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Games Entertainment

Michael Simms of LGP and TuxGames 202

Posted by Hemos from the making-the-games-work dept.
jvmatthe writes "The scene for native Linux games has been sleeping for months now, given the demise of Loki. Now LinuxGames has posted a very interesting interview with Michael Simms, who leads both TuxGames and Linux Game Publishing (LGP), which details his views on where Linux gaming has been, where it stands now (including comments on WineX), and where it may be going in the short and long term."
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Michael Simms of LGP and TuxGames More

Michael Simms of LGP and TuxGames

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  • "Michael Simms: Both Tribsoft and Hyperion entered the market with the expectation that the Linux games market would be proportional to the number of Linux computers out there. "

    It isn't? I would have expected that too.
    So what order is the function?

    • Re:not proportional? (Score:2, Informative)

      by Alranor ( 472986 )
      Somehow I think he meant that the ratio of linux gamers / linux computers would be similar to that of windows gamers / windows computers.

      Bit of an optimistic guess I think, given how many people who run Linux also have windows machines / partitions for gaming.

      • Re:not proportional? (Score:3, Interesting)

        by Anonymous Coward
        Bit of an optimistic guess I think, given how many people who run Linux also have windows machines / partitions for gaming.

        Linux's problem was that it was always a pain in the ass to get one of these games running. Does this version only work on Voodoo cards with Glide or does my Nvidia card work with it? Who knows? Who cares? People used to Windows games certainly don't. They click setup, the game installs, and uses DirectX and away they go. Linux needs DirectX or something similar to offer a standard interface to video and audio APIs. I suppose we have OpenGL but is there a standard audio interface? /dev/dsp? Still, if it differs too much from Windows then games will not get ported. We need DirectX on Linux!!!

        • Re:not proportional? (Score:2, Interesting)

          by BenjyD ( 316700 )
          there's always SDL, openGL/AL. DirectX is nasty - why would anyone want to pollute Linux with it.

        • Re:not proportional? (Score:2, Informative)

          by Jearil ( 154455 )
          OpenGL is a completely open system for graphical rendering that is a much better supported (both morally and via standards) for Linux than any propriatory system would be. Most games created now that have 3D aspects in Windows are built to run on either DirectX or OpenGL, which means if the OpenGL side was ported, it wouldn't be too difficult to run. Why make a new standard like a DirectX clone on Linux when a perfectally good ones already exsists? (aka OpenGL).

          As for audio, I've noted on more recent distributions that support for audio has greatly improved. Several applications support several different options for recieving audio depending on what system you use, but it seems to becoming standardized fairly quickly. (I'd post links but I'm typing this telneted into a Linux box and using links..)

          The problem I believe they were referring to with not having the right ratio of gamers prolly has something to do with Linux being more accepted in the Server market than the desktop market. I'm guessing a lot of companies that use Linux as a server probably don't also play games on them, as they are used in daily production and have more "important" tasks to do. And since the Linux desktop market is still relatively small, the market for games is going to be small. Also, a lot of linux users balk at buying software of any type for their box because of the attitude that software should be free(as in beer). Not saying that the attitude is good or bad, just that it makes selling games more difficult and the urge to port them less.

          Saying that I've bought several games from Loki that have run fine on my Linux box. Nothing like going to a lan party with a bunch of Windows people and playing some games, with people wondering what kind of system I'm running :).

          Food for thought.

          • Re:not proportional? (Score:3, Interesting)

            by 13Echo ( 209846 )
            I've found that Linux works wonderfully as a gaming platform. OpenGL apps are perfect, assuming you have drivers. nVidia, PowerVR, Matrox, and even some ATi cards have good 3D acceleration in Linux.

            Sound options are pretty good too. The default kernel drivers work well, especially with cars that have built-in hardware mixers, like the SB Live cards, and some Yamaha products. The ALSA project also has good drivers for some cards. If you want extra functionality, it is worth it to pick up some commercial drivers from www.opensound.com. I use these with my Santa Cruz, and have control over the front, and rear DSPs. I can spatialize my audio with my KDE mixer. The drivers also have a DirectSound-style mixer, which mixes audio in real-time, and routes it to the DSP. This is truely real-time too, not like aRts, which claims to be real-time, but is still very latent. The OpenSound driver is a real, kernel level module, with real-time priority. It can also mix over 50 audio streams at one time, if you pay for the "Virtual Mixer Pro" upgrade. Plus, even the basic mixer will route hardcoded audio that tries to access /dev/dsp to a Virtual Mixer device. All of this can normally be done for $25-$50, depending on the hardware and options that you want. It is worth it if you value excellent sound. Odds are than all AC-97 compliant sound chips will work with these 4-Front opensound.com drivers. I really advocate 4-Front as a provider for sound drivers. Their tech support is top notch, and they offer a great product, availble for most Unix platforms.

            With proper video and sound drivers, things like SDL make it really easy to run games in Linux. MESA 3D provides for great OpenGL acceleration, and is very fast and pretty.

            Now, if only game companies would get on those ports! I am ready to buy.
          • RTCW, QuakeIII, and of course DOOM in (svga mode). All ported and run beautifully.. I remember the first time I ran a game under linux. Unreal Tourney at 1280x1024 on my geforce3. Linux never looked so good. And with WineX support, it's only getting better. Soon that old windows partition will be outa date
        • Hello? Never heard of SDL [libsdl.org]? It's pretty widely used by lots of Linux games.

    • Hrm, I dunno... (Score:3, Interesting)

      by autopr0n ( 534291 )
      I've never really tried gaming on linux, but from what I've hear it's pretty difficult to get the games going. It can take hours sometimes to get systems set up to play the games correctly.

      I wonder if anyone else has other experiances. A lot of people belive that most linux users who play computer gams have a windows partition for that.

      But who knows.
      • Just like in Windows, if you have proper video and sound drivers, then it is pretty simple. Otherwise, you are in trouble.

