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Unreal Tournament 3 For Linux Is Officially Dead
ndogg writes "There is no longer any uncertainty surrounding the release of Unreal Tournament 3 for Linux. It's official: the port is now dead. No reasons were given, but no one should be waiting for it anymore, if anyone still was."
What have they to say about this?
I put my books on Amazon, Smashwords, Demonoid, ISOHunt and Pirate Bay. Search for 'Michael Cargill'
I hear all 3 of their potential customers are outraged...
true, that's also the reason why windows users pay that much more on average, if they can choose to.
http://www.humblebundle.com/
(average prices, linux users pay twice as much as windows users)
It was actually some stuff-up about IP, I think (some prebuilt technology they licensed for the game that they couldn't release as they wished). Ryan Gordon did most of the port, and was basically ready to release, then it was shuttered.
Not true, look at http://www.humblebundle.com/
Average Windows: $6.28
Average Mac: $8.39
Average Linux: $13.62
Reason. Linux users refuse to pay for their software so it's not worth targeting it as a platform.
So what does the high piracy rate on the Windows platform say?
Shai Schticks:"You don't make peace with friends, you make peace with enemies"
I bought the first two, and was waiting with dollars clenched in my sweaty fist to throw them at 3 as well. Makes me sad. I've still never played 3.
yadda
Horsecrap. I paid for and played UT2004 on Linux only with a GF4 card. I had a great time. I tried the UT3 demo on Windows and alas, it was not as fun as Unreal Tournament or UT2004. So I didn't buy it.
Humble Indie Bundle 2 is up now. Linux users consistently pay more than Windows users for the games -- more than twice as much, in fact.
Reason. Linux users refuse to pay for their software so it's not worth targeting it as a platform.
Reason: Ports are years late and often cost more than the original launch price while the Windows version is already in the bargain bin. A rational being will realize that the 30£ = ~$47 vs 5$ will very soon pay for a Windows license, hell even a dedicated Windows PC if you game a little. I'd love to buy more Linux versions, but not at such a craptastic value.
Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
The value of the Humble Bunde is less to Windows users, hence they pay less. Of course, this is a hypothesis.
Well, that's a coincidence: It's officially dead for Windows too. And has been since almost three months after launch.
I really liked the Unreal Tournament games (even though I'm an id Software fanboy), and definitely the first part was a lot better than its counterpart at the time; Quake 3. Whereas Quake 3 had obvious masterlike AI-bots, the AI in Unreal Tournament always seemed to resemble a bit more humanlike play-style.
UT2004 was great too, and had some awesome new gametypes, which really worked well. They were planning on releasing a new update for it every year (hence the 2004 addition to the title), but failed at doing that (probably because they discovered their new cash cow; Gears of War).
Unreal Tournament 3's figures were very bad: Already after a month of release, the servers got less and less. As of today there's only a handfull of servers left (for the UK at least), with even less players.
I must admit myself that I also didn't play UT3 as much as I played the previous titles.
So to be honest, I can't really see too much of a loss in this (except that it would have been easier for other Unreal engined games to be ported over to Linux).
When you shoot a mime, do you use a silencer?
It's not really worth developing games for Linux. The hardcore gamers - the bulk of the market all use Windows. As a result, anyone with any significant interest in PC games will install Windows. This will naturally perpetute the extreme bias towards windows from developers.
The only people who will not install Windows at any cost are those with a moral objection to non-free software. These people aren't willing to buy non-free games either.
I don't think there's any way out of this.
That is kind of a bummer, although after such a long time of silence, it was certainly quite expected (also, I guess that the Mac version of that game, which was also announced a long time ago, got axed quietly as well).
:(
What I would find more interesting however, would be whether the Unreal Engine 3 itself was ported into a workable state, so it could be used for other porting projects in the future. Because although I do not care too much about the Unreal Tournament 3 game itself, having the Unreal Engine 3 on Linux could at least open some interesting possibilities either for other games being ported or for a developer studio using the Engine in a future game and then doing simultaneous cross-platform development.
Because if you look at the list of games using the Unreal Engine 3, that list of projects is rather impressive (for example, the entire Mass Effect series uses the Engine) and having such a widely used Engine available on Linux would be a boon, I think, maybe even for smaller Indie developers willing to do Linux development (depending on how expensive those licensing terms are).
