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Are Commercial Games Finally Going To Make It To Linux?
colinneagle writes "Those of us who actively promote Linux as a viable desktop alternative to Windows are often greeted with the following refrain: 'Nobody will use Linux because there are no good games.' The prevailing wisdom is that the abundance of high-quality, commercial video gaming is a key factor in the market-share dominance that Microsoft Windows enjoys. And, in all reality, this is somewhat true. So, then, the obvious course of action is to convince the video game publishers and developers of the world that Linux is a viable (if, perhaps, a bit niche) market. And by 'viable' I mean one thing and one thing only – 'profitable.'Luckily, there have been three high-profile recent examples of Linux users going absolutely nuts over video games, forking over their hard-earned cash in the process: the Humble Indie Bundle (drawing in huge numbers of sales — for a DRM-free product, no less — with sales numbers by Linux users consistently beating out sales to MacOS X users); Canonical's Ubuntu Software Center (where video games make up the top 10 paid software packages); Valve's announcement that it is bringing the Steam store, and community portal, to Linux desktop (specifically Ubuntu). Will the indie game developers (along with Valve) reap the bulk of the rewards that releasing games on Linux is offering...or will some of the big publishers realize what they're missing out on and join in the fun?"
But only when they see that it makes sense and it will not require too much technical work to allow some! Ahhrg by the way! First post!
Slow news day? None of this is new or hasn't been posted on here yet.
See subject.
Seems like the case.
http://www.engadget.com/2012/07/16/valve-makes-steam-for-linux-official/
http://www.pcgamer.com/2012/09/13/steam-linux-client-release-looks-imminent-games-and-beta-spotted/
http://tech2.in.com/news/pc/steam-greenlight-lists-games-for-linux/435732
Be seeing you...
Now abnormally high number of people buy games on linux just to support and prove that linux is viable platform (many friends of mine). Well if there will be more games on linux either people wont be able to buy all games to support companies or it will actually attract more new people to linux and they will buy games and then linux will grow eco-boom style, but somehow I think 1 scnenario is more likely. Sadly.
Yes, the lack of commercial games is a barrier to Linux. It's not even close to the largest barrier to mass market adoption on the desktop: The largest barrier to Linux adoption, by far, is that your typical computer comes with MS Windows or OS X, and both of those are decent enough to do what most computer users want to do, which is check their email, stay in touch on Facebook, browse the news, view video on Youtube, etc. They don't need to make a change, so they don't.
An obligatory car analogy: If your Ford Pinto is still running reasonably well, even though it gets 15 mpg, you're probably not going to buy a new car.
I am officially gone from
... where most people thinks they are entitled to have everything free...
Most people using linux think"s" assuming the cart is before the horse in lieu of a viable gaming title is a bit premature. Let's wait until the steam port is done, shall we?
Python: 'And then suddenly you have a language which says "we're all stuck with whatever the whiniest coder wants".'
It'll depend on two big things:
1) The willingness of Linux users to pay for software. Big name games are not going to go OSS, they are not going to be free, they are not going to function off of donations. They cost too much money for that. When you sink $10-30 million in making a game, you have to have a way to make it back. Unfortunately I've met more than a few Linux users who think all software should be no cost, they are just unwilling to consider paying for something. Others will pay, but only a small amount. So we'll have to see how many people are willing to pay, if it is enough to cover the costs of porting and supporting.
2) Linux getting a better graphics setup. Right now there's a real problem with regards to using modern features of GPUs. The binary nVidia drivers provide OpenGL 4.2 and are fast and stable, but that is about it. So if a game wants to use new technology, and more and more do, then there's a real issue with what you support. Ask Mozilla about the problems they had with GPU acceleration under Linux. It was a case of "It works well with binary nVidia, but has X crashing bugs with anything else." That isn't a setup that will be ok for many game companies, particularly if the expectation is that they scale things back or do tons of work and hacking to support various chips/drivers, since that'll increase the cost of doing it.
It'll all come down to money, as it always will in business. The desktop Linux market is not that large so there isn't a huge amount of people to tap in to. Thus how with it it will be will depend on what percentage of people will pay, and what it costs to support. If a high percentage of people are willing to pay for the games, and ports are rather easy, then you probably will see it on the uptick.