        That's all it takes, really. If you can install video drivers, and sound drivers, then you've already overcome the only major obstacle. Many distributions, like Suse, Mandrake, and Lycoris, do all of this for you anyways.
        • Uh, Peter I disagree with that statement. The Loki Quake 3 CD script was BROKEN...had to jump through 18 hoops to get it to install. What quality of work there. Same thing with the installer for Unreal Tournament...no dice unless you wanted to spend 2 hours making it work (which I did). I can't see the average person wanting to do that. It doesn't matter how much this or that has improved because if it don't work out of the box it isn't going to fly. Linux gaming...what an oxymoron.

      • This isn't really meant to be a flame, but if you haven't tried gaming under Linux yourself why are you posting an opinion about how easy or difficult it is? It just seems a bit pointless.

        I could say something like "I've never really tried eating human flesh, but I hear that it tastes like pork", but if I were addressing a group of cannibals it would probably be a waste of everyone's time.

        • I've heard from people who have tired playing games on linux, assuming what I read was true, then my point stands.

          I don't need to have seen a nuclear bomb go off to know they cause a lot of damage.
    • And I have to point out that aiming a girlie soap-opera simulation at a bunch of supergeeks like me would be ignored. However had they aimed something like Eve online [eve-online.com] - I would have bought it in an instant.

  • Secondly, I would like to say to those that feel that sending flames to the publishers and developers of games will help to get us a port, it wont! Stop doing it, it just harms the reputation of Linux users. If you want to help, buy the games that are out there, show the companies that DO make Linux games that it is worth it, which will make sure that the next game they make is ALSO available for Linux. If you MUST contact the companies that do not make Linux ports, please do so professionally. Send a polite email asking them to port the game, let them know that LGP will port it for them if they have not got the skills to do it. Let them know that you would pay good money for it if it is available for your platform. But do it POLITELY AND RATIONALLY. And only do it once. Continued bombardment of a polite email is as bad as a flame. Remember when you contact a company, you are presenting them with the face of Linux gaming, so show them our best face.

    We as a community of users are still not being good advocates. It's more than advocacy - it's basic manners and the ability to communicate.

    If you flame or abuse somebody, you give them the excuse they might be looking for to ignore you.
    • Interesting that he still needs to say this

      Hmmm, interesting, but hardly surprising. The highly vocal minority of Linux Zealots gives the mass decent Linux community a bad name.

      • Re:Interesting that he still needs to say this: (Score:2, Funny)

        by Anonymous Coward
        Funny isn't it? Part of not wanting to use a Mac is not wanting to become a know-it-all smug polo-neck-wearing asshole. Part of not wanting to use Linux is not wanting to become a socially retarded acne-scarred adenoidal geek.

    • Re:Interesting that he still needs to say this: (Score:2, Interesting)

      by Anonymous Coward
      Why do you feel everyone *should* run Linux?

      Myself, I run Windows 2000 because it just works. Of course, when it don't, it don't, but at least it's polished.

    • You say:

      "We're a Linux development company and we'd like to partner with you to port your product X to Linux.

      "We're willing to pay you up-front for your developers' time to get us up to speed with your codebase and we'll take Y% of profit on sales of the Linux product.

      "In other words, we're taking all the risk and you can't lose."

      If they're not likely to make money from it so they can't afford to do it.

    • We as a community of users are still not being good advocates. It's more than advocacy - it's basic manners and the ability to communicate.

      While I agree with your comment, and the quote you cited, 100%, I think it should be pointed out that, by last count, there are between 10 and 30 million GNU/Linux users. Given the large population of the 'community' (which is analogous to the population of New York or Mexico City) it shouldn't be too surprising that there are boisterous idiots somewhere in the crowd, nor should a rational person associate the behavior of a few such idiots with the population at large.

      Unfortunately, one of the weaknesses of the human psyche is to associate unusual (especially negative) behavior of a few members of a minority group, such as GNU/Linux users, with the entire group while at the same time ignoring the same type of behavior among just as many (proportionally) members of a majority group.

      This means that Windows users who behave similarly (and there are plenty of those) will not be associated with Windows users, while GNU/Linux users who do so will affect the repuation of the whole group. It isn't rational, or accurate, but it is nevertheless real. Just ask any black person in America who has had to contend with stereotypes vis-a-vis crime or loitering, while the exact same behavior is ignored in the majority (white) population. They are victims of exactly the same flaw in the human psyche (though other factors, such as prejudice and racism, do exist to exacerbate the problem, so the comparison isn't perfect). Pick any other racial/ethnic mixture, anywhere else in the world, and the same phenomenon exists. The interesting thing is that the mind draws such patterns irrespective of racial or ethnic prejudices (a relative of mine worked on a study regarding this very topic, and the results remained the same when distinctly non-prejudicial conditions were applied, things distinguishable but having nothing to do with ethnicity or economic status. Very interesting stuff actually, but I digress).

      In any event I find your comment to be 100% dead on, but in fairness we should keep in mind just how large the community has grown, and just how inevitable it is that a group that size will contain a number of jackasses. Most importantly it should be emphesized (and probably reemphesized everytime this comes up) just how non-representative such behavior really is.

      • by last count, there are between 10 and 30 million GNU/Linux users.

        That's hard to believe.

        What are your sources? Why such a large margin of error?

        • That's not a particually large margin for error in these sorts of things. Can you tell me to the nearest hundred million how many Christians there are in this world?
        • Actually, I think that margin of error makes sense. It's hard to identify linux computers. They tend to identify themselves as IE on Windows just to get websites to work.

          And what counts as a user? If I have three computers, do I count as three people instead of one? Or if two are Linux and one is Windows, do I count as 2/3rds of a user for Linux?

          For Windows they can simply claim every sale (except upgrades) as a new user. It might not be accurate, but it's easier to count and harder to refute. (Despite the fact that by this logic I count as six MS users, because of computers at work that came with OSes despite being turned into Linux boxes.)

          Rather, I'd be suspicious of anyone claiming to have accurate numbers.
      • I didn't even read this guy post, but here's my prediction:
        It is over two paragraphgs, so it will get modded to +5... no disrespect to the poster, it might be a great discussion... but anyone else notice how that always happens? Oh well...

