Forum Moderators: bakedjake
I've heard it suggested that because Linux attracts the technically savvy, its users are much more likely to be able to obtain pirated games, so games companies won't touch Linux with a bargepole, which also means fewer consumers adopting it.
Now, this all wouldn't necessarily matter with non-game applications which are often distributed free anyway. I can see how something like a browser or a wordprocessor might be made quite well through open source, but does anyone know of any decent complex games made through group efforts?
And perhaps more importantly, does an operating system need a good amount of high profile unpirated closed-source software (e.g Tomb Raider!) to attract a large userbase of ordinary non-techie folks?
[edited by: gibbergibber at 5:49 pm (utc) on Nov. 30, 2002]
René.
Nick
I bought Civlisation Call for Power, and it is just as good as the windows counterpart.
René.
I have never been much of a game player I guess.
almost every Linux game has been discontinued
The company that made the porting for these games went out of business.
Anyway, maybe the problem is that Linux folks like everything open source. And an open source game would be too easy to solve, since all the clues would be given at the source. Emacs has a game at the tools->games menu called "Adventure". Solving the game without being tempted to check out dunnet.el would require extra discipline. And a hobbist would probably not do a closed source one.
As for the commercial companies, with libraries like libSDL there's not reason for not writing portably. I don't know, ask them instead.
It'll come, but it takes time just as any other cultural change.
René.
-Andrew
I'm afraid that as for the general state of gaming on Linux, well, I've never been enough of a gamer to even cosider paying for one. If all the Linux users are like me, there will never be commercial games for Linux.
I have a bit the impression that, broardly speaking, most open source users are creators (in the sense that they want to program, design, develop new things), while most windows users are consumers (they want to use and play with existing programs). It makes very different markets, certainly for consumer oriented products such as games.
NB I'm not calling *all* windows users non-creative comsumers. I'm talking about a strictly computer-related creativitity, and given that the windows user-base is so much larger that the linux user-base, there are be a lot of very creative windows-users without impacting the statistics a lot. The demographics of the two groups are very different. That is the point.
René.
I guess this is what I'm wondering about really. If what you say is true, how is Linux ever going to replace Windows?
how is Linux ever going to replace Windows?
Through portability and standard file formats.
Well, not really 'replace' it, because there will be always a market for Windows; but doing that will let choice, better competition and coexistence.
The games will come when the consumer-type users start to come to Linux. They might come or they might not. Whether they do, I believe, will depende more on what MS does in terms of prosecuting piracy and making ever more horrendous EULAs, that might scare users away in droves.
René.