Technically, porting should be possible, as the Unreal Engine 3 already runs on Windows, PS3, Xbox 360 and even MacOS X and iOS now, so it has shown that it is portable. And before you ask, I am not concluding that because Epic did an iOS port that it automatically runs on Mac OS X as well, although those two share a decent amount of similarities making the jump between those two platforms a good deal easier. No, actually, with Borderlands now having a Mac port, there are already two titles on Mac OS X using the Unreal Engine 3 that I know of (the other one being Star Trek DAC), so there is proof it runs on the Mac. I know that those are only two titles and only one you could possibly call an AAA title, but sadly, as far as I know, that is still more titles available than on Linux
So I hope Ryan Gordon at least got the Engine ported, so future projects can use it on Linux. Because although losing the game sucks a little, having the Engine could at least give some hope for some better future developments in Linux gaming. It sure could use some.
http://www.redhat.com/
I mean, they only have hundreds of millions of dollars in revenue each year...
Palm trees and 8
It wasn't dead before?
Commercial games are, for the most part, dead on the Linux desktop. There are some occasional exceptions but for the most part, if you want a big-name game to appear on Linux you're gonna have to go use WINE as native builds probably won't exist. That said, there are still quite a lot of decent older games which have Linux ports and Ryan does continue development on ports for commercial when he can.
I think if you really want to avoid disappointment with regards to Linux gaming and want to continue enjoying gaming on Linux... get used to indy games, and forget the big-budget commercial stuff. Indy developers need all the audience they can get and as the Humble Bundles have shown, Linux users are often the most generous per purchase due to a desperate need for games. :)
Big-name commercial studios like EPIC and iD have abandoned Linux (unlike his previous games John Carmack has expressed a certain doubt about supporting Linux with Rage). It would certainly be NICE if we could get more commercial support, but until that happens, it's less depressing to just aim for indy games.
Linux users already have Alien Arena, Sauerbraten, Tremulous and Nexuiz, among other FPS games. And the ID Software titles. I doubt they'll miss one more FPS game.
Freedom is drinking a beer in the park when you're supposed to be at work.
Reason. Linux users refuse to pay for their software so it's not worth targeting it as a platform.
Actually, my personal experience has been different.
In general, the *nix guys I've met have an appreciation for well-crafted software and don't have a problem paying for it.
The Windows guys, on the other hand have absolutely no problem pirating anything and everything.
Obviously your mileage may vary... But I suspect there was more to this than simply "those tree-hugging open-source hippies won't pay!" Probably some bit of licensed technology that couldn't be released in an open source format.
"Work is the curse of the drinking classes." -Oscar Wilde
Averages don't say much here, we need more statistics. There could be more Linux users among the outliers, while the medians among users may be the same for all OSes.
Aaaarrr, that we be matey!
This is because Linux guys are more likely to understand what it takes to get software working
You know, I concur that UT3 was not nearly as fun as UT or UT2004, but I've never been able to put my finger on WHY it is inferior.
A slashdotter who didn't build his own computer is like a Jedi who didn't build his own lightsaber.
Alternate hypothesis: Linux users tend to be idealists, who agree with the Bundle's cause, and thus will be more willing to donate.
Tried UT3 for lanpartying, but the game was too demanding for any of our computers except one to run well. We'll stick with ut2k4.
I tried, man, I tried. But there's so many dependencies...
It may have sucked hard at first, but after the various patches, UT3 has evolved to become a fairly decent game!
"What sane person could live in this world and not be crazy?"
According to the chart on the website, Linux sales currently make up just under a quarter of total revenue for the Humble Bundle 2. (For the original Humble Bundle it was a full quarter, but that had Linux versions of the games that actually worked.)
My thoughts (as a long term linux user)...
I have a certain amount of goodwill (ie money im willing to spend) but it only goes so far.. If a piece of software is significantly better than any free counterparts enough to justify its price tag then i'm quite happy to pay for it, if not then i would very much prefer to do without it.
Now games i can always do without, but if they're good i'm quite happy to spend a reasonable sum.
Windows users on the other hand have already paid for a mediocre os, and have probably paid again to get basic/essential functionality, so many of them will already be at the end of their patience.
