or another i can tell you almost every adult customer cared about the graphics, and they're the ones that need to be converted.
I think these issues are becoming more common with your average consumer too that isn't a serious gamer. from working in retail and experiences with my friends more and more people are buying specific gpus, quoting model numbers, and looking up performance. A lot more people nowadays will know which graphics card they have, or at least the series, and know roughly what they can expect from it. Then if they try linux, and their shiny expensive $200 gpu loses half its value, and on top of that they have to try and get games working with wine, it all becomes unreasonable to them.
As far as games made for linux, it would be fanatstic if there were more, but its a chicken and egg problem. And im really not interested in playing UT2K4 anymore, iv been playing that for 4 years. While some of the linux games i hear about sound interesting, lets be honest, they aren't Crysis or COD4, and its games like that i bought my system to play, as well as many people i know.
People buy gaming machines to run whats on the shelves, and so the first step is to get those working smoothly and hassle free, as well as at similar or preferably better speed. Then once you have a better product you can win over a linux user base and can start making linux only games.
I know all of this is filled with problems and may well be impossible to implement, but these are the reasons i see why people arent gaming on linux.
So Skulldilocks threw acid on the schoolchildrens' faces, cause somebody from the bible told her to do it!
I think we're suffering from difference of perspective here. Can Halo II be run on XP? Apparently yes.
Will more than (tops) 5% of people know that or be able to do that? Probably not. Parents buying it will see the box and say "Oh, Vista only..." (how many parents google for OS hacks for games?). It's not a technical limitation, but it is a very real limitation, and a sign of bad will. If a 3rd party can hack it to be compatible with XP but the party making it (with full source available...) doesn't, someone is TRYING to kill XP.
That means, to bring it back to the original point of this thread, that XP is indeed dying. It's being aborted.
I can only speak for myself, but being a *NIX nerd, it may be somewhat typical:
I simply find that life is to short to spend it on playing video games.
I've been developing software as a hobby since I was 12 and have other hobbies as well.
Between "life", work and those, there's simply no time left for games.
But most importantly:
If I spent hours on a video game, I'd have no value to take away at the end, other than maybe "bragging rights" for completing level X.
It leaves me with an "empty" feeling.
If, on the other hand, I spend the same time on my 3D software, I'll have a new cool feature that makes my, and my users' life easier.
The latter is many orders of magnitude more rewarding, especially when happy users thank you for it!
They don't need to come equipped because you can take the ones attached to your PC and plug them in. Or just go out and buy a couple more. People have been attaching mice and keyboards to consoles for years. I must be imagining that PS2 port of Half-Life. I also must be imagining that PS3 version of the Orange box. By the way Valve sucks, a good dev house should be able to release a new game every year, not one every 5 years.
I must be imagining that PSone port of CivII, it's just like the PC version, but without PSone mouse support (or analog stick support), so the controls suffer a bit. same game though.
I wouldn't say that's the ONLY consumer movement. Perhaps the only one that's trackable by sales.
When my relatives come to me to fix their deranged computers, I fix their Windows install then dual boot it with Ubuntu and enable ssh on it so I can remote desktop/shell/file share to it just in case they need something complex done. I make sure they know which icon is their browser, their word processor, their e-mail, and they're golden. I have about 10 of these out there now, and every one of them has said "they like their new program". They don't use Windows anymore. I have a few friends that have done the same when people come to them. It's just the least hassle for me. Keeps them out of my hair.
But there's no way to track that like you can new purchases. These are indeed consumers. They are switching over. It's a movement, and it's real.
wtf? OpenGL runs on more systems then DirectX does, including windows.. You got it ass backwards..
Indirectly Linux has hurt PC gaming sales because people who prefer Linux over windows have severely cut back on the number of games per year they are willing to buy and in some instances have switch to PS2/PS3(they would never xbox) gaming. At the moment when it comes to impulse buying, the I want now generation, they really are not any Linux games available at the local retail level.