  • Id love to see (Score:1, Interesting)

    by sjwt ( 161428 )
    A linux game that ends up being
    massivly populare and ported to
    most Windows systems out there :)

    that would be cool :)

    • Re:Id love to see (Score:1, Funny)

      by Anonymous Coward
      dopewars for windows kicks ass over the unix version. Ditto for nethack (no url available, sorry.).
    • Quite right, after all it's applications that sell the platform. (Remember Lotus 1-2-3?) So what code have you written and where can we go to contribute?

  • Mac OSX (Score:3, Insightful)

    by CountBrass ( 590228 ) on Wednesday August 28, 2002 @06:13AM (#4155199)
    Rather than splitting the *nix games development effort, back the only *nix that's getting any real support today and write for the Mac OSX. If the effort is split (and let's face it, it isn't - as of today it's all behind OSX - anyone seen WC3 for Linux ). Drop the dead donkey.
    • That would require spending thousands of dollars on proprietary hardware. It's kind of missing the point of Linux.

      Besides, the mac world already has tons of people trying to bring games to it. They might be unsuccessful over all, but I doubt dropping support for the Linux world would help much.

      • Re:Yeh, but... (Score:2, Insightful)

        by SpaceJunkie ( 579366 )
        Hmm... I really should have reserved judgement for this guy - I thoroughly agree with this. (HAvent I been told never to be too quick to judge before...). The MAC has been aimed at by mainstream games companies lots in the past, and you buy games like Quake 3 and HL for it no problems.

        Yes Mac OS X runs a nix environment, but it also has Mac specific graphics and sound high level APIs which have been around a while and have been developed parallel to Dx. Efforts need to be focused on X86 linux boxes, both in terms of code and image so that companies will be willing to attempt to port games to it and feel justly renumerated. My own company produce for the PS2 console, and we port our game to almost every language, and every country - but we gave up on china- the translation is too expensive, and about 4 guys will buy it and everyone else will buy their pirate versions. Not that I agree that it is quite as bad as that but thats the company line....

        So :

        1) Develop and maintain API's which allow reasonably high level access to most gaming hardware - from Graphics(3d accelerated + all features like per-vertex-shading etc) to Sound(including Dolby Pro - screw DTS as they require massive licensing fees), to Networking and controllers/joysticks.

        2) Buy these games, try them, tell us what they are like - use word of mouth as its the best form of advertising.

        3) Dont pirate these games - By pirating them you will only ensure there wont be many more.

        4) Use constructive criticism, bug reports for both APIs and games.

        5) If you really want free games - Get involved - write games yourself. Far too many of the games that are free lack imagination and good artwork and appear to be little more than tech-demos. Artists, coders and designers are needed to fuel this.

        If you want this thing to happen- you are all gonna have to work for it....

  • what linux gaming needs... (Score:4, Insightful)

    by xirtam_work ( 560625 ) on Wednesday August 28, 2002 @06:15AM (#4155204)
    is a killer app, a game which isn't available on another platform, which takes advantage of the special properties which open source and linux operating systems can offer... like really long uptimes... like keeping the game on in the background all the time in a minimal mode, so that it acts likes a server using p2p for playing (like doom3) when you're not playing it.

    a massively multiplayer elite-a-like? a massively mutliplayer first person perspective action/RPG based in a bladerunner type city?

    expandable using user programable add-on modules?

    Oh, and release it under a license which doesn't allow for ports to non open-source operating systems :-)

    • is a killer app, a game which isn't available on another platform, which takes advantage of the special properties which open source and linux operating systems can offer... like really long uptimes

      When was the last time you ran windows? The uptimes are pretty good these days. Besides, if a game needed to stay running for months in order to enjoy it, you'd obviously have to write it to survive a system reboot... I don't want to buy an UPS to play a game.
    • which open source and linux operating systems can offer... like really long uptimes... like keeping the game on in the background all the time in a minimal mode

      ha ha ha. Yes, thse are important requirements for gaming. Maybe you could also 'su' between users in the game?

    • Corporate suicide. (Score:1, Insightful)

      by Anonymous Coward
      "Oh, and release it under a license which doesn't allow for ports to non open-source operating systems :-)

      If ever there were a way to destroy a company before it's doors even open, THIS is it.

    • Re:what linux gaming needs... (Score:1, Insightful)

      by Anonymous Coward
      is a killer app, a game which isn't available on another platform, which takes advantage of the special properties which open source and linux operating systems can offer

      Tuxracer! Oh wait, they ported that to Windows. I'd like to meet somebody that would actually PAY for that game. It's a cheap knock-off of the skiing games from the early 1990's with a little better graphics. Face it, Linux will NEVER be a gaming platform. If you accept that fact and move on you'll be much happier. Use it to browse the web, read your mail, run your servers, etc. But don't expect to run games on it unless you're happy playing solitaire. Just figure you'll need two computers. What geek doesn't have two computers already anyway? One for Windows gaming and one for Linux for "real" work.
      • .. or even better a game console. With that not only the OS is optimized for games, the hardware is too. A game console is cheap, the only difference is that you have to actually *buy* your games instead of copying them.
      • Actually Linux is already a decent gaming platform, the pool of available games just needs to be expanded.

        The ignoramus who posted above would be surprised to find that a harcore Linux user like me is also an avid gamer - quake 3 arena, return to castle wolfenstein etc all smooth as silk on my linux system.

        I don't want to go out and buy a win doze pee cee for games, I want more games ported to Linux! If a game is available only in a win doze version, I'm not interested, sorry.

        And yes, I have not only 2 computers, I have 4 computers, one of them a laptop - but why would I want to put win doze on any of them? I'd rather not, thanks!
    • It would not be open source if you had that clause in the license. I hope you were joking.
    • i must admit when i wrote the above most of it was meant as a bit of a laugh.

      Although, on a philiosophical level I do feel that many companies who use open source software like bind, apache, perl, etc. when go on to restrict their own software and goods.

      How many record label companies use such software and then cry when we want fair use protected for sharing their music? It's a moral transaction. Restrict the environment, whether it's the operating system or the business model of those using it, in which the software can be used to exclude those who exclude us.

      Wouldn't you like to stop companies who purpitrate stupid software patents like BT with Hyperlinks using open source software unless they buck their ideas up?

