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  • #31
    I hear you but I want to get some linux gaming going. The only way Steam, and other gaming companies will get on the Linux band wagon is if we are using it and ATI sucks in linux. I have just ordered two GTX260 core 216's and am going to try to sell my 4870x2 for $250...

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    • #32
      Originally posted by ap90033 View Post
      I hear you but I want to get some linux gaming going. The only way Steam, and other gaming companies will get on the Linux band wagon is if we are using it and ATI sucks in linux. I have just ordered two GTX260 core 216's and am going to try to sell my 4870x2 for $250...
      You or I or anyone else buying graphics cards on Linux is not going to help with that. In theory lobbying might but I seriously doubt game companies care enough. You could always write them an address that all the signed people would be interested in buying the game if it got ported. (probably have to gather tons of names and it still wouldn't probably work)

      There's already a reasonably large userbase on Linux, no one just has any idea of how big the paying userbase would be. Thus we'll probably be stuck in a chicken-and-the-egg situation where game companies can't know market size without making a game and they don't want to make a game without knowing the market size. (Who knows, maybe it really is not worth it to make games for Linux; someone should take the chance and you can't expect it to be big game companies. As soon as we have indie companies making big bucks on Linux games, they might change their attitude)

      Summa summarum, pick a better set of tactics than pondering which graphics card you want to buy.

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      • #33
        In case previous message wasn't clear, here's how you get the big game houses to get interested of Linux:
        1) Learn to code
        2) Make a Linux game
        3) Try to sell it
        It'll be a flop, retry from 2. Eventually you get to 4 assuming there's a market and you're innovative enough.
        4) Profit
        5) Start making a Linux game
        6) Sell the idea to a big game house and show proof of the previous success to them; most of the profit goes to them
        8) Keep repeating 5 to 6 for an arbitrary long time
        9) Linux slowly develops a commercial game culture
        If you're wrong and Linux users don't actually want to pay for games, you'll stay forever looping 2 and 3. Do you want to risk it? You have to show the big game companies you can make a commercial success, otherwise they aren't going to care.

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        • #34
          Why would anyone develop a Linux ONLY game? That would be the most stupid design decision you can make...

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          • #35
            Originally posted by Kano View Post
            Why would anyone develop a Linux ONLY game? That would be the most stupid design decision you can make...
            Well, doesn't have to be Linux-only, as long as you are able to provide statistics on how many Linux users bought the game.

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            • #36
              Create an online game then you see it in the server stats

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              • #37
                Originally posted by Kano View Post
                Create an online game then you see it in the server stats
                That's details. My point was that you need a proof of concept, things will probably start rolling on their own weight after that. This is why learning to code and to draw is a lot more important than buying hardware.

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                • #38
                  I recall an article by the head of an indie game studio, where he was basically saying that they make significant money (for their small size) from Mac OSX and Linux markets. In particular, while the market on those alternative OSs is significantly smaller than on Windows, it is also much easier to get very good exposure in those markets, precisely because there are so few people catering to them. Unfortunately, this is now just me talking, because I can't find the link anymore...

                  But yeah, the irony is that big studios won't port their games to Linux because, even though they could easily afford to do it, the added income from Linux just doesn't register for them.

                  On the other hand, look for independent studios producing Linux games - while the relative cost of supporting Linux is higher for them, they stand to gain much more. And there are certainly some gems out there; just vote with your money.

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                  • #39
                    Originally posted by nhaehnle View Post
                    But yeah, the irony is that big studios won't port their games to Linux because, even though they could easily afford to do it, the added income from Linux just doesn't register for them.

                    On the other hand, look for independent studios producing Linux games - while the relative cost of supporting Linux is higher for them, they stand to gain much more. And there are certainly some gems out there; just vote with your money.
                    I don't think you should forget that those big name titles are pretty much 100% made without thinking about cross-platform compatibility. Often they are designed for a DirectX engine, that's often licensed not owned by them. If the cost estimates include doing that from scratch with all the ugly details of making something work exactly like this other engine works then the cost/benefit obviously won't work out.

                    The independents on the other hand often prefer to use open engines or other cross-platform languages. A good example is "World of Goo", that's a pretty big hit that's available for Linux. Other than that, I must admit most of my gaming happens in WINE...

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                    • #40
                      personally I dont think it is a good idea to release closed source games for linux at all.
                      I mean in linux everything assumes everything else is open source so they break ABI/ API quite often and it is a pain in the ass to keep an ancient version of libstdc++ or sdl just to play a commercial game.

                      I would rather prefer if developers would ensure that everything works under wine so it would be our "compability layer".

                      The alternative would be to release the engine as OSS and keep the content proproetary...

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