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CRYENGINE Finally Lands On Linux
An anonymous reader writes: CRYENGINE, the video game engine from Crytek, will run natively on Linux starting from version 3.8.1. Other improvements include the ability to run on the Oculus Rift, support for OpenGL, 8-weight GPU vertex skinning, and improved POM self-shadowing. Here are the full release notes. They've also added Game Zero, a full blown example game that demonstrates how various features of the engine can work.
I can haz Star Citizen?
Blessed are the young, for they shall inherit the national debt. --Herbert Hoover
What does a game engine "runs on", if not the CPU+GPU+display? Granted it's confusing the way it's written, but still.
Get free satoshi (Bitcoin) and Dogecoins
Sorry dated joke.
The Windows Store has Valve running for the exit before Microsoft turns Windows into a walled garden with a 30% tax, Apple style. Steam leaning on Linux to provide high-performance gaming experiences is going to transform the reputation of the OS for the mainstream.
Bitter, are we?
When all you have is a hammer, every problem starts to look like a thumb.
No-one is going to make a multi-million-dollar game for exclusively for Linux, but releasing on Linux as an additional platform can be worth it if the extra effort to support Linux is small enough.
It's not about Linux being this big juice target for developers, it's about making Linux ports a low enough hanging fruit for developers to target. Video game companies, like all businesses, are looking for a return on their investment. If the middleware you are using doesn't support Linux adding support is a huge cost with little pay off. But if all of the middleware you are using already works on Linux, there is a good chance the little bit of extra work you need to make your game Linux compatible can be a profitable endeavour. That is what this is about.
Linux has such a small share of the market it is silly to target that platform specifically, I mean Linux is only ~1.5% of the steam deployments. But if you can grab that 1.5% of extra sales for only a few weeks more work, why not?
releasing on Linux as an additional platform can be worth it if the extra effort to support Linux is small enough.
Why? So you can spend a fortune porting it, only to be hit with:
If the engine already supports Linux, porting the game won't cost a fortune.
a) the fact that most Linux users are cheapskates and rarely pay for software
The sales stats from the Humble Bundles suggest that Linux users do in fact pay for games.
b) the complaints that it only works on X and Y distros, as opposed to the thousands of others
Games typically ship with their own versions of all the libraries they need, so they don't depend on the way a distro packages libraries. In any case, this is something that would be handled in the engine, so it's not a burden for the game developer.
c) the stupid-ass Stallman hippies who complain that it isn't open-source
Any game developer that can't deal with people complaining won't stay sane long... ;)
Besides, real Stallman followers don't use the term "open source"
I took it to mean that games based on the engine will run on a strong enough CPU and GPU in a mode suitable for output to a particular display geometry.
Because you can't sell apps to people outside the Windows Store. Nope. Impossible.
This is in fact true of Windows RT and Windows Phone. Sideloading on these platforms requires a developer license, whose terms are generally restricted to testing purposes. But on the other hand, I wouldn't expect the devices that run these Windows variants to run any recent CryEngine games.
But if you can grab that 1.5% of extra sales for only a few weeks more work, why not?
Because of opportunity cost. Spending "only a few weeks" to port a game to X11/Linux for 1.5% of extra sales means you can't spend "only a few weeks" on something else that could provide equivalent earnings to 4.5% of extra sales.
No, the display device is only a part of the Oculus Rift solution. It also uses accelerometers, probably a gyroscope and an infrared camera for properly tracking your head movement.
The summary badly rewords the not so well written original. The actual article states, "With CRYENGINE’s update to version 3.8.1, the company adds support to Oculus Rift"
Microsoft, Apple, Google, Amazon what's the difference? All steal money from devs and control with walled gardens.
Someone is butt hurt.
I think both GoG and Humble bundle prove you wrong.
The only way it makes sense to grab that extra 1.5% sales that Linux *MIGHT* represent is if you can get it at absolutely *NO* extra cost. And that 1.5% is a theoretical maximum, assuming an extraordinaly high penetration level across all Linux users. In practice, the penetration will be just a tiny fraction of even that amount. Sure, the studios will take the Linux market when they can get it for free, but it's generally not something that a studio is going to want to invest effort in. Ultimately, that effort will still only translate to reduced profit because the increase in sales can't justify the amount spent working on the port.
Maybe there are game companies out there that like throwing away money, but in my experience, game industry profits run way too close to the margin to afford to spend any paid developer-time on something so small. If it gets done at all, it's typically by people who have a passion or love for that market, not by game studios, who are generally really just in the business of trying to make money.
File under 'M' for 'Manic ranting'
Unfortunately, yes. The money they invested in paying the developers and QA team for making and verifying the Linux port inevitably lowers the studio's ROI. Sure, it can represent some number of additional sales, but because of how small the market is, the royalties from those few additional sales (assuming that you even see any royalties... many of the games that I've worked on at the game studios I've worked at were outsourced to us from other larger studios, and we were just paid a fixed fee for development), are generally not going to outweigh the many thousands or even tens of thousands of dollars that might be spent by the game studio working on the port and just making sure that it behaves as intended.
File under 'M' for 'Manic ranting'
How is that fallacy applicable, exactly? I was talking about keeping ongoing costs down.
File under 'M' for 'Manic ranting'
Or maybe they understand long-term thinking. Only producing for one platform means you lock your fate to that platform. By supporting multiple platforms, you increase your bargaining power, goodwill from customers (who are often evangelists willing to spend more than others).
Also, maybe people like making games, like people playing them, and want more people to do that, and want to give their customers what they want, even if it's not the best way to directly make money. That will produce more goodwill and fan support in the long run.
Sure, you can say that's all optimistic bullshit, and maybe, but look at Valve's success as a company that does things with long-term gain over short-term benefit.
I know that you must like living in your data free bubble, but seriously, the data for this was easy and you are an idiot.
Humble Bundle all time stats
Looks like windows users are the cheap skates...
a) the fact that most Linux users are cheapskates and rarely pay for software
The sales stats from the Humble Bundles suggest that Linux users do in fact pay for games.
Not only do they pay, on average they pay more than Windows or OSX users: Humble Bundle All Time Stats
Obviously a game company should evolve to meet a changing platform market... but for now, in 2015, the market for Linux games is simply too low, and the royalties won't justify the money spent on making them.
There's that, of course... and I don't intend to dismiss such incentives, but that sort of concurs with the point I was trying to make, which as that targetting Linux as a game platform is going to negatively impact your company's ROI on development, unless your overhead is obscenely low... probably on the order of a one or two-man outfit.
In my experience developing games, while the studios and especially the developers may genuinely want to produce good games that people will enjoy playing, in the end, if they can't recover their costs for making those games because they've spent too much on salaries for the time spent supporting platforms with insufficient royalties or revenue to compensate that cost, then the studio can be in danger of going under.
File under 'M' for 'Manic ranting'
Not only that, but what happens if Microsoft actually makes their platform more expensive? Gamers would have the choice of buying the more expensive version or the cheaper Linux version. This assumes that the support is there, which I keep reading more and more about. I run Windows for games, but I absolutely love KDE and Linux and would switch in a heartbeat (on my desktop, I run Linux everywhere else) if the majority of my games ran in my favorite environment.