So in swapping over from windows to linux, which is inevitable because of the budget end of the market, it will be light a light switch either on or off, light or dark, Linux or windows, there is now slow steady transition, it will simply appear to happen at a rush, and computers like the ASUS eeePC are what will herald the high volume low requirement gaming market, especially when playing wirelessly together, hmm, free local mesh network gaming.
Chaos - everything, everywhere, everywhen
Most gamers do, though. ;)
ha! some of us got ours GIVEN to us
:P
maybe if you spent less time in your mom's basement (or under a bridge) you might get a few more presents...
Debian FTW
I have two computers, one dual-booting Debian and Fedora 8, and one dual-booting XP and Ubuntu. I boot XP up once a week to update the anti-virus software, but that's about all I use it for. With a fast Nvidia card, I can have all the accelerated 3-d I want if I use Nvidia's driver (or a various distro's version of such). Since I paid for the video card, I feel I'm totally entitled to use Nvidia's driver. And in case anyone doesn't know, Alberto Milone's Envy ( http://albertomilone.com/nvidia_scripts1.html ) makes installing the driver trivially easy in Debian or Ubuntu. Now I'm probably giving away my age here, but I can play id games (like Quake or Doom 3 or Return To Castle Wolfenstein) with all the 3-D glory of any DirectX Windows games. If I'm downloading something, I can play for a few while I wait. Or watch quality video. Or even good Flash video, with the newest flash plug-in. Linux has come a very long ways recently, and it only looks to get better. And with Micro$oft releasing crap like Vista, more support for Linux is going to mean even more improvement.
The Tea Party is just the GOP with a bag over its head.
I always consider gamers to be the equivalent of a rich guy buying a fast boat just to show off. Or people who buy off road SUVs to goto the mall. They kind of people who when they buy something will brag about the specs and such and not know what there talking about. At a very early age I set aside video games and decided to learn how to use a computer. I have never been interested in many of the video games on the market due to the odd learning curve. Its hard to pick up games when there isn't much literature on how to play them, just cheat sheats . There is no use asking other gamers because they tend to be self centered and socially awkward, or they just don't know them selves . Were as Linux people tend to be very knowledgeable and there is a lot of literature out there about cool things you can do with Linux.
I will warn you thou I do have a slight bias. I once gave a lobbied the CS department here at my school not to target to gamers because I was sick of the them dropping out because they were annoyed that we didn't learn graphics in intro courses. Computer science is a science not a entertainment industry.
Worst. Present. Ever.
I was the first one in this sub-thread to use the term "Vista only", in an attempt to shorten your long-winded post.
Your first post on the thread about the link being dead actually said "I agree that XP will last a year or two, but the gamers are going to sniff out the problems: such as Halo II being able to be run only on Vista".
So in short, you were wrong on your original statement. Your angry replies to other posts were just plain sad.
Stop whining, it makes you look like a angry pedantic child.
"We'll need 2000 crickets, 4 cans of Easy Cheese, and the fluid from 18 glowsticks for this plan to work...." - ph0n1c
It's really quite simple. Make linux native binaries for the games and we will buy them. I just spent $100 on Steam buying Valve's current catalogue but I rebooted into windows to do it. I would rather not have to reboot and just do it through linux. So Mr Developer, if you make a Linux version, we will buy it! Or at very least, make your windows version, then give use an installer and linux binary as an optional download on your website like ID did with Doom etc...
RebateFX.com - Spread rebates for Forex traders
So we probably also have multiple computers, and with multiple copies of Linux and Windows, so why would they want to?
I find that gaming is like music. After I grew up, got married, and had kids, new my tastes stagnated.
I haven't bought (or "acquired") any new music in many many years because I'm just not interested in it anymore. I have a library that I like, and the new stuff just doesn't interest me.
I have a library of fun old games that I like to play now and then (Civ II, Tie Fighter, Diablo, etc), and the new stuff just doesn't interest me.
Add to that the fact that most games require a huge time investment. I just don't have several hours at a time to set aside for a gaming session.
To be honest, the game that I play the most often is bsdgames hangman.
------- Mark
Maybe not having Linux games has something to do with it. Okay, there are a few games, including a few good ones, both free and non-free. And then you have console and arcade emulators, which can really help.
