UT3 For Linux Is Laid To Rest By Epic's Mark Rein

[KeithZG]

Anyhow, if they really cared they would at least tell us what really happened, be it Ryan or Mark himself. Not gonna happen.

Mark Rein has a history of being kindof a dick. Ryan, though, is probably just legally bound (he's intimated as much at times). I'm quite certain he'd say if he could, in fact, he's probably said enough in the past to potentially get him in trouble with an NDA (whether he's gotten in trouble or not is hard to tell).

[allquixotic]

Anyhow, if they really cared they would at least tell us what really happened, be it Ryan or Mark himself. Not gonna happen.

I would wager that they probably didn't anticipate the degree to which Unreal Engine 3 is tied to the Windows / Xbox platforms. If it were really engineered to work on POSIX platforms, releasing most Unreal Engine 3 games for Mac and Linux would be something tangible for most game studios, and they'd do it because of the low investment required to achieve it.

Ryan may be a good porting hacker, but for something that complex, I'm not surprised if it required more talent than was available in that one person, and they simply didn't increase the manpower to compensate for the gargantuan technical effort required.

Nowadays, Unreal Engine 3 games are so feature-laden with third party add-ons that it is nigh impossible to port them, because none of the companies selling this advanced software are interested in POSIX compatibility. Just look at the list of ISV partners that do things like skeletal meshes, physics, face modelling, lip syncing, lighting, world generation, etc. for a game like Mass Effect 2. Compare that to the relatively clean UT3, which didn't rely on that much third party software, and they couldn't even release that for Linux.

I did some significant hacking on Deus Ex back in the day, so I know how modular and portable UE1 was. I think they adopted increasingly more Windows-isms as time went on, and with UE3, the engine is pretty hopelessly tied to Windows and DirectX. It may yet be modular, but if the modules depend on Windows, or worse, if the core depends on Windows, someone involved in a porting effort would have an enormous job on their hands. Even Unreal Engine 1 was often referred to as the "Unreal Operating System" -- it's really that dynamic and that general, that the team who conceived it (Mark chiefly among them) actually called it an operating system. And in a way, it is; it's just sort of nested on top of (or within?) the operating system beneath it that interfaces with the hardware more directly.

[allquixotic]

As a followup point, this is why the Unigine engine is great for Linux: one of the design goals of Unigine is to make it stupidly easy to produce a Unigine title on all the significant platforms. Sure, you can pollute the engine with Windows-only code, but if the Unigine guys do their job, they'll have enough built-in functionality that you won't have to.

Or maybe game developers will wisen up and actually take platform independence seriously as a design goal from the start... pipe dream, I know.

[Svartalf]

I'd kill for a new Unreal game that takes after the original game's roots, but you know its never going to happen.

You never know... Epic wasn't really the original player in making that game. Digital Extremes was the co-developer of the original title- and they're still around and completely independent.

Anyhow, if they really cared they would at least tell us what really happened, be it Ryan or Mark himself. Not gonna happen.

This is a presumption on your part. Mark probably doesn't care (much, at least...)- and Ryan very likely DOES care, but can't say anything because of an NDA precluding him from saying anything on the subject. As others have pointed out, he's already given out a bit more than he probably ought to have and rumor has it that none of this is really his fault on the matter- it's all in Epic's part of the deal.

[PGHammer]

Why UT3/Linux Croaked

part of me wonders how much of the Linux Client being canned can be attributed to Microsoft and Gears of War. I really wonder if one of the stipulations of Microsoft backing Gears of War was the termination of Epic's outright support for *nix.

None of it.

The problem with Linux gaming (especially Linux-native gaming) is that development is resource-intensive, and has little to no monetization ROI; development without ROI, in most cases, won't happen *at all* (that is, in fact, why GOW2 for *Windows* didn't happen; instead, it was console-only).

Also, look at the problems Epic's owners have moneywise - they pretty much *have* to go where the ROI is (and it plain and simply is not in Linux gaming; it also pretty much isn't in Windows gaming, either, not in comparison to console gaming, or even casino gaming, which is Midway's other major platform).

[energyman]

good thing I decided to wait for the linux client before I purchase it.

[VinzC]

I would wager that they probably didn't anticipate the degree to which Unreal Engine 3 is tied to the Windows / Xbox platforms. If it were really engineered to work on POSIX platforms, releasing most Unreal Engine 3 games for Mac and Linux would be something tangible for most game studios, and they'd do it because of the low investment required to achieve it.