A linux user will typically have got everything they *need* for their day to day use for free, so games are just optional extras.
http://spamdecoy.net - free throwaway anonymous email - avoid spam!
They all say "Arrrrr!", why do you ask?
No sig today...
This comes as somewhat of a disappointment: I've been toying with the idea of trying to get my 13-year-old stepson (a relatively intelligent, moderately creative and incredibly mature 13 year old with zilch for prospects) interested in 3D modeling and content creation. Therefore I've begun assembling a dedicated workstation for running UDK (Unreal Development Kit), an integrated package from Epic that allows you to create redistributable games and standalone 3D apps that utilize the latest Unreal Engine.
I also considered Blender (in fact, I far prefer he learn it instead) but I think UDK will be a lot more likely to sustain his interest through that initial critical phase.
What I always liked about Epic was their platform-neutral stance. Their Glide and unofficial/after-the-fact OpenGL renderers really made UT99 scream: I could jack up resolutions to unheard of levels on the junkiest of hardware and the game would still FLY (for years after UT99 was obsolete, I was able to amuse myself and my friends running custom UT maps I'd found, thanks to this)
Anyhow, my point is that Epic seems to be compromising on the flexibility that set them apart. Hell, they still rely on PhysX for physics acceleration, and as most of you are no doubt aware, PhysX is a proprietary dead-end: according to nVidia, it's up in the air as to whether or not there'll be any more driver updates for dedicated PhysX hardware and the API won't even run on your nVidia GPU if it detects a Radeon present (apparently there's a hack for this but I don't consider that viable). I'm not sure if there are plans for Unreal to utilize Microsoft's presumably hardware-neutral DirectCompute API for future GPU-based physics calculations or not; perhaps someone could shed some light on the subject.
Not knowing anything about this game, as I am not a FPS gamer, I wonder if a port is really necessary? WINE seems to work quite well for a large number of Windows games.
"The agriculture ministry is not in charge of Gundam" - Japanese ministry official.
What statistics do you need to refute the GGPs claim that linux users refuse to pay for software then?
It's mostly dark pastel colours and looks more like a movie (which is what you don't want when you interact with an environment, but is what you want when being told a story... I don't need blur in a game, when I turn quickly, my eyes already blur natually because things are moving quickly [who even thought of putting blur in an fps... duh!]).
With all this blur and dark shading of every colour, you don't get a larger view in your environment and feel a little more alone even when on a team... or standing right next to someone.
When you're in a vehicle the camera view is too close to the vehicle. What the hell!
And my biggest peeve is that the game just feels slower. No double jumping.
Anyways, I'm one of those who has given pretty much every fps that's come out in the last 3 years a real try (at least 20-30 hours) and have not found one that's got something to entice me, in fact they're all going in the wrong direction... slow and blind.
I'm still open to try new ones anytime they come out and always keep my hopes up. But UT3 was the last time that I buy a game before I try it.
I'm not sure why you've made it your crusade to post the same "meaningless statistics" reply to every post on this story. My only conclusion is that you simply don't care about real facts unless they prove your view of "linux users being cheap" to be the correct one.
What are you talking about? I've only mentioned it once. Well, twice if you count me replying to the person who commented on my post, and this post is only my third in this entire story. How is that a "crusade to post the same...reply to every post..."?
"Tell me doctor, with all of your defenses, are there any provisions for an attack by killer bees?"
The number you're referencing is worthless without statistics. Maybe they only sold ten linux copies but one buyer paid $100 while everyone else only paid pennies.
It's not worthless at all in this context. It was posted to refute the statement that "Linux users refuse to pay for their software". Say what you want about the statistics but one thing that is clear is Linux users did pay for the bundle.
UT3 is bargin bin material because it sucked. You can't expect to sell it full price on a smaller platform and make money when it's just easier to buy the bargin bin Windows version if you really want to play the awful game.
Let me remind you that with a sample of over 110k purchases, the large outliers become statistically insignificant.
For example, if there are 10 * $500 and 5000 * $0.10, the average value is 5500 / 5010 = $1.01.
Are you sure it didn't have more to do with UT3 being an extremely unpopular game? I mean, justified or not, no one really played UT3 all that much. It just couldn't compare to either UT99 nor UT2K4 in any way aside from it's grungy atmosphere and shiny graphics.