But where's my Oblivion?
I was about to say 13256278887989457651018865901401704640, but it appears this number is private property.
I bought (as in paid full price for) most of the games that Loki (remember them) ever ported to Linux. I still play Alpha Centauri sometimes - it still runs on modern Linux (though sadly their port of Civ3 no longer runs - doesn't get on with modern libraries in some way I haven't bothered to diagnose). I bought Neverwinter Nights when it first came out, because it was available in a Linux port (and it still runs very nicely, and yes, I still sometimes play it - mostly user-generated content, too). And I'm one of the only 597 people world-wide who have so far pre-ordered Apricot.
And that's kind of the point.
It costs money to develop commercial games; quite a lot of money. The people who develop them want to sell them. If there were enough Linux users prepared to spend real money on games, we'd have more commercial games. Over the last few weeks I've been playing (and really enjoying) The Witcher. It runs on an updated version of Bioware's Aurora engine, so presumably it wouldn't be hard to port it to Linux. But I don't expect we'll see a Linux port, because Atari, who sell it, clearly don't think enough of us would pay for it. And sadly I think they're probably right.
I've haven't found many open source game projects which are compelling to me. There are plenty of good ideas out there, and half-finished projects. Globulation is quite polished and seems to me quite innovative, and plays well; but it's also quite shallow - you'll enjoy it for a week but you won't still be playing it in a year. Oolite is genuinely good and you might still be playing it in a year - but that's largely because it is a faithful reconstruction of Elite, which is one of the great classics of computer games. Flightgear may be good but it isn't my thing.
To create a new game takes a lot of vision and a lot of work. Until you've done a lot of work it's hard to communicate the vision, so it's hard to recruit people. And even then, too many of the talented people prefer to tinker with some project of their own which they'll never get finished, than co-operate to deliver someone else's vision. I'd like to be wrong on this. But what I see on Freshmeat is lots of 'alpha' and 'beta' projects, and very little that's genuinely playable.
I'm old enough to remember when discussions on Slashdot were well informed.
1/ Lots talk here but no one point out a solid business model/plan/reason that will pay for programmers to do the game and earn a living. Will they be providing service and support on these open-source games and game platforms? Since non-work-critical Linux usually get slapped on the cheapest boxes, I don't see them giving you the best gaming experience either. But where is the major open source Linux game project like we have for a distro or other FOSS? What is the Linux equivalent of Halo? I read 5-6 major Linux magazines a month and haven't seen it. So where is the demand? What studies or stats can back up the investment unless one starts coding for one's own enjoyment?
2/ This is Linux - dudes interested in the command line, hacking a config file, tweaking kernels, using free stuff, and coding P** in vi or emacs for Penguin's sakes. Figuring out how to get the NDISWrapper to wrok for the el cheapo WIFI card on my 8-year-old P-II is "game" enough usually for me afterwork. If somebody wrote a 'command console' game it'll probably explode (just a small joke :). But seriously, the super smart graphics guys spent all their brainpower just to get Beryl or Compiz working and pay the bills. No time left to build games.
3/ Don't get me wrong. I love Linux. Although Linux is big in under the hood in most major Internet hosts and portals, it's puzzling to see no major consumer take-home success yet (other than the Everex gPC). I think the fundamental problem is that the FOSS community is still trying to follow the success of exiting markets instead of leapfrogging ahead into the next decade. At the current trend, by the time Linux creep up to respectable desktop and game console consumer numbers, Windows would've already moved on to more Web based SaaS and online gaming. Windows won't dominate the Web/Cloud/mobile futures. That will probably be Google, but I consider Google closed source. Just how many different distros will really compete with Android? In other words, Linux has to build the unexpected next big thing instead of keep thinking how we're going to lure the PS/XBox/Wii gamers away to back to the desktop. Forget the desktop - build a gaming console and game server with new types of games and ways to play! Talking about Linux games is like hoping Linux will someday overtake other mobile device OS - Not Gonna Happen unless you give a really compelling reason. PC gamers will not abandon Windows until you show them a super high quality game that has no equivalent on a platform that they can count on for ever more better titles. That's a tall order. To do that you need to solve Question #1, and so the chicken-egg argument continues...
sorry had to say it.
