With Valve On Linux, Has LGP Lost All Relevance?

[phoronix]

Phoronix: With Valve On Linux, Has LGP Lost All Relevance?

Aside from how Valve can better embrace Linux and open-source, another thing to ponder with Valve officially writing about Steam/Source on Linux, is the future of Linux Game Publishing...

http://www.phoronix.com/vr.php?view=MTE0MjQ

[M1kkko]

Is there any hope for Linux Game Publishing in its current form?

No. Why is a company like this even mentioned?

They've lost their relevance all by themselves, if they even had any to begin with. There's no thanking Valve or any other game company for that. (Keep in mind that Valve's Linux efforts don't yet have any "relevance" either, until the actual games start appearing.)

[Xilanaz]

They converted some cool games and I have had loads of fun with Sacred, Shadow and X3. If they come up with a new game I like then I will get it. That has absolutely nothing to do with Valve, Steam, Desura or Gameolith

totally useless article imho.

[sirdilznik]

I've pretty much considered LGP to not exist for the last couple of years. They haven't released anything in several years and there's practically no communication coming out of their offices either. I personally don't expect anything new from them ever again. If they prove me wrong then that's great.

[adler187]

Well, they could survive if they are smart about it (at least in the short/medium term). If they transition to just porting - no selling, marketing, running DRM servers, etc... Just use Steam and Valve's infrastructure. Essentially, they'd set themselves up as a porting studio and contract out Linux ports like icculus does. Though, they'd probably want to change their name, since they'd no longer be "publishing" anything anymore.

So long as game companies don't have enough Linux familiar talent in-house to do the porting, they can carve out a niche for themselves. If Linux gaming takes off, then I'd expect more companies to bring this work in-house (though, maybe not), which would hurt them (but that is a ways out I'd think).

Could they stay relevant with this plan? Sure. Do I think it's gonna happen? Most likely not.

Alternatively, if Valve opens up a larger Linux-only gamer market, it could help LGP. Personally, I have a dedicated machine running Windows 7 for playing games. I'm not gonna buy a game just for Linux until I can play all my other games in Linux as well, since that would mean I'd have to either switch machines or dual-boot to play that game. Either I buy a game that comes cross-platform for free (eg. SteamPlay or icculus ports) or I buy the game that works on my primary gaming platform (which is Windows currently). Even if I switched my gaming to Linux, I'd still only buy games from LGP that were reasonably priced and, if I'm buying a game at release time, ported at or around the time of release. They should be working with game companies to port new games while they're still in development so they can be released at the same time.

[Pickle]

I dont see much relevance between steam and LGP. Valve is only going to be able to port their titles and may provide tools and support for helping other developers bring titles to linux. The 3rd party dev's are still going to have to port thier windows D3D code to OpenGL for instance.

Now I think there is direct competition between Humble Bundle and LGP. HB has really up the standard for ports. They not only provide multiple titles at once, they support many systems i.e macos, no DRM, low cost.
Hopefully LGP can reinvent themselves and bring more to linux in the future, HB has for certain raised the bar.

[droidhacker]

Games have no relevance, hence game companies (any) also have no relevance.

[gbudny]

"The old titles from LGP also aren't anything that were even really compelling when originally released, with most Windows gamers likely never even having heard of them, like Gorky 17, Hyperspace Delivery Boy"

Tis game was created by Monkeystone Games founded by John Romero, Tom Hall, Stevie Case, and Brian Moon:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monkeystone_Games

"The company was founded in 1991 by four members of the computer company Softdisk: programmers John Carmack and John Romero, game designer Tom Hall, and artist Adrian Carmack (no relation to John Carmack). Business manager Jay Wilbur was also involved."

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Id_Software

[dolo]

ehh...

Emm... why are we even talking about such a "company"?

A "company" that can't even produce a bearable looking home page, seems like a completely dead horse, promises vaporware and is a disgrace to the public image of Linux? Ok sure, they did some stuff in the past but that was like EONS ago, somewhere in the stone age. They've done nothing since.