I mean if I'm running a publisher and the finance people say "For about $50,000 in development testing and support we can add Linux as a platform and even conservatively we can expect $500,000 in additional sales, and $1,000,000 is fairly realistic," well I'll do it. Why not? Even if I'm looking at $100,000,000 in sales on other platforms a small investment with a good reward is a great idea.
However it is is more along the lines of "It'll cost us at least $500,000 to get everything working and there will still be bugs with AMD cards, and at best we could see maybe $600,000 in sales, but realistically probably half that or less," then I'll say no. It is not worth the risk of lost money for a small potential of a small reward. Just stick with the other platforms.
So at this point, we really can't say. We'll have to see how Valve does, and in particular some of the Kickstarted games. The Linux people were very, very vocal so many games added a Linux port. However we'll have to see what it ends up taking to make, how well it works, and how Linux sales of it goes. That'll likely determine if those companies try Linux again, and other companies will see their success or failure and decide what to do.
Geez, some folks have short memories. There already were plenty of commercial games for Linux.
There's no -1 for "I don't get it."
As of right now, there are few Linux games so anyone who makes one gets a large piece of the Linux gaming market.
If everyone jumps in on it though, that effect will vanish.
Linux has two main advantages:
-it's costless
-it's unconstrained
The costlessness attracts users who are total cheapskates and will not spend much on games, the above effect notwithstanding.
The unconstrainedness attracts freedom-oriented users who fundamentally oppose proprietary software such as for-profit games.
So a lot of the users are lost causes and will never buy your product.
On top of that is the unfortunate chicken/egg scenario with video cards and drivers. The major 3D GPUs were invented and developed mainly for gaming on Windows.
Nvidia and ATI don't want to write Linux drivers for their GPUs when no one uses them for Linux gaming.
No one wants to buy a brand new high end pc with an expensive gaming video card and then install Linux on it when there are no Linux games. It's like taking $300 and tossing it in the trash.
And no major game developer wants to write games for a platform where almost no one has GPUs and those that do don't have working drivers.
And on top of that video card's main reponsibilities - gaming and video playback - are both copyright-infested industries and as such there is DRM and patented code and all manner of such bs throughout the hardware and the drivers.
The right question is are commercial printer drivers going to make it to linux?
The best way to get Linux on a large number of desktops would be a desktop Android distro. And what would the killer app be that would make everyone want an Android desktop? Why, Steam of course.
Just as soon as all the major software libraries they might be using, as well as the common language ABIs (I'm looking at you G++) begin properly versioning and pre-requisiting themselves such that apps can be ensured to run across multiple distro versions without issue.
Seriously, I've got a half dozen old 'Linux games' from the first time around, and of those, none of their original binaries will run on a current linux distro, many thanks to libstdc++ changes (Terminus for example was I believe compiled against gcc 2.96, glibc 2.3.0(?) and required specific versions of other libs to keep from crashing.) Similiar deal with the loki releases, but they at least have compat libraries available that will allow them to work (except of course for the fact that they only have 'complete' oss audio support, since the alsa version at the time was the 0.5 API, which has been deprecated/removed for what... 5+ years?)
Going off of that I was talking to the main dev of musl a few months back, who was railing about gcc 4.7.0 and how it apparently broke x87 floating point support, by changing the default ordering of stack saves around fp calls, such that it would take a significant performance hit. Both gcc and clang (which thanks to the former's transition to c++ are closing towards 'feature parity' in perhaps a less than appreciated manner) have been increasing in code bloat, regressions and other issues for the past 2-3 years, rather than taking the time to build up a regression free base for any of the stable branches, they just spit it out as 'good enough' and move on to the next thing, a similiar problem of which is showing up in the linux kernel proper, as well as glibc, mesa, and elsewhere.
What's the point in using a piece of software that will be 'ready in a few years' if when those few years are elapsed they just toss it aside to work on the next big new thing without bothering to finish polishing what they'd been working on for years prior when they're so close to it not just 'working well enough', but being bug free? The notable gripes here being Xorg, Mesa (DRI1 videocards anybody?), and linux (pulling econet support because it's a 'security issue' when the code has basically been stable for 10 years? Nevermind the vga text mode polling support, for those of us who can't rely on a framebuffer being fast enough for console access... Hello Cirrus Logic Server chipsets?)
