X.org, distributors, and proprietary modules [LWN.net]

X.org, distributors, and proprietary modules

Posted Aug 15, 2006 14:18 UTC (Tue) by wilck (guest, #29844)
In reply to: X.org, distributors, and proprietary modules by drag
Parent article: X.org, distributors, and proprietary modules

mmorpg, racing games, flight simulations, lots of FPS, stragety games, etc etc.

Show that list to a 16-year-old gamer from your neighborhood. I am sure she'll be excited about it... for about 10 minutes.

People want to play the games that are hyped in the press, they want first-class graphics, sound, and gameplay. Kids want the same games that their friends play. TuxRacer et al., nice as they may be, don't qualify.

TransGaming is bringing part of that universe to to the Linux world. But of course, you get the necessary FPS only with NVidia or ATI hardware. Sigh.

to post comments

X.org, distributors, and proprietary modules

Posted Aug 15, 2006 20:17 UTC (Tue) by drag (guest, #31333) [Link] (2 responses)

Like I said before,

If your looking for commercial games support to drive Linux adoption rates your going to be sadly dissapointed.

It WILL NEVER HAPPEN.

You know why? Becuase Linux is Free software.
Who are the big game developers nowadays?
EA? Microsoft? Valve?

I mean seriously. These guys hate linux. They are so pro-closed source, pro-propriatory that's it's not even funny. They will never volentarially support Linux. Not even if Linux had 10 percent of the game market. Not even if there was a demand for it.

If Linux succeeds they loose a lot. They like the status quo, they like the control they have over the market, over the platform, over the hardware. They don't want it to change. They are making money hand over fist and they don't want to risk it.

Would you?

If even partially the goal of people like FSF or GNU are relalised they they would probably face huge financial losses. You'd have better luck trying to get SCO to open source OpenUnix.

Beleive it or not the #1 or #2 people own computers at home is to play video games.

Sure young people with free time are targetted by big game makers, but only becuase young people are easy to manipulate. Easy to sell to.

However the vast majority of people who own a computer don't look at computer gaming magazines. They don't go out and by a fancy gaming video card. They just want to have fun after work for a hour or so, that's all.

Games never support Linux?

Posted Aug 16, 2006 1:54 UTC (Wed) by nicku (subscriber, #777) [Link] (1 responses)

It WILL NEVER HAPPEN.

You know why? Becuase Linux is Free software. Who are the big game developers nowadays? EA? Microsoft? Valve?

I mean seriously. These guys hate linux. They are so pro-closed source, pro-propriatory that's it's not even funny. They will never volentarially support Linux. Not even if Linux had 10 percent of the game market. Not even if there was a demand for it.

These companies are less driven by ideology than by the prospect of making money. Ideology affects some of their managers, but the managers who can demonstrate profit will tend to win out.

Games never support Linux?

Posted Aug 16, 2006 5:32 UTC (Wed) by drag (guest, #31333) [Link]

Their 'idealogy' is "I make a game, I restrict access, I sell access, I make lots of money'. That's pretty much oppisite of the entire Linux ethos.

How are you going to restrict access to a game? How are you going to impliment DRM and cdrom checks when the owner of the computer controls all of it down to the kernel?

You think the kernel developers are going to help StarForce (http://www.star-force.com/)impliment it's "Advanced anti-piracy solutions for software distributed on CD/DVD-ROM and CD-R, as well as via the Internet; license management and DRM technologies."

THAT'S their Idealogy. They are pro-propriatory, drm restrictions, right managements, anti-piracy. That sort of thing isn't going to realy work out well on Linux. However if we begin to support binary only drivers and support DRM for Linux then they will probably start to seriously considure support Linux.

Otherwise for somebody like EA or Microsoft to start distributing software and games and such for Linux it would require somebody to start a gaming company that leverages the Linux platform so successfully that it starts to threaten their business model. Then we will start to see some action.

Just like in everything else Linux has been successfull with.

Get back to me in about 20 years or so.

X.org, distributors, and proprietary modules

Posted Aug 17, 2006 18:12 UTC (Thu) by grahammm (guest, #773) [Link] (1 responses)

Yet these games have much more 'lasting' appeal than the modern 3d-graphic, surround sound games. How many of the "current" games will still be available and being played in 30 years time? Most of the text-only games I encountered at university 30 years ago are still available and being played now.

FPS Games in the Future

Posted Aug 17, 2006 22:13 UTC (Thu) by zlynx (guest, #2285) [Link]

People still play Doom and Quake. when those games were released, they were the ultimate in 3D FPS graphics. It doesn't hurt them that id Software released them to open source.

It was just a year or two ago that some friends and I set up a Quakeworld LAN game. That was barrels of fun. With monkeys.

I have no doubt that today's FPS games will still be played by someone in the future.