"He who can destroy a thing, controls a thing." --Paul Atreides, Dune
Yet the share for windows is about twice that of the other platforms you would expect a wider spread.
Not that I have played any of the Unreal Tournament series lately, I used to be a heavy UT gamer 8 years ago... I enjoyed the fact that Unreal Tournament 2003 came with Linux installer on the retail discs. I had hoped that this was the future of Linux gaming.
It makes more sense to use winelib and to otherwise attempt to make your game run well under Wine. Then you don't have to provide support for Linux. I mean, from a commercial, big box standpoint, that is. For small games it makes total sense to have a Linux version. On the other hand, for small games it makes total sense to develop the game to be cross-platform to begin with because you won't be running into the limitations of the common cross-platform toolkits, or at least not too often.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
If this had been announced a few years ago, I might have been disappointed. I honestly like UT2004 better, which works nicely on Linux. Honestly though, major commercial games on Linux will never be unless two things happen: MAJOR improvements to its multimedia support (both sound and video architecture are a total mess), and a single distro must step forward as the supported face of desktop Linux. Probably Ubuntu. I'll likely be castigated for saying that, but that is the only way it can ever happen IMO.
I've bought several Linux games now, NWN (Diamond ed.), Quake 3 & 4, and Doom 3. For each, I actually bought the Windows version, then downloaded the Linux client for free from the developer's website. In NWN case, I actually only bought the Windows version for the license key, even the data was available for download.
Total revenue right now is $861,710.88, let's say $850k. Linux users are just under a quarter of that, let's say 22%. So Linux users are responsible for $187k. The average Linux contribution is $13.61, so that's circa 13700 Linux buyers. Of note, the top contributor paid $2k, so no one Linux user is accountable for the vast majority of the $187k or anything like that. With sample size that large you can be pretty sure the numbers are meaningful.
The same calculations say they have about 75400 Windows buyers and about 22200 OSX buyers. So Linux makes up 12% of the userbase and 22% of the revenue (ish, guesstimating a bit by the graph), OSX makes up 20% of the userbase and 22% of the revenue, and Windows makes up 68% of the userbase and 56% of the revenue. Doesn't sound to me like any of the three OSes are worth ignoring at all. Not to mention the game developers are saying that Linux ports are more than paying for themselves.
That's a bit harsh, but not too far removed from the truth.
For gaming, running a Winbox makes sense. Computers are trivially expensive nowadays, so run several if you like and enjoy the benefits.
There isn't a need to CHOOSE between operating systems. Run one, some, or many. This is a geek forum, no? You can have all the computers you like, and with little effort you can have more than you'll ever need.
Complaining that Linux doesn't run popular games is like complaining your pliers make a lousy hammer.
"This post is an artistic work of fiction and falsehood. Only a fool would take anything posted here as fact."
It doesn't matter. Even the Windows version is pretty dead.
UT3 servers are mostly bereft of players, which is a crying shame given that it's a fantastic game that most current rigs by gamers can run at max settings. The high system requirements were a barrier to entry to players when it first launched, but that's no longer true now. Check out the current Unreal Tournament 3 server stats
UT 2004 has more than twice the number of players & servers running: UT2k4 server stats. Sure, its mechanics were more enjoyed by players of classic UT99, but UT3 should be enjoyed on its own.
Unreal Tournament series' gameplay, mechanics & multiple game modes was always superior to the quake series (not to mention much more fun and prettier). Oh, and the graphics are pretty gorgeous!
UT3 has been going on sale during holidays during the past 3 years now. You guys should grab it when it goes on sale on Steam this Christmas-New Year. It drops down to about $10 or comes bundled with the complete Unreal series cheap which is amazing bang for buck.
Would be great if more players could hop in. C'mon guys, give it ago! Pretty sure it'll be dirt cheap and well worth your money this coming Steam Christmas-New Year sale.
http://www.object404.com
UT players quite often fantasize about "superior than quake". You know why quake players don't talk about that? Because they're busy playing.
I had all UT titles, sold them soon. Yes, they're prettier. But I certainly did not enjoy the gameplay, nor the childish online opponents. Of course, YMMV.
"One buyer can throw off the chart completely."
No they can't:
Fact one: as of *right now* the total number of purchases is about 116,000.
