Petition for games companies?

[whare1]

I was just having a thought

Would a digital petition from users across different distos make some of the bigger games companies think about creating linux games as from what I have seen in the past few weeks of using linux is that there is alot of users I just think it may convince the bigger games companies there there is a maket there for them to conquer


Just a thought

Please feel free to post your views

Will

[whare1]

Hmmm.......

Im guessing by a lack of responce this was not such a good thought

Oohh well I did not think it would hurt to try nevermind

Thanx

Will

[scorp123]

Well ... there are too many distros I guess. It's easier for the game devs to program for Windows only ... And consoles (Wii, PS3, XBox360, etc.) are a very attractive market too. Linux which is constantly changing (due to its OpenSource nature) is very problematic. Take Terminus (a 1999 Elite / X2 / X3 clone) and the not too old Unreal Tournament 2003: Both games will still run without problems on Windows XP, but their Linux versions (ships in the same package as the Windows version) get into troubles with modern kernels and new lib versions.

The only solution for game developers would be to write their games only for specific distros, e.g. Fedora, Debian, SUSE ... but then everybody else using e.g. Mint or Gentoo would complain and not buy their products? Hence it would not be worth the effort ...

Or they could release their games in a "Live CD" fashion; e.g. each game boots with its own Linux OS from the game's CD ... But games with their own OS? That's quite a step backwards, back into the early 80's where games --now ancient classics-- such as Pinball, Frogger, Jet Fighter and many others had their own boot floppy (which were unreadable under MS-DOS ...).

If you do something like that you can just as well forget about Linux altogether and develop for consoles, where you at least have some DRM mechanisms in place that make it hard for pirates to create illegal copies of your software ...

Don't get me wrong: I'd like to see more Linux games. Absolutely so. But I also see the game developers point of view and these are the arguments you very often hear.

[Boo]

Yes I would love to see more games on Linux.

I had a thought after reading snuggly wuggly scorps post.

the game developers need a stable distro/environment right...

so why not use a virtual machine.
games could run in a virtual machine that is specifically for running games.

A VM would be equivalent/similar to DirectX in nature. there are updates to directX but not all that often.

Just a thought if you get my drift.

[scorp123]

so why not use a virtual machine. games could run in a virtual machine that is specifically for running games.

So the innards of the virtual machine would be always the same ... But such a virtual machine would have to be open source then, or else it will impossible for packagers to re-compile and re-package it for every possible distro. This stuff being open source (e.g. a la Xen?) would allow each distro's maintainer to grab the sources and package it whatever way is right for their distro ...

BUT: Exactly this virtual machine thing could then create a lot of fears on the side of the game developers! For one thing it would be very easy to copy + pirate games: Just freeze the virtual machine (e.g. "suspend" ... works in VMware and in VirtualBox too!) and then copy its memory dumps or disk files to another machine ...

I'd welcome the idea but I don't think that commercial game developers will find this attractive.

It would be better to push standards such as "SDL" (a DirectX-like library collection under Linux) and OpenGL and make this stuff stable so that commercial game studios have an attractive + stable platform they can develop their products for ...

[whare1]

Right please remember that I only have a basic (well not even that) knowlage of linux

Right scorp you are talking about being able to suspend and virtual platform (Windows, Linux running on VirtualBox, VMWare etc) would it not be possable to creat a platform that you could not do this to becouse if that could be done it would be one way to start opening the floodgates for companies to start providing games and applications for

anyway long story short we need a stable "Virtual Platform" that would make it hard for copying/ripping applications from

so question: is it possable todo that in linux ?

If so when are you going to start (Joking)

[Boo]

Hmmm.

the SDL and OpenGL would be great no matter what.

but if someone wants to copy a game, window or Linux they can and it just requires a crack.

the only way for companies ensure they get $$$ is for honest people buying it or to have an online system/account like WoW or registered game servers or some such.
But that disadvantages people without internet access.

ramble ramble ramble...

[whare1]

There is a few companies starting to do that one game springs to mind that is race you have to download it Via Stream (I hate that system always crashing) and I do remember that they have a list as long as my arm of other games etc for purchase and download

[quote=Boo]
But that disadvantages people without internet access
[/quote]

I think now most people have some form of internet mostly broardband as the price is about the same as dialup now-a-days. so them sort of systems (if they work right) are not that bad but then even with them systems somebody will always fine away around it as there is to many good hacker and crackers in the world for them not to fild away todo it.

