Linux Game Publishing Shuts Down PenguinPlay

Linux Game Publishing has quietly shutdown PenguinPlay, the game match-making service offered by the UK-based company that ported games to Linux.

PenguinPlay was a match-making service offered by LGP for their in-house multi-player games and to also provide some social networking functionality. LGP also offered this service to other Linux games, but it never really took off.

The games that were supported by PenguinPlay included Ballistics, Candy Cruncher, Jets 'n' Guns, Knights and Merchants: The Shattered Kingdom, Majesty Gold, and Sacred: Gold Edition.

PenguinPlay is a game matching service provided by Linux Game Publishing. Our services are open to any game that wishes to use our services on any platform or operating system.

By offering almost free services to open source games, along with significant discounts for commercial games with Linux versions, we hope to encourage the spread of Linux gaming.

Our goal is to improve the Linux gaming experience by making it easier to play multiplayer games, removing the difficulty in finding others to multiplay with, and helping games technically with services such as NAT traversal (allowing servers to run behind firewalls).

As a gamer, use PenguinPlay to find other players online, play against other gamers of similar skill levels for a challenging but not overwhealming experience.

As a game developer, help your players get the most out of your games, and promote your games to a new wider audience through PenguinPlay.

PenguinPlay was around for several years, but it simply never really took off with Linux gamers, especially considering the very limited selection of games -- none of which are too popular.

PenguinPlay going under was reported in the forums this weekend when learning that LGP is trying to sell off the PenguinPlay.com domain. No announcement has yet to come out of Linux Game Publishing.

Meanwhile, another Linux Game Publishing property that still is online but has seen better days (at least the web-pages are serving, but not necessarily customer orders) is the Tux Games online store. If you're looking to buy native Linux games, you're best off using Steam, Desura, or even the Ubuntu Software Center.

In terms of anything new Linux Game Publishing, there is unfortunately nothing to report. I've been critical of LGP for the past few years due to their overall silence, their disappearance for several months when their only server broke that powered all of their web-sites plus Digital Rights Management platform, and a myriad of other issues and shortcomings. While last January, a new CEO stepped in at LGP, since then we have basically heard nothing. They faded into irrelevance and didn't deliver on their talked about projects at a time when Linux gaming is in the process of taking off, but without this company that has been around since 2001.