At this point in time open source appears to have decided 'since microsoft is eschewing backwards compatibility, we should too', despite the fact that if you're not abusing good software architecture practices by constantly changing APIs/ABIs all of that 'finished' code is 'maintenance free' from the point of view of adding any NEW dangers, but removing features is just a slow slide into proprietarism.)
it is not like most people will simply dump Windows because they can play the same games on either of them. If Linux want to really make a stand in this market it needs to make AAA game development much more profitable on the platform and have interesting exclusive titles. And this serves only for new titles. Windows has the advantage of the already huge game library it supports. For now all I can choose is "boot a system that run only some games" or "boot a system that will run all of them". If you consider only gaming the latter is much better without argument.
This combination doesn`t exist: ETIs that know about humanity and want to see us dead. Otherwise we wouldn't exist.
Some game developers might support Linux if it comes essentially for free - e.g., because they're developing using Unity, or the game just runs under Wine. But even then, with current adoption numbers of Linux for desktop, the cost of testing, packaging, retailing and supporting is going to be more than revenues for most publishers. Sure, Indie developers are loving Linux, but their costs and expectation of profit are far lower than the big studios.
It's worth looking at what's going on with the Mac. Around a quarter of university students are using Macs these days, yet the Steam store for mac is a pathetic shadow of the store for Windows.
I wouldn't throw away your Windows partition just yet.
These guys have been running since 2000. They not only sell commercial games ported to Linux, they do some of the porting themselves.
Oh, and here is their wiki page.
Disclaimer: I know the founder.
Operation Guillotine is in effect.
Yes. Most people only use Linux instead of pirating Win7 because they're dirty pirates. Makes perfect sense.
'Nobody will use Linux because there are no good games.'
Someone please tell that to my Frozen Bubble addicted wife.
That's our life, the big wheel of shit. - The Fat Man, Blue Tango Salvage
... when it comes to games. If linux made a performance distro FOR games that was significantly faster then windows in terms of framerates/etc only then would people think of changing.
No, not linux, get them to work with Gnome KDE Unity or god knows how many desktops, therein is the problem. Can you assure me that your app, audio and video will work with my choice of desktop?
No.
A big problem is just the concept of source distribution and the command line. Having to use a command line intimidates and confuses users, and compiling a program is just totally foreign and scary to them. Doesn't matter if you don't think it should be, it is. So as long as Linux has an attachment to this, as long as a legit response to a problem is "Oh just recompile your kernel," then it is forever destined not to be the everyman's OS.
People as a whole are not going to decide to get more computer literate any more than people have decided to get more versed in car maintenance, or anything else. Thus if you want to be the thing everyone uses, you have to be simple, easy, and non-intimidating. The command line and compiler are anything but. Even if what you do is automated, it is intimidating, and the number of times I've seen a supposedly automated build of software break down is very high.
It is no coincidence that as computer interfaces went more point and click, computers saw more adoption. The easier they are to use, the more accessible they are to the world. When computers first came out, and you had to program them directly in machine code using switches, there were very few people in the world who would ever be interested in learning them. I'm pretty geeky and in to computers and that probably would have put me off. Now that computers are pointy and clicky and quite easy to operate, they are something most people use.
So gamers think that they can make or break an OS? Methinks there is a somewhat exaggerated idea of gamer clout, as compared to the universe of people who buy computers. As the Big Dog says, do the arithmetic.
Namely Humble Bundles - instead of just, you know, pirating them.
so here I go with my thoughts.
I'd like to switch to Linux - not for any great philosophical/political reason, just I'd quite like to learn about it - and that would require installing and using it.
I'd installed Live discs, and dual-booted over the years, but never really made any progress after the first couple of days of working out how to do something and then giving up in frustration (MythTV, you're to blame for my last aborted attempt).
