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Games Entertainment

Last Word on Loki 231

Posted by michael from the words-of-wisdom dept.
A random reader sent in: "Loki's public CVS and FAQ database are now being hosted at icculus.org. The information, and a bit of evangelizing about Loki's demise can be found on icculus.org." You might take a look at the Linux Gamers' FAQ while you're there. Update: 01/25 21:05 GMT by M : Scott Draeker sends word that there will be an "official" repository of Loki code, including apparently some projects that weren't finished, hosted by SEUL in the near future.
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Last Word on Loki More

Last Word on Loki

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  • ..... can be convinced to open source/gnu the game titles as the f'd news article or mail from Loki states these titles will no longer be available.

    This seems to imply they haven't found anyone to pick up and distribute those titles.

    It'd be a shame never to be able to obtain them again.
    • Considering the fact that they licensed the titles, and it likely would be a serious breach for them to release the code...

      I'd say no.

    • ..... can be convinced to open source/gnu the game titles as the f'd news article or mail from Loki states these titles will no longer be available.


      Uh, don't take this the wrong way, but do you even know what Loki is selling? Most of their products are ports of closed source windows games. They don't own the source code to the games. The original developers do. Therefore, were Loki to release the source code, they would get into very big trouble.

    • Re:Do you think Loki..... (Score:3, Informative)

      by krb ( 15012 )
      No. They can't, because they don't own the rights, most likely. The original game publisher will retain exclusive right to the licencing of the game product -- all Loki owns is the Linux-specific stuff that got written for the port, and parts of *that* are even probably unreleasable because it'd expose too much of the game's underlying, proprietary, operations.

      It's a damn shame, I played the hell out of Tribes and there were a couple other games I was considering buying when a few bucks came my way... guess I waited to long.

      But at least we get access to some of the great work they did release -- most notably SDL.

      R.I.P Loki.

  • One thing that will live on... (Score:5, Insightful)

    by FortKnox ( 169099 ) on Friday January 25, 2002 @10:40AM (#2900728) Homepage Journal
    ... is the SDL. Made by a Loki employee (forgot which one, someone help me here) to help the porting process for DirectX, I believe. Its a nice package for any linux developers that want to make games...
    • Sam Lantinga, I think his name is.

      Website here [libsdl.org].

      The library is a dream to code with. I haven't messed around with any of the c++ permutations, nor have I tried mixing in the straight c library with a c++ project...
      • Oh, linking to c code from c++ is always easy (as is the case with SDL, from personal experience). Now using a C++ library from a C program.... That is tricky... You either have to make some really strange looking function call or have a thin C++ compiled wrapper to get the symbol names to something a C program can begin to understand...
      • Using SDL in a C++ project is no problem at all, and we've about 100K LOC as an example. For that matter, GTK+ and libglade also work fine with C++.
    • SDL was started by Sam Lantinga. He now works for Blizzard on WoW (iirc),
    • SDL is wonderful, and is evidence that Loki's existance was good for Linux as well as other platforms. But also don't forget about the Loki Installer, used by Codeweavers for the Crossover plugin (as well as RTCW, among countless others), SMPEG, OpenAL, and *free* binaries to Quake3 and Unreal Tournament. Yes, there was a time when Q3 was box-only, but Loki supported Q3 well after that point.

      It brings me great sadness Loki is going. But thanks to Icculus, id Software, Loki, and all the countless volunteers we now have a much better platform.

    • Re:One thing that will live on... (Score:5, Interesting)

      by Lumpy ( 12016 ) on Friday January 25, 2002 @11:34AM (#2901052) Homepage
      SDL is an awesome platform and toolkit for games graphics whatever. It makes direct X look like a nasty hack. Best part is that SDL is platform agnostic. It dont care and happily runs under windows. Anyone that is into serious game development or graphics development is using SDL. as it's faster, easier, and darn it it makes you feel good!

      I tried for months to understand Direct X, and toyed with example after example... doing the same with SDL is tons easier and allows me to code the software in a real dev os instead of windows. (ok that was a harsh jab at windows... sorry... well. at least let me take back the sorry)

      SDL can be used easily by a newbie to C programming... something that Direct X cannot do.
      • It's a nice alternative to XLib too. You get virtually the same speed as with the MITSHM extension (which you use to get a frame buffer), without all the complicated cruft.

        And one other thing I really appreciate: If you need to get back into OS-specific code, SDL lets you get the underlying Window structure (X) or WHND (Windows).
  • I love the SMPEG libs - with a little help from a script and a XA-MODE2 reading prog, I made a tiny VCD player that plays from the CD.

    What I have to ask is: what about the other stuff Loki did? I'd hate to see knowledge lost.

    • Of course, if you want to do any more stuff with VCD and smpeg, PythonTheater/Xtheater is pretty easy to read and implements seekable VCD playback (http://xtheater.sourceforge.net/). Its code may be helpful in any enhancements to your app you might want to make. And if you run ROX, PythonTheater is AppDir based, so it's even cooler :)

  • Loki's demise not the end (Score:1, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward
    Loki going under is bad, really bad for linux, but hardly the end.

    No more loki_demos :(
    No more new patches
    No more loki usenet
    No more new ports from them.

    But we have Neverwinter coming up, RTCW, and other companies are still pushing linux on the server.

    The best thing us users can do is make sure we let game companies know that we purchased their game because it has linux binaries.

  • fire sale? (Score:4, Interesting)

    by Speare ( 84249 ) on Friday January 25, 2002 @10:46AM (#2900774) Homepage Journal

    So if Loki is going to shut down on 31 Jan 2002, which is six days from today, will they fully process any game orders made today?

    I haven't seen any termination warnings on their site to dissuade customers from ordering products.

    I figured I'd probably want two or three games over the next year, but this is making me think of buying some now before they're gone.

  • Timing is everything (Score:2, Interesting)

    by nixadmin ( 553533 )
    I think if Loki was just getting started today their chances of success would be much higher. That's often the way it is in technology; the true innovators (Amiga, anyone?)are lost in the rush to succeed. It would have been nice to see Mandrake hire these guys to develop for their Gaming Edition [mandrakesoft.com]. Loki may have been the first, but they won't be the last..The best is yet to come!
    • Loki wouldn't be able to get started today. They wouldn't have the venture captial, and would die in todays economy. They sprung up during the dotcom hype, and that's where they got the money to strive.

      I agree with your general idea, though. They were just a little too ahead of their time. I wouldn't be surprised if they (or a clone) popped up in a few years, and was successful.

