With Valve On Linux, Has LGP Lost All Relevance?

[eriktorbjorn]

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, and Gorky 17.

But... but... I liked Gorky 17, Hyperspace Delivery Boy, and Gorky 17!

To me, the relevance to of LGP and Valve alike depend on what they're releasing. Which would be "not a lot in recent years" and "nothing at all (for Linux) yet" respectively. The relevance - or lack of it - of one doesn't affect the other. Of the games they've both announced but haven't released yet, the only one that I'm looking forward to at all is Disciples II. What little I've seen of Left 4 Dead 2 looked really, really boring to me. (That has nothing to do with the quality of the game, it's just a genre that doesn't appeal to me.) Actually, looking at the Valve Corporation catalog of games, the only one that really interest me are the Portal games. Though I've heard good things about Half Life, so I'll try to keep an open mind about them at least.

(And yes, I realize I'm probably in the minority here, of a group that's already a minority.)

[gbudny]

and dump the alienating DRM. That is the only way I can see for them continuing to publish games in the future. And that is what I think most of us still do want.

Two months ago I used LGP Live Chat Channel and Clive Crous mentioned something really good about their DRM and Desura, but I'm not sure if I can talk about this, because LGP didn't start sell games on Desura.

http://www.linuxgamepublishing.com/chat.php?

[archibald]

Wrong. Linux was started as a desktop OS, and today it's a general-purpose OS. Also, the nice thing about Linux is how it scales from supercomputers down to a smartphone, to desktop and servers. Linus originally wrote Linux for his desktop though.

My bad, thanks for the link.

However, it could be turned around and said that it wasn't originally designed for supercomputers or smartphones - the original intention isn't as important as the development since then.

[gbudny]

@Michael Larabel

Do you have informations about fourth beta version of Bandits: Phoenix Rising for Linux?

[gbudny]

But... but... I liked Gorky 17, Hyperspace Delivery Boy, and Gorky 17!

I think Hyperion Entertainment should port Gorky Zero and Gorky 02 to Linux.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aRJduZOHUw8

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KEnjqk2-oKw

Sacred 2 for Linux?

"Patrick says:
March 15, 2009 at 10:01 pm
Is their any chance Sacred 2 will also come to Linux?

Reply
Michael Simms (CEO and head of Development) says:
March 16, 2009 at 12:32 am
I would expect that the chance of sacred 2 is related to the sales level of Sacred."

http://blog.linuxgamepublishing.com/2009/03/06/sacred-gold-is-now-well-gold/

Sacred 2 trailer

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OmEyohOPh8M

[gilboa]

As for some people on these forums, seriously, what's up your ass this morning? Some of you are treating LGP as though they should be put out of business, as if they were doing something wrong or embarassing.

/+1.
To be honest, looking at dolo's post ("hell"), one can only wonder why should anyone be *stupid* enough to spend money on trying to port / develop games for Linux, only to get trashed by trolls. (As far as I remember Michael@LGP spent more than 1/2 million Euro out of his own pocket to try and get LGP running)

So, Mr Dolo, please enlighten us, what have *you* done to advance Linux (beyond posting trollish comments @Phoronix)?

- Gilboa

[gilboa]

I wish LGP got to port newer X3 titles.

I pledge 100$ for either X3AP or X-rebirth (heck, I'm willing to pledge 200$ for both).

Heck, if I wasn't busy maintaining an existing startup, I'd consider starting a kick-start project to port Egosoft titles.... *

- Gilboa
* On the other hand, my OpenGL skills are, err, lacking.

[rustybroomhandle]

This article is a lame desperate attempt at being controversial. Valve will be porting Valve games, that's it. The existence of one developer does not render other developers irrelevant.

Michael, stop posting crap. This site used to post frequent useful technical articles, and while I am sure that does not get you as many ad clicks, this article is junk.

[Kristian Joensen]

The problem for LGP is their business model of licensing games to publish. LGP as a publisher can very well be hurt by Steam entering the market, as a Valve is in effect the publisher of games there. LGP is in both the porting and publishing business. They fused them together whereas Ryan Gordon only does the porting for others as a contractor. If Valve will be offering SteamPlay for Linux titles LGP won't be able to compete because they will have to charge a second time for the Linux ports they publish. They can't offer them for free to those that already have the Windows and/or Mac OSX titles. So titles where LGP did the Linux version will likely not be SteamPlay titles if they appear on Steam at all.

[gbudny]

They can't offer them for free to those that already have the Windows and/or Mac OSX titles.

"palu says:
August 10, 2009 at 10:39 pm
Would you consider SELLING installers for the windows versions of the games LGP supports?

The idea would be that the installer was a little cheaper for the end user (which would be why they’d bother buying the installer). It would include LGP’s DRM and be download only (and since you aren’t transferring the gigabytes of data or printing disks/manuals or mailing things across the world the distribution cost would be pretty low and including the DRM would prevent pirating).

SELLING installers might be a way to expand LGP’s market to cheap dual-booters. They might not be willing to pay ?30 for the Linux port of X2 that they already own for windows, but they MIGHT be willing to pay ?15 for an installer.

I’m only asking because reading this blog post brought up the idea, not because i have some collection of windows versions of LGP supported games (which i don’t).

Reply
Michael Simms (CEO and head of Development) says:
August 11, 2009 at 3:33 am
That isn’t a terrible idea, actually. I will have a chat with some people and get some legal interpretation on some of our contracts, and see how it fits in with the Windows EULA of games, and maybe, just maybe, you may have hit on something there.

No promises, but I do kindof like the idea! I do think it may end up being a legal quagmire to do it without breaking the games EULA which will usually say no modifying. But we’ll see!"

http://blog.linuxgamepublishing.com/2009/08/09/why-you-wont-get-a-linu-installer-for-the-windows-version/