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113 Comments
- jakereilly, on 07/12/2009, -10/+46Why makes games for 1% of the computing population?
- Myztry, on 07/12/2009, -3/+36All software should be written on top of open layers (such as OpenGL) adaptable to any system. Then software is free to roam across platforms without worrying about what that underlaying system is. Games are meant to run on top of the system rather than being part of it and requiring reboots, etc.
The part of the puzzle that is really missing is 'executables' using an open InterMediate Language (bytecode fashion) so software can run on any architecture regardless of opcode set and 'bitness'. Native opcodes get generated from the InterMediate Language and data/address sizes get extended out to native length.
Any application should be able to run on any platform and architecture as long as the required functions are implemented and exposed to the 'just in time' compiler. - matthekc, on 07/12/2009, -0/+28There was a time that hardly anyone developed for directx because opengl was better and easier to use. Which one is better is still a matter of opinion but directx became easy to use. If you want developers to use opengl it has to become the better tool.
Blender the 3d modeler and game engine has picked up a few small commercial game projects because the tool is not only good enough but also easy to use.
The key here is to offer superior tools that are very easy to use and other platforms would be hard pressed to get people to want to use their lock-in platform technologies. - ArthurSucks, on 07/12/2009, -0/+26Open Letter to Open Letter Linux Advocates,
Your open letters are falling on deaf ears. Every week there is a new open letter and it seems to solve nothing. Maybe instead of working on open letters we should support the few game developers who are supporting our platforms such as ID Software, 2D Boy, etc. By support I mean cold hard cash. If these manufactures can make some solid cash, then it will become more inviting for those not already on board.
Thank you. - ironhammers, on 07/11/2009, -5/+21I totally agree with most of the points raised here, except for maybe the Chrome OS part.
But Games for Linux is what we need!!!
It totally sucks that i have to boot windows to have a blast on COD! - Bicep, on 07/12/2009, -1/+12I'm hoping to see Chrome as yet another Distro.. we'll see whether that comes true or not.
As for games, there are actually many popular, modern games(i.e., Half Life 2, WoW, The Sims 3, Starcraft, etc.), that work well in WINE on Linux, check it out at: http://appdb.winehq.org
Also see here for some videos of games being played in WINE:
http://digg.com/linux_unix/Dell_Inspiron_530n_NVID ...
and
http://www.youtube.com/thecoolguy4linux
Looks like some versions of COD work in WINE and some don't, search here: http://appdb.winehq.org
Here's a list for the Crossover (paid compatibility app - based on WINE):
http://www.codeweavers.com/compatibility/search?na ... - colincornaby, on 07/12/2009, -2/+12If you're going to support Linux, you might as well support Mac OS too.
Just sayin. Mac OS X has much higher market share than Linux. - warp99, on 07/12/2009, -2/+12Because that 1% your quoting is a statistic for the number of web hits per operating system predominately for North America, so it's not true market share. When you do a real market share analysis reality sets in. Even Microsoft understands this:
http://blogs.eweek.com/applewatch/content/macbook/ ...
According to their research Linux has more market share than Apple. These are only for desktops per Ballmer's own words. Then why the status quo if Linux has more market share?
It's very simple, both Microsoft and Apple are pushing the duopoly of operating systems since another competitor would take share from both of them. Microsoft does not see Apple as a strong competitor since Apple desktops are a niche product, not commodity systems. Linux on the other hand works on a plethora of platforms and has obtained the "cheap and good enough" status for the desktop. This is the same status Microsoft grabbed against Apple in the mid 90's. But what about Apple's position in the market?
Apple understands that it will never be able to overtake Microsoft since their products are tied to the hardware and require a premium versus the competition. So the best option for Apple is to exclude competitors such as Linux and let Microsoft retain the lions share of the desktop. Any desktop market share gains against Microsoft is just "gravy" since the bulk of Apple's profits come from the iPod/iTunes/iPhone franchise.
So the idea that Linux's market share is so small that nobody would produce for is a bald face lie. The simple fact is that the status quo of the duopoly has the greatest benefit so a concerted effort by both Apple and Microsoft to continue this arrangement is their top priority. - Nikobelia, on 07/12/2009, -0/+10"These companies tirelessly weild vendor-lockin, predatory, and destructive practices on computer technology, which are the same actions, along with the willingness of other companies to embrace Open Standards, that will spell defeat and extinction these companies (Good Riddens). Technology is meant to enable humans, people increasingly will not accept companies who destroy innovation, and our technological future. We have arrived at the day when purposley destroying technological interoperability is considered Bad Corporate Citizenship!"
This is a long, dogmatic incoherent argument riddled with typoes, and it's based on unreasonable and impractical ideas about the computing industry. I use Linux, but I'm well aware that Linux isn't mainstream and isn't moving that way as fast as the article's author seems to think. The reason why it isn't is pretty similar to the problem with the article; Linux distributions are developed (and proselytised about) by people with more technical knowledge than communication skills. Buried, because no-one's going to take this seriously. - z00k, on 07/12/2009, -1/+10I'm currently working for a company right now developing a video game, and one of the biggest points we wanted to attack was the ability to get the game to everyone possible. We didn't want to hold back users just because they couldn't play it because of the operating system they are running. We are making sure that the game will have a native client for Windows,*Nix, and OS x.