  • Piracy issues (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Alien54 ( 180860 ) on Friday January 25, 2002 @10:53AM (#2900817) Journal
    I think that it can be safe to say that we have a clssic case of Linux Uses shooting themselves in the foot. Why else would he be moved to say:
    1. Don't pirate software. Yes, there is truth to James Sellman's statement . Lots of Linux users want everything for free, and lots of Linux users are filthy pirates when they can't just get software for free. GNU and Linux were never excuses to leech everything. That was never Stallman's point. I should also say, "Don't pirate ANY software, Linux or Windows, or whatever." Realize that every dime you take from Microsoft through piracy is NOTHING in comparison to the hurt that you put on Loki when you burned an ISO.

    [...]

    3. Don't buy Windows games. I hear how people can't justify paying full price for an "old game" that Loki ported while they can't stop themselves from running out and buying Quake3 the second it is released at full price for Windows. Dear lord, people. I know that I'm part of this insane industry, but they ARE just games. You can wait for them, and more importantly, you can do without if you really really have to. You need to tell the companies writing the software that you want that you don't want it unless it runs on Linux. The ultimate way to voice your opinion is to vote with your wallet. The sad truth is that this means sacrifice. You aren't going to get Warcraft 3 on Linux, which means that you should never BUY Warcraft 3, even though it will no doubt be a great game.

    It is good to note that he does say "Stop whining. Loki is going away, and contrary to the image I've painted, it's really not entirely you're fault as a Linux user. There's no denying that Loki made some bad mistakes, and ultimately, Loki might be responsible for her own death."

    But I can't help but think on how some folks helped push them over the edge in a twist on the tradgedy of the commons scenario. Everyone can have some free software only so long as no one gets greedy about taking advantadge of the good will of others, especially when the goodwill is provided by people whose side you are on. sort of. kinda. maybe.

    • Re:Piracy issues (Score:2, Interesting)

      by Hamshrew ( 20248 )
      I'm proud to say that I bought all five of my Loki games. I was thoroughly impressed with the ports, and it's a pity they aren't sticking around. The best part was that they(usually) chose only the best to bring over, so us Linux users weren't stuck with mediocre games. Quake III, Railroad Tycoon II, Heroes III, Myth II, Heavy Gear II... these are the games I bought, and they're worthy of keeping installed. If I can find the money to buy these games on a shoestring student budget, why couldn't others?

      Sorry for the rant... it's been a bad month, and I don't want to see Loki go.
    • 1) Anyone that didn't see the OBVIOUS outcome of the GPL was a short sighted maroon. Stallman included.

      2) So if I don't buy a windows game I really want to play. Wait 6-12 months for loki to MAYBE port it. Then they dont, then the game is no longer distribution, (Which was like 95% the case) I'm fucked. I'm not going to purposely fuck myself for some shit company like Loki. If they can't get developer support and do a simultanious release of a game, then they deserved to dissapear. They weren't providing much value at all.

      Linux needs to come to me, not the other way around. I'm not going to spend 5-10 years of my life doing without, hoping, waiting and praying for Linux to meet my needs (gaming, coding, music production and art). And there's no reason I or anyone else should. Linux is not a charity case. Linux is also not (as /. posters point out repeatedly) a communist state.
      • [Using Linux is] doing without ... gaming, coding

        I find it very interesting that you feel that using Linux means doing without gaming nor coding. Let me guess: You live in the United States (more details on why I have this theory below).

        Linux has had a large number of games ported to it; I believe Loki ported 20 or so before going under. I find that this is enough games for me to waste far too much time playing; my open source coding project [maradns.org] would not be in its current state if I spent any more time playing games on Linux; and I only have two games which I regularily play on my Linux laptop. I have not had time to finish either game.

        As for coding, I find the coding environments of Linux extremely usable and powerful. For example, the Perl interpreter allowed me to create, within one day, a new unified documentation format for all of my program's documentation when people who translate my documentation requested this.

        When someone says "Linux does not have a usable coding environment" what that person is saying, in effect, is "I am not willing to take the time and effort to learn the excellent coding environments the Linux has". Which I find very strange.

        Programming, after all, is not like playing a video game. Programming is a discipline which takes time and effort to learn. The effort to learn, say, the Emacs environment or the most common Vi commands, is trivial compared to the effort required to learn how to write a usable and maintainable computer program.

        My general experience is that Europians are generally more willing to take the time and effort to learn the language of Linux; most of the people who are helping me out with my open-source project are from Europe. I think this is because most Europians have had to learn one or more foreign languages; learning a foreign language makes one intently aware of the time and effort needed to accomplish something truly worth accomplishing.

        Programming code is not like watching "Allie McBeal" on TV; my general experience is that people who need automated tools to generate code write code that is inefficient, difficult to read, and unmaintainable.

        Linux is not a charity case

        The free software foundation is, in fact, a charity.

        - Sam

        • Linux is not a charity case
          The free software foundation is, in fact, a charity.
          The FSF is not Linux. Linux development may depend upon FSF-sponsored tools, and Linux distributions may include FSF-sponsored code, but that still does not make Linux a chairity case.

        • Ah! Another chance for Europeans to slam Americans (Score:4, Insightful)

          by yakfacts ( 201409 ) on Friday January 25, 2002 @05:27PM (#2903708)
          So I'm just curious...do you use assume all idiots (like the poster) to be Americans?

          This seems to be a very popular among the English, who badmouth Americans for being violent while their own fine English football fans murder people in stadiums. Then they talk about how Americans are crude and stupid while they let their elderly citizens die forgotten on a hospital trolly waiting 60 hours for treatment of a stroke.

          There are 260 million Americans, give-or-take. Perhaps you should not paint us all with the same brush.

          Stupid Americans started the Open Source movment, wrote Unix, and provided most of those neat tools that Linux was later based on. Not to mention the bloody internet you are using now.
          • I rise to the bait... I can't think of any case in recent history where a British football fan has murdered another fan in the stadium. In fact, the most recent case I can remember about a football fan being murdered was the Leeds fan killed in Turkey when they were playing against Galataseray(sp?).

            As for the elderly citizens being left forgotten, you should see the furore at the moment where one woman's case has been hijacked as a political pawn by the main parties. Bloody politicians...

        • Programming code is not like watching "Allie McBeal" on TV; my general experience is that people who need automated tools to generate code write code that is inefficient, difficult to read, and unmaintainable.
          I agree with this statement, but I have worked with people from all over the world, and belive me, ever country has its share of programmers like this.
          and Yes I am an American. Considering how the WTO is set up, pretty much everyone is going to , in effect, be an American. I don't like it, but there it is.
    • The problem with asking people to not buy the windows version and instead wait for the port is that there's never any clue that a port is on the way. It's unreasonable to ask consumers to wait indefinately for every single game when there's only a small chance the game you're insterested in will be one of the ones ported.

