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Games Entertainment

Interview with LGames' Michael Speck 125

Posted by michael from the linux-has-games? dept.
Gentu writes "OSNews interviews one of the two more influential Free game developers for Linux today, Michael Speck of LGames. Michael talks about the Linux game market, about Linux's performance as a multimedia platform, his future plans and much more."
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Interview with LGames' Michael Speck More

Interview with LGames' Michael Speck

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  • Hopefully he doesn't waste any support money on frivolous expenses or personal gains...

    unlike this [lokigames.com] place
    • Previously you would have received numerous fanatical replies filled with personal insults and scatological references, not to mention a share of "flamebait" moderations. I can attest to this.

      I've been known for saying some harsh things about poor Loki customer service, orders of multiple products left unshipped for six months or more due to one product being held up, etc. And, boy, did I take a personal shit storm from many in the Linux community who stood up for Loki (and it's staff). I'm sure they had good motivation: to help the success of the Linux desktop through gaming. Unfortunately for the community, the company was run by a scam artist. I mean, what else do you call a guy who doesn't pay his employees for months on end, gets another employee to pony up with his personal credit card for payroll expenses, and never pays the guy a dime back? Scumbag comes to mind.

      Yet, even in the worst of circumstances the engineers at Loki produced much wonderful work. They deserve real community kudos for their porting success, especially in the face of Scott's and Kayt's shenanigans. I still enjoy a few of the twelve or so games I bought from them, and I'm glad I tried to honestly support Linux gaming. I bought games from Loki on impulse, happy to know that the money was going toward a community effort. Sadly, I should have just donated the money to the EFF, FSF, EPIC, Debian, or whatever. Transgaming looks like the place to be for now, and that bunch seems to publicly work with the community a whole lot closer than Loki ever did. When I get a better machine I'll subscribe to their service.

      I still think there's a good future for playing commercial games on x86/Linux. I'm glad another company has stepped up into Loki's shoes (just like economists predict). But I hope the community learns a good lesson from Loki and recognizes that every company must both serve its market and behave with a good set of ethical guidelines, or it will (in the long run) go out of business with massive damage to its employees and customers.

      Loki did neither, due to lapses in it's management. Sadly, this kind of ethical failure isn't limited to the Linux community (where so many thought it was too small to be affected by corporate malfeasance), as the likes of Global crossing, Enron, Tyco (and on and on and on) shows.

      I should note that I never worked for Loki or knew any of the participants at the company. I'm simply a customer who some time back felt completely fucked over by their customer service, or lack thereof. So I got pissed and wrote about it. But the news reports which have come out since show how little Draeker thought of the community, and how willing he was to screw over his own staff and customers without regard to basic business ethics. It's an honest shame for the community, and one we should face up to -- lest it should happen again.

      --Maynard
      • Transgaming looks like the place to be for now, and that bunch seems to publicly work with the community a whole lot closer than Loki ever did.

        Errm... Transgaming aren't exactly whiter than white in that regard, having refused to give back their Direct X code to the Wine community (for sound economic reasons, sure, but then so are most unethical business practices). I understand they're in a tricky situation, and are contributing back as much as they feel able, but they're not exactly model citizens...

        • Well, Loki never gave ANY of their game code (not that I would have expected them to), so when he says they work more closely with the community, that still seems like a fair statement. And, if they run out of money, it seems reasonable to assume that they will give the rest of their code away. So, supporting Transgaming is more likely to result in permanent benefits to the Linux community than Loki, I think.
        • Errm... Transgaming aren't exactly whiter than white in that regard, having refused to give back their Direct X code to the Wine community (for sound economic reasons, sure, but then so are most unethical business practices).
          I like their voting system, which allows customers to decide on which games they will try to support. That definitely connects them closer to their community than the average software company; most usually just offering a product, take it or leave it.

          Also: I'm not opposed to a company making money off of BSD or LGPL licenced code. I don't see anything wrong in Transgaming's behavior, as long as they legally meet all licensing restrictions for any code they expropriate into their product. BSD code is licensed such for that very purpose; it is at least one valid expression of the word "freedom". Transgaming, or any other company, owes no code back to the community unless the license says so. To expect them to do otherwise, even when they only used code which was licensed specifically so they could choose not to do so, I think passes into the land of zealotry. Particularly when trying to compare such intended practices with the plain -- outright -- fraud that was Enron. No way.

