A Radical Idea For More Linux Game Ports

[Mike Frett]

You guys aren't thinking. Why would Wine Devs be interested in implementing these things solely for Linux? They won't even implement the DirectX improvements that are already out there!. They're too busy with MacOS. That's why I will continue to insist on a forking Wine, Wine devs don't care about Linux.

Yes, Support costs are a big deal but easily solved by telling users there is no support for the Linux versions of your Game. I think most Linux users are smart enough to solve their own issues via Forums and such.

Please, enough with the Wine talk. Wine is more of a problem imho than a solution.

[DMJC]

You guys actually think that DirectX's 3D paths are the problem with compatibility. That's the funny part. Wine implements approximately 75% of Windows. It's the last 25% that's stopping things from working. .NET compatibility, weird API paths and features that applications use. The 3D stuff is quite robust/reliable and most importantly most 3d settings can be modified/lowered for compatibility. I guarantee that even with a hardware path for DirectX most of your games won't run because the bugs aren't in wine's DirectX support. The bugs are in wine's handling of window management/layering, or missing api features. Wine having a rendering path for directx won't fix any of that stuff. Look up the bugs involving glScissor mode to get a better idea of why Direct3D isn't some magic bullet.

[laykun]

You guys aren't thinking. Why would Wine Devs be interested in implementing these things solely for Linux? They won't even implement the DirectX improvements that are already out there!. They're too busy with MacOS. That's why I will continue to insist on a forking Wine, Wine devs don't care about Linux.

Yes, Support costs are a big deal but easily solved by telling users there is no support for the Linux versions of your Game. I think most Linux users are smart enough to solve their own issues via Forums and such.

Please, enough with the Wine talk. Wine is more of a problem imho than a solution.

They would certainly be interested in doing it if they were paid to do it, i.e. external funding.

Game developers go where the money and market share is, Windows, they have absolutely zero reason to port their games to a platform with a practically non-existent gaming community. From a gamers point of view there is zero benefit to be running a Linux distribution, only the burden of having to learn and install a new operating system. There are two things that will turn Linux into a gaming platform, Steam OS or Wine and barring some unforeseen major SteamOS announcement at GDC this year, wine is looking like a more promising solution. You won't get native ports till you have the market share and to get the market share you need native ports, or the next best thing, a performant wine. The countless times I can recall someone asking me "but can I play my games on linux?" and I hesitate to only say "No" because I know that in it's current state, wine is not good enough. From what I can tell you're suggesting that people continue with business as usual, but I'd love to hear alternative solutions though.

You guys actually think that DirectX's 3D paths are the problem with compatibility. That's the funny part. Wine implements approximately 75% of Windows. It's the last 25% that's stopping things from working. .NET compatibility, weird API paths and features that applications use. The 3D stuff is quite robust/reliable and most importantly most 3d settings can be modified/lowered for compatibility. I guarantee that even with a hardware path for DirectX most of your games won't run because the bugs aren't in wine's DirectX support. The bugs are in wine's handling of window management/layering, or missing api features. Wine having a rendering path for directx won't fix any of that stuff. Look up the bugs involving glScissor mode to get a better idea of why Direct3D isn't some magic bullet.

They aren't as much a compatibility problem as they are a performance problem, and that's a large piece of the puzzle if you want to attract gamers. Certainly that 25% stops quite a few things from working but games don't really differ much in terms of libraries used and kernel features required so I doubt game compatibility is as much of a problem for wine as large software suites like Office and Photoshop are. More often than not games just seem to work for me under wine so I don't view it as much of a problem.

[blackiwid]

Game developers go where the money and market share is, Windows, they have absolutely zero reason to port their games to a platform with a practically non-existent gaming community. From a gamers point of view there is zero benefit to be running a Linux distribution, only the burden of having to learn and install a new operating system. There are two things that will turn Linux into a gaming platform, Steam OS or Wine and barring some unforeseen major SteamOS announcement at GDC this year, wine is looking like a more promising solution.