      The only Loki game I ever got was Civ:CTP, and it's no coincidence that this is also the only one where there was good information ahead of time that a port was coming, so I *knew* there was a reason to wait. Plus they used channels that got the game physically present on store shelves instead of trying to rely on on-line sales.

    • 1. GNU and Linux were never excuses to leech everything. That was never Stallman's point.
      Actually, setting aside the inflammatory term leech, it was always Stallman's point. According to him, code should be freely available, to the end user, and the end user should be free to do anything she wants with the code, including and especially make copies and share them, whether or not the end user can contribute anything back to the community. He doesn't encourage breaking the law, but I seriously doubt that he spent more money on Loki games than the pirates did.
  • "Don't buy Windows games. I hear how people can't justify paying full price for an "old game" that Loki ported while they can't stop themselves from running out and buying Quake3 the second it is released at full price for Windows. Dear lord, "

    Dear Lord is what I say too. Computers are meant to be used, this isn't a religion is it? (that might be rhetorical) If I want to play the latest game I buy it, I don't wait for a port because ... well because anything. Granted I didn't buy a MAC when Simcity first came out (I think that was the MAC first game)...

    A computer can do no better than become an appliance for work / entertainment / education. For the vast majority it's about getting the task done, not playing around with the configuration.

    I am failing to come up with words to describe how foreign this statement is to me. Why should I wait again? Like he said, its just a game, I'll buy it when I want to play it.

    I don't see a life for companies who convert games to Linux and hope people will wait to buy them. Some will, but that market is extremely small.

    mark

    • Re:"Don't buy Windows games" ?? (Score:2, Insightful)

      by Anonymous Coward
      "I am failing to come up with words to describe how foreign this statement is to me. Why should I wait again? Like he said, its just a game, I'll buy it when I want to play it."

      He's referring to those gamers who ran out, bought the Windows version, and then expected Linux binaries for free since they'd already paid for the Windows version. He's also referring to those whiners who now want those ported games released for free since Loki's gone; they wouldn't support the company while it was struggling to survive, but they'll happily pick apart the corpse.

      I guess it's pretty clear that Linux users don't want good games, since they're not willing to support programmers long enough to port or create them. That's too bad, since so much hard work has been put into nice desktops by the GNOME, KDE, Xfce, and other teams, all for naught since the home market will never develop without games. Talk about wasted time. Talk about spitting in the face of the programmers who busted ass to provide good software, only to be told "I want it now, I want it good, and oh, I want it for free."

      Keep this up, and you won't have an alternative OS to play games on. If Linux development halts, along with development of user-friendly interfaces, don't go crying to the programmers you wouldn't support.
    • His point is, if you want linux games, don't buy windows ones. He's not advocating that everyone stop buying windows games, he's just saying this is something that needs to happen if you want linux ports to be a viable alternative.

    • You are ignoring the context of the remark. "Don't buy Windows games" is a perfectly logical and sensible answer to the question, "What can we do to help?"

      The whole page is based on a premise, which you arrogantly dismissed with your "This isn't a religeon is it?" flamebait remark. Of course when you dismiss the premise, nothing on that page makes sense. Duh.

    • If you are making this remark then you obvisually aren't one of the people who wished there were more games for Linux. The whole point is if you want Linux games then don't get the Windows version instead, otherwise the end effect will be that games companies rightly asking 'Linux users buy Windows games, so why bother developping for Linux?'

  • way to go (Score:1, Flamebait)

    by Ender Ryan ( 79406 )
    This is truly sad. It's really amazing that with all the ranting and raving about Linux that goes on here, very few people voted with their wallets and paid for some truly great products from Loki.

    I'm really disgusted by this.

    So, to all you who never put your money where your mouth is, thanks a whole fucking lot, hypocritical fuckers.

    Oh well, that's how it goes. You all better show some friggin support in the future so you can redeem yourselves ;-)

    • If you vote with your wallet, I don't think it makes much of a difference:

      1. If the company is HUGE, one person not buying their product isn't going to hurt them. Something that would hurt would be a class-action lawsuit or something similar.

      2. If the company is small, one person isn't enough when they vote with their wallets.

      I think in the grander scheme of things, (Loki's demise aside, and how the big companies continue to get away with crimes), corporate lobbying must be curtailed, campaign reform laws must be enacted, and the right of the government to revoke corporate charters should be fully reinstated.

      Oh and I am no hypocrite. I have bought many titles from Loki games. I fully supported their goals and vision. Sadly they are gone, but I hope a new company can take their place and do a better job at managing the funds, or at least try to change the perception of the "BIG BOYS" games companies (Blizzard comes to mind) that Linux ports are A Good Thing (tm).

      -fialar

      • Every gaming company Windows/Mac/consoles is either huge or small. And yet there are examples of both company sizes which are still profitable.

        Loki failed, not because of their size, but because of people didn't buy their games.

        They had great games. Well, these games were successful for their windows version. Yet for Linux, it didn't sell.
        • The problem is, most people aren't just going to "vote with their wallet" for a game they aren't going to play. Now, I believe in giving to charity and all that bit -- but Loki is a company. To every person who bought a game from Loki in a charity act, I have to say that you make me sick. There are actual real people who need your help. Not a bunch of programmers who can find jobs somewhere else. You like the idea? Good for you, that means you are a gamer and it probably doesn't count. You like SDL? Contribute to the development efforts, with money or talent, whichever you can spare.

          Loki didn't fail because people didn't buy their games. Loki failed because of an unstable business plan in an unstable and a poor market. There is no need to play games on Linux, only a want by a very small populace. I play 2 games, and I have a win2k partition to do so -- because it's just easier. I wish Loki the best, they really did do some great things, but gaming for Linux just doesn't work. Too many issues, and too different of a crowd than the windows gamers.
        • ...and there are various reasons that people may not have bought their games. There are various plausible explanations that don't need to depend on piracy or the lack of a viable market.

          Wrong genre. Wrong timing. Lack of proper distribution. Lack of proper PR. Game not popular enough even in native market. Got suckerd by internet hype. Made deal with devil.

          I ran into Linux users at LUG meetings that were unaware of the release of Loki titles or even of the existence of Loki itself.

          I also found the timing of Loki's troubles somewhat peculiar. They started to wobble right around the time they became involved with EA.
  • I feel pretty guilty now for not getting any games from loki. I did not pirate any either, but I feel like I should have bought a copy just to support them.

    I think the biggest problem about loki is that they were ahead of their time. In another 2 or 3 years I'm sure they would have no problem of making a go of it

    I'm sure another company will be able to step in and take over where they left off, expecially since loki has already made all the tools needed.

    This seems to be the trend for open source software companies, they make a product go out of business leaving their products available for the community. It's bitter-sweet, but I hope in the coming years that open source will be able to make a profit.