          I wish Transgaming they best. May they see many profitable years servicing their market, and may many happy Linux users keep gaming -- whoever may enter the market later on.

          Cheers,
          --Maynard

          • Hey fucktard, he compared loki with enron not transgaming.
            • "Hey fucktard, he compared loki with enron not transgaming."
              I compared Loki with Enron in a reply to skydude_20.

              Then Tet wrote back:
              "Errm... Transgaming aren't exactly whiter than white in that regard, having refused to give back their Direct X code to the Wine community (for sound economic reasons, sure, but then so are most unethical business practices). I understand they're in a tricky situation, and are contributing back as much as they feel able, but they're not exactly model citizens..."
              He -- by implication -- suggested that by not giving back source, Transgaming is engaging in an "unethical business practice"... suggestive of something similar to Enron's business practices given the thread of the discussion, though not explicitely stated. I disagree with that position, because not only are what they doing legal, but they are following the intended purpose of the Wine developers as expressed by the their chosen license. JMO.

              'Nother thing... Hey -- it's a nit pick -- but just where did you learn your manners? --M

              ps - I know, IHBT
    • I personally think that Loki's behavior as a company shows they had a lot more problems than a rumored bad leader. They ported game after game, without paying their programmers? Not being ABLE to? And no one questioned they they kept agreeing to more and more contracts to port games that they would have to pay back as well as their own people? And no one there questioned this? I'm sorry but it's impossible for this to be one mans fault. I'm tired of hearing pathetic excuses made by linux zealots. It's never linux or the community's fault that something falls though, it's always microsoft or some other nonsense. Zealots of all OSes are worthless, Windows, Mac, Linux, etc. None do any good for anyone.
  • You commie. Pacman is as American as apple pie! Oh... wait a sec...
  • Tetris over Pacman?
    Blasphemy!
    • Agreed.

      Even Ms. Pacman was better.
    • I actually like them both. I just purchased two SNES controllers to continue my addiction there, but I also own a cocktail table Ms. Pacman machine (it needs some repairs but does work).

      Whereas Tetris is fun, it is monotonous. Ms. Pacman owns you ;)

  • audio in linux (Score:2, Informative)

    by dcstimm ( 556797 )
    he couldnt find a good audio mixer for linux, so he had to use windows shareware to create the audio in his games. Hopefully reborn 1.0 and audicity 1.0 will fix his problem..
    • Audacity [sourceforge.net] has been GREAT. I normally use random sounds I find on free sound archives on the 'net, but Audacity has been letting me create and tweak some of my own, original sound effects. It has a long way to go (it crashes on me sometimes, and there's not NEARLY enough filters and effects yet), but it's been #2 to The Gimp for me lately.
    • It will if they remove the insane and outrageous dependancies...

      All this comes to the same problem linux has.. The developers releasing the programs are too busy or outright don't want to release anything that can be easily used by the users.... (Except anything from loki,OpenOffice.org, Mozilla) statically linked binaries in a nice wrapper (rpm is even a good one if you are pressed for time... otherwise use the loki installer!)

      Linux will lag way behind in most everything until the developers get statically linked version out that are not too painless to install.

  • OK (Score:3, Insightful)

    by thasmudyan ( 460603 ) <thasmudyan@openfu. c o m> on Sunday August 11, 2002 @04:51PM (#4051458)
    Michael seems to be a nice guy allright. And the games he did are really enjoyable little funny things. And it's clear hat he knows more about programming than me or 98% of the SlashDot crowd. ...BUT it REALLY surprises me that he is attributed "one of the two more influential Free game developers for Linux today". Look at a professional games developer for comparison and you know what I mean. I'm sure there would be a lot of fun games around if there where more people like Michael Speck but he has not yet done anything of (even moderately) big scope in the gaming scene. I'm only writing this because the SlashDot article implicitly suggested there was an interview with some sort of Linux games guru, when instead there was an interview with a gifted young hobby programmer learning his way through the SDL...
    • So are they going to interview me next?