    • Who cares about the specific genre of the game (though a cyberpunk rpg would be nice :)), we just need 'intelligent' games. Maybe turn-based, or interaction based, instead of clicky-hyper-speed games that only teens and early 20's can win.

      I want good, intellectual games, to do something different than cstrike, and getting hammered in Warcraft 3 because my hand doesn't 'mouse' as fast as it once did...
    • is a killer app, a game which isn't available on another platform, which takes advantage of the special properties which open source and linux operating systems can offer... like really long uptimes... like keeping the game on in the background all the time in a minimal mode, so that it acts likes a server using p2p for playing (like doom3) when you're not playing it.

      a massively multiplayer elite-a-like?

      The open source game Vega Strike [sourceforge.net] is a gorgeous-looking cross-platform game (that runs under Windows AND Linux... even OSX), that is currently a Privateer/Elite style game. There is a group working on turning the excellent single player experience into a massively multiplayer one... Vega Strike is exactly what you're looking for!

  • There is no Linux games "market". (Score:1, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward
    The hardened open source/free software crowd doesn't pay for their OS, their web browsers, their web servers, their database servers, their mail servers, their mail programs, their office suites, their graphics packages, or *any* other piece of software. There's no reason to believe that there's a market for games, either. I certainly wish any commercial Linux software vendor well, but with little hope.

    • Re:There is no Linux games "market". (Score:5, Insightful)

      by 13Echo ( 209846 ) on Wednesday August 28, 2002 @06:47AM (#4155285) Homepage Journal
      That is not "insightful". It is totally false. Many Linux users *pay* for their distributions. Many *pay* for commercial software.

      GPL advocates aren't any different than Windows users, when it comes to playing games. Most of them are willing to pay for commercial software, as long as it is of high quality. As a matter of fact, I'm willing to bet that there is a whole lot more illegitimate gaming on the Windows side. I've known LOTS of Windows users that refuse to pay for any of their software.

      For the record, I've paid for the following on my Linux box in the last few months:

      Slackware 8.1
      Lycoris
      Mandrake
      Return to Castle Wolfenstein
      Q3A
      OpenSound.com sound drivers
      Two Opera licenses

      And I'm getting ready to buy a bunch of games from Tux Games. Neverwinter Nights is on my list. Perhaps if there was more software available, then Linux users would be buying more. The point is that there isn't as much right now, and most of what is available is GPL. We use, and advocate good GPL software because often, it is better than the commericial alternatives. But right now, the commercial games still have it. There aren't many GPL games that can match the amount of money and manpower that go into these big, commercial projects. Good, advanced GPL games are showing up, but not at the rate of commercial games.

      Did it ever occur to you that some people love GNU/Linux, not because it is free, but because it is the best, most powerful x86 alternative to Windows? Maybe that doesn't make sense to you. How much have you paid for software lately?

      There will be a market for Linux games. It just needs to be given a chance. Hardware drivers are very stable in Linux, and things like SDL make it really easy to write cross platform games. Linux's OpenGL implementation also seems faster than on Windows. It is growing as an OS, and getting more users. You don't really think that they all want to miss out on these games, do you?

      • It just needs to be given a chance (Score:1, Insightful)

        by Anonymous Coward
        It was given a chance. It was called Loki. Some people bought games from them, but nowhere near enough to keep the company going.
        • Most businesses that fail do so because of a number of influences. Not least among these is proper management or lack thereof.

          Because Loki failed, one cannot argue there is no market. Only that Loki didn't work.

          There may well be a thriving Linux games market, but Loki is a lesson in how not to tap it.
      • This year I lived in a college dorm, and found that approximately 2% of the software people have on their computers has been payed for. One person would buy a game, and then in a week or so 50 people would be playing it on the network. Alternately, there were a few people that had access to pretty good Warez ftp's, and so new games would be shared on the network a week or so before they were in stores. The moral is that I know alot of people who have windows boxes that forked over less money for software than someone that pays for a single linux distro.
    • There isn't much of one at the moment, granted, because most of the people who use linux are part of this hardened free-software crowd, but if Linux on the desktop becomes more widespread among your average computer user (fingers crossed), then there will be lots of people who would pay for quality games if they were produced for Linux.

      There's a fairly strong argument that producing a decent library of games that run on Linux would help increase it's use on the desktop.
    • That's funny, since most linux users I know have purchased at least one distro. Not to mention countless books, which, while they may not be software, help to disprove the misconception that geeks don't pay for things. And while we're at it, geeks that use linux are one of the best markets for games, since we all know geeks love video games. And for your information, it's not only the hardened oss crowd using linux. Some of us just like it because it works. So why don't you try to get your facts straight before you lump all linux users together as free-loaders.

  • I feel like I'm running OS/2 again (Score:3, Interesting)

    by RealBeanDip ( 26604 ) on Wednesday August 28, 2002 @07:10AM (#4155356)
    Back in the day, this same thing played out over OS/2. I would say that Linux is more popular (and better than) OS/2, but it was a similiar situation in that a number of people thought if there could be/would be an OS/2 gaming market that OS/2 would succeed on the desktop.

    Short story version is OS/2 didn't succeed on the desktop and OS/2 games sold in minimal numbers.

    The interesting thing is this; OS/2 had Windows emulation. In fact, it had better Windows emulation then Linux does today [this is arguable in that Windows today is a different animal then it was then, but the point should stand]. And you know what, Windows emulation didn't help OS/2. It didn't help because anything that is a windows emulator is destined to break because you-know-who controls the windows API and the windows gaming API. If you start to be successful in writing something that doesn't actually require windows to run windows apps, then you-know-who will BREAK the API and you will forever be playing catch-up.

    The short answer to getting your now broken app to run again is to what? That's right, reboot and run it under Win32, where it was written and where it runs correctly.
    • Sigh...
      Please don't trot out the old "OS/2 failed because it emulated Windows apps" argument. This was the least of OS/2's reasons for failing, which you can read about in detail in Linux and Main's brilliant article here [linuxandmain.com]
    • So lets spend less time writing windows emulators and more time writing killer apps. Its really that simple. Leave the nasty broken APIs, buggy dll's etc well alone and concentrate on making linux powerful in its own right. I dont emulate office- I run OpenOffice(in fact I use it on a windows box too). I dont run WINE. The only layer of windows I emulate at all is the SMB protocol(SAMBA) so I can do file and print sharing.
    • OMG, I didn't know Lord Voldemort was responsible for Windows!