    • I don't think they would have "had no problems" in another 2 or 3 years, they would have had the exact same problems they had now. What makes you think that the market 2-3 years from now would be more favorable? No one wants to wait 6-12 months just to pay more for a linux version that will probably break when the next major release of a distribution is released when a version for Windows is 1/5 the price in the bargain bin and will continue to run for several years given MSs backward compatiblity track record.

      I bough Civ:CTP and Q3A from Loki because I wanted to see them do well, but the truth is the target market is not that huge to begin with and is also not so big on games. The ones that are big on games get their fix in Windows because Loki was too slow, the sad reality. Another reality we face is that Linux development in general is geared to open source projects, where breaking binary compatibilty frequently is at least somewhat acceptable, and API compatibility isn't much longer lived. Now with Loki gone, all those customers won't be able to upgrade too much in the future and continue to have the games they bought run correctly. For the most part, duplicate libraries can be maintained, but with a different libc major things would probably break.

      Linux gets very nice ABI/APIs this way, but sacrifices the ability to play nice with binary-only products, and makes maintaining and updating a product much more expensive to companies, since they have to provide so many builds and modify source to keep current.
      • True, but I expect linux will become more popular in the next couple of years. With improvements in user interface, ease of installation, and objections to MS's licensing, more users will move to linux. I think a lot of other things have to happen for linux to be popular, but there is a lot of push and pull factors to bring people to linux.

        once linux has a large number of users, then game companies will want to make linux ports. Loki has a lot of expertise in this area and could make good money at consulting for these companies. the development of the linux port would coincide with the windows port and people would buy them.

        Maybe I'm just being too optimistic but I would like to think there will be a day when microsoft will not rule the PC game world (and not take over the console game world either).

      • Actually, there are going to be less problems for anyone starting now. When Loki started there was no SDL; they bootstrapped that project. Neither were the distribution tools there.

        Above all, when Loki started, Linux was still rather difficult to get working well with X. Some things still arent 'consumer' level easy, like getting 3d acceleration working. But the XFree 4 architecture improvements solves a lot of the problems that were putting a serious cramp on the ease of installation.

        The API issue isnt really as big as it seems. The solution is called static linking. It's a disgusting solution but that's how it's usually done. How many games on Windows ship depending on specific versions of general system libraries? Trusting dynamic libraries is death-by-support for any binary-only release program.

        The situation is better today. Largely thanks to Loki.



  • "I have a dream that my four children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the OS of their computer but by the greatness of their games"

    With java games, or maybe new technologies, Mac, Linux, Windows, Playstation, etc can all play the same games....

    • "With java games..."

      Unfortunately I couldn't read any further of your comment as I was helpless with laughter ;)

    • "With java games, or maybe new technologies, Mac, Linux, Windows, Playstation, etc can all play the same games...."

      And they can all be crappy, lowest common denominator games.

      I am a game developer, and there is a reason why games usually target only one platform. It's the only way to make a truly great game.

      Let's examine a scenario of a game developed to run on every system:

      -game can't use more than 24 megs of memory (gamecube)
      -game can't use high res textures (PS2)
      -game can't have high poly counts (PC with budget video card)
      -game can't have complex interface (consoles)
      -game can't have detailed GUI (consoles/TV)

      Now what do you have left after this? Web games. I'm sorry, but web games will never match a true game.

      And you can't tweak a game to be optimum on every system, because there are major constraints. A lot of the time to optimize for a target platform, it requires specific art. For every other platform, if you want it to be the best, you basically redo all art development. Nowadays art and content are the longest thing to do, so you basically add another full development cycle for each platform.

      Platform independant (real) games are a pipe dream.
      • -game can't use more than 24 megs of memory (gamecube)

        -game can't use high res textures (PS2)
        -game can't have high poly counts (PC with budget video card)
        -game can't have complex interface (consoles)
        -game can't have detailed GUI (consoles/TV)

        Now what do you have left after this?


        Let's see: Pac-man, Space Invaders, Asteroids, Super Mario Brothers, Galaga, Gauntlet, Arkanoid, Warlords, Street Fighter 2, Civilization, SimCity (the original), Tetris, Zork, and the list goes on and on...

        I'm sorry, but web games will never match a true game.

        And by "true game" I suppose you mean the latest 1,000,000 polygon steaming pile of moose turd pie that itself panders to the lowest common denomiator?

        There was a time when you didn't need any of the above crap to make a great game. Alas, I suppose by "great" you mean "pretty"?

        Well, I demand more. Graphics ain't gonna cut it with me. And there's no reason why a decent developer can't make a great game while following all the rules you set up above.

        Wake up.

        Oh, where were we? Oh yeah, why Loki (supposedly) failed. Well, maybe if they put their product in Wal-mart right next to the Mandrake boxes they have there...

      • And they can all be crappy, lowest common denominator games.

        Lowest common denominator != crappy.

        game can't use more than 24 megs of memory (gamecube)

        No, 40 MiB (24 CPU + 16 PPU). PlayStation 2 has 36 MiB (32 CPU + 4 PPU). Xbox has 64 MB (shared), but its stripped-down Windows 2000 OS might diminish the advantage its extra RAM gives.

        Consider that some fun games have been made on only 4 KiB of RAM and 40 KiB of ROM (Super Mario Bros. 1 for NES) and that T*tr*s has been done twice on the Atari 2600, which had only 128 bytes of RAM and half a scanline's worth of VRAM.

        game can't have high poly counts (PC with budget video card)

        Street Fighter style games use only about ten quads on the screen, one for each player, one for each player's fireball, one for each player's status bar, and a few for the backgrounds, but that's about it.

        game can't have complex interface (consoles)

        "Complex" meaning what? What do you need for a first-person shooter? Two joysticks (one for move and one for turn), a couple triggers (fire and jump), and a couple other buttons (switch weapons, etc)? Want a sim/rts interface? SimCity for Super NES and C&C for PSX showed that sim/rts games can work on consoles. Or are you trying to make glorified chat rooms such as EverQuest?

        I'm sorry, but web games will never match a true game.

        If by "web games" you refer to games written in the Java programming language, I hereby direct your attention to BoycottAdvance Online [emuunlim.com]. It emulates real games for a real system, namely Game Boy Advance.

        Platform independant (real) games are a pipe dream.

        No, you have that backwards. Pipe Dream [google.com] is a platform-independent game :-)

  • Does anyone know where to find loki games online, besides their website? I'm wanting to pick up civ and maybe a few more, but they don't offer it for sale on their website...

  • Linux Gaming Kernel (Score:1, Interesting)

    by Anonymous Coward
    I think the best way of getting games on linux would be to make a kernel with all the sound and SDL etc stuff built in with a framebuffer driver for the chosen platform.