/. you will be replete with examples.
if you read
they make emus look normal
V. True - I'm still playing my Dreamcast occasionally, but I think by any useful definition that format is dead.
"I Know You Are But What Am I?"
I'm not sure that I can happily class myself as a hard-core gamer but what I've wanted to play I've been able to. Doom 3 when the engine came out for Linux and the X2 to re-live the Computer Studies lessons spent skiving on Elite, courtesy of the nice folks at http://www.linuxgamepublishing.com/.
All this on Debian testing to so it can't be that hard if I can do it.
Will you PLEASE F off with the Fing beta now?
I use Linux, and I play chess and go on my computer.
Oh, you meant *video* games. I don't play those. That's because I'm an adult and childish things just don't interest me.
This is probably OT
An aquaintence of mine asked me to sort a very cheap PC out for him - he just wanted to browse the web. So I got some bits out of my garage and made a reasonable machine (a P3 600, half gig of ram). I installed DreamLinux on it. He was a happy for a while - then when he wanted to install some crappy video viewer and found he couldn't as it was windows only (well, I found a linux version but it wouldn't install when following my instructions over the phone) he wanted to isntall XP. I said it's not wise but it's up to you. That's the last I heard of him.
It's a shame as I supplied the PC for £50 - and he just increased his costs by another £100 (well, he actually pirated XP but that's not the point).
This has no relevence to this thread at all - I just wanted to let this one out of my system!
One reason is that developers on Linux are always aiming for a moving target. If they focus on the latest/greatest drivers for video/sound, they will cause lots of people to have to upgrade to play the game and that will break existing stuff on their machine. That's bad. Or... they fix themselves on a specific version but they are soon passed by and the Linux users' machines are using a later version, which breaks the game or if they regress the version, breaks their existing stuff. It's a lose-lose situation.
Second, gaming companies are extremely high pressure places that have to have large amounts of capital before they release a game. They have to pay all their employees (at 40 hours wage) to work 80+ hour weeks. No game company can afford to do that and release the game as OSS. And if they try to charge for it, there's not a big enough market. Cross platform development is very expensive so developing native version for both is difficult. Even companies like CCP (Eve Online) who have released Mac and Linux clients for their MMO have done so by simply working with the Windows compatible libraries people and just run the Windows clients on those platforms using whatever translation libraries (and from what I hear, they are both very buggy and slow but the respective groups are working to make them better).
The 'non-free ' is one of the things which makes the majority of linux users non-gamers I think. A lot of them still think in black & white. Open = good, closed = bad, which is just plain stupid in my opinion.
You have 2 parts in the 'free' problem, the first is the accelerated drivers, the other is the game itself. Don't even dream of an open accelerated OpenGL driver which outperforms nVidia's propriatry version. ATI/AMD released the specs/source of the drivers for their cards - but do you honestly believe that's gonna 'improve' anything for 'a gamer' - or even performance-wise?
nVidia drivers started to improve the moment they were making money with their Quadro line on Linux workstations. They have steadily improved (for the user) and I have absolutely no problem with them at this moment. They work brilliantly and run games just fine. Even 'worse' (from your point of view) - I would recommend anyone an nVidia card to run Linux - and yes - with the 'propriatry closed' drivers.
Other part is the game, I heard some fanatic say 'they should open the sourcecode of ' - and then I really wonder what planet he is living on, they simply have no clue what they're talking about. I'm member of the warsow devteam (currently inactive though due to lack of time), and while it's an opensource game, the development process is not open (read: we only release sourcecode for each release) - for some very good reasons. Our development isn't even commercial, we don't have to take into account that we use licensed technology/libraries/... over which we don't have control since we're limited to GPL things. I'm not even touching the anti-cheat stuff here, which can - sadly - only work through obscurity and binary-only dynamic libs. Don't get me wrong, I'm not against warsow being 'opensource', but it does make the development process a lot harder. Sure, the community sometimes submits patches - but that's rare. The ones submitting multiple patches usually become a devteam-member anyway.