Ryan may be a good porting hacker, but for something that complex, I'm not surprised if it required more talent than was available in that one person, and they simply didn't increase the manpower to compensate for the gargantuan technical effort required.

I really don't believe this is true, i.e. as far as UT3 is concerned, factually. Remember three years ago or so when Ryan said the game couldn't be ported immediately and we couldn't imagine why (actually he couldn't tell). This to me means he probably had all the appropriate technical skills to port the game. But something that was beyond the technical context of porting a game was preventing him from doing that. I'm more likely to believe in ?political? rather than technical [or skills] reasons.

Remember also that Phoronix has shown clues the game was indeed running on Linux. I rather believe the porting project was dropped for a couple of reasons but technical ? without raising the conspiracy theory.

[V!NCENT]

It can't be ported right away an in "Show me the money you still owe me first, kthnxbye?".

Lol I wouldn't either...

[Svartalf]

None of it.

You're very probably right on that score.

The problem with Linux gaming (especially Linux-native gaming) is that development is resource-intensive, and has little to no monetization ROI; development without ROI, in most cases, won't happen *at all* (that is, in fact, why GOW2 for *Windows* didn't happen; instead, it was console-only).

Heh... Your statement there would be correct if your assumptions were correct.

You assume it's resource-intensive. Not much moreso than the actual game's development if you're doing it right in the first place- good design and development lead you to abstract away inconsistencies in the code base where you've got things like D3D, etc. If I were able to do this full time, it'd take less time for me to make the ports I've done.

And, the main reason that GOW2 didn't happen for Windows is that they'd have had expenses within the PC world that they just didn't have cash for to do the only resource intensive work, the extra testing- and didn't have the cash to do another risky (For them at this point...) deal on things when GoW PC didn't make as much money as it ought to have along with UT3 bombing as bad as it did in the marketplace. The big selling point of the XBox is that you have an easy effort going from Windows PC to console (as long as the controls are simplistic enough- NWN2 wouldn't have made it there, even though Atari tried to make it go there initially...) and vice versa. So, I don't buy your reasoning for GoW2...

Also, look at the problems Epic's owners have moneywise - they pretty much *have* to go where the ROI is (and it plain and simply is not in Linux gaming; it also pretty much isn't in Windows gaming, either, not in comparison to console gaming, or even casino gaming, which is Midway's other major platform).

Heh... I think you hit it on the head of the nail with this one. MONEY is the reason why this happened the way it did. It's not an RoI that got them in this position- although that's the figuring with what Mark Rein finally told Michael Larabel. Rumor has it they owed him money for prior work done on the previous versions of Unreal Tech. I'd be inclined to work with someone up to a point on things if they owed me money for things (and be even understanding after a fashion if they could show me they missed their mark on a title...)- but if it goes past a threshold, I'd cut them completely off and withhold any further results of my labor and stop doing things with it. The odds are good that they ran out of funds to pay him for past work and now it's no longer in their interests from an RoI position, since they're hurting from all of this, to correct the problem that they made for themselves on this.

[allquixotic]

Heh... I think you hit it on the head of the nail with this one. MONEY is the reason why this happened the way it did. It's not an RoI that got them in this position- although that's the figuring with what Mark Rein finally told Michael Larabel. Rumor has it they owed him money for prior work done on the previous versions of Unreal Tech. I'd be inclined to work with someone up to a point on things if they owed me money for things (and be even understanding after a fashion if they could show me they missed their mark on a title...)- but if it goes past a threshold, I'd cut them completely off and withhold any further results of my labor and stop doing things with it. The odds are good that they ran out of funds to pay him for past work and now it's no longer in their interests from an RoI position, since they're hurting from all of this, to correct the problem that they made for themselves on this.

What I don't understand is how a company that licenses an extremely expensive, industry-leading engine as Unreal 1 / 2 / 3 can be in a financially difficult position. They must have astronomical operating costs or they constantly work very close to their profit line or give all their profits to their employees or execs.

I mean, I have no doubt that they are getting some money from every copy of Mass Effect 1 and 2 sold, among many others. Why is Epic acting like they are hard-pressed for money?

It's kind of sad in one way, because these guys are very wealthy to begin with and can't spare enough money for a single developer to work on one of their flagship titles.... and it's also sad to see a company unable to manage its finances in a way that is conducive to lower operating costs and better cash flow. I just think they fail at economics or something, because they should be making plenty of money and then some. Is the executive board buying yachts or what's the deal?