    As we all know linux compiles for a whole host of platforms (including a lot of consoles).If we created a standard platform such as this then theres a good chance that people would target this platform first. The idea of having checkboxes for selecting

    compile to...
    [] xbox
    [] PS
    [] PS2
    [] bootable CDROM
    [] Linux PC with Linux Gaming Kernel support

    We might even get to the stage where development houses put windows ports on the back burner (eventually).

    NB: I realise that all these libraries and generic non-targeted code would be slower than assembler directed at your platform of choice.

    Could someone who does game/kernel development let me know if I'm talking crap or would this actually work?
    • You could even, in theory add Windows to that list. If you design the application around SDL and OpenGL, it should be minimal work to get it to work under Windows as well as other platforms. One huge problem with the approach you suggest is that the game would have to cater to the lowest common denominator for all platforms. Running a linux layer on top of PS1 would not leave much room for game performance, and thus every version would have to look essentially as crappy as the PS1 version. In any case, for all but the most popular games, one platform is enough and further platforms aren't really worth degrading your flagship platform for. So in essence, it is possible, but I don't think you would have any takers with good games...
  • Whilst it is sad to see the demise of a company which was helping Linux in one of its weak areas, it has to be said that they were aiming at the wrong target.

    I think Linux could do with a killer *NEW* game, with leading edge features, which would be a reason for the gamers to at least make their machines dual boot. The need for new games is obviated by the fact that games date extremely quickly and look tired after a relatively short period. Unless a game is fairly bleeding edge it is unlikely to attract a lot of custom.

    Unfortunately bleeding edge games now cost real money to develop, and the first few such games to enter the Linux market are likely to lose money; how much depending on whether Linux users are finally prepared to put their money where their mouths are and actually fork out for something decent and up to date that runs on their system.

    • Re:What we need... (Score:2, Insightful)

      by Sloppy ( 14984 )

      I think Linux could do with a killer *NEW* game, with leading edge features, which would be a reason for the gamers to at least make their machines dual boot.

      This isn't going to happen.

      Linux doesn't have any of its own proprietary APIs for games. (Indeed, that would be very antithetical to Free Software ideals. It is never going to be able to leverage any sort of network effect to gain marketshare. You just can't do that with GPLed software; it's virtually impossible.) If you want to write a Linux game, you're going to end up using SDL, OpenGL, etc. And if you do that, porting your game to that other platform, will be pretty darned easy, because those are cross-platform APIs. I'll say that again: the best gaming APIs for Linux, happen to be cross-platform APIs. So the situation where Linux has a game, and Windows doesn't have it, so that a Windows user will reboot into Linux to play a game, isn't likely to happen.

      ...at least, it won't happen for availability reasons. Other reasons, such as performance, stability, security, etc. could still apply. (i.e. a person reboots into Linux to play a game, because the game happens to run faster or it doesn't crash as often.) And there are other reasons to use Linux as well. But the validity of all these reasons, has already been covered in a thousand Linux advocacy discussions. No reason to digress into here as well, eh?

      Anyway, the only way you're ever going to see someone reboot into Linux to play a game for availability reasons, is if you make a non-open API for Linux games, and deliberately avoid letting it be cross-platform. I think such an effort would be a complete failure. There are lots of people who use Linux for Stallmanesque reasons, and you would be in direct opposition to them.

  • I posted an order yesterday and I already have
    a FEDEX tracking #. Delivery tomorrow.
    This is the 2nd time I've ordered from them.
    I was happy the first time with the quality...
  • Unfortunatley it looks like linux / unix isnt enough a a gaming market yet, look at the usage numbers in you logs, Hell writing mac games is more profitable and thats sad. Its also sad there arent more linux games

    I bought RTCW, first game in 10 years at LEAST i bough, actually doom was the last and bfore that the Original Castle Wolfenstien, that said Im not a big gamer, but when I found out Linux binaries would be available, I plugged and bought RTCW, I am thrilled, games are a whole lot more fun than they used to be IMHO, Maybe Im just getting older an smaller things amuse me :)

    (SEMI)PORTABLE games are the ticket, OpenGL has shown this with the ease RTCW was ported and others have run under Linux.

    I looked at Loki's games, I certainly wasnt impressed enought to buy any, I demod the SOF, and found it....lame as hell, graphics sucked , and i was just early 90's blah. IMHO

    I wonder how much of Loki's failure was not related to their limited market but rather their poor offerings, its a chicken and egg thing, If you come out with the most Killer game seen at first for linux only, drag a little on the windows version, you are sure to gain converts if nothing lse to play that game, BUT to come up with such an animal takes big bucks and marketing dollars, distributin channels, and you cant get the cash without a killer game, vicious circle.
  • pretty effective comment on the viability of writing (porting) software for the open source crowd. One in-duh-vidual even wondered in an above post if loki would open source their ports. For the love of god! Seems alot of people here like to have it both ways. Better be careful, linux zealots, the market will soon decide for you.
  • When loki does eventually close down, what about all binaries and stuff they made for the games ? Will they be made freely available since we wont be able to buy them any more ? or will we all have to scramble to try and find Loki games at second hand stores and places like ebay ?
    • I'd say no. Every copy of a game that Loki sold sent money back to the original company. You can't give it away because the original authors wouldn't get paid. You should buy the games while you have the chance if you really want it.
      • I say the solution is for Loki to transfer ownership of the ports to the company who released the original game. If they want to release the binaries (without data) as a form of 'linux patch' they can, or they can sell it themselves.

        Some companies won't be willing to deal with the support, but if even 1 of the companies is willing to give away the linux 'player' part of the package, and sell the data on the windows game CD, then it will be better than the products disappearing forever.

  • Perhaps.. (Score:3, Informative)

    by OpCode42 ( 253084 ) on Friday January 25, 2002 @11:19AM (#2900959) Homepage
    ...we should start helping out the guys at Transgaming [transgaming.com] - they're doing great work, and for me it was worth the $5 subscription :)

    • Re:Perhaps.. (Score:2, Interesting)

      by Time Doctor ( 79352 )
      Did you miss the part about not buying windows games?

      Windows games DO NOT SUPPORT Linux.

      Paying five dollars a month to extend the directx gaming monopoly to our platform is most certainly not supporting Linux.
      • Did you miss the part about not buying windows games?

        Windows games DO NOT SUPPORT Linux.

        Paying five dollars a month to extend the directx gaming monopoly to our platform is most certainly not supporting Linux.

        But anyone who doesn't understand that the gaming business is 80 percent marketing and 20 percent gaming will have problems.

        Say what you will about The Sims under WINEX (Transgaming, which you can buy with a bundle from Mandrake - Linux plus a game!) - but the reality is that they understand WHAT the market WANTS.