This will greatly open our user base and make the community more diverse. - Ouze, on 07/12/2009, -5/+13"I made a prediction that GNU/Linux would become the predominant platform of choice for computers everywhere within the next couple of years."
Buried. - inactive, on 07/12/2009, -0/+8(That means not pirating all your software.)
- Myztry, on 07/12/2009, -3/+9Hardware accelerated 3D gaming took off with OpenGL and particularly 3DFX's Voodoo card.
Microsoft simply purchased Direct3D from Rendermorphics in 1995.
http://www.mcmillan.cx/innovation.html#direct3d - Nitrodist88, on 07/12/2009, -0/+6http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GNU/Linux_naming_cont ...
Some history for you! - B1665r, on 07/12/2009, -3/+9Ahhh yes, and Microsoft has not done a single thing to DirectX since DirectX 3.0...
- warp99, on 07/12/2009, -0/+5When 2D Boy came out with World of Goo I purchased a copy for three reasons:
1) It's a very good game
2) Linux version including debs
3) Price was reasonable
If developers produce good Linux games people will purchase them, but they have to be worth the price. Linux users are so use to getting their software gratis that there has to be a compelling reason to buy. They also don't want to pay an arm, a leg, and a left testicle for the privilege.
Moral of the story? Good games at a fair price, that's all we want. - Gndoab, on 07/12/2009, -11/+16don't worry, last year and next year is the year or the linux desktop!
- clarious, on 07/12/2009, -2/+6Because there are a lot of Linux users (which often get associated with geeks) are gamer too, I am sure that the percent of gamers in Linux users is higher than in Windows-only users. (note the word 'only').
And before any retards say it, you don't have to open your source to be able to run on Linux, there are Linux version of Maple, Mathlab and they run fine! - Yage2006, on 07/12/2009, -2/+6Ya if you can pretend all the other games that are on windows and not linux simply do not exist then your fine :)
- ironhammers, on 07/12/2009, -2/+6What you say is very true, and I have played many games through WINE and the likes, but it always seems that they will only play smoothly at a low resolution with low gfx settings. As oppesed to 1680x1050 with all settings turned on that I generally get along with in Windows.
- Xiata, on 07/12/2009, -0/+3Well, I wouldn't say the only reason.
Proprietary software platforms tend to be slow moving targets. They may not have all the tools readily available, but the ones you are using aren't going anywhere fast. Furthermore, even if things do change, they generally keep maintenance ready for key clients whims. Problem with the platform? No problem if you are important, they will bend over backwards to fix it for you.
Then you have the open platforms. Tend to evolve at ridiculous rates (or not at all). It's great, they generally get the best of all worlds before everyone else... but the development teams tend to be... eh... sort of ADD. They want to make the new toys everyone's dreaming about but if you aren't keeping your code base up to date with theirs, you may run into some nasty issues trying to interface with their platform by the time you are finishing up your project. If you ask them to fix a problem for you, well, you know the game (RTFM, fix it yourself, blah blah blah), which increases the work load of your team as you will be trying to fix something you may not be entirely up to fixing. The open platform may end up being significantly better, but it really comes down to risk assessment. Since it's open, the tools you are working with will probably not be the same when you compare it against all the possible distributions of it. It's more risky developing against a platform that may have hundreds of variants of what you trying to use.
From a business perspective, being able to throw money at someone to make sure their stuff works with yours as an option sometimes works out better. - wakingrufus, on 07/12/2009, -0/+3Savage 2 is another great game that has a linux client.
- wakingrufus, on 07/12/2009, -0/+3Linux ports would not be so expensive and unappealing to developers if the developers used cross platform technologies. namely, OpenGL. the problem is that the vast majority of games are written in DirectX. This is for a few reasons. one is that windows driver support for OpenGL has been less than great for some certain graphics chipsets. Another is that microsoft heavily markets their direct X platform, and finally, OpenGL has had some problems keeping their API easy to use and understand. proponents of linux gaming should focus attention on the OpenGL issue for 2 reasons: one: games written in openGL are much easier to run in WINE (yes i know this is a band-aid) two: games written in opengl are much easier to port.
- EddiePotato, on 07/12/2009, -0/+3I remember wishing really hard for more Mac games back when I was primarily a Mac user. But the share of compatible games was always less than 10%, about the same market share as Macs themselves. It was a hard reality to accept.
- thisthatwhat, on 07/12/2009, -1/+4I can't quite find how your argument could be correct. You're basically saying games are the reason people buy PCs and since games only run on Windows no one is using Linux. I'd say your precursor assumption is incorrect. PCs have a millions of other uses.
- B1665r, on 07/12/2009, -8/+11Because they need to feed their cognitive dissonance some how. Games are the ~only~ reason linux has not taken off yeah know.
- matthekc, on 07/12/2009, -0/+3That is a fact... do you have an argument to give it purpose?