I dont agree to both statements, GAMERS want Linux because they dont want to pay for every pc a software they dont want to use, they want to play a game they want to buy a game not a operation system that for them is only a game starter. its like telling people they need to buy a part of the road before they are allowed to pay a car.

People also want easy a os that have less bugs and dont go kaputt by random things all few weeks or months, they want a cd they can put into and press install and all is done, what is possible with linux but basicly imposible with windows, at least microsoft dont give that option. Users want a software shop for everything or updates for everthing, they dont want to hunt down for drivers or load from random sites setup.exes with viruses...

So there are many reasons people want to replace windows with linux as gamers. So steamos will make that possible bringing more stuff to linux.

I would even question if wine even hurts linux more than it helps... windows users or people that try to switch tend to not blame the right persons/projects they dont be differenciated. If their game starts and has much bugs becuase of wine thhey will say linux sucks, not wine but linux, all that 3rd parties make wrong as linux offer falls back to "linux".

maybe thats only a few trolls but it feels like its the majority. but its not good to say to somebody, that wants something, hey you have to fiddle around 5hours with some very cryptic stuff (wine-tune-utils or what its called) and after that much effort they either dont get it running at all or its a really bad experience, and it does not matter that your 5year old game works nearly perfectly, they want the stuff that came out 2 weeks ago. The rest does for many not really matter.

And this companies have another excuse if their game runs under wine, they can send people that want a linux port to this. Next thing its a nvidia wine, maybe you should even make a disclaimer, we support only nvidia we hate all other companies or at least do not care we are good americans and buy nvidia therfor or something like that.

Sorry for trolling but its to early on the morning

Lets say it differently, people have same or less problems switching to a linux based gaming machine than than they hhave switching to xboxes and playstations, thats what matters. If they buy a living room ready pc with a good standard controller, a few good games and new games coming they dont need 100% pc compatibility to start it. best example is the wii, horrible software support no pc or ps3 ports... still people bought it like stupid.

of course hardcore pc gamers will not switch so fast their installed windows pc to linux. its to late this pc will be sold at some day, then the next change is their for this pc. Even if I would snip my fingers and 2000 additional games would be working in linux in the steamshop, people would not switch or not many a few sure, but not many.

The desition is made when people buy the hardware, its true for cellphones, its true for office pcs. etc. people dont use 90% windows pc because all need ms office and cant use libreoffice, they use it because it was preinstalled. So if steamos failes 1000 years of good wine support cant compensate for that.

[duby229]

You guys actually think that DirectX's 3D paths are the problem with compatibility. That's the funny part. Wine implements approximately 75% of Windows. It's the last 25% that's stopping things from working. .NET compatibility, weird API paths and features that applications use. The 3D stuff is quite robust/reliable and most importantly most 3d settings can be modified/lowered for compatibility. I guarantee that even with a hardware path for DirectX most of your games won't run because the bugs aren't in wine's DirectX support. The bugs are in wine's handling of window management/layering, or missing api features. Wine having a rendering path for directx won't fix any of that stuff. Look up the bugs involving glScissor mode to get a better idea of why Direct3D isn't some magic bullet.

OK, this -is- exactly the problem. Since a hardware path exists that they don't need to maintain, then they should stop developing their own path and concentrate on the work that -actually- needs done.

[Passso]

Ewwww god, Adobe Air? I don't understand why linux users that enjoy Dota1-like games (Dota2, HoN, LoL, Heros of Storm), don't just play the linux native Dota2 or HoN.

That is exactly what they do after spending +100 h on LoL installs, updates and bugfixes

[laykun]

I dont agree to both statements, GAMERS want Linux because they dont want to pay for every pc a software they dont want to use, they want to play a game they want to buy a game not a operation system that for them is only a game starter. its like telling people they need to buy a part of the road before they are allowed to pay a car.

People also want easy a os that have less bugs and dont go kaputt by random things all few weeks or months, they want a cd they can put into and press install and all is done, what is possible with linux but basicly imposible with windows, at least microsoft dont give that option. Users want a software shop for everything or updates for everthing, they dont want to hunt down for drivers or load from random sites setup.exes with viruses...