For me gaming is definitely one thing I want to do, and I know I'll have major issues with in Linux - but that's not the main reason. Well it's part of the main reason, which I will badly sum up as "There's nothing I need from Linux I can't do in Windows - and whilst there's plenty of tasks I'm sure I can get Linux to do, knowing I'll never get something I want working just makes it all feel a bit pointless"
Still not to say I'm giving up, just saying that my Windows install on my main desktop isn't going anywhere for quite some time. Current plan is to replace my aged ReadyNAS with a proper home server - and for that, Linux looks perfect.
I hear there is a great new game coming to Linux called Quake 2.
I think TFS misses on two big points that are helping to bring gaming to Linux.
One of which is Android. There are some pretty decent FPS games running on the SGS3 in 720p.
The other one is the OUYA project, which is also built on Android. They've already raised over $8.5 million and they havent even shipped a console yet.
Will the big publishers follow suit? Who cares? The point is a new market for gaming is emerging. Competition will allow new big publishers to emerge.
No. Not without substantial work on the graphics and sound subsystems. Who knows though, maybe Valve can get the ball rolling and make that happen.
Microsoft is closing the gates, and Apple did ages ago. But the big news is that Intel 4000 HD graphics are finally enough for most games. I've seen Batman Arkham Asylum, Call of Duty Black ops and Streetfighter X Tekken running A-OK on them. The drivers are true open source; which Valve has commented makes development much easier, and which levels the playing field quite a bit. So yeah, Linux has a fighting chance.
Hi! I make Firefox Plug-ins. Check 'em out @ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/youtube-mp3-podcaster/
A few years ago I realized the Linux had complete surpassed Windows when I bought Unreal Tournament (version?). I assumed that I had to install it on Windows and did. It took several hours to install and then I spent the next several days updating video and audio drivers. I could not get the sound to work and finally decided to try to re-install it hoping that that would fix the problem. I then noticed that there was a linux directory on the disk and that linux was supported. I rebooted and ran the linux installer. It installed in less than 5 minutes and ran perfectly.
I played Far Cry on Linux today (via wine), Minecraft yesterday (native), and Counter-Strike (via wine/playonlinux) the day before. A lot of commercial games run on Linux, but hardly anybody knows about it and even fewer promote it.
For example, Guild wars 2 has only just been released, but it runs. There are bugs though. What would be great for Linux gaming would be Valve investing in Wine development, and/or working with CodeWeavers on Crossover. Buy Jeremy White a Porsche and some fruity rum drinks.
At least not wide spread. There are way to many differences / dependecies to support from unix to lnux distro to distro and even kernel to kernel all which have subtle differences.
Sorry I Iove Linux as a server OS as much as the next geek but that is way more of a support / cost problem then the market will produce selling a few thousand games.
Sure some OS/ distro specific but not wide spread like windows.
Games are the only consumer software worth paying for. Most productivity software is worth enough that businesses are willing to invest in open source projects like Eclipse, LibraOffice, Firefox, etc, and everyone, including home users, get to benefit from that. And AS a home user, I'm a good enough programmer, that I can build most of the utilities I need at home, by myself. But I'm not much of an artist or a storyteller. And unfortunately, IBM, Google, and Oracle don't feel the need to entertain their corporate minions. What it boils down to, is that the only commercial software applications I've used at home in a decade are games, and then, only the ones that run successfully and easily in Wine (like the original StarCraft). Sure, I want open source games, but that's an awful lot of effort with no corporate backing. So whenever a commercial game comes along that is fun and supports Linux (preferably without Wine), I'll buy it.
for the most part its a pain in the ass to use that doesnt run the software people want, it doesnt matter if its games, photoshop or MS office, people are not going to put themselves in a position where they are subject to more grief and less benefits
linux is fine where it is, quit trying to shoehorn it where it doesnt belong
Teach the Create a Distro that safely handles hibernation under dual boot on installation, perhaps by sacrificing shared partitions; and advertise this magic to the public! A completely inobtrusive environment to your workflow (or inobtrusive + 1 minute to hibernate and resume back) would offer advantages to gaming in a single OS - dedicated console-like system configuration to gaming (assuming the distro was more or less gaming orientated, and protection from crashes/memory leaks.