In the end it's plain simple, a typical gamer (95%+) wants an icon on his desktop which he clicks and the game launches. No fuzz, no 'oh no is my driver up-to-date', and certainly no 'warning your driver is not driver opensource/free/...'. They simply do not care, and why would they? I don't care anymore either. It's just pointless, if nVidia produces bad drivers, it hurts their business. They can develop and test drivers for hardware that's still in development and can only be simulated on huge clusters. I buy the lastest nVidia card and I can pretty much run any game I like. Right now, no waiting for 6 years for a decently optimized accelerated OpenGL driver - which simply doesn't exist in the Opensource world, Mesa is NOT optimized at all.
So that leaves maybe 5% of gamers which could actually care about something more than an icon on a desktop - and then we're not even talking about 'choice of OS' - since most of them got Vista or XP preinstalled anyway, why not use it. That leaves a very minor niche-market for the linux audience. Of the ones actually running linux (like myself), a lot of them end up with 2 pc's, one for gaming, one for 'linux stuff' (or dual boot - which I hate).
So why are so few gamers using linux? Convenience.
For what it's worth...
When something works, that's the end of the story for most people. I am in the same camp of not having serious issues with Windows. I don't have a reason to broadcast this or a strong enough connection to the OS to defend it.
However, those who have migrated Linux are likely to have also encountered the more popular OS at some point but still use Linux anyway. My theory is that this demographic is likely to have a higher percentage of people who have had a serious problem with Windows.
Just one possible explanation. I have also tried Linux out of curiousity by the way.
He/she might have got away with it in terms of IBM Compatible PC BIOS/OFI/EFI.....
What's really sad is, I don't think that many users are even wanting to pirate Vista! Pretty bad when you can't even give it away.
If you've never been modded as "flamebait" or "troll," you've never tried to argue a minority viewpoint here!
You forgot Pola^W Xbox 360. APIs based on OpenGL, on the other hand, are preferred on PSP, PLAYSTATION 3, Nintendo DS, and Wii. So as far as I can tell, the only way a DirectX-only game can be economic is for developers that are too small for Nintendo and Sony to talk to them.
Has everyone forgotten that there is no ONE linux(yes I know they are distributions) to build games for? How much R&D should a game developer spend on making sure that their game works on Ubuntu 7.10 vs 7.04 vs Fedora 2,3,4,5,6,7,8? Not to mention Debian, Slackware and the list goes on. And lets say developers settle on one distro of LInux to build games for. How many elitists are going to poo-poo the idea of them not building for the distribution of gaming choice? And besides, with all the legal crap about this platform and that platform using GPL'd software to make money and having to open source their design, don't you think there would be some concern about having to divulge the source code for their game?
When I'm not reading /., I'm exploring the packages available for Linux.
"Who controls the past controls the future. Who controls the present controls the past." -- George Orwell
Because there are far more interesting things to do with a Linux box than play games on it.
I was a big time gamer. Even while going through grad school and teaching I gamed pretty heavily, leading a guild in WoW for much of it. I also started using Linux again after many years of being away. Once I did I couldn't go back to Windows, not now I had started using a REAL Operating System. Oh I still game on occasion, when I can get things working through Wine or Cedega. On a rare occasion I even use the Windows boot and play a game. For the most part my gaming days are over. It came down to a choice between Linux and gaming, and Linux won, no contest. If the gaming developers start paying attention to Linux, I will buy, and I will play. I am still a gamer, just one who is waitiong for a game.
Open Source: Eroding the Digital Divide
> MadPenguin.org wonders why more Linux users aren't gamers
In the joke writing industry, this is known as "lobbing a softball".
(-1: Post disagrees with my already-settled worldview) is not a valid mod option.
As much as I would like to see more large software publishers port their wares to Linux (both games and commercial software), the relative lack of market seems to be a large barrier here. Consider the issue from the point of the vendor - you've got M$, who have a HUGE percentage of desktop market share, and therefore take precedence over the less popular (though arguably superior) operating systems. Yes, linux is a good OS, and yes, it's gaining some traction in the desktop market, but as of right now, it just doesn't make much economic sense in the eyes of most vendors to devote the time and money required to port a piece of software over to linux. That being said, give me a petition on the matter, and I'll gladly sign it. The sooner I can ditch windows for good, the better - the only reason I even have it installed is to run my games anyway.