The sooner LGP vanishes the better for everyone. I hope they never ever publish anything again. All the stories about "broken hdds" prove that they are either a) too amateurish to handle any porting and publishing at all or b) are blatantly lying. In either case no one should trust them or hope that they ever produce anything.

Valve and Desura are currently the only somewhat credible parties that are able to assist Linux desktop becoming a reality. We still have a heap of crap to climb over (like getting rid of Xorg, finally working drivers, rid of horrible quality distro bundled tools that crash both in Fedora and Ubuntu etc.), but at least they are a good start.

LGP, burn in hell

[gbudny]

"The few worthwhile games out of Linux Game Publishing were Shadowgrounds, X2/X3, Postal II, and Cold War."

Did you forgot about Sacred and Majesty?

http://www.desura.com/company/linux-game-publishing

"LXF: Are you tempted to create an original game?

MS: We do have a couple of original game ideas, one of which is about half complete. It will be a fairly simple game to start off with – we're not a big-budget company. This is completely new, no one knows about this. It's very simple, it's based on Sudoku. But it's an entirely new take on the game. I can't go into details because it's still a few months away, but we're hoping we'll be able to get it out in the next six months."

http://www.techradar.com/news/gaming/bringing-windows-games-to-linux-622659?artc_pg=2

"Besides porting, are we going to see any original LGP creations in the future?

Prior to my arrival at LGP, Michael had already started on one original creation – a puzzle game. I’m sure now that I’ve taken over the running of LGP, Michael will have more time on his hands to complete this, which will of course be published by LGP. We have a few other ideas between us and I’m very sure that in the future we’ll see several original LGP games."

http://www.unixmen.com/interview-with-clive-crous-from-linux-game-publishing/

I think Michael forgot about other platforms?
Where is Bandits: Phoenix Rising and Disciples II: Dark Prophecy for Mac OS X, Xbox etc.

Creatures: Internet Edition - 2001 (LGP), 2001 (Windows), 2009 (Mac)
MindRover: The Europa Project - 2002 (LGP), 2001 (Linux - Loki), 2000 (Windows), 2003 (Mac)
Candy Cruncher - 2003 (LGP - x86, PowerPC, Sparc), 2002 (Linux x86), 2001 (Windows), 2002 (Mac), 2002 (PalmOS), 2002 (Zaurus)
Majesty: Gold Edition - 2003 (LGP - x86, PowerPC), 2002 (Windows), Only standard edition - 2000 (Mac) Android (2011) iOS (2011) Windows Phone 7 (2012)
NingPo MahJong - 2004 (LGP - x86, PowerPC), 2003 (Linux x86), 2002 (Windows), 2003 (Mac)
Hyperspace Delivery Boy! - 2004 (LGP), 2001 (Windows), not available (Mac), 2001 (Windows Mobile)
Software Tycoon - 2005 (LGP), 2001 (Windows), 2002 (Mac), 2002 (MorphOS)
Postal?: Share The Pain - 2005 (LGP), 2003 (Windows), 2004 (Mac)
Soul Ride - 2005 (LGP - x86, PowerPC, Sparc, Alpha), 2000 (Windows), not available (Mac)
X?: The Threat - 2006 (LGP), 2003 (Windows), 2004 (Mac)
Gorky 17 - 2006 (LGP - x86, PowerPC ), 1999 (Windows), 2002 (Mac)
Cold War - 2006 (LGP), 2005 (Windows), 2006 (Mac), 2005 (Xbox)
Knights and Merchants - 2007 (LGP), 1998 (Windows), 2001 (Mac), 2003 (MorphOS)
Ballistics - 2007 (LGP), 2001 (Windows), not available (Mac)
X?: Reunion - 2008 (LGP), 2005 (Windows), 2007 (Mac - Cider), 2010 (Mac - native)
Jets'n'Guns - 2009 (LGP), 2004 (Windows), 2006 (Mac)
Sacred Gold - 2009 (LGP), 2005 (Windows), not available (Mac)
Shadowgrounds - 2009 (LGP), 2005 (Windows), 2011 (Mac)
Shadowgrounds - 2009 (LGP), 2007 (Windows), 2011 (Mac)