In principle you would never have to restart either installed OS, persisting each desktop at each hibernation. A shortcut to hibernate and reboot (rather than shutdown) should also be made available. If more people understood how this principle worked, having a Linux install would be seen only as plus by many people, act as a gateway etc etc.
Linux isn't well supported for GPU's and I don't think it'll ever be any different in the future. Even if they were supported, how many people that use linux are willing to accept commercialization for their system? In order for great games and software to be released for linux, they will have to break the barrier and accept that paying for things is a necessary component for an OS.
I have a Hexxen box that says Linux on it. Maybe this is a new definition of "finally".
I'm surprised a Valve or EA has not totally gone with their own distro, with their propriety walled garden software bound tightly to it, but in a gpl-resistant way. sure, the kernal maybe Debian, or whatever, but they could maintain 3 versions - AMD, NVidia and Intel binary-only video drivers, and OpenGL-based engines. then they become as vertically integrated with a bit more control over their respective destinies. Microsoft is going to try and go all Apple-shit [sic] with Windows 8, and will make these game publishers just another vendor in the Win8 market space...
Wow, someone is really offended by the freedom of choice to purchase a decent playable production.
By the way little tagger, it's "donotwant", as in Star Wars Episode III.
That said, i'm all for it. We had the short-lived Loki then and the unsuccessful TuxGames more recently.
I know I shouldn't but
The difference between a Windows User and a Linux User is that while the windows user also wants everything for free too, as demonstrated by "massive piracy" The Linux user rejects pirating commercial software and chooses the honourable choice of open source instead.
People buy software for android, maybe pirate some and will use the ad supported versions too. Personally i've never had a problem paying for commercial software on android especially since it is licensed to me and I can install on any of my android devices, that may change with jellybean and licensing per device.
Maybe it is possible to do a reverse android. Android essentially uses java source to compile for android why not compile for Java? isn't the source for android available which could make it possible to target Linux and X11
Might be a fun project for oracle if they haven't driven off all the good Java guys from Sun.
Anyway regardless of that if you want to make a commercial software project for Linux pick something which isn't already available for free in a repository and that people actually want. Maybe the Ad supported model is workable too.
Blarney Quality Restaurant, Plants
Or a boot USB stick.
User gets a 'Steam/Valve' disk and boots it with some computer that he wants to make into his game computer.
Poof, the games starts, it hooks to the internet and he plugs in the fancy game controller that came with the disk. Install, what is this install? It is just magic.
He now has a game console that just happens to run the linux kernel.
AND THEN ONCE YOUR LINUX/GAME GETS INSTALLED, YOU OWN THE BOX.
Hello user. Finished the game you just bought/installed? Click here for another level. Or click here to painlessly purchase and begin playing our latest game.
Once you own all the boxes and the platform and the app store, you can stop making your own games, and just become a distribution company. Make a nice steady low risk stream of cash, and let the newbies try and die fighting to be the next stars.
Or you could be a dick, try to keep it all to yourself, see a multitude of platforms fight you for dominance, splinter, litigate and go no where.
Linux wants to be open.
And start out highend, exclusive, super nerdy, create some real buzz, get the techs and the nerds to be the first adopters. This is tried and proven. Then once the bugs are worked out, the interfaces are all slick, then go mass market.
The thing is that OS overhead on Windows isn't all that high. It offers pretty efficient access to the GPU, particularly if you use DX10 or newer (which games are starting to do more and more). So there isn't huge gains to be made in Linux. Even if you designed the most optimized path possible, it just wouldn't offer 2x improvement. It might not even offer a 5% improvement.
As it stands right now I don't know what if any improvements it would offer. Valve has a small improvement, however you have to remember that is with very old code on Windows, and a new port on Linux. If they went back and optimized their Windows renderer the difference might shrink, vanish, or even go the other way. We need more information to see generally if there is any performance improvement and from this data point if there is, it is probably quite small.
I see a few big problems:
1) Hardware/drivers which you touch on, but is bigger than you think. I am going to be all kinds of pissed off when I buy a new graphics card and instead of just working with all my games, but faster, as it does now, it works with nothing because none of them have drivers. I then have to wait for each and every game to update, which many, particularly old ones, won't do. This is a really major issue, PC gamers are not going to accept the concept of having to stick with the same hardware forever to play games, and having to give up games when they do change.