        Sure, we ideally want native Linux games.

        But we're all gamers - if it comes out on Windows first, we'll buy it.

        If we had releases with special add-ons for Linux, that would have been a killer app. But instead we got a port.

        If we have Geek Party for The Sims coming out on Linux first, then released for Windows 60 days later, that would be a killer app. Since it's already coded for Windows, it would be a great marketing ploy.

        Buzz will save you. But you still need a good game with balanced play and scalable levels so you don't get bored.

        -
        • I'm a gamer, I don't buy windows games anymore unless they have native ports. I understand this isn't a widely held view, which probably contributed to the downfall of Loki.

          I don't believe we will get any games (or expansions) from Maxis/EA released for Linux first until Maxis develops on Linux first. Or somebody pays them off. I've never played The Sims winelib port, so I cannot comment on the quality directly. However, I understand by way of a third party that is an okay port. From this and my own experiences with the wineX cvs ("Building font metrics, this may take some time..." ugh) don't believe any winelib port can be as good as a true, native port.
          • It is an OK port. No font-metric bit, but they really streamlined winex for this not-port. However, it's still clunky, and it has the WINE overhead behind it, and you lose some of the niceties that the Loki games had (Alt-Enter, ^Z, variable output not limited to X). Further, sound is more likely to chop up even on a fast machine, and the input occasionally flakes out.

            But it is quite playable, if you don't mind the handful of ugly seams. (This is probably the best game experience I've had under WINE/WineX so far. It's still not as nice as the native ports I've played.)

            Well, I still think I'd rather have something than nothing.

            Gaming is a cruel harsh business. The money's been in the add-ons since back in the 80s, RPG, Strategy, or computer video game.

            Let's hope some will learn from Loki's attempts, and that eventually we'll get native Linux versions, hopefully bundled on the same CD as the Mac/Win version.

            Until that day, I'll buy what I can, but I'm not holding my breath.

            -

    • Re:Perhaps.. (Score:2, Insightful)

      by wetdogjp ( 245208 )

      While Transgaming's heart might be in the right place, I don't think they're following the right methods to bring gaming to the Linux community. I'm not the only one, either. Scott Draeker had this to say in his interview about Loki's demise:

      The arrival of TransGaming to me is the clearest indication that Loki failed to jump-start a Linux gaming industry as we'd hoped, because TransGaming has nothing to do with Linux games. Their message to game developers is: "Use DirectX and develop for Windows. We'll help you sell your Windows products to Linux users."

      TransGaming's strategy is the same one Corel used in its Linux applications business. In the end I don't think they'll be any more successful than Corel was.

      Though he seems a little bitter, I agree with the point that he makes. Loki's intentions were to bring gaming to Linux, not Linux to gaming. Loki made a mutual friend of Linux and games; not only did Linux users get a slew of great titles, but it made Linux more appealing in the process. Transgaming, in contrast, is giving us games to play, but it does nothing to help make Linux a mainstream OS to gamers.

      Of course, you may argue that if Loki was just porting already-made Windows titles to Linux, it wasn't really doing anything new. But the position gave Loki the opportunity to produce games exclusive to Linux down the road. Transgaming will not have that option on their current path.

      -WetDog

  • Why I didn't buy from Loki (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Genom ( 3868 ) on Friday January 25, 2002 @11:21AM (#2900970)
    Let me prefeace this by saying that I'm an avid linux user, and an avid game player. I'm (presumably) the target market that Loki was shooting for.

    Yet I didn't buy any games from them. Why?

    Simply put, they didn't release anything that I wanted to play. I had Quake 3 and UT - I didn't need any other FPS games. I had played Heroes III before (yes, under Windows), and while it's a nice game, it's not something I would be willing to purchase a copy of for linux - it just didn't enthrall me that much. I was a fan of the old Descent games, but for me they lost some of their flavor after Descent 2, regardless of the eyecandy that was added.

    I will admit - I was SORELY tempted to buy Rune - but after playing the demo, I wasn't totally impressed by the gameplay. Sure, melee is fun - but it got old after about an hour.

    What I would have bought (and still will buy, if anyone makes them), no questions asked:

    Ports of Bioware's Infinity Engine games (Baldurs Gate I/II, Icewind Dale, Planescape Torment) - these are, quite simply, incredible games. They have metric tons of gameplay, replay value, and storyline. That's why they're still fun today.

    Ports of Diablo II and Starcraft - yes, I know these are from Blizzard, who will never, ever, release a linux version - but they were DAMN good games that are still loads of fun now, well after the release.

    I don't feel bad about not buying their games - I refuse to buy something I don't want, even to support a company that *might* in the future produce something I would like to buy. While I support *what* they were doing, I think their choice of games to do it with was poor (albeit probably the only choice they had in this world of "Intellectual Property" lawsuits)
    • Then why are you complaining? Your comment is redundant and if I was a moderator I'd mark you as a troll. If you didn't like the games thats fine but if you wanted MORE games, different types of games and the option to run games on Linux then you should of coughed up some cash and bought a game and given it to someone who wanted it. Your comment says Loki couldn't have done anything about the choice of games to port and then on the same hand you scold them with the suggestions of ports you would of liked to see.

      Avid game player yes, avid linux user; I'd seriously question that. It seems to me that an avid linux user (I'd assume we are talking about someone who uses linux all the time) would prefer to have games natively ported to Linux. This whole idea of dual-booting to windows to play games makes me sick. It requires that I have a Microsoft license for windows and it also requires that I buy games for windows, which means I'm supporting the windows platform which god strike me down hasn't happened in 8 years and will never fucking happen again.

      Alot of you really need to either shut the fuck up about Microsoft all together or stop supporting them, put your money where your mouth is and bite the bullet and the industry will respond accordingly.. Bend over for the industry and they will fuck you.. Convient for them, convient for you obviously. Don't be a hypocrite, there is nothing worst. Lets not get into the right tool for the right job because for me Linux is the right tool for the right job in all areas. But you fucking dual-booters really need to NOT comment because you do absolutely nothing to help the primary goal of more native linux ports infact you do exactly the opposite, you help more native window ports.
  • A company is a legal structure, its nothing without its employees.

    The people that made this company great are going to still be around, and more than likely we're going to see some tangible benefits.

    A lot times a "company" is actually a limiting factor to creativity and certainly productivity -- the market-pressures to produce X instead of Y

    There is no doubt that the work done in the last couple of years by folks like Indrema and Loki have had an impact -- have they changed the gaming world? NO, but I don't know that should be a goal.