So there are many reasons people want to replace windows with linux as gamers. So steamos will make that possible bringing more stuff to linux.

I would even question if wine even hurts linux more than it helps... windows users or people that try to switch tend to not blame the right persons/projects they dont be differenciated. If their game starts and has much bugs becuase of wine thhey will say linux sucks, not wine but linux, all that 3rd parties make wrong as linux offer falls back to "linux".

maybe thats only a few trolls but it feels like its the majority. but its not good to say to somebody, that wants something, hey you have to fiddle around 5hours with some very cryptic stuff (wine-tune-utils or what its called) and after that much effort they either dont get it running at all or its a really bad experience, and it does not matter that your 5year old game works nearly perfectly, they want the stuff that came out 2 weeks ago. The rest does for many not really matter.

And this companies have another excuse if their game runs under wine, they can send people that want a linux port to this. Next thing its a nvidia wine, maybe you should even make a disclaimer, we support only nvidia we hate all other companies or at least do not care we are good americans and buy nvidia therfor or something like that.

Sorry for trolling but its to early on the morning

Lets say it differently, people have same or less problems switching to a linux based gaming machine than than they hhave switching to xboxes and playstations, thats what matters. If they buy a living room ready pc with a good standard controller, a few good games and new games coming they dont need 100% pc compatibility to start it. best example is the wii, horrible software support no pc or ps3 ports... still people bought it like stupid.

of course hardcore pc gamers will not switch so fast their installed windows pc to linux. its to late this pc will be sold at some day, then the next change is their for this pc. Even if I would snip my fingers and 2000 additional games would be working in linux in the steamshop, people would not switch or not many a few sure, but not many.

The desition is made when people buy the hardware, its true for cellphones, its true for office pcs. etc. people dont use 90% windows pc because all need ms office and cant use libreoffice, they use it because it was preinstalled. So if steamos failes 1000 years of good wine support cant compensate for that.

SORRY FOR WALL OF TEXT.

Users don't explicitly pay for Windows, it's generally included in the cost of what ever machine they have bought (the majority buy pre-built machines). Now I love Linux and personally in my ideal world I'd want everyone to use it, I highly prefer it over Windows, but what we're dealing with here is the users perception, not particularly the actual reality. No user really thinks they've bought windows if the cost is included in the hardware purchase, which given the fact that the majority of good gaming hardware these days comes pre-installed with Windows is a hard reality to escape, you don't really have a choice in operating system if you want the freedom to pick the hardware. In regards to the store front, yes users would want this ... if they knew it existed. Windows users don't know what Linux is like, again the perception of linux is that it's a big complicated behemoth for programmers and sysadmins. Windows users don't understand the power and convenience of a package manager and they don't care to know, so saying they want it is technically wrong, because they don't know it's even possible.

Again, user perception of Windows v Linux is Linux is the command line nightmare where you need to be a debian gnu-c compilation guru to get it running well vs click and drag desktop. Now to say Linux is an easy flawless install is a bit misleading (there are some horrific edge cases, particularly on new hardware), and maintaining the OS in the event of a driver problem IS a nightmare, there is no easy way round that and it's something that windows handles much better (by not updating the kernel). To me, this is one of desktop linux's major hurdles, because if you take the average gamer, update their kernel and now their binary graphics driver module doesn't work any more and they are dumped to the terminal then what? As an sysadmin (yes I'm both game developer and sysadmin "devops") this is not a situation I'd wish on any normal user, and with newer hardware and driver blobs it's far too common. In one instance we had linux install on an office computer designed to show and record seminars, we did an update and everything broke. I had 2 highly experienced linux users sit down at the machine (PhD researchers) and rattle away at the command line for a few hours to try and figure out the problem. But it took HOURS and 2 PHD RESEARCHERS to fix the problem, how is your average gamer going to have the skill and the patience for this? Yes you can use open-source drivers but now you're stuck with functionality from 2008 and sub-par performance for what your hardware is capable of. We all know how this usability problem is fixed though, nvidia and amd ditching their binary blobs and going open-source.