      -bill!
      (not sure I've "done anything of (even moderately) big scope"...)
    • Probably because there *aren't* all that many Linux game developers out there at all. I've thought about game development a few times, but it comes down to the fact that games take a lot of work to do, do less good for people than "real" software like the GIMP and bash do, and that there aren't a lot of game graphic artists willing to volunteer their time. If you wanted to make something like an open-source Fallout 2, that's what you need. There are plenty of programmers -- not nearly enough artists involved. I think that some of this can be aleviated by producing better tools for them (or perhaps this is just wishful thinking, as I program). Make GIMP better, get more graphic artists on Linux willing to do stuff. Want better fonts? Make a *good* Linux vector font editor.

    • [...] a gifted young hobby programmer learning his way through the SDL

      And so ? Have you forgotten how the best game designers started their career ? The ID Software programmers started by coding Commander Keen [idsoftware.com]. And who remember that the authors of Unreal were responsible for z-rated underdogs such as Jill Of The Jungle [mobygames.com] ? Honestly, I wouldn't be surprised if some day, we heard that the author of the LGames has been hired by a commercial game studio. In contrast, few Linux game programmers have been as prolific, and an awful lot of Linux games are horrendous (crappy or stolen graphics, no sound, early releases with no story or levels, bad gameplay, etc.). The LGames have at least the quality you would expect from a good Windows shareware game, while being free (as in beer, I mean) at the same time. Could you name many other influential Linux game designers that lie in the realm of Open Source ? If you take out the library programmers (Sam Lantinga/SDL, Shawn Hargreaves/Allegro, Jorrit Tyberghein/Crystal Space, Brian Paul/Mesa), the programmers of big (or considered so) projects that are heard of frequently (FreeCraft, FreeCiv, FlightGear, WorldForge,...), there is not many people left. So, I *definitely* think that interviewing people that make fun games is a Good Thing. But the questions should (IMHO) be oriented as to help other prospective game programmers make their games fun, too. That would be more productive than a SDL-versus-the-other-game-libraries troll :-)

      Oh, well, just my .2 anyway...

      • I didn't troll about SDL versus other libraries at all, not in one word. All I was complaining about was the fact that this guy was heralded as some sort of Linux games celebrity when he is really not (yet). I have nothing against small developers, I think they are important, I believe some of them can make it big. I thought my comment was clear about that point.

        I don't know what is the reason people are always annoyed when I say something, even though I'm almost always nice about it. Like I get modded Flamebait in my other post in this thread where I complain about the heighest moderated posts not being about Linux games, but instead being about Marijuana. No seriously what am I doing wrong?

        • I didn't troll about SDL versus other libraries at all, not in one word

          And I never said you did. I said Michael Speck did in the interview (the point was that the interviewer should have asked more productive questions). I thought my English was readable enough to avoid misunderstandings. Apparently, that's not the case. I'll reinstate the standard disclaimer at the next post. Sorry.

          I don't know what is the reason people are always annoyed when I say something

          I don't know, too, since I cannot remember having read one of your posts since yesterday (I don't read most comments on /.). BTW, the things I wanted to make clear is that Mr. Speck is a promising programmer, and one of the most creative on the Linux scene. That makes him enough of a celebrity in my mind... As for you being moderated down, I think you can safely assume that there is a lot of unfair people on /. (they've invented the meta-moderation just to counter that trend, if I remember well). My post wasn't mean to be an attack on you. Sorry if you thought so.

          [ BEGIN STANDARD DISCLAIMER : this post is written in b0rkenEnglish[tm]. The speling as been corekted to the beste of our nowlege. Beare withe us if there are stile erorrs. ]

          • Thanks for the reply. I guess I'm a little over the top, recently. (It's not that I normally think all people are out there just to diss me or something...) You are right, I didn't read your post correctly. Ehem. Well. Happens. Really sorry. *apologizes*
    • Well, the Free Linux games scene is not very big. Most of the Free games available for Linux are, to put it bluntly, not fun. Some are not fun because they have performance problems (GL games w/o 3D card), some are not fun because you can't get them to work, some are not fun because they have horrible graphics (I'm talking to you, POV-Ray obsessed people!), some are not fun because they are just not good games.