      It does make sense, though..
    • It didn't help because anything that is a windows emulator is destined to break because you-know-who controls the windows API and the windows gaming API. If you start to be successful in writing something that doesn't actually require windows to run windows apps, then you-know-who will BREAK the API and you will forever be playing catch-up.

      Sounds like what will happen with MONO. Since it's not a game, however (unless you consider that some people are trying to beat MS at their own game, perhaps) I don't think people see the correlation between OS/2 and MONO and .Net. There's a very good reason that MS hangs on to even "simple" things like file formats. Being able to break alternate implementations in order to maintain monopoly status (what the marketeers call "market share") at will is probably chief among them. It'll kill MONO just like it killed Linux gaming just like it killed OS/2 (although there were other factors involved as well). It might kill WineX, although they seem to be happy in the play catch-up role. They certainly fill a niche.

      I tried really hard to give Linux gaming a shot. I bought every single Loki game made, and a couple Hyperion ones as well. I happily lived without a windows partition for about a year and a half. But the game, pun intended, is over. MS won when it was "shown" that Linux gaming is not a viable market. Game companies think that all Linux users want things for free, and won't pay (I was probably among a small minority of peopel that bought Linux and Windows copies fo Tribes2, for example). Quake3 had dismal Linux sales, but a lot of Linux binary downloads. People won't wait for a Linux port -- they'll buy the Windows version and dual boot if they have to.

      It would have been nice, but a Windows partition is in the future for anyone interested in playing games.

      -B

  • Gaming on an essentially business platform? (Score:4, Interesting)

    by fruey ( 563914 ) on Wednesday August 28, 2002 @07:19AM (#4155382) Homepage Journal
    Serious gamers are always going to be looking for a platform that can satisfy their needs. Consoles work as 99% of the people who buy them want pure gaming satisfaction. Thus, hardcore gamers are generally console owners. PCs can add to the gaming experience in the multiplayer over network gaming, but consoles are catching up with ethernet, wireless and modem options. Given that a PS2, XBox or Gamecube doesn't cost as much as a decent enough specced PC to play games, then the market is clearly in that court. The richer end of the market probably prefers top spec PCs, and they will probably run Windows.

    Most Linux users are there for stability, because they believe in it, etc. Thus the Linux gaming market will be mainly for people who are not hardcore gamers - just programmers, geeks, etc who are looking for the occasional game. I find it hard to believe the market will really rumble, since on the same hardware most people can install and run Windows games on their M$ OS of choice. There are exceptions of course, but I'd put my money on them being few and far between.

    However, as implied in the interview, the key is predicting the future. Getting in on the ground, becoming a respected name in Linux gaming, could be a good strategy ready for one of several possible events:

    • Linux getting market share in the PC market and becoming a viable gaming platform in its own right (it sure isn't now, and I'm not talking about being able to develop games on the platform, but being able to sell large quantities of them)
    • Consoles having Linux embedded in them (cue the PS2 Linux kit... that's an interesting move which seems to want to attract developers to the console via a Linux interface, and see if they come up with interesting stuff, since they can work on other machines too and get stuff going)
    • Mac OSX games, easier to port to Linux (perhaps not... machine code optimisations won't run on Intel clones... but OpenGL and installers etc may be re-usable to an extent)

    I think the second point is most likely what Linux gaming could be all about. The console market is shifting towards a more "Home Entertainment System" with DVD and networking. Add a hard drive, get TiVO-esque services, run Linux for an OS and push Intel/Microsoft aside with a decent, lower cost alternative to the PC. Plenty people I know have VCRs, DVDs, HiFi etc without ever thinking they'll need a PC, but might like a games console that does all the above. The lines between devices are blurring more and more, and Linux could be the heart of some of the newer generation devices.

    • Most Linux users are there for stability, because they believe in it, etc. Thus the Linux gaming market will be mainly for people who are not hardcore gamers - just programmers, geeks, etc who are looking for the occasional game.

      Most of the hardcore PC gamers that I know are fed up with Windows and are seeking other alternatives, or an escape if you will. They also tend to be somewhat anarchist towards large overdominant corporations like Microsoft. With the money that they spend (cough cough, some of them anyways) on games exceeding hundreds of dollars in itself, the last thing that they want to spend money on is an OS. Thus linux is the perfect platform for them.

      Give the poeple a door and they will walk through it.
      • Interesting point. I wasn't aware that too many gamers really were fed up with Windows - perhaps your friends are above average IQ already. It's a fair point that /if/ linux had great gaming support, a lot of people would install it instead of Windows. But if their principle desire is gaming, they'll probably have Windows running and a couple consoles to boot. And of course, sales figures show that Windows works as a gaming platform, and yet Linux has yet to have a major company issuing Linux ports at release dates. I hope Linux will improve for gaming, but that door that you're talking about has to lead someplace and be part of a building which people want to get into first.
    • "The console market is shifting towards a more "Home Entertainment System"

      So ensuring Linux is the way ahead may be the only way to avoid nasty DRM like palladium.... Im certainly not buying into a Microsoft Intel big brother box.....
    • What Linux (Unix, other 'nerd' OSes) needs is 'smart' games. We need games that are intellectual in nature, as opposed to the vast majority of games where you have to click the fastest to win.

      That doesn't mean we need educational games. An analogy would help: Intelligent RPGs, based on story, plot and interaction, as opposed to the Diablo-style, click click click YAY I went up another level game.

      For instance, I'm currently enamored with Warcraft 3, but it's fading already. I /know/ I can out-strategy my friends, but they can click faster than me, so I lose far more often than I win...
      • An analogy would help: Intelligent RPGs, based on story, plot and interaction, as opposed to the Diablo-style, click click

        That's one of my big problems. Rpgs are pretty much the only genre of games that I really enjoy, and also something that comercially is the rarest of the rare in Linux. I ordered Neverwinter from Tuxgames very early on but aside from that I've pretty much not been able to support Linux gaming unless I bought games I had little to no interest in.
    • "Serious gamers are always going to be looking for a platform that can satisfy their needs. Consoles work as 99% of the people who buy them want pure gaming satisfaction. Thus, hardcore gamers are generally console owners. "

      I would dissagree with this point.The most 'hardcore' Gamers I know are pc gamers who spend from 100 - 300 euro on just graphic's cards so they can play the latest and greatest fps or whatever.