Certainly wine in it's current state is not good for gamer perception, which is why I said I hesitate and eventually say no to windows gamers "you cannot play your games on linux". Which is precisely WHY I think funding should be dumped into wine to make it better. Money isn't a silver bullet and they already do a fantastic job, I don't have the management solutions they need but I'm sure someone does. My original suggestion was valve dump money on wine to improve the runtime, there's no reason they couldn't also have profiles for windows games built into linux steam so they can automatically tune it for particular games, removing the hassle and frustration from players. I mean, that's what Steam is designed for, removing the hassle of PC gaming. On windows you can one-click purchase and install games, and it resolves the dependencies for you (although this is actually up to the game developers), there's no reason it couldn't have wine game profiles.

Certainly if wine become good enough that new games simply release on wine instead of linux native is that really so bad? My idea would be an initiative to move market share, once a good portion of users are on linux, developers start earning more of their money from that part of the market and start giving it the love it needs. Without the initial foot in the door I don't see it ever taking off.

I fail to understand your PS3, XB, PC, Wii analogy. All those platforms have first class exclusive titles which draw you to the platform. I bought an XB360 when GTA IV came out simply because it looked like it would never come to PC, and I bought a PS3 for GTA V the year before last. All these consoles are simply plug and play, no hassle no real setup, high performance and no OS problems.

Now these are all just my opinions from my current state of mind, so I could be completely wrong about a lot of these points, I'll admit I don't have all the data.

[Passso]

Users don't explicitly pay for Windows, it's generally included in the cost of what ever machine they have bought (the majority buy pre-built machines). Now I love Linux and personally in my ideal world I'd want everyone to use it, I highly prefer it over Windows, but what we're dealing with here is the users perception, not particularly the actual reality. No user really thinks they've bought windows if the cost is included in the hardware purchase, which given the fact that the majority of good gaming hardware these days comes pre-installed with Windows is a hard reality to escape, you don't really have a choice in operating system if you want the freedom to pick the hardware. In regards to the store front, yes users would want this ... if they knew it existed. Windows users don't know what Linux is like, again the perception of linux is that it's a big complicated behemoth for programmers and sysadmins. Windows users don't understand the power and convenience of a package manager and they don't care to know, so saying they want it is technically wrong, because they don't know it's even possible.

I just come back from Thailand and in popular stores approx. 20% of laptops are sold with Linux (Linux Mint in most cases).

I know that 50% of buyers will install a cracked Windows asap so that they can save 50$.
Beside this fact, this leaves a huge marketshare for Linux system there and I do not believe it is because asian people more techies (for a regular user, Linux desktop is at least as simple as Windows 8, and the repository system is a bless).

The facts are : money pressure is sometimes more powerful than Microsoft lobby in asian countries, not in US/Europe, where they can force a manufacturer to "use 100% Windows or pay more".

Beside that, even if Linux had 25% market, would there be more AAA games ?... not sure. For most friends I have, gaming = Windows, whatever happens. Some of them only play games available on Steam or that are platinum on Wine.

Anyway they will stick Windows forever, because "maybe one day they wanna play a game which does not run". They don't even want to hear about Mac for the same reason, even if Mac systems have far more good games than Linux.

There are only 2 way to kick this situation :

- Getting AAA games on Linux first, and after a few month on Windows
- Getting exclusives AAA games

Who would dare risking big money for this hard bet ? Valve ?... ( or maybe Blizzard lol )

[blackiwid]

SORRY FOR WALL OF TEXT.

PHD Does not matter in beeing a good Sysadmin, Windows or Linux, it does just not matter, I have a diploma in computer science still I got no job as network admin even with >10 years linux experience. Even that is a thing where you dont need a diploma at all. Even if they would made kernel development in there studies/thesises it would not neccessarily say much.

