GameTree Linux Is Trying To Be Its Own Steam-Like Platform

[devius]

So you also think that (all?) linux users aren't willing to pay for software? Because that was what he said, and that's the general assumption. I just used the humble bundle as an example to show that this assumption isn't true. He never said that linux users aren't willing to pay for THEIR software. There is paid software on linux, and AFAIK, someone buys it, so saying that "Linux users are still not willing to pay for commercial software" is false. Sure, there will be those who wouldn't want to pay, but I doubt the percentage will be higher than what it is on the windows side of the world.

[deanjo]

What about the humble bundle? linux users paid more than any other OS.

Are you seriously comparing a "pay what you want" model vs a "pay what the publisher" model? There is one heck of a difference of someone willing to pay what they want (in this case about $11) vs having to pay $700+ that the publisher wants. If Adobe offered a "pay what you want model" then that argument would hold some merit.

[devius]

Like Chris Cox's explanation on why Photoshop won't be ported anytime soon: http://forums.adobe.com/message/3231810#3231810
Que someone saying: "Nu uh... Linux is teh bomb!"

Fix the underlying problems and companies might actually port their programs.

That post makes it seem like it's impossible to develop software for linux unless it's CLI only. Simply not true. Sure, some of the problems he talks about are real and harmful, like deficient color management, although this is much better nowadays, bad tablet support (of course you can't realy blame linux distros per se, as this is the manufacturer's fault for not making the drivers). I don't get what he's talking about regarding bad font support, althugh in openSUSE 11.2 opentype font files (OTF) were being recognized as openoffice files, but that's already been solved. An example of comercial technical software that's been having success with its linux port: bricscad.

But the very very wrong assumption he makes is that "Linux users are still not willing to pay for commercial software". What a huge pile of bullcrap! Linux users could very well just install pirated versions of windows if the only motivation for using linux in the first place was money. What about the humble bundle? linux users paid more than any other OS. I know for a fact that some companies would change all their computers to linux if the software they need was available. The problem is that they rely on "market research" companies to provide them with data. I highly doubt the accuracy of these "market research" companies.

Anyway... what the hell were we talking about? Ah yes... games. Nothing more to say about that sorry.

[imamdxl]

see

http://gametreemac.com/

maybe transgaming not valve will help linux to get attention from wide developers audience

[L33F3R]

And Transgaming can't? After all transgaming is already working with that 10,000 lbs gorilla in the corner called EA.

exactly why i want to see this crap. It can either greatly succeed or greatly fail. Companies fail to see the potential benefit in porting games to linux. There is a chance that Mr. Fatfuck with his black suit and fathers day tie might look at Transgamings success and see the market value (although skewed), in dollars and cents. And if it fails? well good.

Transgaming has their foot in the door already with the worlds largest game publisher, thats a huge deal.

[LinuxID10T]

Uh...no...they gave an answer that denied working on it at that time. BIG difference there. It's the typical PR non-committal answer you should expect when they've got plans, but they're not completed yet. A denial would have been, "No we're not working on it and won't be for the forseeable future"- which isn't what they gave everybody.

Hmm... I seem to remember another company that appears often on this forum that seems quite like this... Cough, cough, ATI/AMD, cough. I swear, some people are going to flip for things that happen with a certain driver with this month's release.

[Remco]

I'm sorry, but that's Adobe. You expected anything different? They've got an enormous code base, using a lot of OS resources, which would take years to port to a foreign system. Without a huge market, they're not going to do it. Don't listen to the noise about bad architecture.

[yogi_berra]

Transgaming only has a great track record if you ate a lot of leaded paint chips as a child. About the only thing interesting is that developers can use gametree to support their product instead of dealing with the shit storm that is the Linux graphics, audio, and input stacks.

Like Chris Cox's explanation on why Photoshop won't be ported anytime soon: http://forums.adobe.com/message/3231810#3231810

Que someone saying: "Nu uh... Linux is teh bomb!"

Fix the underlying problems and companies might actually port their programs.

[MaestroMaus]

IMHO: Native games or GTFO!

(Yes I know that means I won't get a lot of games on Linux in the near future.)

Also, the GOTY 2010 (according to some) is available for Linux (Minecraft).

[3vi1]

Doubtful

Cedega didn't have the best track record for me. I was a subscriber for 8 months, back in the day.

One of the "Gold" games they "supported" (EverQuest) was completely fubared by an expansion about a month or two into my subscription. After that, it was unplayable (unless you just wanted to spend a lot of time looking for your corpse after random crashes or staring at white textures). I filed a bug report, and numerous people complained of the same problems in the official TransGaming forums.

Six months later, not only had nothing been done to address the bugs, but the game was still listed as "Gold" on their list of supported games. That's when I left. I got it working with plain Wine, and it worked fine from then until I quit playing it.

YMMV, but I don't think I'll be checking out GameTree.