- Dustin00, on 07/12/2009, -2/+5That time of the month again?
- Rudegar, on 07/12/2009, -0/+3maybe he mainly play Sonic The Hedgehog?
- gsnedders, on 07/12/2009, -0/+3It has already been said that Chrome has it's own windowing system, so it'll include quite a bit of new software.
- Rudegar, on 07/12/2009, -0/+3if you don't need gaming as netbooks would not
you don't need photoshop
and don't need to sync with an exchange server
then what keeps linux from working on a netbook
apart from some users being conservative ? - ohplease, on 07/12/2009, -1/+4Fallout 3, World of Warcraft, Oblivion, Half Life 2 Ep1, Sims 3... come on, are you serious joculator?
- shirosamurai, on 07/12/2009, -0/+3UT2004? Are you kidding me? That was 5 years ago. You're saying nothing good came out on PC for 5 years?
- RPGmaster, on 07/12/2009, -0/+3For those burying me, here's my source:
http://www.osnews.com/story/21035/Ballmer_Linux_Bi ... - Rudegar, on 07/12/2009, -0/+3osX == BSD == form of unix
linux == form of unix
common battle - B1665r, on 07/12/2009, -0/+3Yeah, Blender has a brutal three or four day learning curve... Just like XSI ModTool and Maya. Its curve is something less than Max though.
- Paranor01, on 07/12/2009, -0/+2Doesn't have to be, that's the point of the article.
- Rudegar, on 07/12/2009, -0/+2blizzard always do both dx and opengl being that they always support mac too
blizzard are pretty big but of cause supporting it and pushing it guess there is a difference - B1665r, on 07/12/2009, -1/+3Ahh yes, if you are going to talk about the ways that Microsoft has crippled OpenGL, you should provide a link showing how OpenGL has been crippled on windows.
Direct from the vendor, a technical explanation of the ways OpenGL was ruined by Vista
http://www.opengl.org/pipeline/article/vol003_9/ - trogdoor, on 07/12/2009, -0/+2"most people" isn't the target market for any of the major 3D modeling suites.
- Blaxter, on 07/12/2009, -0/+2I only play wow because it works really well in linux, otherwise I won't play
- weaksnyc, on 08/14/2009, -0/+2Whoever is digging you down is blinded to the truth. Games are consistently delayed when they're being developed without adding Linux to the mix, why would companies add extra development time to a title for very little financial gain?
Hate it as much as you want, money is what drives the current industry of gaming. Linux users have no problem buying games developed for other platforms by dual-booting and using WINE, so what exactly is there to gain for a developer by developing games for Linux when Linux users are buying the games anyway (or they're downloading them... but that's a topic for a different post...)? - MattBD, on 07/12/2009, -0/+2Depends what stats you believe - it's easy to tell how many Mac users there are (sales figures are a fair indication, and visitor stats from websites) but Linux is a lot harder. Also Linux is often used as an embedded OS (in routers, PDAs, and phones such as Android and the Palm Pre), or on servers.
But you're sort of right. OS X is POSIX compliant and Linux is pretty much there too so in theory you should be able to port applications between them easily. Native graphical interfaces can be a pain unless you use a cross-platform toolkit like Qt, but I don't think that would really apply to games. OpenGL is an option on both platforms too. - B1665r, on 07/12/2009, -1/+3I disagree. This guy should have that statement hung around his neck, and we should bring it up the next time he manages to front page an article on digg. That way his essays become comdey and funny.
I spilled coffee when I read that;) - ChewyBass, on 07/12/2009, -0/+2If *nix gained market share every time there was a prediction it would have taken over as the predominate OS. The only real market share I've seen *nix gain has been based on the number of technically knowledgeable people on the planet. Those with the knowledge will use *nix, and most will use windows or macs as well. Due to the complexities of *.nix most of the typical user base will never be able to use the system. Hell, they can't even use windows correctly, why do you think tech support is still so popular.
- smacksaw, on 07/12/2009, -0/+2If it's done as the author suggests, it's no skin off their back. It's like when games for DOS all had their own proprietary drivers, and then Windows had the API - HAL, DirectX, etc. The developed for that layer. OpenGL, it's just a layer. It makes sense.
Besides, even if it's 1%, you get to grow that market. Part of it might be cannibalising from other market share (like Windows), but you're not going to lose potential customers, only gain. - Yage2006, on 07/12/2009, -0/+2Developing games costs already allot so for them to shell out even more to develop linux ports the money has to be there.
there must be a sizable user base.
Sadly that's still not the case. And the fact that there is almost no support buy game developers less people adopt linux.
Its a vicious circle. Maybe it will start with casual gamers maybe someday but the user share of the market has to be high at least 20-30% for them to even consider. - Domthedude001, on 07/12/2009, -0/+2"frameworks only available on all platforms"
Start with those, and add more if you need to. - Bicep, on 07/12/2009, -0/+2Guess you never looked at http://www.debian.org
- Mockylock, on 07/12/2009, -0/+2What else did you expect from this post. Anyone that posts on an OS and its superiority before it comes out, is expected to fail.
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