I have seen little advantage to DX10. I don't care how much detail I can see past DX9. I care that the game plays well without having to pay $thousands for the equipment. I can play the latests high end games on my machine that I have about $900 into and they look and play great.
Athiesm is a religion like not collecting stamps is a hobby.
I do play big games and I do use Linux so a buyed a PS3 and installed Linux, problem solved.
The game maufacturers only need one inducement-- money. There is no Linux game support because there is not a large enough Linux game buying public. At over 5% of the market, the Mac gets minimal support. At less then 1% of the desktops, Linux isn't a contender. Plus a large majority of those desktop users run Linux because its free and don't want to pay for software. But its wrong to say Linux users aren't gamers. I have 2 Linux systems in my house and Im a gamer, I just don't game on the Linux boxes. I have a Win XP box, an XBox360 and a PS3 for that.
Everyone I know plays Nethack!.
Warning: this article may contain humor, sarcasm, parody, and perhaps even irony. Read at your own risk.
That war is officially lost, just as with Hacker vs Cracker. - Have a good day, Lun-atic(!)
- http://0st.biz/clipfarm/lunix/
(Evidence, as I'm a polite kind of guy.)
I said dl and in *dynamic linking*. I even stated as such *before* using the short form. LGPL'd libs NEED dynamic linking to not have to license /your/ code as LGPL. Please read my posts before replying.
I'm not sure what the fuss is about. I play all of my games on Linux (once Slackware, but now openSuSE). Yes, I run most of the non-native games under Wine... because let's face it, that's what it's there for. And believe it or not, my experience more often than not is that perform much better under Linux, usually smoother with a higher framerate. DOOM3 and UT2004 with max graphics both struggled under Windows with the specs I'm running, under Linux? (both capable of running natively) They both run beautifully and have a framerate gain of almost 20%. It's usually the same with non-native games as well, if not so dramatic a difference; Guild Wars, Tribes2, WCIII, even HL & CS over Steam.
I don't spend a ton of time playing games anymore, and for that reason I haven't bought any of the latest and greatest. Also I haven't upgraded my PC in something like 5 years.
My rig for reference sake:
Dual-boot WinXP & Linux 2.6.x (whatever distro I happen to be enjoying at the time).
AMD Athlon XP 3000+
Nvidia GeForce FX 5700 AGP
512 MB DDR RAM (raise your hand if your jaw dropped).
Why, if not because?
I'm sorry, but whatever flavor of Tux Racer or whatever is out there just doesn't do it for me.
I'd consider this on topic, as it has to do with consumers switching - Perhaps next time make sure you have SSH access to the machine and you can install the video viewer yourself much more easily than if you'd walked him through it.
If you can't install the viewer via command line, FreeNX is a great bandwidth-friendly, responsive remote desktop solution that runs over your already open SSH port.
As long as their router is set up to forward the port and be available via dyndns, you're golden. Don't take a half hour walking them through it, do it yourself in 15 seconds with a shell script you wrote up last time you had to do this for someone.
Yeah, but we've pirated Windows XP too.
"Why can't I use the photo program that came with my new camera?"
"Why can't I watch the video of your cousin's baby taking its first steps? She sent a link and I click on it and it doesn't work. Your goddamned aunt Agnes got to watch it and she's making me feel like a fool! It's just a bunch of flashing blocks!"
"I error-checked a PowerPoint presentation last night for my boss, and when he showed it to the executives today there was a bunch of stuff I hadn't seen! There were some mistakes I didn't catch, and now he's mad at me."
"This new email program doesn't have the commands I always use. It has a bunch of different ones that do the same things, but they're in different places. It's all screwed up."
"Grandma sent me a copy of the family newsletter so I could fill in our family news, but when I open it up or print it out, it's gobbledygook! Everything is on top of each other!"