    With the advent of Linux on the Playstation I believe we are going to see a next essential stage in the evolution of games

    For anyone that has ever spent the time writing a game you come to a love hate relationship with device drivers

    The beautiful thing about the consoles is that when I write and distribute my UberPong game, I know that I can count on the bounce to be consistent for every consumer of my tasty e-ware.

    Tech support == overhead. the more overhead you have the less profit margin you have.

    So the company might be dead, but the technology and the people that can drive it are still viable

  • Linux Zealotry (Score:2, Insightful)

    by afidel ( 530433 )
    The author of the faq says "You aren't going to get Warcraft 3 on Linux, which means that you should never BUY Warcraft 3, even though it will no doubt be a great game.

    Why the hell shouldn't I enjoy a great game! Games are for having fun, relaxing after a hard day at the office, or for modern multiplayer games, for playing with and making friends. Games are not about what platform you support, I mean can anyone imagine saying I don't want to play Milton Bradly games because I can't use Hasbro miniture characters with them. No, of course not, you just play the game with the parts it came with. In a similar fashion, most people that are serious about pc gaming, and enjoy linux, tend to dual boot to windows for much of their gaming. This is the reality of the marketplace, and a large part of why Loki failed.
    • You make a good point, but at seme time you missed the point. What the author intended is that if you are whining about the lack of success of Linux games then you have only yourself to blame for going and buying the Windows version instead. Of course if you really want the Windows version here and now you obvisually have no reason to complain about the lack of Windows games. Put simply: if you want Linux games take a stand, otherwise do as you wish.
  • I see that this CVS hosting deal was announced by incculus, not by Loki. Is this an official new hosting site for the Loki CVS, or in essence a fork? I want to hear what Loki says.
  • I hear how people can't justify paying full price for an "old game" that Loki ported while they can't stop themselves from running out and buying Quake3 the second it is released at full price for Windows. Dear lord, people. I know that I'm part of this insane industry, but they ARE just games. You can wait for them, and more importantly, you can do without if you really really have to.

    I have never shopped at Loki so I have no idea who this guy is, but he's somewhat mad.
    I could almost agree with the first part of this statement, you can wait for games, however I'd argue that in doing so you loose a large part of the experience of the game; for example new games invariably build up a community spirit around there launch time which can dwindle over time, and may be gone by the time a Linux port is released.

    The final point though is what motivated me to post this.

    You aren't going to get Warcraft 3 on Linux, which means that you should never BUY Warcraft 3, even though it will no doubt be a great game.

    Talk about cutting off your nose to spite your face! Just because Linux won't get it you shouldn't use it.. we are talking about games here! People want entertainment and frankly I'm not sure many people care on what platform that entertainment is presented.

    I'm particularly interested in the emphasis on 'buy' though (implying you should get it through 'other' means), just after he talks about avoiding piracy.

    Ah well.

    MrChris
  • For one, transgaming. Full porting takes too long, while you port, the market buys up the windows version. By 6 months, the market was saturated. With transgaming, they have a chance to get to the market before it *completely* dries up.

    Another, Linux-based dedicated game Distros. You pop in the CD and boot, start the game, no install required. Make the PC into kinda a game console. The wide variety of PC hardware makes this not work that well however...

    Finally, a really good game maker with exclusive Linux releases. A manufacturer willing to essentially shoot themselves in the foot in the name of Linux popularity. Not happening, but wouldn't it be neat to see, say, Squaresoft Linux exclusive titles?
    • Another, Linux-based dedicated game Distros. You pop in the CD and boot, start the game, no install required. Make the PC into kinda a game console. The wide variety of PC hardware makes this not work that well however...

      OK, for the sake of this argument, we'll assume you're talking about a standard CD, maximum capacity somewhere around 650 megabytes.

      To get a minimal gaming Linux distro up and running, you'll need:

      a) the kernel and some essential binaries and libraries,

      b) XFree86,

      c) sound, networking, etc. drivers, and

      d) the game itself.

      Now, let's take a look at some sizes.

      On my current Linux box (RedHat Linux 7.1, kernel 2.4.17), /bin is 6 megabytes. /lib is 48 megabytes. /usr/X11R6 is 239 megabytes. Now, even assuming you can cut these down to half the size they are on my box, that's still 173 megabytes total. Accounting for hardware differences, you'll need to have *at least* three (3dfx, nVidia, and everything else) XFree86 servers and GL driver sets, for another 21 megabytes or so. We're up to 194 megabytes at this point, and it doesn't run a game yet. Now, you can't pull out a whole game to core, as most people don't have 400 megabytes of RAM to blow on top of the game's footprint and X, etc; therefore, to prevent significant performance losses, you'll need to store the game uncompressed on CD. According to the bottom of the Quake3 box I have here, an install takes no less than 440MB. At this point, we've hit 634 megabytes.

      This doesn't include audio or networking drivers, both of which are dodgy to get working even with human intervention at this point in time.

      In addition, you're going to need swap and storage space that work irregardless of the user's chosen operating system, and that's going to be another 2 headaches.

      (For the record: someone on OpenProjectsNet:#loki brought this up about 6 months ago, and I challenged them to come up with such a CD that would work on Windows, OS/2, FreeBSD, etc. I never heard back.)

      Let me sum this up in two words:

      not feasible.

      For one, transgaming. Full porting takes too long, while you port, the market buys up the windows version.

      Uhh, not if you have the miraculous luck to be working with a company that's not a bunch of idiots. In those cases, you can achieve simultaneous release across platforms.

      By 6 months, the market was saturated. With Transgaming, they have a chance to get to the market before it *completely* dries up.

      So, you propose to save Linux gaming by having people purchase the Windows versions in a manner indistinguishable from the other 95% of the public, then having them play them in a sub-par API wrapper layer. <sarcasm>Sounds absolutely freaking great.</sarcasm>

      I'm inclined to agree with both Draeker and icculus. It's partially the Linux gaming community's insistence that everything should be free (if someone mirrors news.lokigames.com, take a look in loki.games.* for all of the "free binaries" threads; you will find them).

      In any case, TransGaming is not the solution. The only places where I find it anywhere close to appropriate to use WineX is when I'm using free programs that are Windows-only (say, 99.999% of all 3D modelers (UnrealEd, QuArK, and WorldCraft, too...), media players, and installer packages for products produced by a bunch of single-platform ninnies), very few of which, I've found, actually *work* in Wine.

      In other words, I'm inclined to agree with both Draeker and icculus. The Linux gaming community as a whole had a great opportunity to make themselves heard, and they spoiled it by being a bunch of warez monkeys, Wine boosters, and dual-booting cheapskates. Now that Loki's gone, and there's one fewer company to mooch off of, you recommend stopgap solutions that perpetuate Windows-centric gaming.

