Home Messages Index
[Date Prev][Date Next][Thread Prev][Thread Next]
Author IndexDate IndexThread Index

Re: [News] Encouraging Game Developers to Make Linux Ports

> Roy Schestowitz <newsgroups@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> espoused:
>> Linux Gaming Made Easy
>>
>> ,----[ Quote ]
>>| Going Native.  With the possible exceptions of Battlefield 2 and
>>| perhaps World of Warcraft, I simply can't see the advantage in
>>| supporting games that choose not to support us. To me, the short
>>| answer to this is to support those gaming companies that have worked
>>| very hard to make sure that Linux admirers are not being left out in
>>| the dark.
>> `----

    The author seems to be under the misconception that games are 
interchangeable. e.g., whether I use OpenOffice or Microsoft Office, the end 
result is pretty much the same, therefore anyone who is loves Super Mario 
Kart is should be perfectly fine with Tux Racer, right? Or people who like 
Morrowind Oblivion should enjoy a good game of NetHack. Or People who like 
Warcraft III should settle for Battle for Wesnoth, right?

    Generally speaking, if a gamer wants to play game Foo, then game Bar, 
which is of the same genre or style, isn't going to cut it. And most gamers 
will buy whatever it is they have to buy in order to get their game working, 
without any thoughts of idealogical principles of FOSS vs CSS or Linux vs 
Windows, etc. Case in point: I didn't buy the XBox360 not because I hate 
Microsoft, but simply because there were no good games for it. But now that 
it's been announced that "Guitar Hero 2" is going to be released for the 
360, I'm strongly considering getting a 360.

    Boycotting games that haven't been released on Linux may be a noble act 
and all that, but if the end goal is getting companies to publish more games 
for Linux, I think this strategy is short sighted. If you're the type of 
person who says "My desire to support Linux is stronger than my desire to 
plunk down cold hard cash to buy games", then you're not exactly the target 
audience the game is being marketed at anyway.

    I think a better idea would be software bounties: If you want a game to 
be ported to Linux, put some money into a bounty for that game. 
Specifically, that means you'd put add $60 to a pool of money and add your 
name to a list of guaranteed sales if they make a Linux port. If the pool of 
money grows to between a million to ten million dollars (I.e. 20'000-100'000 
Linux users willing to contribute around $60), you can be sure the companies 
which own the license are going to take interest. If they release the game, 
they get to collect the bounty, and you get your copy of the game, since 
you've already paid for it via the bounty (in fact, the company may choose 
to release it for free [as in beer] once they collect the bounty). If a year 
or two goes by, and they don't release the game, you get your money back.

    And the bank-like organization which takes care of babysitting your 
money for that year, and does all the administrative task of making sure the 
money goes to the company should the bounty be fufilled, gets to make money 
off of the interest from sitting on such a large lump of money. Everybody 
wins.

[...]
"Mark Kent" <mark.kent@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in message 
news:i3vbv3-b48.ln1@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
>
> 5. Windows Vista's OpenGL support is essentially crippled, as Microsoft
> seek to make creation of cross-platform games as difficult as possible.

You've been corrected on this (see 
http://groups.google.ca/group/comp.os.linux.advocacy/msg/0646a9c7be7276b9) 
so please stop spreading this lie.

    - Oliver 



[Date Prev][Date Next][Thread Prev][Thread Next]
Author IndexDate IndexThread Index