"We were two hours late to the family reunion because we got lost because I couldn't print out the directions and then I rebooted to Windows and I couldn't find the file and... What? What do you mean I should have 'kicked cups-dee'? You're aunt's name is Mary-Dee, not Cups-Dee, and she's very nice. I don't know why you want me to kick her. It's not her fault we were late. It's that stupid program you put on our computer."
If you're not hearing these complaints, I sincerely doubt they're using Linux much :-)
This isn't a knock against Linux. Faithfully rendering the newest Microsoft Office file formats is an impossible standard. Keeping up with printer drivers is a thankless task, often with no help from manufacturers, so it's no surprise if something gets in a bad state occasionally. It isn't Linux's fault that the CD that came with Uncle Fred's new digital camera only contains Windows and Mac software.
All of these problems are fairly trivial for users like us: scp the Word and PowerPoint files to a Windows computer and view them there, learn the new email program, watch the baby video in VLC instead of Kaffeine, restart cupsd and/or power-cycle the printer. Treat the camera as a generic USB storage device and figure out the directory structure it presents. No problem for people like us, but not at all reasonable for non-geeks. Maybe your relatives are extraordinarily patient and adaptable people -- or maybe they're just using Windows and not telling you about it.
I'll show them! Bring me some games and a Linux box! Err.. hello?!
Seriously, there are some good Linux games out there. But face it, most of us are going to use Wine to be able to play our games. That's a shame. While I agree with some of the game programmers' arguments, like compatibility issues between the many flavours of Linux that exist today, it's still no excuse for not trying. I mean, look at ID software. They prove it can be done.
You're absolutely right - I should've set up ssh access. More fool me. It's such a shame because he was using it just fine until this moment.
I have a couple of other success stories though so it's not all bad news.
I shall check out FreeNX, though I have used X11VNC for this purpose in the past.
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PC gaming is alive and well. Most people tend to think of action games on high end gaming PC's when they think of gamers. There are several million passive gamers - mostly women who spend 20 mins a day playing games on PC's. They download games on to their PC's and even buy games in the range of $10-$20. For example the PC game Diner Dash http://www.gameseekr.com/games/details/diner-dash.html from Playfirst http://www.playfirst.com/, has been download over 100million times in the past 3 years. There a several such games that appeal to women. With the move towards making games free and having users purchase up levels and game related items, we will see far more people getting into PC gaming simply because PC's are there and the games are cheaper and there are far more passive gamers than active gamers. For the serious gamer, the high end PC platforms are almost as good as console. I guess the main issue at the high end is the cost since the total cost of ownership of a console is probably far less than a high end gaming PC?
Long live Cedega. Quote of Crossover Games announcement.
I'm using Linux to do Work, Mac to play games and Windows when I work on the secure network. You can laugh, but I'm crying... because it's true.
Linux faces far more challenges to become the gamer platforms than it was mentioned in that article. Linux is still the 'geek's' domain and until Linux grows to support end-users the way Windows does, normal users, who are generally multimedia oriented people who play games, watch movies or listen to music and do other human stuff. Even now, installing a software on Linux isn't a plain double click. Although the power and customisability options are higher, they are still not what the 'human' users look at. Anyway, even if a Gamer gets his hands on a Linux box, emulation is his only way out. With very few game developer companies even thinking of Linux, namely say Epic Games and virtually no developer using standards like Open GL in place of the proprietary XNA/Direct X, Linux seriously doesn't seem to have a bright future here. Its like trying to replace mp3 with ogg vorbis... a practical impossibility... So I read this neat article or should I say a blog post lately from an Indian kid which highlights thoughts on Linux and its storehouse for our gamers...
I don't quite agree. For example, we sometimes get the opportunity to play games at the office. Most of the people in our office are running workstations with 2 dual-core opterons, and 4GB memory. No one (not even the network engineer) runs windows on their workstation. Even if someone did, it would be inconvenient to reboot (too many virtual machines running that need to be up etc.). So, when we can, we FPS on Linux.
