Quoting: zerothisThere seems to be a problem here. Announcing X number of games on Linux, or saying the best games have a Linux version, implies the idea Linux should be or is becoming more like Windows (Lots of games, Like Windows. Top selling games, like Windows). I meant think about it? Are we Linux users because it's like Windows or because it's different than Windows?

We're Linux users for many reasons (I started largely out of ideology), but I think very few embrace "difference from Windows" for the sake of it. The point is to be different from Windows where Windows is lousy. So for instance, more stable, more flexible, more free, not phoning home with all your data, letting you be in charge. I don't see where "Not having any games" would become a Good Thing just because it was unlike Windows.

View this comment - View article - View full comments

Quoting: zerothisLinux gaming does not begin and end with Steam.

Comes damn close.

View this comment - View article - View full comments

Quoting: liamdawe

Quoting: Mountain Man

Quoting: liamdawe

Quoting: Mountain ManI'm with you. Two-years ago we were looking at the occasional indie release and hoping the next Humble Bundle would include Linux ports. Today we have over 1000 high-quality games literally at our finger tips, and deleting your Windows partition and gaming exclusively Linux is (finally!) a viable option. (snip)

Sorry, but again, there isn't 1,000 quality Linux games on there, I can guarantee the actual number of quality games is well under 1,000 which is my point.

That's rather a matter of opinion, don't you think? I would be curious to know how you define a quality game.

Hence why it is an editorial. To everyone: If you have forgotten, an editorial is 100% my opinion, don't read it if you can't handle it ;)

If person A says "bla" and person B says "Sorry, not bla!", is it really unreasonable to ask what basis person B had for contradicting person A?
If you have forgotten, Mountain Man's comment on your editorial is 100% his opinion, don't read it if you can't handle it ;)

View this comment - View article - View full comments

Quoting: PeciskHow about organizing good and serious discussions about what's lacking in Linux gaming? How to make developers aware of help they can get from community? There are so many ways to look at this positively.

There are a number of symptoms you could point to of things that are lacking in Linux gaming--technical annoyances of various sorts. But they are just that: Symptoms. And overall, they're not that serious symptoms; other platforms have their own aggravations. This many ports despite this low market share tell us any Linux problems aren't as steep as all that.

But there is only one real thing that is lacking in Linux gaming: That market share. Number of users. Linux needs those Steam Machines to succeed, and it needs more desktop market share. On the Steam Machines, time is going to start telling relatively soon now. On the desktop . . . well, I've been pretty pessimistic of late years. The Linux desktop is more than ready, but that does not in itself generate sales and distribution. People built it, and they didn't mostly come. But I did recently see something that I found interesting on that front:
http://thevarguy.com/open-source-application-software-companies/091515/ubuntu-linux-based-open-source-os-runs-42-percent-dell-pc
The Chinese government seems to be finally getting serious about its Windows espionage fears, or something. Whatever the reason, currently close to half of Dell's Chinese sales are running state-backed KyLin Linux.

If Linux becomes a bigger market, various other aggravations will get cleaned up because there will be the people with the motivation and knowhow to clean them up. Valve has already done some work. If Linux does not gain a bigger user base, the momentum will ultimately be lost, although it's seeming as if on certain engines porting is now so cheap that the Linux game situation will never get bad like it used to be.

(For our purposes, the desktop remains key, or at least the big powerful desktop-replacement laptop, which people mostly lump together with desktop nowadays anyhow. People can talk about the death of the desktop, but for gaming most of those tiny form factors are irrelevant; nobody's going to play DOTA 2 on a tablet)

View this comment - View article - View full comments

Overall, I'm with those who think that very likely, if they say it didn't make money for them, it probably didn't. We can go back and forth on the revenue and the potential expenses all day; it seems like there's room for plausible arguments in various different directions about how much the port could have cost and how much money it might have made, and lots of people have said intelligent things about that. But since we don't really know, we have one fairly definite data point: This dude saying they didn't make money. Note that it doesn't really sound like he's saying they hemorrhaged money over it, either. But well, 1.5% of sales, and I really don't see it as too implausible even with modern engines that supporting an additional OS that they don't understand well at all could represent over 1.5% of costs.
Probably if they did it again it would be slightly cheaper, with an ongoing but flattening curve of more cheaper every further outing.
More broadly, it seems like Linux is kind of . . . right on the edge. Given current technology (engines and whatnot, as well as the state of Linux in certain game-related areas) and current market share, it seems like some studios do ports or cross-platform releases and say it was worth it, others say it wasn't. And of course the ones who know Linux seem more likely to say it's worth it, although I don't know if that's because it's cheaper when you know how or because the ones for whom it worked out well continue and get to know Linux better or just out of sentiment, with people who know and like Linux simply wanting to judge Linux releases a success . . .

What that says to me though is that, first, we need more market share (duh), and, second, that at this point even a little more could make a major difference. Steam Machines are likely to be very important as long as they're not a total flop; even if they only add like .5%, even just .2%, that could tip a huge proportion of ports over from "Meh, that was a wash at best" to "We actually made a tidy bit of change".
Then there's those Google things, the Chromebooks; there's a lot of them around these days it seems. They're basically Linux (much more so than Android is). You can't use Chromebooks for serious gaming, but surely the little buggers could run casual games. Maybe someone should do some sort of push to make Steam games more available to them, both technically (Some kind of group of packages for making ChromeOS look to a game pretty much like either Ubuntu or SteamOS, so stuff bought from Steam would reliably run on one) and marketing-wise (I'm not a marketer, don't have any great ideas for this, sorry). You could have this group of packages called "Steamify" or something that would make Chrome work well with SteamOS games and install Steam itself, and get Google to include it in its package-manager GUI thing (I assume they have one), which Google presumably wouldn't mind 'cause it'd be an extra feature. Well, something like that.

View this comment - View article - View full comments

Quoting: DrMcCoy

Quoting: Purple Library Guyyour position isn't compatible with support for capitalism

Yes. I'm not a supporter of capitalism. Capitalism is not something I support. You could call me an anti-capitalist and I would agree. And then raise my fist in the red salute.

Ah, well then, objection withdrawn. For the record, I'm with you there. Cheers and vive la revolution!

View this comment - View article - View full comments

Whenever I think of this band, I think of the Red Dwarf episode where Rimmer is slagging Lister's musical taste and says "Why don't you listen to the classics, like the three M's: Mozart, Mendelssohn, and Motörhead?"

View this comment - View article - View full comments

This could be just the game I've been waiting for. I've always loved big 4X space games, Master of Orion and so on. Haven't seen a lot lately, and the few there have been weren't out for Linux and tended to be hard to get working in Wine. I'll be very much looking forward to this.

View this comment - View article - View full comments

They're saying "Wacky" a bit too often for my taste. When people describe their comedic thing as "wacky" it makes me think "desperate and lacking imagination". But it could be good.

View this comment - View article - View full comments

I would make a good hunter because, while patient, careful and remorseless on the hunt itself, I also have strong principles, allowing me to resist the blandishments and temptations of darkness. Those driven by bloodthirst and the thrill of the hunt can fall.

View this comment - View article - View full comments