      The L-games avoid all these problems. They are high-quality, easy to install, they work without 3D hardware, they have nice fast graphics, and the gameplay is there. They are arguably some of the best Free games out there for Linux. The guy may be a learning hobbyist programmer, but the fact is that he has created some of the most fun Free Linux games. If that doesn't make him a "Linux games guru" I don't know what does.

  • I know the folks at LinuxGames.com [linuxgames.com] call me 'prolific' every time they mention my name, since I churn out [newbreedsoftware.com] so many titles...

    But this OSNews article (I'm mentioned at the top, before the actual interview with Michael) was a surprise! Cool!

    And don't worry, I'm keeping it up [newbreedsoftware.com], despite worrying about my job [worldcom.com] and my wedding this October. :^)
  • I agree that Michael Speck has done a lot for the linux game world, but I find it quite sad that he's "one of the two more influential Free game developers for Linux today". I mean, I didnt know about this guy beofre this story was posted on slashdot (I did play LBreakout already, though). If he was programming those games for windows, he would just be considered "yet another amateur game programmer". My point is we need even bigger games, because frankly, we're not à at 'mainstream' or 'commercial' level yet. Being a game designer, I can understand why it would be really difficult to release a big Free (Open Source) game. (even the smallest games today have budget of million$) but we should still get support from major game companies. Transgaming' WineX is great but we shouldn't be needing it. We should make pressure on game companies to release a linux version of their games. How? By buying their games! Loki went out of business, despite releasing so far the best games for Linux. But the problem is not me not buying games, its me having trouble getting the performance I should have (with my 3d card). It took me at least 1 hour of messing with my settings for quake2 to work on my linux box. In windows this was a simple matter of clicking "install". I could get to play Quake II on linux, but I know, for example that my friends wouldn't because they could never fix the problems.

    Get gamers on linux, games will follow.
    • Even if companies started releasing their best selling titles for Linux, (and I hope they will, I am simply refusing to play or buy UT 2003 until it is port it to Linux, which may, sadly, never occur) it would not change Speck's standing in as a Free game developer for Linux. As for problems getting satisfactory performance out of Linux, I haven't had any real problems. Perhaps having to edit the XF86-Config file so the nvidia drivers work is too much, but every game I've installed on Linux wasn't too painful (Quake 3, Unreal Tournament, Return to Castle Wolfenstein). Given, however, I never tried to get Quake 2 to run.

  • Shame (Score:1, Flamebait)

    by thasmudyan ( 460603 )
    I cannot believe that the highest moderated post in here is a discussion about the political incorrectness of placing a pot plant logo on the bottom of your site (and how that affiliates you with terrorists), while on-topic posts about Linux gaming and Michael Speck's work have been virtually IGNORED. What's wrong with the moderators?
  • Because certain hardware vendors are still not interested in releasing proper Linux drivers for their video cards, or opening up the information to their products to projects who are willing to write drivers, we as users are stuck somewhere in the middle.

    I experienced this recently whilst trying to get my ATI Radeon 7200 working under Linux. ATI dont produce a Linux driver of their own for this card, so I had to use drivers from the DRI project. Trying to get this to work was confusing enough.. the main example of this came after I visted the DRI page to try and get some FAQ's to read through.. there I spotted a message that said something along the lines of "Dont use the DRI modules that ship with the kernel! Use these ones instead!" - well why bother making them a feature of the kernel at all? Seeing as you are all in one big boat together, why not get projects like this syncronized?

    I am left a little unsatisfied with the end result. I appreciate that the DRI guys can only do so much, but as I said the attitudes of some companies leave them in such a situation. As a result of this, my subscription to Transgaming WineX (which I hear is really good) has been wasted.. I can't get the card working reliably enough so I might as well just boot into Windows for gaming.

    In contrast, I attempted the same with my work computer which has a TNT2 card in it.. downloaded the drivers from Nvidia, ran their install script, and restarted X. I was greeted with an Nvidia splash screen and everything worked.
    • Even worse, the integrated S3 ProSavage 4 chip that's built into my laptop has _no HW-accel 3D whatsoever_ My only option is an $80USD driver from xi.com. $80USD!! That's a tenth of the cost of the laptop for a driver! What's worse: The 2D driver from Via that ships with XFree86 is buggier than you can imagine. Launching OpenOffice locks the laptop up hard. Luckily someone has fixed this, but I'd guess that there will never be HW 3D support for this chip under Linux. And this is a rather prolific chipset! Unlike you, I can't replace it with an nVidia card... :(
      • Even worse, the integrated S3 ProSavage 4 chip that's built into my laptop has _no HW-accel 3D whatsoever_

        That's nothing! the Hercules CGA card I have wouldn't even do 16 color VGA, even if I could boot Linux in the IBM/XT box it's in! Boy, talk about a lack of good open source drivers!