      While not everybody who own's a pc is serious gamer thoese who are generally spend quite a considerable amount on there setup and quite often buy a second pc or upgrade there old pc to play multi player games.

      I do not like the console gaming experience all that much , I think fps's on consoles especially are shit ,(golden eye being an exception), and generally if I am playing anything on a console It would either be a fighting game like teken or a rpg of some sort.Consoles are cheap and easy to use ,(relative to a gaming pc),the majority of people who own a conole however are not 'Hardcore Gamers'
      but rather casual gamers who want short bouts of entertainment without any setup hassel.

      Pc gamers are willing to put alot more effert into there gaming experience,(Downloading drivers fiddeling with patches),many pc gamers own multiple pc's and many more drag there systems long distances to friends houses for lan party's. In my opinion pc gamers are more hardcore.

      As to linux and gaming well Personally I am happy with q3 urban terror and hmm3 and I am looking foreward to the new doom game , ALso I enjoy the huge variety of open source free games on offer as well as all the vintage games + all of the emulators that are availbke Iam happy now and I know things will only get better for linux and gaming.

  • Game publishers don't believe that a Linux game will sell, but many of you do.

    Forget the technical issues of drivers and APIs, those don't matter (a good development team will solve them). What matters is getting the rights to port a title. A good, class A title.

    If you really are willing to buy Linux games and want to stop the chicken and egg dilemma, pony up and start a gaming "trust fund" or some such beast. Use the capital to buy the porting rights (you do know that you have to buy the rights to do the port, don't you? Expect to pay $50k or more) and pay the programmers.

    If the title is ported succesfully and sells succesfully, then do it again.

    ESB
  • Someone I actually know got posted on slashdot :)

    For those of you that don't know, Micheal is a great programmer, he has dedicated a lot of his time to working with telnet based "talkers", which have continualy grown in popularity.

    Now, Micheal if you're reading this, What happened to GREL ? :)
  • Coo, I never thought I'd see the day when one of my team made it up on Slashdot.

    Yes, I used to be Michael Simms' PHB :o)

    At least I read Slashdot, hell, I even let them put "reading slashdot" down on their timesheets! :o)

    • Re:heh (Score:2)

      by sab39 ( 10510 )
      Yeah well, I still find it weird to see him willing to have his real name published online. It always used to be "Grim" or nothing...
      • Yeah well, I still find it weird to see him willing to have his real name published online

        Trust me, thats nothing after dealing with him removing his shoes in one of our weekly meetings.

        • Re:heh (Score:2)

          by sab39 ( 10510 )
          <ewtoo>
          ;gags at the thought
          ~yuck
          </ewtoo>

          I remember when he managed to stay ahead of me on the spodlist of a particular talker (that shall remain nameless) only by leaving himself logged in for 24 hours straight. Knowing about the shoes makes it easier to keep annoyances like that in perspective ;)

          I like the way your sig markets ewtoo talkers by deliberately extolling the virtues of being hard to use. Play to your strengths :)
  • IMHO the reason Loki et al fail is strictly economics. The goal for Linux games manufacturers should be to get as many Windows users to buy the Linux equivilents as possible. The problem with the Loki games from what I was seeing in my local retailers was that they cost the same as the Windows versions. Why in the world would a Windows user endure the headaches (for them, not me) of installing Linux when it isn't making their gaming any cheaper from their perspective. I know that Loki was probably bound by license agreements and their own costs from making that possible but I think that was a good part of why the ports failed. Even when the Loki products became cheap (their $5-$10 now) they're still not flying off the shelves which indicates that they will need to be considerably cheaper for a *long* time before any significant coup in the gaming market will occur.
  • We are aiming to produce a slower but far more sustainable business, smaller teams, maybe taking longer to produce a port

    Aiii! caramba. IF loki was releasing ports of 3,4,5 year old games... What the hell are they going to be releasing if they plan to take longer to produce them? This guy doesn't get it. Most gamers, even on linux, want the games they want ASAP. Take any length of time to release it over the windows versions and your sales start going thru the floor.

  • You geeks wrote a cool OS. Why wait for commercial Linux games? Can't you write your own gaming engine open source style? Keep it free!

  • MANY problems with games under Linux. (Score:3, Interesting)

    by sbaker ( 47485 ) on Wednesday August 28, 2002 @08:39AM (#4155766) Homepage
    THE PROBLEM WITH COMMERCIAL GAME PORTS (WITH A FEW NOTABLE EXCEPTIONS):

    The problem with Loki was that their games releases lagged the release of the same game under Windoze by six months or more. Whilst the Loki version of the game was about the same price as the original ON THE DAY IT WAS RELEASED, by the time the Linux version was out at $40, the Windoze version was available at $19.99 or less.

    Anyone with a dual-boot machine (pretty much a necessity for SERIOUS gamers who love Linux) would either buy the Windoze game as soon as it came out and not wait for Loki to catch up - or they'd wait - and be disappointed to find that the Loki version was so expensive.

    Linux is still too small of a market for the big games companies to want to drain their valuable developer resources either co-developing the Linux version or having their programmers help out a third party with co-developing it. That means that we are doomed to seeing that six month lag.

    Quake is an exception - the Linux versions of that series were done more as a hobby by the developers than as a viable business. They lost money on it.

    THE PROBLEM WITH FREEWARE GAMES:

    (...And I speak from bitter experience. I wrote 'Tux The Penguin: A Quest for Herring' and TuxKart).

    It takes a team of programmers at least a couple of years to write a game that comes even remotely close to the quality of a MODERN commercial game...and that assumes that you can find OpenSource Artists and Musicians (which you can't - trust me).

