Put the wish list for porting projects HERE...

[niniendowarrior]

I'll help if I can. I always wanted to grab some experience in the porting arena but I have no real project that I have worked on that involved this.

[me262]

I would like to, however my skills at this point aren't at all at the level you guys are at. I'm just finishing PG1 (with at least a 4.0!), and haven't gotten into directX or OpenGL.

I did however just finish a text-based Connect-4 application for my final!

[xav1r]

Hey Svartalf, dont know if you already know about this, but maybe this is another possible porting project to consider.

http://www.gamasutra.com/php-bin/news_index.php?story=22005

A developer called hanbitsoft with namco bandai as their publisher is going to relaunch the mmo hellgate london which flopped last year, as a free-to-play online game. Do you think they'd be interested in letting LGP port this game to linux? They might consider it, right?

[portets43]

Not sure if this has been asked, or if ea is a no, but I know so many people that would switch to Linux if some ea titles came to Linux.

mainly: spore, the sims 2, and the sims 3. (sims 2&3 being the biggest) and need for speed titles, although less important.
I'm sure it's unlikely, just needed to mention it

[Svartalf]

Not sure if this has been asked, or if ea is a no, but I know so many people that would switch to Linux if some ea titles came to Linux.

Heh... If only.

EA's at best a "maybe", but in light of the DRM that they threw onto Bioshock and Spore, it's more like a "No". Reality of the matter is, that it's a chicken-and-egg sort of problem with someone like EA. If you don't have the numbers present, EA's very definitely NOT interested in providing even just rights access unless you're looking to make them real money. "Real money" is ~25k or more units sold to them. If you can't pony up that sort of cash or prove to them that they'll MAKE that sort of cash, forget it.

We can't get the numbers up because of players like EA.

Players like EA won't step up to the plate because we don't represent big numbers to them.

[Svartalf]

Hey Svartalf, dont know if you already know about this, but maybe this is another possible porting project to consider.

http://www.gamasutra.com/php-bin/news_index.php?story=22005

A developer called hanbitsoft with namco bandai as their publisher is going to relaunch the mmo hellgate london which flopped last year, as a free-to-play online game. Do you think they'd be interested in letting LGP port this game to linux? They might consider it, right?

It's a 'maybe'. I wouldn't make anything further of it for now until I get a few of the projects that're in progress more done. Unless they see NO loss of cash out of this, I don't think Namco is going to go for it.

You see, Namco's NOT a nobody- they publish things like Soul Caliber and Tekken... They've been in the console business since it's earliest days.

[xav1r]

It's a 'maybe'. I wouldn't make anything further of it for now until I get a few of the projects that're in progress more done. Unless they see NO loss of cash out of this, I don't think Namco is going to go for it.

You see, Namco's NOT a nobody- they publish things like Soul Caliber and Tekken... They've been in the console business since it's earliest days.

Ah ok. Do you think it'd be worth if I did some looking up to see if theyre interested? Do you see any way for them to lose money on this? They said it was gonna be a free to play thing, maybe they could be convinced to add some sort of ad-revenue thing.

Which brings me to another point regarding EA. Their free quake-live wannabe game Battlefield Heroes is soon going to be open to betatesters again. (I know, since im in the beta ) Maybe they would be more willing to listen since they're pretty much still finding out the entire process with this free online game. Kinda like id is with quake live.

[jonwil]

I am not sure if its been asked before (and I am not going to read the whole 97 page thread to find out) but can someone explain to me what sort of costs/work is involved when a publisher or developer gives their game to a company to have it ported to linux? (I mean from the publisher/developer side not the porter side)

Is there more to it than just drawing up a "you cant publih any of our proprietary IP" NDA and a "we get a chunk of money for every copy of this you sell" contract and then giving the porting company a copy of the source code?

[niniendowarrior]

I am not sure if its been asked before (and I am not going to read the whole 97 page thread to find out) but can someone explain to me what sort of costs/work is involved when a publisher or developer gives their game to a company to have it ported to linux? (I mean from the publisher/developer side not the porter side)

Is there more to it than just drawing up a "you cant publih any of our proprietary IP" NDA and a "we get a chunk of money for every copy of this you sell" contract and then giving the porting company a copy of the source code?

It's been asked many times over. I think the cost here is that the publisher wants you to pay them royalties for the right to look at the code, the right to port, and the right to release the game as all separate payments. This does not cover the cost of having to convince them to even bother with a Linux port.

From a publisher perspective, any bad product goes back to them as a blemish on their company, so it's a matter of them taking care of their IP and make sure that you don't do a rubbish port, that you won't squeal their secrets, and that you will pay them royalties at every turn.

[portets43]

Heh... If only.

EA's at best a "maybe", but in light of the DRM that they threw onto Bioshock and Spore, it's more like a "No". Reality of the matter is, that it's a chicken-and-egg sort of problem with someone like EA. If you don't have the numbers present, EA's very definitely NOT interested in providing even just rights access unless you're looking to make them real money. "Real money" is ~25k or more units sold to them. If you can't pony up that sort of cash or prove to them that they'll MAKE that sort of cash, forget it.

We can't get the numbers up because of players like EA.

Players like EA won't step up to the plate because we don't represent big numbers to them.

spore came to the mac, sims 3 is coming to mac and iphone. 1, sounds like ea is making a little progress toward more platforms.(even if it does just represent $$) and 2, those are opengl platforms. shouldn't that make it a little easier to port to linux?