Well known (and basically a legend) Linux game porter Ryan 'Icculus' Gordon is looking for new titles to port to Linux.
After recently porting the revamp of Turok to Linux and with him hinting (practically confirmed in his latest post…) that Turok 2 is also coming to Linux, he recently posted a new update on Patreon and this bit caught my eye:
Also: I need more games to port. I have a bunch of maybes floating out there, but pretty soon I'm going to need definite yeses to work on. If you know someone in need, send them my way please.
For those who aren't too clued up, Icculus has ported so many games to Linux and other platforms it's really hard to keep track. He's worked with Valve, Epic Games, Activision, EA and many other big companies over the years. He's also helped port quite a number of indie games, so he has a long and beautiful track record.
He's also one of the people working on SDL2, something used by a lot of games across many different platforms. Honestly, I could go on all day about things he's either made, helped maintain or ported to other platforms.
If you're a developer and want to see your game on Linux, it's probably worth getting in touch, especially as he's funded by his own Patreon so he's not likely to eat into your sales. Find him on Twitter, Patreon and his official site with a proper email link.
Note: To be clear, this is not the time to spam him directly asking him to port specific games. A better option, would be to speak to developers directly and send them to him. Also, try to be realistic with who you speak to, but you never know…
There are plenty of indies out there that would probably benefit from a pro like Gordon, but can they pay? I have no idea of the costs involved in freelance porting work like this. I'd say that Gordon's best bet is to leverage an outfit like Humble to hook him up with the indies that have a project they can use him on, and publicise his fees up front.
Would love to see him getting involved in some of the smaller indies with the bigger titles - Subnautica, Scrap Mechanic, A Hat in Time, They Are Billions or The Solus Project.
The idea is to let his patreons pay for the porting, so what he is saying that he will port your game for free if you let him (and you are a game publisher/developer).
This exactly, his Tweet talking about literally says the ports are funded by his Patreon: https://twitter.com/icculus/status/1005951766414921728There are plenty of indies out there that would probably benefit from a pro like Gordon, but can they pay? I have no idea of the costs involved in freelance porting work like this. I'd say that Gordon's best bet is to leverage an outfit like Humble to hook him up with the indies that have a project they can use him on, and publicise his fees up front.
Would love to see him getting involved in some of the smaller indies with the bigger titles - Subnautica, Scrap Mechanic, A Hat in Time, They Are Billions or The Solus Project.
The idea is to let his patreons pay for the porting, so what he is saying that he will port your game for free if you let him (and you are a game publisher/developer).
The idea is to let his patreons pay for the porting, so what he is saying that he will port your game for free if you let him (and you are a game publisher/developer).
I'm one of his patreons and I somehow missed that in his fairly regular updates! Nice. I'd love if more devs actually offered him the chance to work on games. It seems weird to have what is literally a legendary porter putting his services free gratis, and he's not getting any offers!
Last edited by Jahimself on 11 Jun 2018 at 7:40 pm UTC
You are doing awesome work. It would be great if the publisher gave you some help!KOTOR 1
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3TQcmo4atic
Sid Meier's Alpha CentauriYou have a great list, but this one jumped out at me. It would be a perfect project for Icculus.
Being my brutally honest self...thanks, but we don't need yet another garage game on Linux. We got a few thousand of these. What's Turok anyway? What we need at this point are AAA titles. Stuff that makes people go "Wow, you Penguin people can play THAT???" Icculus is a human porting machine who can get anything ported you throw at him. His talents are completely wasted porting B list games. Again, what's Turok? Somebody go convince Bethesda or a company like it to let him have a go at their back catalog. Please?
Well Turok was a triple a game back when it came out but yeah we dont really need games pre 2008 ported as they run fine on linux via wine or emulators. But nothing and i mean nothing is going to convince Bethesda to port unless. Companies like Sega and 2k release everything day and date on linux other publishers would take note and say okay linux is viable now. Basically if its from 2k/Sega/Codemasters/THQ Nordic(aqquired deep silver) strong chance of it coming to linux via feral. However Ea activision Bethesda and Ubisoft no chance even though EA offer origin on mac ffs.
I'd like TES: Blades or Fallout 76 to be ported. It might be a good opportunity for Bethesda to test the waters with them, since they are not quite part of the main series, but spin-offs - kinda like how they did with ESO for Mac. Blades should be easy seeing how it is developed for many different platforms already, but F76 might prove a challenge.
Skyrim would do too, seeing how Linux and Mac are pretty much the only platforms it wasn't ported to yet. But this probably won't happen.
TES:Blades is coming to Android, so that's something. It's designed for phones though, so I'm not sure how great a Linux PC port would be.
Playing Valkyria Chronicles on Linux would be nice.
Last edited by Linuxpunk on 12 Jun 2018 at 9:01 pm UTC
The idea is to let his patreons pay for the porting, so what he is saying that he will port your game for free if you let him (and you are a game publisher/developer).
I'm one of his patreons and I somehow missed that in his fairly regular updates! Nice. I'd love if more devs actually offered him the chance to work on games. It seems weird to have what is literally a legendary porter putting his services free gratis, and he's not getting any offers!
IMHO the main problem is that the (large) publishers wants to be in 100% control of the process as well as holding on to the possibility that either they can license out the Linux-version for lots of money or that Linux someday will be the New Hot Thing that they ride the gravy train by releasing ports at that specific point in time.
For an example we can look at "No One Lives Forever" [The Sad Story Behind A Dead PC Game That Can't Come Back](https://kotaku.com/the-sad-story-behind-a-dead-pc-game-that-cant-come-back-1688358811). It's a good read to get into the strange thinking on the large publishers.
Eh... Slightly off topic, but IDK if REDengine builds for Linux, but I do know the Whitcher 2 is available on our OS. I'd really like to see Cyberpunk 2077 on Linux. Any ideas on that? Do any of you think it'll be possible?
No, REDengine does not build on Linux. TW2 was ported by Virtual Programming using their eON wrapper.
And yes, you're not alone in wanting Cyberpunk 2077. I put it in the Feral requestinator a year ago. :D
and because i am into japan setting: sleeping dogs also would be nice. not gonna happen: Ghost of Tsushima, shenmue
maybe continue the work of batman arkham knight, or kingdom come. too sad they didnt finished their work
and of course stalker 2
IMHO the main problem is that the (large) publishers wants to be in 100% control of the process as well as holding on to the possibility that either they can license out the Linux-version for lots of money or that Linux someday will be the New Hot Thing that they ride the gravy train by releasing ports at that specific point in time.That is an interesting theory. Now I'm curious if you're right.
Sid Meier's Alpha CentauriYou have a great list, but this one jumped out at me. It would be a perfect project for Icculus.
Wait, what? It's already out for Linux. Rune too; Kingpin as well. Been for years.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Loki_Entertainment#Games_published
Here's some more you may not know exist:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linux_Game_Publishing#Games_published
Yes it would be nice to have contemporary ports; but at least they exist.
Thanks for pointing that out. I didn't know. Nice to see Icculus was already one of the main people involved back then. I am guessing that it shouldn't be hard to do an update and build Linux support into the Steam or GOG versions?Sid Meier's Alpha CentauriYou have a great list, but this one jumped out at me. It would be a perfect project for Icculus.
Wait, what? It's already out for Linux. Rune too; Kingpin as well. Been for years.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Loki_Entertainment#Games_published
Here's some more you may not know exist:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linux_Game_Publishing#Games_published
Yes it would be nice to have contemporary ports; but at least they exist.
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