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CCP To Discontinue EVE Online Support For Linux
maotx writes "CCP's recent support for EVE Online in Linux is now set to be discontinued this March. Released last November along with the Mac OS X client, it has failed to share the expected continual growth as seen with Mac client. Feedback on the EVE Online forums, which includes the e-mail in which CCP announced this decision, suggest that the client was not preferred for Linux users as it did not support the Premium graphics client and did not run as well as the win32 client under Wine. For those who wish to stop playing EVE Online, CCP is offering a refund towards unused game time. Select quote from the e-mail: 'The feedback and commitment we obtained from players like you helped both CCP and Transgaming with our attempts to improve on the quality and stability of the client. Many of us in CCP use Linux and are convinced of its merits as an operating system.'"
NIGGUH WHUT?
Because OSX users don't play video games.
They use their computers for watching Queer as Folk DVD's and Skin Gang when they're not listening to N'SYNC or planning a trip to the local bathhouse with their buddies.
today. It's about NIIGER ASSOCIATION
how hard can it be to write a client with native Linux support?
Very hard.
Why don't you pick up a random Linux game that was made 5 or six years ago and see if it runs on a random Linux box. Just go grab some Doom or Quake demo and put it on some random box with a different distro than the one the demo was tested against.
If you can even get the thing to install and launch, sound definitely won't work.
The reason people have a hard time developing complicated commercial software on Linux is that said software is distributed in binary form, and Linux is *not* built for binary distribution.
Libraries break their ABI periodically on Linux because no one really thinks about binary developers. Think about this: a deb package for Ubuntu from a release six months ago will probably not work on the next release.
Aside from that, sound is an enormous clusterfuck on Linux. Sound is kind of important for games.
Considering all these problems, the return on investment is very low. There are very few Desktop Linux users. The mac has about 10% desktop marketshare now, but Linux is under 1%
http://marketshare.hitslink.com/operating-system-market-share.aspx?qprid=8
and most Linux users, including myself, just dual boot to play games. So why should a game company pay a bunch of developers full time for a year to port the game? That's hundreds of thousands of dollars they will *never* make back on a market like that.
MICROSHIT WINDAIDS
True! What's also true is not everybody is going to have only Linux. Now what this news is actually about is there are not enough people who play EVE on Linux to make it feasible to continue support.
This isn't about a company that's just guessing there isn't enough business to pay for a Linux version. This is a company that invested real money and made one, and found out for sure there isn't enough business to pay for their Linux version. So they're going to stop losing money. But they tried. Thank you CCP for an honest effort.
More news at 11
Sheesh.
Who is actually surprised that a MS-centric software company quote-unquote-couldn't release a non-MS-centric product that was worth a damn?
"Oh, we tried to make a Mac/Linux client, but no one wanted it."
No one wanted it because you made it *SUCK*.
If you'd given it even HALF the attention you'd given your MS client, then the Mac/Linux community would've used the native Linux client.
Instead, if they wanted even halfway-decent results, you forced them to run your MS client under a Cider/WINE environment, thus defeating any benefits a native client might have given.
You certainly didn't get a realistic data-set of who preferred which client, because you made everything BUT the MS client, suck utter llama testicle sweat.
Since you starved it for resources & caused the Mac/Linux clients to be utter crap, no one wanted to use them, and you're using the "massive Windows client use" numbers to justify shutting down the development of what you didn't want to do in the first place.
This isn't surprising, it's sad.
Sad that you're obviously refusing to cater to a ever-increasing market, because you want to suckle at the perceived-to-be-inexhaustible-fount-of-profits MS teat.
Karma will have a lovely swift kick in the pants waiting for you if the Mac/Linux market share puts a serious crimp in the MS coffers, causing your fountain of wealth to turn into a trickle of poverty.
You should have put equal resources to each of the clients, so they ALL kicked ass.
That way, no matter if your customer was on a Windows, Mac, or Linux system, they could find a reason to send you their money.
Instead, you decided to piss off two-thirds of your customer base.
Nice one, dip shits.
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