    That's OK - I could live with that - anything worth doing is worth the commitment. But these games have a 'shelf life' of just a couple of months
    and then there are no more downloads, your work is gradually forgotten. That's to be expected - most games are something you play for a few weeks and then you are looking for something different. Remember that only one in THIRTY commercial games ever sees a profit.

    So you spend years of your life developing something - only to find that your rise to fame is extremely short-lived. That's not a very rewarding experience.

    Also, the 'Bazaar' effect where lots of people come on board a working software project to make it better either doesn't happen - or is a waste of time because the game has fizzled in popularity before the effect can build up to a useful degree.

    If you 'commit early' and release your game before it's fully polished then people play it once, decide that it's crap and never return to play it again.

    It's just not like most other OpenSource development. If I had written another GIMP or an Apache or even some other small-but-useful application, my work would be used and appreciated by others for years to come. Other developers would improve upon it. I would feel that all the effort was worthwhile.

    Games are a lot of fun to write though - that's what keeps me doing it.

    DEPRESSING CONCLUSION.

    I think there will be no significant numbers of good Linux games until there are perhaps ten times as many people using Linux as there are currently. At that point, there might be enough of a market for the mainstream games companies - or smaller startups - to make commercially viable Linux games.

    Meanwhile, there are more than 50 versions of Tetris and over a dozen Bomberman clones - because those games can be written quickly and without the skills of a dozen great 3D artists.

    • I guess if you want a game that has a long what is needed is Game construction kits.
      Provide the basic game and way for users to build new levels of there own and hopefully contribute them back. In open source the resuable tools libraries and resources that other projects can cannibalize are often more useful than the actual program, standing on the shoulders of giants etc.

      I would love to see an open source pinball construction kit or suchlike with a few playable levels to start with and then they users could add their own levels. (I saw a program called Visual Pinball but i dont think it was open source).

      Think of the community that has built up around quake mods. Quake is more than just a game it is a whole world and you can get just about anything from Machinema to Chess to racing games out of it.

      I really must mention frozen bubble, probably the best open source game i have ever seen.
      http://www.frozen-bubble.org/
      The concept is not new, i have loved Puzzle Bobble for years (but very few other people seem to have heard of it) and there seem to be a new Worms game based around the same concept called Worms Blast. http://wormsblast.team17.com/
      Part of what makes the game so good is that it is so polished.
      You can add levels but i dont think there is a graphical level builder yet. (maybe you could use a tool like Dia to contruct it or customise on of the many map/level builder programs in sourceforge).

      Essentially i think game construction kits would really appeal to hackers a lot more. It just occured to me while reading the parent post
    • I agree with you on every count. I've tried writing simple games (with technical success, but no real success). The main reasons are as you stated: it takes a LONG time and a LOT of effort to write any decent game, and most artists and musicians will not touch the idea of contributing freely-distributable material to a free game. To that end, freely distributable games usually look rather poor and are limited in playability.

      I thought that I would buy a console to fill my gaming needs. I went through a Game Cube and a PS2 (I won't buy the X-Box for ethical reasons), and I came to a conclusion: consoles suck compared to my Linux PC. I came to a second conclusion: I don't miss games as much as I thought I would when I left Windows. I bought 8 of the most recent console games (4 GC, 4 PS2). There were two games that didn't suck (by the way, Medal of Honor and Final Fantasy X suck badly): Batman Vengeance and the Wave Runner game on GC (WaveRacer: Bluestorm IIRC).

      I normally hate racing games, but the GC game avoided all the pitfalls of regular racing games. The game made the Wave Runners feel like they were really zipping through the water. In most racing games (Nascar for example), it feels like the vehicles are in idle. This kind of game is probably doable by the people who can make free 3D games. There was an old Windows game called Big Red Racing that succeeded similarly.

      Batman Vengeance was a pleasant surprise. I hadn't expected it to be any more than a kid's game, but the gameplay was extremely well done. The cutscenes were short and sweet, and added directly to the game suspense. I also think that something similar to this (without trademarked characters) is within the reach of Linux game developers.

      PLEASE disembowel anyone who makes another Tetris-alike or scrolling space shooter! It's better to have no games than one more of those.

      Don't be discouraged by your lack of free high-quality graphics and music. Originality, simplicity, and playability are what are most important.
    • I disagree. Look at things like worldforge or cube. The trick to writting games that will be used for years in the free software community, is you have to start by writing games which can be extended.

      You have to start with the engine or framework, like quake3, worldforge, cube ultima 1 remake etc. Then people can make mods for your game and those mods become popular for a year or two etc.

      You can write a tux racer. You can write a puzzle game. But you have to realize those will have a short shelf life. If you write a worldforge or a nice gaming development toolkit/ platform, especially for the mmorpg scene, you may see you work live on for a long time.

    • I love TuxKart. I still play it. You're a hero.
    • Well, you've also left out that there is no guaranteed formula for writing a "winning" game. The market is fickle - today's Quake maybe tomorrow's Jet Moto (I cry when I realize that it will never be available for Windows OR Linux).
    • 'A Quest for Herring' was the 1st game I played on my 1st Linux installation ( autumn 1999 ). It was ( and is still ) a great way to show, that 3D acceleration is working :-). Great adventure to get it to run those days... Thank you very much for your games and libs...

  • Tux Racer (Score:5, Interesting)

    by John Harrison ( 223649 ) <(moc.liamg) (ta) (nosirrahnhoj)> on Wednesday August 28, 2002 @08:49AM (#4155807) Homepage Journal
    I continue to be amazed that once Tux Racer went closed source (temporarily) /. has basically refused to mention it. This after being so excited about it initially. This seems like a very reasonable model to me:

    1. Release demo as GPL, allow the community to play with it.
    2. If there is enough interest in the demo invest time and money rewriting the game and improving it. Sell this version on a variety of platforms. Notice that Linux is a first class platform here. It was developed for Linux and you get the Linux version of the game along with the Windows version on the same CD.
    3. Once the game is no longer making money release it under the GPL as well.

    It seems to me that this is a great way to do things. Tux Racer is one of the few games I have purchased recently. While I think it is fun, kids think it is the best game ever. There is no way to "die" and you can simply wander around if that is what you want. As someone who has written a few games myself I was impressed by the quality of the finished product.

