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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?"
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...
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.
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.
Right. Let's just recall what you were asserting here: that the "everyman" won't use Linux because he finds the command line "scary". Now your "everyman" (who, it suddenly turns out, is also your Linux support lead) wishes to install SimpleScalar, a "system software infrastructure used to build modeling applications for program performance analysis, detailed microarchitectural modeling, and hardware-software co-verification". Despite his evident technical acumen, Everyman is terrified by the notion that he must run a compiler to perform detailed microarchitectural modelling.
"Sod this" says Everyman. "I'm going back to Windows!".
Then he discovers that, on Windows, you also have to build SimpleScalar from source. Poor old Everyman! He should never have applied for that job as Linux Support Lead.