Fact two: as of *right now*, the *largest* contribution was only $2000 dollars. (The top ten contributions are listed, and they go down quickly from that $2000 figure - #10 is currently $500, so by definition, all the remaining contributions are less than $500, unless the statistics they are reporting are outright lies. It is very likely that the vast majority of users would be donating less than $100.)
Fact three: as of *right now*, the total sales volume in dollars is $869,711
Put all the facts together, and you get a picture that the $869,000 was raised through a LOT of fairly small contributions. Or, at least, no ONE SINGLE donator made a large enough contribution to significantly throw off the averages. In order for one person to throw it off, they would need to make a donation many orders of magnitude larger (say $100,000-200,000), but that is *simply* not the case since we know the largest donation was only $2000.
It would really behoove you, when the GGP says to go look at the statistics on humblebundle.com, to actually GO LOOK AT THE STATISTICS, instead of making posts which show you obviously didn't bother to look over them at all, instead preferring to make specious arguments that are directly contradicted by the data HAD YOU BOTHERED TO LOOK FIRST.
Is the XP virtual box that important to you?
Some people use their gaming PCs for things other than gaming, such as working from home. Even among those who don't, For fans of classic games designed for Windows 3.1 or Windows 98, Windows XP Mode could be useful. The 64-bit operating systems can't run Windows 3.1 games at all without some sort of virtual machine emulating a 32-bit CPU. And I seem to remember that plenty of 32-bit games from the 9x era have trouble running in 32-bit Windows Vista and Windows 7, let alone 64-bit, even with compatibility mode turned on for the application.
Hi, I'm a Linux gamer. When I get bored, I have my choice of the following: Advent Rising, Assassin's Creed(II), Borderlands, Crysis, Deus Ex, Diablo 2, Fable, Fallout 3, Gothic 1/2, GTA San Andreas, KotoR2, Max Payne 2, Oblivion, Oni, Psychonauts, all the STALKER games, Starcraft 2, Torchlight, Warhammer 40k, and last but not least all the Source games. You were saying?
"Linux users refuse to pay for their software." "Yes, they pay more for their software than Windows users, but [motive]."
Railgun on spawn says hi. ;D This is partly why I enjoyed UT more than Q3. I had a chance of survival in UT, not so in Q3. Plus the mods are much easier to utilize.
-]Phreak Out[-
They all say "Arrrrr!", why do you ask?
'Cause the ninja infiltrator wants to know how to identify his targets...
Bow-ties are cool.
Nope. I'm pretty sure Steam is a steaming pile of crap no matter what OS it's used on. DRM FTL.
Digital Rights Management Faster Than Light?
Bow-ties are cool.
Windows version ran just fine using WINE.
ELOI, ELOI, LAMA SABACHTHANI!?
"Railgun on spawn says hi."
Instagib ASMD on spawn says hi right back.
Still waiting on Serviscope_minor to wake up to fucking reality and realize that Jessica Price isn't going to fuck him.
Duke Nukem pumps his fist in victory again! Another pretender to the vaporware throne has been vanquished!
Sleep your way to a whiter smile...date a dentist!
I was looking forward to UT3 after playing alot of UT and 2K4. Then I installed the UT3 demo when it came out and I couldn't even start it as it crashed constantly. That was enough for me to forget about it for a long time. Fast forward to the "Black" edition coming out on Steam for $10 and I thought with all the patches they pumped out and new content it would be stable, which it was. By then the community was long dead and there were very few servers. One thing I immediately noticed how terrible the menu UI was. It was clearly a console-based interface copy/pasted with a few tweaks and is very cumbersome to navigate. The server browser and settings menus are terrible. I hope Epic learned their lesson with UT3 and aren't let their summer students make the PC version of Bulletstorm.
Total dollars spent versus the cost of the port. All the average says is how much a few people are willing to pay, but if that comes from a hundred Linux customers versus a thousand Windows customers, that's only $136.20 from Linux compared to $628.00 from Windows. And that ignores the cost of the port.
Looking at the pie chart on the Humble Indie Bundle site, Linux accounted for just under a quarter of sales while Windows was more than half of sales. Total sales was $879k, so Windows was roughly $450k to Linux's $200k. Dividing by the averages, that's 71656 Windows customers and 14684 Linux customers, indicating that there were almost five times the number of Windows customers as there were Linux customers.