[scorp123]

Right scorp you are talking about being able to suspend a virtual platform would it not be possable to creat a platform that you could not do this

Well, as I wrote before: This platform or whatever it is would have to be open source so it can be adapted by the Linux community for each distro, no matter how exotic or how much "mainstream" or "fringe" it is; if it isn't open source, you'd run into the "too many distros" problem and you could just as well drop the development for this virtual machine as it would then be easier to develop the games to run natively for a select set of distros. BUT: This thing being open source also means that anyone armed with a C-compiler will be able to change it! So what sense would there be to include any DRM-type features into open source software when any motivated hacker will be able to remove the feature again? So I don't think that this will be appealing to game developers. And BTW, I think we already have such a virtual machine. If you look at all this then basically "Cedega" is exactly what we describe here

The most realistic route would be to have all distros stick to certain common standards (e.g. "Linux Standards Base 2.0" = "LSB" ... Novell/SUSE are trying to push this ...) so that certain things (location of config files, names of driver libs and binaries, and so on ...) would always be the same regardless of the distro. Linux would then also be easier to learn -- for the game devs too! And with such standards in place and with the numbers of Linux users steadily growing (e.g. thanks to Dell and Ubuntu pre-installed ...) then it might be possible that game dev companies see Linux as a possible new market ...

But until then I guess we will have to make do with WINE, Cedega and dual-booting into Windows XP

[whare1]

Ok we with the introduction of "LSB" would that not make it easyer to creat a virtual Platform for running off

*Whare1 stops and thinks for a moment*

But then with the "LSB" if it is all set up the same regardless of distro you would not need a virtual platform to run fom (I think)

So with that in mind Im wondering why distros are not adopting the LSB faster so that we can encouage programming companies to create there magic on Linux because as it is said on every Disto Linux seems to be the way forward as an operating system of chioce dew to the lack of crap (sorry) installed on it

[scorp123]

So with that in mind Im wondering why distros are not adopting the LSB faster

Well ... as always: Some people don't agree with this and that (e.g. Fedora), or they don't care (Gentoo, Slackware), or they interpret some of the wording differently than others (Ubuntu + Debian vs. SUSE), so that even distros that claim to adhere to the LSB standards are still different from other distros in a number of aspects

The other thing a "UNIX pro" like me will tell you is: This is all nonsense anyway Because if you know one UNIX-like OS it isn't that hard to pick up any other UNIX-like OS. And if you do it right then any program will run anywhere ... There are some very useful GNU scripts that can do this which may serve as example, e.g. the auto-configure and auto-make scripts which will run anywhere and find all your libs regardless on which distro they are installed. I've seen other installers on Linux which regardless of the distro will make the correct guesses install OK, no matter if you execute it on Debian, Fedora, SUSE, Mandriva or Ubuntu ...

So there you go. One part of the crowd cry for one single standard, the other part of the crowd claims to already adhere to this common standard but is still in discussions with another part of the crowd about what exactly this standard is supposed to mean anyway, and again another part of the crowd thinks "F*** it, we will write our own installers ... if they don't work on your distro ... oh well, not our problem!" and again another part of the crowd thinks "Standards? Jeeeeezuz, this is about freedom ... do what you want!"

But all together scream: "We want games! We want games ... "

As a game developer you're obviously tempted to say: "Ya know what? These guys are crazy I think ... " ... and: "You guys want games? Fine. Get yourself Windows or get yourself a new Wii or PS3, yes? Spare me your wacky philosophies about your freedoms ... "

And voila. That's the very situation we're in. It's too easy to put all the blame on the game developers, but once you give this stuff some deep thoughts you also have to admit that they have some valid points there when they say that "Under current circumstances Linux is not being considered as being an attractive platform to develop our products for ... " (quote from an e-mail I once got from a game studio a few years back ... ) <== Just leave their oh so friendly diplomacy away and you get what they really mean (basically what I wrote above!)

[whare1]

Thank you for that reply scorp

But it leaves me wondering about the future for Linux and also leaves me to make the following comments based on the current state of things in the communiy:

Question: Will Linux ever have the freedom it wants?

Answer: No because it will always have to comply to microsoft in some way be it using an emulator, dual booting or some other way of running the software

Question: Will the games companies create new games for Linux users?