2) Multi-tasking. Part of the reason to own a PC is to be able to do more than one thing at once. This includes in games. With my PC I can chat on Teamspeak, listen to MP3s, and play a game all at the same time. With a live DVD I couldn't do that, unless all the programs I happened to want were included.
3) Game size. Many games are pushing past one DVD in size now. If you are doing a live system, there are interesting challenges to trying to have swappable DVDs.
4) Access time. A big advantage of PC gaming is having low load times. Things stream fast of a HDD, and lightning fast of an SSD. DVDs crawl by comparison. People are not going to want that.
5) Launch time. Right now, if I want to play a game on my system, I just run it. I can be in game in seconds. No big commitment, I don't even have to close whatever I was doing, just come back to it after. With a live DVD I have to shut down everything, reboot my system, and a slow reboot at that since it is off DVD, just to play the game.
6) Now the biggie: The rise of digital distribution. Gamers and game companies are all about the concept of direct downloads. That really doesn't work with live DVDs. Nobody is interested in downloading an ISO, burning it to DVD, and rebooting their system. They are interested in downloading and playing. Heck companies are working (with some success in the MMO market at least) on letting you stream in assets so you can play before the download completes. It is all about less cost for the companies, more convenience for the consumer.
The window for this idea is long past.
I'll make sure to let our Linux support lead know. He's been bashing his head against a wall trying to get SimpleScalar to compile on our systems for a class to use. I'll make sure to let him know that pnot says that 10 years ago you stopped needing to do this and the program should just work! He'll feel awful silly that he spent all this time trying to make it work when clearly it already does.
I picked this particular example, by the way, because it is the most recent that comes to mind, it was what he was frustratingly working on for a good bit of the week (and he finally did succeed). It isn't the only one I can think of.
As for the kernel, the last time I had to deal with such a thing was in about 2008, which is the last time I made any serious effort to try Linux. I was attempting to do pro audio work with it, since that is one of the things I do. One of the first things I was told I needed to do was recompile my kernel for low latency audio. After fighting with it for a bit I decided it was not for me, and went back to Windows, where low latency audio is available for any WDM audio device in KS mode.
... The willingness of Linux users to pay for software ...
Being willing to pay for a Linux version of a game is insufficient. With most Linux gamers already buying the Windows version and dual booting or running under Wine these gamers are already customers. Its only new customers who justify the Linux version, not someone switching from the Windows version to a Linux version.
Year of the Linux desktop!
The arch foe.
Because Valve is the only company out there for who the majority of revenues is dependent on selling other people's software through digital distribution. Most other developers don't have their own DD service (only EA and Ubisoft do that I know of), they make their money selling games which they can do anywhere, on Valve's Steam on MS's marketplace, in Walmart, whatever.
I also don't know that I buy Valve's argument that MS's store will kill them. It may well become the big way to buy software for Windows but that doesn't mean other ways won't have a small share too. Right now Steam has 90% of the digital game sales market. However despite that there is Impulse, Gamefly, Origin, Green Man Gaming, Uplay, GOG, and so on all which have a bit of the market.
Valve may just have to deal with not getting to make billions selling software from other people. That doesn't mean they'll go out of business, just that they won't be as rich. For that matter, they could always go back to doing what they used to do: Making money by making good games.
Also it really doesn't matter if Valve WANTS Steam to succeed on Linux, that doesn't mean it WILL.
And nothing has changed.
No serious developer is going to put a game on Linux. None. Not even Valve.
Do you know why this is?
1. Anti-DRM mentality of the Free/Open Source userbase
2. Hacking the game (which is why no Freemium/Subscription game will ever come to it)
3. No viable userbase.
Yes Android is kinda-sorta-Linux, but isn't. It may run the Linux Kernel, but it's only valuable in the walled-garden environment, not the open one.
Desktop Linux will never happen because only free games single player games will be released on it. These are normally single-developer games.
