Who Will Show Up to Linux's Steam-Powered Playground?

[Graham Todd]

On Tue, 18 May 2010 18:19:46 +0800
Chan Chung Hang Christopher <christopher.chan at bradbury.edu.hk> uttered
these words:

> >> This is amazing.  I NEVER play games.  My girl friend does
> >> constantly with her Windows machine, but I never play.  I listen
> >> to media, watch UTube videos now and then, am learning Spanish,
> >> and read news, but never play games . . .
[snipped]

I'm the same.  I do my work on the computer.  I write essays, emails,
blogs.  If I want to play games I pick up my console, which is rarely
used, or get my friends round to play the tabletop rpgs or wargames.
Again, its a different experience on my computer, one which is not so
enjoyable for me....
> > 
> > Gaming is the key to the home computer market.  Whether its casual
> > games or more advanced fair, PC gaming is a huge and lucrative
> > business.  Those who claim PC gaming is in trouble are those who
> > only understand the console market.  You can't apply game console
> > market understanding to the PC gaming market.  They're fundamentally
> > different.  Games are the key reason why Windows is the dominant OS
> > on PCs today.
[snipped]

I get more pleasure interacting with people than with a video screen, but that's
not to say I don't like to have a "breather" now and again from work
and play the odd game of patience.  There's a bigger quantifiable
market for Windows games, its true, but are computers sold just to play
games (its just one of the things they can do with the right software)?

The people who use Linux do not just use a computer to do anything;
they're more interested in getting to understand the workings of their
machines, not just accepting that they work if you press a certain
sequence of keys or buttons.  While there might be a small market for
games on Linux machines they are not going to be the main use to which
they're put, so this pretty well rules out Linux being a development
platform for gaming.

However, if someone ever gets around to writing a decent cricket game
for Linux with lifelike graphics, I might try it... ;-)


-- 
Graham Todd