Linux Game Company Opens Doors

Ok, so I think it's a fairly good idea what they are doing. However after looking at the
screenshots of the game I can't see why they think people would pay for it, it looks like it
was made back in the 1980's not 2007. Sure we could do with more Linux games but this is a
joke, especially compared to other GPL games such as TORCS.

Yes, this seems embarassing. Especially compared to games like Ur-Quan
Masters(http://sc2.sourceforge.net). And I dont think this business model i viable. 40k$ is
fairly large amount of money for a "ransom" for such a game, and still to few to develop
decent one.

Having seen the screenshots, I really really hope this is just a big 
joke !
40k$ for that ?

One must be insane for supporting that.
There are a lot of high quality opensource games out there, a lot better 
than the proposed 40k$-project.
Why would anybody pay for that ?

This really is an insult on anybody working hard on a free game or free 
project in general.

...IMHO only of course.

I'm going to agree with everyone else so far.  This game's ransom should be, at tops, maybe
$1000.  $40,000 is insane for this project.  I've seen people crap out more involved and
visually appealing games in a semester long "Making Games 101" at community college.  :/

I mean, if this game were complete (and not just, as the project page implies, only a partial
collection of the game's chapters), I could see paying $5 for this.  And even that's a hard
bargain considering that you can get some of the unbelievably awesome NWN modules for barely
more than that (and NWN as a whole costing only $20 with expansions these days).  So at $5,
you'd need 8,000 people to want to play 8 measely chapters of this game for this pledge to
ever work.  Given the apparent quality of the game and the abundant competition from already
Free games, I can't see this working.

I'm a bit disappointed, too.  After reading the summary, I thought we might have had an
actually good game development house on our hands.  Looks like instead we have the development
(and economic) skills of a pair of 13-year-olds, which we already have quite a few of in the
free games community.  Oh well.

http://grubbygames.com/ seem to produce some excellent looking games that are cross platform. 

I'd rather support projects like http://www.flightgear.org/ which are actually doing something
very credible... and it'd actually look like Flight Gear would benefit from someone who could
organize the web pages and communication somewhat, from the look of the pages.

Freeciv 2.1.0 is also out, http://freeciv.wikia.com/. And indeed on the shoot-em-up genre
there are a few rather good-looking free/open games available.

Sites like http://www.linuxgames.com/ cover both free and non-free high-quality games, though
indeed there's still so much more that could be achieved in the area of free software games. I
hope some people will figure out how to make success stories there.

If some company develops a graphics application or a web browser or a new compiler then there
is a good chance people will still be using the code or code descended from it in ten years'
time.  Paying a ransom may be good value for money if you take a long-term view.

But a video game is played for a year or two and then looks dated and boring.  Graphics and
levels written for one game can't be reused for another, and even the game engine will tend to
go out of date quickly as hardware capabilities improve.

So I'm not sure that ransoming software to release a GPLd version is an appropriate business
model for games.

Parallel Realities' older games are of at LEAST this quality but these guys stand out for
polishing their gameplay until it shines.

The genre is different (side to side shooter) but the anime guy help balloons reminded me of
this game:

http://www.parallelrealities.co.uk/starfighter.php

Their other projects are very much worth checking out.  They're currently working on a third
person adventure shooter that looks to be 3 or 4 months away from being done.   It's playable
now but they'll stick to it until is baked golden brown and delicious.

I'd rather donate to them then pay these guys.

All I can say is:

hahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I can't believe what I just saw.  And money was mentioned in the article too.  I hate the
thought of dashing someone's dreams, but, someone needs to wake up quick.  Hopefully, they
haven't already invested too much of themselves in this project.  You can still play all kinds
of freeware games on Linux like doom, duke-nukem, hexen, ... that are most certainly more
engrossing than this -- game -- would appear to be.  On top of that, you can play a decent
amount of commercial games too.

Let's face it.  We all have windows.  If we absolutely "must" play a specific game that can't
be play on Linux (i.e. native or cedega/winex/wine, ...), then we can always dual-boot.

For what it is worth, my criticism only reflects what I see as of now.  Maybe in some distant
future (if this thing stays alive), I'll look back and state "wow.  this has come such a long
way".  Right now, however, I won't hold my breath waiting for that moment.

Hm.  Maybe the ransom idea would work for creating professional quality 
graphics & sound files and levels for some of the better, already existing 
Open Source programs?  For example Emilia pinball could use some nice 
levels:
  http://www.happypenguin.org/show?Emilia%20Pinball

And dont forget:

http://www.freedomware-gamefest.com/

and wear the shield if you have a site and want to show support.

Tournament is still being planned but has been advanced a lot. There are prizes. There are
many participants (at least based on shown interest). There are practice games. The show is
being built from the ground up from input on the forums. Etc. Etc.