IF something dont work in windows most of the time you have 2 options reboot and if that not helps reinstall windows, of course thats not 100% true, I also fixed in windows with some command line magic that my windows-pc got not startet randomly by its wrong detection of network wake commands. Its just a joke, it depends on much, if its a proprietary driver thing, its no linux problem at all but a problem with mostly nvidia software... it depends on so much, that such a general statement from you is just not right.
It could also be distro-specific problem, like ubuntu as example really sucks, sounds like trolling maybe is a bit but there is a true part in it belive me. (just looked back, a blob, yes proprietary software cant keep up with kernel development, this model for drivers is incompatible with linux, and the more success linux will get it will be get worse for this ashole companies like nvidia and the failure of their work will get bigger and bigger, please stop blaiming linux for nvidias fault, if nvidia sucks its not linux fault). There are several ways to not have problems with that, either use the free drivers, for amd that gets more and more a option, intel is free anyway, or for the beginning more likely have lts like releases, dont update the kernel in a incompatible way for years, you dont need a very new linux to start steam at fullscreen.

Before you did buy the xbox360 for gta4 many millions bought it without even know about gta IV release dates or exact what plattforms it comes to. People come at first day many thousends over the first few months millions. After that of course a gta version comes for that plattform.

Wii had only sports at start maybe 1-2 other games? I dont know sports alone was enough, ok it was exclusive maybe we dont have that we will see. BUT we have different advantages, 1. you can reuse all games you bought already for pc (in steam thats the dominant gaming shop many people dont play any games they cant buy outside steam anymore or only a few exceptions), 2. I am shure they will make some SteamOS sales when the steam konsole (machines) finaly will start. So there will be something like a 10-30% price for 5 top games exclusive to steamos. yes maybe some people will then be "clever" and just install steamos to buy this games and then play it in windows. They also can give free game codes to steammaschines. But even some "clever" people will not fall for it, some will look around or will like what they see, enough to get more games, that gets more developers, that gets more users.

Also there is streaming. yes some hardcore gamers will not change as long as every single game of windows runs also in linux, but maybe they like the idea to have a second gaming pc in their living room that is not extremly loud or costs much, so they get a cheap streaming box, and stream from windows. And then the hardware is bought is there, the linux is there, and its one more reason for developers to make more games...

I could even think of 1 week earlier release or allow to start halflife 3 or portal 3 under linux and other things... valve has many ways to make users consider/use linux. And they want that, because even if other companies make other softwareshops on this software will be always the preinstalled shop and have most control over it.

BTW no hassle is true for steammaschine true. so the comparsion is close. just because you can also use a normal pc to install steamos still dont makes it a hassle if you use the preinstalled "consoles"

[Kasoroth]

I think trying to convince Canonical and Red Hat to directly finance Linux ports of AAA games is probably not the most effective way of getting more games on Linux.
As others have noted, pulling hardcore gamers away from Windows is a difficult (or impossible) task. Windows is the "default platform" for PC games now, so hardcore gamers are going to be spending quite a bit of time in Windows. Valve's Linux support is a good start because any Windows gamers who are already curious about Linux can try it out, and already have some of their Steam games available (without needing to repurchase them), but this isn't going to pull away Windows users who are actually happy with Windows (nor should that be the goal, in my opinion).

We don't necessarily need to pull gamers away from Windows, but rather prove to developers that it's worth their while to support Linux, so that gamers who want to use Linux have that option. While the hardcore gamers are still mostly using Windows, I think there are also quite a few Linux users (including myself) who do like to play games, but that's not their primary use of a PC (otherwise they'd probably not be Linux users). Trying to convince the major game publishers that Linux is a big enough market might be tough, but indie developers (particularly those raising money on Kickstarter) tend to be more responsive. I think Kickstarter is also provides a good platform for Linux users who like games to vote with their wallets, and support developers who support Linux.

For example, Underworld Ascendant recently added Linux support in response to popular requests

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/othersidegames/underworld-ascendant/

I think the best way for Linux users to get games is to directly contribute to games that support Linux, and let the developers know that you exist, and you're willing to pay.