      To quote the late Douglas Adams, "'Pathetic bloody planet. I've no sympathy at all.'"
      • As I said, the widely varying hardware makes the CD issue rather difficult, but closer to possiblity. As to the space requirements, that is not really the case. My X11R6 (with a *lot* of unneeded cruft) is about 98 megs, and you could cut out so much (most of /usr/X11R6/bin, for example). bin and lib could drastically be cut down (would it need a full blown bash, ls, etc?). You can build small, embedded linux systems now, in the same amount of space a directx install typically takes up on a Windows Game CD, the difficulty is on-the-fly configuration. You say you need to find swap and storage space, making it not play nice with other O/Ses. This simply isn't true (Well, saving does pose a problem, support of removeable media (i.e. floppy, zip) doesn't sound too appealing.

        Admittedly, the market of this I could see is small (why bother when I can just install it), but the concept itself is possible.

        As to transgaming, you can talk all you want about how they are helping perpetuate Windows-centric gaming, but lets face facts, no matter what linux game players do, it wouldn't be enough of a dent to make any game publishers think twice about what they are doing. We are too few to cut into their bottom line enough to make porting worthwhile (or even avoiding DirectX worthwhile). If we want to play the games, sadly, we are stuck with the quickest and cheapest path to market, which is the Transgaming bastardization of doing things.
        • Buying Windows DirectX games fills Publisher's pockets with money that says "Don't bother to use anything but DirectX, I sure don't care about any platforms besides Microsoft's latest iteration of Windows!".
          This is the fact: everytime a Windows game is purchased it makes the Linux gaming platform seem noticably smaller. Because we are fewer in the first place, it has an even bigger dent in what Linux market there is.
      • Well, I agree with most of your points. There are major problems to handle using bood CDs for most modern games.

        Many of these problems are not impossible to handle, though. Look at www.demolinux.org and the compression technique used by Knoppix www.knopper.net/knoppix (German -- translates OK).

        The compression technique used by Knoppix, for example, allows about 2G of data to fit on a single 700MB CDR. The speed loss due to compression is somewhat made up for by the speed gain from more data being transfered from the CD at one time. This method is filesystem independent.

        Details:

        1. http://www.aful.org/pipermail/demolinux-dev/2002 -J anuary/000437.html
      • It would be rather stupid to use X on that CD. The correct thing to do would be to use SDL, and then they can use ggi.

        Looking at a Linux distribution to find out how many files you need is about as silly as looking at hypothetical bootable-into-Quake3 CD and saying 'But my windows directory takes up 250 megs'! Linux strips down just as much as DOS does.

        I've personally ran Linux on 120 meg drives, and that install was fully usuably, which the 'linux distro' on the CD does not need to be. We're talking one statically linked binary here, no libraries, no /bin, and no X.

        It would be trivial to fit most of this on a floppy, not to mention a CD. They have boot linux floppies that have a ton of stuff the game CD does not need, and nothing it doesn't, except the statically-linked game.

        Now, swap is tricky, but, you don't really need it. Most game binaries are not more then 10 megs. You just need an intelligent way to load files yourself when you need them, from the CD. While this sounds like a lot of work, it would make the game run faster even without swap, so it's a smart idea anyway.

      • why 1 disk? many game today allread come on more then 1 disk anyways. you have an install disk that installs all your libraries,than a game disk.
  • Set you cvs client to Read-Icculus

    Am I the only one who got the old Phish reference?
    ;oP
  • The guy mentions:

    "There are still commercial companies and indie game shops supporting Linux that need your support. A brief, incomplete list is BlackHoleSun, IllWinter, Linux Game Publishing, iD, Epic, BioWare, Philos Laboratories, Mountain King Studios, Introversion, and PomPom."

    I went to the BioWare [bioware.com] site but couldn't find any Linux games. Anyone know what he's on about?

    • I hope you get to see this, but Bioware will be releasing Neverwinter Nights with Windows, Mac and Linux binaries simultaneously. I fully intend to buy it (of course, I have to resize my /opt partition first, RtCW takes up almost 1 Gig).

      Mart
  • As important and life altering as Loki is in public message forums there's still hardly anything in my life which they had a meaningful impact in. I never used their multimedia libraries. I never played their games. If the Loki brand was responsible for adding some feature to some library somewhere it was probably nothing that couldn't have been done under another brand name.

    Even if I played their games it would have been the porting, the final step in the game's creation which they did. Even if I used their libraries the functionality in those libraries would have only been shrinkwrapping for functions that other groups already implemented, whether it was the frame buffer device, the console, GLX, or OSS. There was nothing in their libraries that made them necessary if you wanted to access the functionality at all.

    The business model of the 90's was shrink wrapping and Loki did exactly what they were supposed to do to get popular in the 90's. Shrink wrapping and porting isn't enough to sustain a business nowadays but creating enough new functionality to sustain a business is impossible for most people.

  • I have a question which I haven't seen answered anywhere. What about all of the game patches? Is someone going to host those? I don't care whether I have to use the loki installer or just download them, but I don't know of any place to get them save loki...

  • Interesting to note (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Restil ( 31903 ) on Friday January 25, 2002 @01:15PM (#2901826) Homepage
    That there are people willing to do the ports practically for free, and still let the owner companies pocket all the revenue from the games, if only they'd be allowed to port it. And yet game companies are so worried about letting valuable secrets slip out that they won't let ANYONE see the code, NDA or otherwise. The silly notion is that even if someone picks up on a great idea, by the time that idea can be implemented into some other game, it'll be a good year later at least, and by then there will be new technologies and new hardware and the old stuff won't matter as much anymore. ID knows this, which is why they GPL the code for older games.

    Perhaps the linux community isn't a huge source of revenue. WHO CARES? If the porting can be done for you for free, then its all gravy. Same with device drivers. Nobody sells device drivers, they sell the hardware the devices interface with. And if they can pick up a new market without any investment of time or money and not even have to support it, how can that be anything but a benefit.

    And yet they hold on like there's some dangerous secret that might leak out and put them out of business. I must be missing something obvious here.

    -Restil
    • I'm assuming your driver comments are mainly directed at nVidia. I'll just note two things:

      1) They include a full, complete, liscenced OpenGL implementation. As part of this I am sure they had to sign an NDA, which included not releasing soruce code, possibally the whole driver. Realise it is not all their fault.

      2) There is actually a legitamate reason for not wanting people to see their drivers. They are one of the very few companies on the market that can claim a unified driver over a long string of device changes. This is not only made possible through good drivers, but throgh something they are doing in hardware. Perhaps they don't want their competitors to know what it is (on either end). It certianly is an advantage in many eyes. You buy a card, and feel secure that it will be supported in the future.

      Now not working for nVidia I can't say any of this for certian, but just consider it. Companies have valid reasons to keep their drivers closed.

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