More importantly, the real numbers to compare are that $200k estimate versus the cost of porting the code to Linux in the first place (I'll discuss support later). Considering that proper planning should make any software already ported to MacOS easier to port to Linux, the cost justification should be there, but that really depends on the developers' proficiency in preparing the code for abstraction (most software will still release Windows first just to get it out the door and to get the money rolling in before working on ports, implying that MacOS could see its port before Linux).
Support: The easy solution is to provide minimal support to Linux users so as to minimize cost. Obviously, this isn't the best model for customer retention, but I'm not sure there would be complaints if such a policy were properly disclosed and the price were discounted.
Use my userscript to add story images to Slashdot. There's no going back.
With sample size that large you can be pretty sure the numbers are meaningful.
Careful with statements like that. The population of customers of the Humble Bundle 2 is not a random sampling of potential computer game customers. It is a significant assumption to use this population as a representative sample of computer game customers.
Support contracts from enterprise customers. Now what does it have to do with the sorry state of Linux on the desktop and the willingness of Linux desktop users to pay for commercial software? Do you believe that selling expensive support contracts for a game is a viable option for software companies?
US-UK-Israel: The real Axis of Evil
I have bought collector's edition when it came out only because they promised a Linux port.
So fuck you Sweeney.
BTW, it sucked big time, UT3 is a lagfest.
The 64-bit operating systems can't run Windows 3.1 games at all without some sort of virtual machine
You've got your facts all jumbled up somewhere. 64-bit OS's can run 32-bit applications just fine. It is 16-bit applications that they can't run
Windows 3.1 applications are 16-bit, except for a few "Win32s" apps that were the beginning of what would become Windows 95.
and 32-bit Windows XP can't run most of them either (no DOS compatibility)
I haven't had much of a problem running 16-bit Windows 3.1 applications on 32-bit Windows XP thanks to wowexec.
so you end up running DOSBOX or some other vitual machine, not "Windows XP mode"
DOSBox comes with a copy of DOS, not a copy of Windows.
So you pretty much just admitted you're wrong, and that linux users do in fact purchase software. Not sure why you keep rambling on about something else though.
Nope.
Devastator or RPG on spawn.
Still waiting on Serviscope_minor to wake up to fucking reality and realize that Jessica Price isn't going to fuck him.
Then why does commercial software consistently offer better products than open source projects?
Linux guys don't know shit about what it takes to get software working. If they did, they'd be making and selling commercial software. "Open source" is a way to avoid any kind of quality assurance. It says, "don't complain even if the software is half-assed and broken because it was free".
Unreal Tournament series' gameplay, mechanics & multiple game modes was always superior to the quake series (not to mention much more fun and prettier). Oh, and the graphics are pretty gorgeous!
It should be noted, that you seem to define 'superior' as 'slower' just because you get fragged every five seconds because you're not used to the pace doesn't mean the game is faulty. The entire reason q3 has so many players these days is because it is so twitch. (oh, and graphically it did age much better than the original UT)
there should be more driver cross-platform compatibility layers like how NDISwrapper is used.
Could not have used a worse example, closed source windows drivers on linux are a nasty, nasty hack.
That was defenitely MY reason for donating. I haven't even played any of the games yet, but I'm willing to support the cause for Linux Gaming. :)
For me personally I will purge Windows from my system the moment Valve makes Counter Strike available for Linux
(no, please don't start telling me about WINE, I've tried it and 30fps (max, it might go as low as 15fps at times while I get 100+ in Windows) are fine for sinlge player games, but in game like CS every frame counts)
Go back to your "developers developers guru/monkey" and let real coders do the job behind the curtains of MS's next convention...
It seems the bigger looming issue is the fact that games for computers regardless of OS are becoming afterthoughts to the juggernaut that is Xbox and Playstation development. Who is really calling the shots for game releases anymore? The computer as a game machine is mostly a platform for WOW or SC2, and many times the titles released these days are afterthoughts from the console world (COD, BF2, Practically every Bethesda title). Yeah yeah, linux lacks games, but this is mostly due to absolute crappy support from Nvidia and ATI and the fact most games are written with DirectX in mind, not OpenGL. Good gaming on linux is a developers choice, and many choose to ignore it or blatantly sabotage it.