    • Matrox had good Linux support for a while, but this seems to have falled by the wayside recently -- perhaps they didn't make enough Linux $$$ to justify further development.

  • Influential? Why? (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Junks Jerzey ( 54586 ) on Sunday August 11, 2002 @09:27PM (#4052264)
    one of the two more influential Free game developers for Linux today

    I went to the LGames site and saw versions of Tetris, Breakout, the old memory game, and so on. Now don't get me wrong, I like Linux, and I like games, and I'm not a 3D bigot, but we're talking about stale old stuff here. If this is what an influential developer puts out, then I just don't know.

  • Speck makes classic mistake regarding market ... (Score:3, Insightful)

    by AHumbleOpinion ( 546848 ) on Monday August 12, 2002 @03:12AM (#4053044) Homepage
    Michael Speck: If games are developed platform-independant from the start which allows to sell it for different platforms in one package with one price then there will definitely be a market under Linux.

    As long as nearly all Linux gamers dual boot or emulate there is no Linux game market from a commercial point of view. Speck makes a classic mistake when determining the size of the Linux game market. The Linux game market is not the number of people who would buy a Linux version of a game, it is the number who would only buy the Linux version and never buy the Win32. He seems to fail to consider that replacing a Win32 sale with a Linux sale does no good for a publisher, there is no new sale.
    • The market for Linux games, or games on any non Windows / PS2 platform is going to be tough.

      The only thing that makes people want to play a game on an OS is the game. If Linux has Doom 4 before windows, or even INSTEAD of windows then te market for Linux as a gaming platform will burst forth.

      To have the choice of the windows of linux is, as you say, not advancing linux as a platform as the total sales are likely to be the same.

      Linux needs some advantage to become a serious games platform - and new versions of pong and tetris are not that advantage!
      • The market for Linux games, or games on any non Windows / PS2 platform is going to be tough.

        Not really, targetting a niche platform like Linux or Mac is a plausible way to start. If a company is developed enough that they can target both Win32 and Linux then the Linux sales often canabalized Win32 sales and do no good for the publisher. However for a startup making a Mac-only or a Linux-only game can be a way to fund and grow a very small developer until they reach the point where they can afford to enter the Win32 realm. Example: Bungie. The niche markets have far less competition and are less demanding/very forgiving of platform-specific games. Examle: Mac, Clanlord.

        If Linux has Doom 4 before windows, or even INSTEAD of windows then te market for Linux as a gaming platform will burst forth

        In the sense that Linux gamers who normally buy Win32 would buy Linux, yes, in that gamers would switch platforms, no. The platform switchers would be few, at best there would be a handful of new dual booters who would normally buy Win32. However, the whole concept of a Linux-first/only game from an established Win32 capable developer is dubious. There is no commercial upside, it would essentially be a large charitable contribution where you don't even get a tax write-off.
        • There is no commercial upside, it would essentially be a large charitable contribution where you don't even get a tax write-off.

          Which, sadly, is the end of the story for Linux. Unless there is a compelling reason, be it technical, ethical or financial (are there any other reasons??) for the best developers to adopt a platform it wont happen.

          If Linux had kick ass libraries and stability and development tools which created a dream environment for developers to ... develop then the technical side would begin to be compelling IF that environment was many times better than on Windows.

          That aint gonna happen. Sadly.

  • He complains a lot about dependencies.

    Whomever complains about dependencies is still in RPM Dark Ages, having not seen yet the dpkg light as witnessed by apt and dselect.

    Seriously, it is just another case of a half-baked industry standard namely, RPM long surviving its own due lifespan, thus becoming a hindrance to the whole industry and giving a bad name to GNU/Linux.

    Ironic that RPM was just a stop gap before dpkg was finished, or perhaps a bit of Not Invented Here syndrome.

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