If you want to open up the developer base, Valve needs to leverage the Japanese Doujinshi-game market. There are literately boat loads of (semi-porn) games, and fan-games that make American games tame and shameful. How do we do it? Start pairing foreign developers off with english-speeking ones so that the games can be localized, or better yet, the SDL (Simple Directmedia Library) could make this possible and the various game engines like Nscripter can automatically separate their localizeable strings from compiled program/game code. If these can be compiled against a library that can then be sold or given away for free on Steam on any platform, we will rapidly see games available for Linux.
But no, EA, Activision, etc aren't ever going to port anything to Linux. The amount of people who can successfully install Linux and get a native game to work can be counted on one hand in a room of 1000. Getting a windows game to work on Linux is damn near impassible if it utilizes any kind of anti-hacking code (eg hackshield.)
GNU/Linux is a completely viable platform without a significant set of games. The MAJORITY do not game. There are numerous things holding GNU/Linux back. None of them are critical. What GNU/Linux lacked was a place to get computers, accessories, and support that just worked. ThinkPenguin is the only company with a CEO/leadership that actually get it and is making the right decisions. There going to bring the desktop to the masses. The founder realizes that the distribution is only half the problem.
They've already done more for the average user than any other company in the last 10 years. They've developed a sizable catalog and aren't just a “me too” operation. This despite no significant investment. Dell, ZaReason, Emperor Linux, Canonical and others don't get it. The leadership is failing to see the bigger picture.
What has made ThinkPenguin different is the company is working with critical players. Not the ones just giving face to GNU/Linux (ie Dell). ThinkPenguin doesn't work with chipsets dependent on proprietary software. Nor do they invest in or support projects that are in any way proprietary. This to the extent that a completely free distribution called Trisquel is the best supported distribution of any other. Yes- that's right. Everything they sell works with a 100% free distribution.
Guys like Mark Shuttleworth, Michael Dell, Michael Robertson, and Michael Cowpland (amongst many many others) don't have/didn't have a complete or workable solution for the masses. You can't just sell a couple laptops or desktops. You need a system that works today, will work tomorrow, and a catalog and support to go along with it. It's not just the software that matters. It's the whole deal.
The prevailing wisdom is that the abundance of high-quality, commercial video gaming is a key factor in the market-share dominance that Microsoft Windows enjoys. And, in all reality, this is somewhat true.
Clarify that statement please (and I say this as a Linux fan who also uses Windows at work, and supports my wife's machine). Because I know lots of Windows users who are not interested in playing games, some of whom rely on consoles for gaming. In addition, I suspect (I don't have any data to back me up - just empirical observation) a lot of the people who play 'games' are games on Facebook. Certainly more people I know play Facebook games than hardcore games (which, I define here, as huge games that come on DVDs/large installation programs).
And companies don't install Windows for gaming reasons. Hell, my local university recently switched to Windows 7 in all their computing rooms and labs (and they offer a Mac option at login). My company is migrating from XP to 7 (we have no interest in Windows 8). And they certainly don't want people playing games (well, most people can't install games on their machines since they don't have the necessary permissions).
In fact, I'm pretty sure that game development companies are OS-agnostic. Their product is games. They'll develop and sell games for any OS that returns more than it costs for development (or maybe, significantly more - $1 more is not going to cut it). You seem to be putting the horse before the cart - if enough people who were willing to pay for games were using an OS, they would develop for it.
Proves the problem. Linux users sprain their elbows they reach over and pat themselves on the back so hard because they spent $10 on average as opposed to the $6 Windows users spent... Except that $10 works out to like $2/game. People are cheapskates on the Humble bundle. Few pay what is actually a reasonable amount and many Window gamers have already paid more.
I've never bought a humble bundle because I have already owned any games from them I've wanted. Usually the price per game I pay is $10-20. World of Goo is one I remember form the first bundle. I bought it not too long after it came out for $20, and I consider that a good price for it for the amount and quality of entertainment.
So you wont amaze me, or developers, with tales of "generosity" of being only slightly less of a cheapskate than others who buy those.
