Hi. I'm a web developer and long time supporter of free software and GNU/Linux. I like games and ocasionally play some, but if I want to play some of the best and newest games I'm forced to run closed binaries which I don't like. It's not just that I loose the freedom I've come to expect of the software I run, there are some problems associated to the closed binaries.

While I'm supportive of game developers on GNU/L, I don't like the fact that so few care about the importance of the software being free. A lot of their problems come from their lack of knowledge of the GNU/L platform but even more because they release only closed binaries.

They often argue that our platform isn't ready for games, or that diversity is bad, indeed, they're bad at supporting their games in the new platform. That would be easily overcome by releasing the sources to their games but they won't, there's other solutions they could develop but they won't neither.

I think free software is the future and games will have to be that way. Game engines should be free, the only thing that might be non-free is the content (game logic scripts, text, audio, graphics, video,...). That would make it a lot easier to support games on more distros thru new versions. It would make it easier for developers to come up with new games, all they would need is improve the engines cooperatively with other game devs and distro devs, and then create the content for their game. Now, noone is thinking about this, a lot of games are started from scratch or from poorly written codebases, doing the same programming again and again.

Ok, they won't do that, but then why make it hard for users by packing half the libraries the game needs? Why don't developers make a pool with the libraries their games use and release them with every game? When problem arises, they'll blame it on GNU/L diversity, why not try to learn a better way?

The same issues could apply to Windows or Mac users in the near future. Who will support their games when their OS stops being supported and they have to upgrade to a OS that's incompatible with the games they bought? With Windows that's not much of a problem with a release every 10 years, but what would happen if it started improving at the time rate free software improves?

In general, I have a bad feeling about the way games are thrown and then left orphaned, sometimes blaming the platform. Kickstart projects don't make me feel much better, they put GNU/L as an option when some high landmark is reached, what happens with GNU/L users that paid when that landmark isn't reached? We're being treated like 3rd class citizens when we're paying as much as others, some times more.

Thanks if you read it all. What do you think?