John Carmack: Kudos To Valve, But Linux Is Still Not a Viable Gaming Market

dartttt writes "John Carmack recently presented a keynote at QuakeCon. He said Linux is still not a commercially viable gaming platform, and the two forays they have made into the Linux commercial market have not been successful. Valve's announcement about Steam for Linux changes things a bit, but it remains a tough sell."

Comments

Before someone is accepted, it's not accepted, duh

[Rosco P. Coltrane]

I remember a time when people used to say DOS is the gaming platform of choice. Windows? Good enough for shitty-looking Reversi and Solitaire, but not much else.

Then Windows became the gaming platform of choice. Sounds familiar?

What I mean is, if Linux is to becomes a good gaming platform, someone has to get the ball rolling.

Its a chicken-or-the-egg problem...

[dryriver]

Without a good selection of available games, many people won't switch from Windows to Linux. And if many people don't switch to Linux, game publishers will be loathe to port any major games to Linux. -------- Steam may change this. It may change it a LOT. Even if just a dozen or so AAA games get ported to Linux, it would be a positive start. ----- I would love to run Linux instead of Windows 7. I really would. But the lack of games and some other applications on Linux keeps me on Win 7. ----- Good luck to any Linux gaming pioneers. Carmageddon: Reincarnation will be ported to Linux, so that is one potentially major game title being ported to the tux.

Re:Before someone is accepted, it's not accepted,

[dingen]

The big difference is that Windows actually was just capable of shitty-looking Reversi or Solitaire back in the day when DOS was still the primary PC gaming platform. DirectX changed that and it was only after the release of DirectX that gaming on Windows became viable.

Linux however has had gaming capabilities for a long time, but still there's a huge lack of compelling titles. The reason why gaming on Linux isn't taking of is because of politics, not a technical reason like with DOS/Windows.

Re:After Rage

[oakgrove]

I won't mean anything if the only games they bring over is L4D2 and Portal.

That's pure strawman and you know it. There is no way that only those two games will be on Linux. Peruse steam and look at the games for Mac and that will give you at least an idea of what can be expected for Linux. Also bear in mind the relative ease of porting between OS X and Linux (kind of like porting between iOS and Android) and you instantly add a significant amount of people to your potential non-Windows user base which should have a nice additive effect and make even more games show up in the Mac/Linux column.

Steam on Linux is 100% panic from Valve realizing that Steam is about to become irrelevant.

I'm sure it started out that way but who fucking cares? It's happening so they might as well give it all they have and make it work. As a Linux user I benefit and will definitely buy games.