Answer: Again No because there is no standard way of doing this so by creating a game of other application you would need a standard way to do it or you would encounter countless problems when running on different platforms

Question: So ultimately will Linux ever be more than just a toy:

Answer: Well based on the current state of things and there being no standards I will have to say No to this also because it there are to many different ways of doing things no companies will be prepared to support it due to the amount of variations between Distro's causing great problems for Linux as an operating system due to it not having the commercial support from application companies as well as software support from the hardware companies

With all that in mind it appears to me that Linux will always have problems in becoming a operating system capable of giving Microsoft a run for its money

[scorp123]

But it leaves me wondering about the future for Linux

The future of Linux? It will continue to evolve (Linux isn't "intelligent design" as Torvalds once put it ... it's "evolution" )

Question: Will Linux ever have the freedom it wants?

Answer: No because it will always have to comply to microsoft in some way be it using an emulator, dual booting or some other way of running the software

Not exactly true. At my work we more or less have a 99.99% Microsoft-free zone. And also at home: All serious stuff I do is done on Linux. Microsoft isn't but a toy for me, something I use in order to have fun. Ahemmmm ... Like a condom You use it, you have fun, then you throw it away and get back to serious business again. But Microsoft wants a full-time relationship with 100% commitment ... Sorry dear, not with me. I use Windows when I want to play ... and that's it. No kisses, no hugging, no hand-holding there. I have my share of fun with Windows but my commitment goes to Linux And more and more people think like this. So there can't be a question about the "future of Linux".

Question: Will the games companies create new games for Linux users?

Answer: Again No because there is no standard way of doing this so by creating a game of other application you would need a standard way to do it or you would encounter countless problems when running on different platforms

Not 100% accurate. Look at Epic Games and their Unreal Tournament series of games. They wrote their own installer which will guess all the correct values and then install itself correctly on each distro I tried so far. So if a small company like Epic can do this then I guess it can't be that hard. It's just a question of doing the first few steps and taking the learning curve. And not to forget: There is quite a number of decent and promising open source games in the works, so even though the current situation isn't ideal right now, I guess it will improve. Maybe not today (as I wrote in my previous postings), maybe not tomorrow, but with Linux there is always so much stuff going on that manages to take everyone by surprise.

Question: So ultimately will Linux ever be more than just a toy:

This is something you don't even need to get me started with Linux as a whole is pretty far away from being "just a toy". It's rather that Microsoft is getting this image more and more: Microsoft is the OS you need to play games. So it's getting more and more this association: "Windows = Games = Toying around; "Wintendo"; not fit for serious business use".

Once on a customer visit in Basel (where Switzerland's pharmaceutical industries are concentrated ...) they showed me their "number cruncher" ... oh well. Read it for yourself. The machine I got to see there looked more or less like this one which was built for BMW's Formula-1 Team:
http://www.dalco.ch/news/messages/news_item/article/dalco-delivers-supercomputer-albert2-to-the-bmw-sauber-f1-team/

Linux a toy?? When you stand in front of such a powerful machine and realise that the company who built this monster has litterally bet "all their land and the farm" on this thing and they use this thing in full earnest at the very heart of their business, you realise how pretty far away from a "toy" Linux is. It can't be more serious about business than that.

And Linux has since long conquered the server rooms and is very successful there ... It's only that most desktop users don't realise this yet.

With all that in mind it appears to me that Linux will always have problems in becoming a operating system capable of giving Microsoft a run for its money

Well, in the server room Microsoft has been hit pretty hard in the past few years And with Dell offering Ubuntu pre-installed now for Average-Joe Desktop-User I'd say the situation can only get worse for M$.

[whare1]

with Dell offering Ubuntu pre-installed now for Average-Joe Desktop-User I'd say the situation can only get worse for M$.

Yes I agree it will get worse for "Microcrap" if we can get some better linux games/applications on it

Games wise I had a look through some and not all that pleasing to the eye however I do admit a few do look good (mostly first person shooters)

I think this would be the right time to say this even though I am saying that there is problems within linux for what I feel is preventing it from progressing very fast I do enjoy using it its just alot of farting about to play a game etc

as for linux hitting M$ in the server market thats good unfortunately the server market is not an average joe and I still feel from reading what has been put in other post has still got alot to do before Linux become a equal or better choice over M$ mainly in the markets of hardware support and well applications.

[scorp123]

mainly in the markets of hardware support

Again, you have to separate the home user market segments from the professional areas. In the professional areas nobody, and I really mean nobody, would dare to release a piece of professional hardware without having it supported under Linux too It's more or less just the "cheap" home user hardware and their vendors who don't want to release the technical specifications so that the kernel hackers (all the folks around Torvalds & Co.) could write a driver. But this situation is improving too.

and well applications.