    I don't think that Tux Racer is "the future of Linux gaming" but it is certainly more in-line with the "Free Software" values that /. is so rabid over than the other games that are covered here.

    So what do people think of this model? Why has /. choosen to ignore Tux Racer [tuxracer.com]?

    • Why should they mention it?
      When is the last time that /. mentioned LinCity or FreeCiv? (They've both been mentioned, but I sure can't remember when.)

      If there's a good reason to mention it, then what is it? GPL isn't the reason that something gets mentioned, though it might be a contributory factor. Something that looks like it might be interesting to a large number of people is. But it's not a good reason to keep mentioning it. Even being important isn't necessarily a good enough reason. There are those who get impatient when reading about kernel upgrades, and you don't get much more important than that. (Interesting? Perhaps not. The article us usually just a list of patches, without much explanation.)

      • Why should they mention it?

        Because, unlike the the games you mentions and unlike the games that always get mentioned here on /., Tux Racer is original. It is not a port from some other platform nor is it an imitation/expansion of an existing game. It is something new.

        As long as Linux gaming consists of year-late copycats it isn't going to hit the big time. In a way this is an echo of a common criticism of Linux itself: that it isn't innovative. Here we have an example of something original that /., a biased and partial advocacy site, has decided to ignore. If the version they are selling was GPLed you can bet that it would have been on the front page.

        Besides those reasons, it would have been interesting to have a /. discussion of the pors and cons of the business model that Tux Racer is using.

    • TuxRacer is the only game developed for Linux that's made it big enough for me to see requests for it on Warez message boards.
  • Interesting this, and I'm glad to see that they're approaching it in a sustainable way. Mainstream online games are currently the only thing I still need Windows for, everything else I can do on any OS. If Linux gaming really took off then I, and probably a lot of other Windows gamers, won't have any reason to keep Windows on our hard-drives any more.
  • All of the games from Loki were also available for Windows. Anyone who's a hardcore gamer *has* to have Windows around, and many Linux users do simply because it comes preinstalled on 99% of the PCs available. So they keep the Windows partition around for playing games. When a game comes out for Windows, and then is ported to Linux a few months or a year later, an already small market is made much smaller.

    Also, recently on slashdot, there was an interview with someone cited as one of the two driving forces in Linux game development. If you visit the website of either of these hobbyists, you'll find versions of Tetris and Breakout and other games from the 8-bit days. I'm a retrogamer, so that's fine by me, but it makes me think if these guys are the driving forces of Linux game development, then the state of Linux game development is poor indeed.
  • People like consoles specifically because there is no screwing around with settings or hardware requirements to get their games to run. They put the game in and it plays. That is wonderful useability, and console gamers love it.

    When you play a game on a PC, you have to install it, tweak it, mess with it in general to get it to run as intended. From my expirience, that process is even more complicated on linux for various reasons. No body wants to do that crap when they want to play a game.

    We know that it is possible to run linux entirely from a CD. So, why doesn't some enterprising company that wants to create linux games that anybody can use, just create a bootable cd(or more likely a dvd) that contains the os, game, and everything it needs to run. If it needs to cache items to the hard disk, linux can read FAT,FAT32, and NTFS(safe for read access, you could just write the data cache with a windows installer).

    With a disc like this, all the gamer would have to do is put it in and reboot their computer. Voila, dependecy problems solved, install problems solved, support issues solved, useability solved. Works on linux, works on windows. The only problem I can see is having bizarre and unsupported hardware, but you would have that problem even if you wanted to actually install it anyway.

    It would be a great way to build a base of linux games. Gamers can play a game independent of what x86 OS they use. That takes a lot of risk out of the way for developers wanting to do linux games.
    • This approach effectively turns your PC into a games console, but without the benefits of a true games console, ie, standardised hardware.

      My suggestion for linux gaming is to get two or three developers to include linux versions of a couple of games included with the Windows version, and create a media fuss about it.

      This way people with dual-boot systems could try the games for free in Linux and if they're suitable impressed then it might make them consider investigating further into Linux gaming.

      Tim

  • I'm sorry, but I have to take issue with everyone in the Linux gaming community continually saying that wine/winex is the wrong way to implement games. All wine/winex is doing is re-implementing windows' API on Linux. Linux has implemented SMB services for better compatibility with Windows, so why is this any different? It's not sacrificing anything, providing better compatiblity for Linux, and allowing Linux gamers to play many games sooner than would otherwise be possible (if at all). These people need to get off their high horses and realize that wine/winex is nothing but another API. If it makes gaming easier on Linux, great. If it gets gaming companies to realize that there is a Linux market, great; even if they are just using windows api calls. In the end, wine could become obsolete if companies code straight for Linux, but wine/winex isn't hurting ANYTHING now and only helping the future. If eventually companies want to code for only linux, they can do that and will be welcomed with open arms. Until that time, these companies wouldn't even recognize a Linux gaming market without wine/winex (granted it could be argued they don't now). In the mean time, wine/winex is providing a valuable service to Linux. Stop berating Transgaming's approach. Without them, I'd still have to boot to windows if I wanted to play Civ III or D2. Whether people like it or not, this is a good way to play games in Linux. Atleast for now.

    Yes I'm a subscriber to Transgaming, but I truly don't play many games. The ones I'd want are available on Linux thanks to them. I haven't booted to windows to play a game in a long time. It's that the eventual goal? To play games on Linux and show there's a market for games on Linux? Who cares how?

    Khyron
  • I don't know why you hate Wine, but the future is more like this:

    1) Wine allows people to play games on linux NOW
    2) People actually start switching to Linux and using it regularly because they don't have to reboot for games and such crap
    3) Native games continue to be release occasionally, such as the ones by Id Software. People using Linux purchase these because they are more stable and have better performance than emulation.
    4) Because linux actually has a user-base of gamers now, from emulation, companies find that porting is a viable business strategy.
    5) People make games for linux. New games are native, old classic also work using emulation. Everyone is happy except Microsoft!

    Using your own logic, this is how things will happen. The better performance of native games guarantees that while Wine garners Linux a bigger user base, those users continue buying and supporting any native linux games that are available.

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