[ubuntu-us-ma] Ubuntu Gaming Team

[Dotan Cohen]

2009/4/24 Oli Warner <oli at thepcspy.com>:
> How do you expect FOSS to make serious gains into the gaming market? Big
> commercial games (read COD, Oblivion, Fallout, most RPGs) are like
> interactive movies and they take about the same amount of money and manpower
> to produce... That's something FOSS is rarely going to be able to reproduce.
>
> You're treating this as if Windows gamers don't use Ubuntu because they
> don't have enough access to FOSS games. Truth is, most popular FOSS games
> have binary installers for Windows but you ask one Windows gamer if they
> care about something like Nexuiz and chances are they've never heard of it
> because they're too busy with the likes of Fallout 3, Bioshock, Assassins
> Creed or Call of Duty World at War. That's where the problem is; studios
> aren't making the games for Linux so gamers don't migrate.
>
> It's Chicken vs Egg. You're pushing for the Chicken. Get the gamers here and
> studios will make the games cross-platform. But I think you infinitely more
> chance of success backing the Egg. "If you build it, they will come"
>
> If I were you, I'd talk to small independent game studios. Give them a
> route-to-market (coming up next) and help them with the development. There
> are a couple of companies that provide porting services but they're not
> in-house, they're not cheap and they're not ideal for the end-users.
>
> They're still commercial games, so they still need to sell. One thing
> stopping companies moving over is there isn't a decent platform for selling
> their games. If there was "a Steam" for Linux, showing off the best of Linux
> gaming (both FOSS and commercial), I think a LOT more companies (large and
> small) would consider Linux as a viable platform.
>
> Once that reaches critical mass, your work is done. Critical mass. More
> users will move over and more companies will develop for it.
>

Yes, but look what happens when game devs try to port their work to Linux:
http://linuxhaters.blogspot.com/2008/09/mini-rant.html

No wonder they stay far away.

-- 
Dotan Cohen

http://what-is-what.com
http://gibberish.co.il