Can't agree with that. There is not one single Windows application I "miss" on Linux, I find all the open source alternatives (GIMP, Amarok, MPlayer, Firefox, Inkscape, Kino ...) superior and more stable to their Windows counterparts. And you can't beat the price: Free. And legally so, as with open source there is no need for software piracy. As for the professional market, e.g. 3D rendering, graphics, CAD/CAM, and so on: Linux is pretty well covered there.

All in all this "there are applications missing" argument comes more or less exclusively from recent Windows-converts who couldn't yet adapt to their new OS of choice and who can't let go of the applications they're accostumed to; hence they perceive their once favourite applications as being "missing".

[whare1]

All in all this "there are applications missing" argument comes more or less exclusively from recent Windows-converts who couldn't yet adapt to their new OS of choice and who can't let go of the applications they're accostumed to; hence they perceive their once favourite applications as being "missing".

I can agree with that as I do miss some of my stuff on linux but what I am going to really miss is my games because I do enjoy my games ALOT helps keep me sane when the other half is moaning



Ok Ok Ok I guess I am just on one coz I miss some of my "windows" stuff and carnt use it on here without dual boot or virtualbox but on that note I still stand by my statment

Question: So ultimately will Linux ever be more than just a toy:

Answer: Well based on the current state of things and there being no standards I will have to say No to this also because it there are to many different ways of doing things no companies will be prepared to support it due to the amount of variations between Distro's causing great problems for Linux as an operating system due to it not having the commercial support from application companies as well as software support from the hardware companies

But i will change it from a no to it will be a long process still requiring the main distro's to work together more to create something that everybody is happy to use and to create things for

[scorp123]

it will be a long process still requiring the main distro's to work together more to create something that everybody is happy to use and to create things for

To that I would agree. And from that POV I can understand the "there are too many Linux distros!" argument, as I too sometimes fail to see the necessity for so many distros. But then again, this is open source and if someone wants to create their own distro ... they have all rights to do so It's just that I sometimes whish that people would not "reinvent the wheel" for the x-1000th time or so and come up with e.g. yet another exotic location for the same config file or yet another program to do the same thing a dozen or so programs were already written for. But again: this is freedom

[whare1]

And for once we agree

IT A MIRACLE!

still requiring the main distro's to work together

It still leave the point of that there needs to be more cooperation between say the top 10 Distro's (Check Distro Watch for that) (If I remember right from when I last checked Mint was 9th)

anyway getting the top distro's to work together for the common good sounds like a near impossibility with every one trying to as you put it "reinvent the wheel"
as they all seem to want a unique OS which is hard when they are all the same with a few coding differences put in for good measure

So with all that in mind how to you unite them but allow them to keep there individuality

[Lolo Uila]

Another thing to consider here is that there are a LOT of people who don't play games on their computers. I know it's shocking. The very thought of that sends me reeling. But I talk to people every day who only use their computers for "business" applications (you know, like email and surfing the web for p*rn).

For those people Linux is a very viable alternative. With great web browsers, email clients and a very capable office suite most users could make the switch to Linux with minimal effort. Most won't because they are affraid, or think it is too much trouble (like dealing with mallware, viruses and just Windows in general is easy).

It's really not about games, but education. The lemming-like masses are ignorant of Linux, and that isn't going to change any time soon because the Micro$oft brainwashing machine has the money and the power to keep the public ignorant for the forseeable future...

[madjr]

Aonther thing to consider here is that there are a LOT of people who don't play games on their computers. I know it's shocking. The very thought of that sends me reeling. But I talk to people every day who only use their computers for "business" applications (you know, like email and surfing the web for p*rn).

Yes am one of them... (except for the pr0n )

I switched to linux first with freespire (very easy to use, but KDE is not for me and CNR was too slow...) then to ubuntu and finally to mint

I made the switch when i finally stopped playing the "latest" 3d games on my pc (i use a console now with linux of couse... ps2, wii) I only play online games once in a while and most of them run in linux by having a port, being multi OS (Java, flash based games) or with wine/cedega (WoW)

Thanks to consoles being as powerful as PCs, relative cheap and easier to dev games than in windoze (less hardware to support/configure), people don't need Winblows anymore to play those high resolution/polygon 3d games (even m$ helped with their xbox muahaha). Gamers are making the switch to linux painlessly !

Also firefox helped, open office, and all the open source apps available. In fact i even have more fun/time with open source games/apps then i do with my consoles (modding, helping fix errors, testing newer versions and being a forum junkie)

Even while using winbows if an app wasn't open source i would rarely download it (even if it was free..). I would always search for the open alt first.

Consoles and closed source software are very limited and my mind needs to be limitless.