Feral Interactive one of our new favourite porting houses has asked the big question. Why do we game on Linux?
Linux gamers! Tell us: why do you game on Linux? Please spread this question hither and thither. @GameLinux @ROOTGAMERcom @gamingonlinux
— Feral Interactive (@feralgames) September 3, 2014
Feel free to twitter them, or comment here if you answer isn't a short one. I am sure they are watching.
My reasons
It's an interesting question and one that has been asked a lot by many interesting gamers across the years to the Linux community.
For me it's not about why I game on Linux, but more about why I use Linux which directly translates into gaming on it.
I love customization and having the choice to do lots or do nothing. For me it's not always about source code access (I feel that is important though!), but more about being free to do what I want with it, and never having to pay for system upgrades. I spend enough money on games and hardware without wanting to fork out x amount for the latest operating system.
With Linux I have OpenGL and can get updates for it whenever my chosen graphics vendor pushes out a driver for it, but on Windows at times you have needed to upgrade your entire operating system to get it.
On Linux if I don't like how the entire desktop works I can install another one with a few quick commands, or finding the main package in some package manager. That's an important one to note: I dislike Gnome Shell and Unity a lot, so I use Cinnamon and it works perfectly for my needs. I tried Windows 8 and the new UI was utterly a pain to work with or to find anything on (I gave it a real good go too), and I was stuck with it until I installed Linux on my laptop.
On Linux I have choices, and lots of them. I can tinker with almost anything, and if a game doesn't work you can do simple things to find out why. Running a game in the terminal for example will generally be pretty clear on what you are missing and fix it myself, and I can't say the same for broken games on Windows.
I also find Linux to perform far better at most general day to day tasks, and I come from a Windows 95/98/2000/xp/7 and recently a little of 8 background (yes I've used nearly all Windows operating systems, and a lot to).
There's also the community aspect. The amount of times of looked to find out how to do something, and someone helpful already has the answer and shared it with everyone. Linux users can be very, very helpful.
Right now Linux has also helped me fall in love with games I would never had tried if I was on Windows.
That is all off the top of my head, but that's my honest answer to it.
2)No viruses
3)I like the idee of Opensource
4)In my experince it goes faster and smoother
5)Windows update kills me
6)Most servers use Linux, like red hat. And I guess the reason is, very stable.
7)U get the free software with the same standard as windows and mac softwares.
And linux got toons of them, Open source <3
8)No Defragmentasion is needed.
I can probably go on and on and on about it.
Windows isnt all that bad, linux is just better in my opinion.
So port more games :D
Quoting: neffoOr because they don't think at all.Quoting: cdnr1Better qeustion wy do people play on macBecause they think different.
PublicNuisance Sep 4, 2014
I think it's a huge boost to PC Gaming if open source things such as Linux, OpenCL, and OpenGL get more attention. We need developers utilizing tools that benefit all gamers not just the ones using one brand of card or another such as PhysX or DirectX. The indie scene is where a lot of the more interesting games are coming from and they are also the ones providing more support to Linux and other open platforms.
I still have Windows on my computer but that's because I have a backlog of over 400 games and many don't play well with Wine. That number is shrinking every month though and any new game I buy is compatible with Linux or it doesn't get my money.
oldrocker99 Sep 4, 2014
Quoting: ApopasQuoting: neffoOr because they don't think at all.Quoting: cdnr1Better qeustion wy do people play on macBecause they think different.
Samsung's phone commercials ridiculing iPhone fanboys ("The iPhone 5 needs an adapter to use your iPhone 4 accessories." "Yeah, but Apple makes the coolest adapters!")) were right to the point. I began noticing, in the 1980s, the Apple Phenomenon: that people would pay any price to get that cute little multicolored apple on their boxes. Yes, the hardware was nice, if you never ever wanted to upgrade a component, but, essentially, Apple relies on the old Planned Obsolescence model that Detroit ran into the ground in the 1950s. And Apple decreed that the only way you could get their clearly superior-to-Windows OS was to pay a premium for their machines; fighting an Amiga Mac emulator in 1987, fighting the "Hackintosh" in the 2000s cemented my view of them as the new Evil Empire. These days, Microsoft, which not so long ago ruled the waves, is now moored at the dock, and taking on water. Evil Empire no more; Apple has taken their place.
The most interesting point about Mac gamers (and they are a small minority of Mac users; although there are many, many more Mac games on Steam currently than there are Linux games, and, to put it simply, Mac users aren't as farking hungry for games as we Linux users. Their percentage of Steam users is not much higher than Linux users, and there are many more people who use OSX then use Linux) is seen in Aspyr's pleasant shock and surprise at a thread on the Steam CIV V forums devoted solely to thanking Aspyr for their nearly perfect native port of a AAA game. For all the many games Aspyr has ported to the Mac, they never had seen such a thread from Mac users. One of them said that when they saw it, they were grinning from ear to ear all that day (6/10/14). That thread has 28 pages of effusive thanks, showing the devotion to gaming Linux users have.
The good thing about the Mac ports is that, once a game has been ported to OpenGL, most of the heavy lifting has already been accomplished for a Linux port, for obvious reasons.
The explosion of games for Linux which we're all enjoying is still only the beginning. I'm glad (at 66) that I've lived long enough to see this!
I game on Linux because (thanks especially to Valve) Linux is now quite viable as a game platform. Otherwise I would play games on Android or I might get a console. A game that is only available on Windows is dead to me--literally the first thing I check whenever I hear about an interesting game is whether it's available on Linux; if it's not I usually stop right there.
I'm delighted that so many more games are becoming available for Linux and I enjoy voting with my dollars by buying Linux games.
- Not being locked into a proprietary system that forces me to do things certain ways
- Freedom/Ethics
- Customization/power user
- Friendly, funny, smart community
- The fact that Linux can run on anything. Having Linux skills is very useful, and very powerful.
- Cheaper (no OS tax)
I never was an avid gamer...until gaming came to Linux!!
And by the way OSX is fine, but I don't like Apple and their policies. Windows is just yucky. I used it a lot in the past and I'm very glad to wash my hands of it.
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