Do we play commercial games? No. Why not? Because they are more difficult to get working than the open-source ones (e.g. getting counterstrike to run well under wine took about 8 hours of effort), and there's not much difference in game play. So, we play Americas Army (half an hour to get running), Assault Cube (10 minutes to get running), Open Arena (15 minutes) etc. Plus, they are available for more platforms than most commercial games (Mac OS X for the one person on a Mac Book Pro).
In the end, I don't believe Linux users will not play games, and most who would play games would probably be prepared to pay for a proprietary one, but the cost/benefit ratio has to be lower than open-source games to be viable. Now if game companies would release Linux binaries (whether they are well supported or not) for free, they might see more sales of their games (assuming the Linux binaries required the usual version of the game), without having to dedicate any real testing resources.
...that this article was really just a big advertisement for GarageGames and Torque?
It didn't really seem to have anything to say other than that GarageGames exists, that Torque is cross-platform, and it would be nice if more games were made that ran on Linux-based systems.
I have 3656.9 Bogomips. How many Bogomips do you have?
Why aren't more linux users gamers? It isn't made for gaming. Sure it can... but... The userbase is tiny compared to Windows. Most of them run Windows for games anyways. Why would they spend the time doing it?
Tech/Reviews blog
Where's the $500 22 inch LCD? Sure, you can buy a smaller one, but your console-playing friends will laugh at you.
NEVER FORGET THE MONITOR. YOU NEED IT TO SEE THE PRETTY LIGHTS.
Razor1911 has also released a re-pack pirated version of Halo 2 that should run better than the original Vista DVD, which included the patch with it.
Oh yah, it also seems like you were wrong about Halo II being Vista only....
Did you hear the news? Apple has released a version of OSX for other platforms, and Microsoft is giving away free copies of Windows XP!where the comment ends and sig begins
I tend to disfavor X11VNC because it's more bandwidth hungry and less secure than FreeNX. FreeNX is just X11 forwarding with some extremely well done protocol-specific encryption that gives you the whole desktop environment (kde/gnome) not just a single program.
/usr/NX/etc/server.conf (may be node.conf) and disable the user DB and pass DB so it'll let you use your SSH logins/passes.
:-)
Most of the time if you use it you'll want to edit
Once you get ssh running on his machine you can remote desktop with FreeNX, use files remotely with sftp and sshfs, and remote command line with simple ssh, all with the same username/pass and all encrypted. Joy
For those who haven't heard of eve-online, it's a space based sandbox MMO where you "level up" in real time regardless of whether you are playing or not. Because of it's sandbox nature the entire game is essentially PvP. Even if you avoid combat pvp you're still combating against others through the player-driven economy. The content is basically all player driven and eve-online is the only MMO that I know of that has consistently improved since release.
It's hard for me to not talk about all the good things eve does, but I'll stop and let someone else pimp it if they want. Also anyone with an active eve account can give unlimited 14day free trials to people.
There are 11 types of people, those who know unary and those who don't.
Personally I think the whole line between console and PC is likely to get blurred in the future. When you have a home entertainment system that lets you browse the internet, peruse media and play games, is it a PC or a console? The way the industry seems to be heading, I wouldn't be surprised to see mainstream PCs ditching a lot of the configurability we now have in favour of ready-made packages that provide a tightly controlled user experience. Kind of like consoles. Or maybe consoles will complexify a little further. The point is, with HTPCs and what have you, the trend seems to be to make home PCs more a home appliance and less a highly complex multi-function tool.
I don't play games on linux because it's hard as hell to "install" them.
Easiest time I had putting a game on my system was Nexiuz which came as a package.
But I want QUAKE! Q2 took almost an hour to instal wtfbbq?
I would turn the question the other way around. If the ratio of gamers among Linux users is low, wouldn't that be because gamers CANNOT use Linux for the obvious reason we all suffer from: no game editor ever considers Linux. Why? I leave it to Linux experts to discuss that. I think the question is wrongly phrased and has only one obvious answer. I would be a gamer Linux user if there was any interesting game on Linux. There's none. Zero, nada. At least bring WoW in (no link sending me to Wine please...) so I can finally ditch Windows. Linux will have one more gamer user.
Easy - because Linux has bugger all games people want to play.