In terms of AAA titles, they need to sell a good number of games for a good amount of money if they are to make back their investment. When you sink $20 million in to development and marketing of a game, you are going to need around $40 million in sales just to break even. If people will spend $40-60 per copy that isn't bad, a million sales or less. If people spend $2 per copy you need to move 20 million units, which only some of the very top games of all time have ever done.
But the reason I can't my wife (or family) to use Linux is more related to "Office products" When she deals with her college or girls scout office(she is a GS leader), they want "MS Office" only files. "Open office" won't emulate the latest version of MS Office. that pretty much is a deal breaker for her and it is just easier to use windows/MS office.
If you could reason with religious people, there would be no religious people
Fuck No. Oops. That was two.
Looks like a win-win for everybody. If you don't have to install the latest directx-stuff whatever on your windows, you can have different games using different dirtectx versions, whatever.
Just put the DVD / Stick and boot it. You don't really need to know that it's Linux which is used for that, but the Game-Developers always have the identical platform for everybody, no matter if it's a windows, mac or linux fan.
Here's a list of a few on Wikipedia, granted it's a lot shorter than lists for other OS/platforms.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linux_gaming#Commercial_games
One hurdle for the Linux gaming market is, at least here in Denmark, that is impossible to buy a computer with-out Windows (unless you build it your-self). This means that the statistics for Windows ownership (on PCs) is very close to 100%, and if "every-one" has Windows it seems like a bad use of ones time to make Linux versions.
Another problem is that illegal downloading is hurting the market already, so a large proportion of Linux users will have to play games in Linux, and a huge proportion of these are going to have to go legit, or the market will die before it starts.
Using the "Phoronix Test Suite" my PC setup gives a slightly better performance in Linux than it does in Windows, so the 3D graphics support in Linux is up to par. Granted, even though both Linux and Windows were last reinstalled at the same time, "Windows rot" could be hampering the performance... re-installation may speed it up.
If you look at the money spent on games on Linux. Compare to Windows. Drop in the bucket. So unless there's no development overhead to make a Linux version of the game alongside Windows, etc, I don't see many big game folks doing so.
'Nobody will use Linux because there are no good games.'
Sorry, but gaming simply isn't a primary concern of the vast majority of users when choosing a computer. There are lots of reasons that Linux has not 'succeded' on the desktop (and arguably in the datacenter) but gaming just isn't one of them.
There is a lot of issues with drivers and packaging with gaming on Linux. There are several major package managers. The top 2 are RPM and DEB. One easy thing with Windows is. You use one installer and it installs to Windows. You don't have to worry about which "distribution" of Windows to install too. That is unless you want to support legacy windows. Now before everyone gets into a uproar i'm sure it won't necessarily be a big deal to work with multiple packaging systems but it is a issue. Drivers are a problem right now, but, I think if game makers start making games for Linux then the hardware companies will follow with support for hardware for Linux. One big issue, though, that several people I know that develop games says with Linux is actually audio support. There is ALSA, OSS, Pulse, (does anyone use esound anymore?). Overall these are small problems but there is so much variety. That was a big selling point with Linux but for people who want a profit that is a lot of work and a lot of variables just to get one game working. I love Linux. I dual-boot but I hardly use Linux because I love PC Games. I would love for all my games to work on Linux so I wouldn't have to use Windows. I just don't see it happening until Linux can unify things. I think there should be One distro and one sound system. Let the game manufacturers code for them and then get the F/OSS people to work on compatibility patches for their favorite system. We could get more software/games into Linux and you can see have your "choice". If you want to choose which system you want to use then you need to make it work. That I think could work.
Why do people keep forgetting wine? Every day, more and more games work out of the box. Several high end big commercial games just worked perfectly out of the box the day they were release in recent months with no issues at all (ie: Mass Effect 3).
I think what's still missing is promoting wine if you want people to game on linux.
However, I should point something out; if you care about FLOSS, you then you wouldn't promote stuff like Steam (DRM-infested), which goes completely against FLOSS.
According to the majority on this forum, seemingly not...http://uk.gamespot.com/forums/topic/29290779/so-you-hate-windows-8.-you-stick-with-7.-flash-forward-to-ten-years-from-now.
Who uses the workstation/computer to play games anymore except online? My kids don't...