Steam goes Linux

Stardock is mainly a Windows applications and customization company, not a games company.

lol

I was just explaining that to somebody earlier today.

Quoting kryo,

It was my point... Stardock is mainly a PC game company... why start with opengl... it is not financial wise to recreate the sins full code for a few opengl fan...
Stardock is mainly a Windows applications and customization company, not a games company.

Ok, remove the "game" thing... the "mainly" was related to the "PC", meaning that you are not in the game console thing where opengl is more used that directx... The fact that your are Windows applications and customization company reinforce the argument that opengl is not the direct choice for your product...

Stardock is mainly a Windows applications and customization company, not a games company.

GPG on the other hand is a games company

Quoting Zoomba,

reply 14

And honestly, I feel one of the single largest barriers to getting games onto Linux is support. Oh my lord supporting software on Linux is a logistical nightmare. There is no single base configuration you can count on. One can't assume that anyone will have X version of Y library, or that they haven't done something hacky to circumvent a problem on their system. The state of Linux video card drivers is also a shakey thing. They lag behind Windows drivers as a general rule. Same issue with sound. Toss in all the different distributions there are out there that behave very differently, and you have a test and support matrix that is crazy.

And what is keeping you from releasing it without any form of support? There are two very viable options:

1. Just get one Wine guy in your team. You will probably even find a volunteer and don't need to pay anyone. Or maybe you pay a little bit, one programmer isn't that costly. He will make sure the game runs fine with Wine. Then people can buy the Windows version and run it on Wine on Linux on their own. No additional Linux support needed.

2. Release Linux binaries with a big fat comment saying "hey, we do that because we are awesome and want to support Linux but these binaries are experimental, no support whatsoever. People on forums might help you but there is no official support". Linux guys are very used to helping themselves. Should really be no problem at all.

Another thing about the market size: Yes, the Linux gaming market is smaller then the Windows one. But on the other hand there is nearly no competition! You have to share the Windows gaming market with about 50 good games each year while there is only one of the high profile titles with native Linux support every few years.
So yes, the Linux market may only have 5% of the size of the Windows market. But it has only 1% of the competition.
From all the replies made here you can clearly see that there is a demand. The main reason I own all games from id Software is their native Linux client.

As for the "porting to OpenGL is costly": Making the D3D game work well with Wine is not costly. All it requires is a friendly e-mail to the Wine team and I am sure they will gladly help out as much as they can, doing basically all the work for you.
And is there any reason to develop a new game with D3D instead of OpenGL? I simply see none. OpenGL (with SDL) can do everything that DX can do and is portable.

Another thing:

I remember a time were every game was shipped with tons of DRM. Everybody thought DRM is the way to go and shipping games without DRM will ruin the sales. All big gaming companies followed that rule.
But a small company called StarDock thought differently. They went against the DRM, promoting their views of customer service and they had an enormous sucess with it. It was a real upset in the gaming market and proved the "big guys" wrong.
Right now, the same "big guys" are not thinking about Linux when developing their games. Developing a major game to run well on Windows and Linux is a leap of faith, yes. A leap of faith just like releasing games without DRM was. StarDock has been very successful with that leap of faith which should encourage more of them ...

As a long time Linux user (Slackware since 1995) I can say that I would and do support companies that support Linux. I belive that most Linux users are the same way.

I buy hardware from manufacturers that I know support Linux. Same with software. While "free" is an appeal for Linux, we happily pay for closed software written for Linux if it's good and worth the price being asked. For those of us who use Linux regularly (and there are more of us than many of you may think), paying for good software is not out of the question. I have some apps that I paid for.

What I don't buy? Any software from any company that doesn't support Linux. Period. Even if they aren't run natively, if they're compatible with Wine and designed to install and run under Wine, that's fine with me.

Quoting MasonM,

reply 5

As a long time Linux user (Slackware since 1995) I can say that I would and do support companies that support Linux. I belive that most Linux users are the same way.

Actually, *all* people I know (would be around 30-50 people in total) who use Linux as their one and only OS are sticking to ONLY support companies that release free software for Linux. They are commercially challenge folks....

I use Linux for real work and Windows for games and have no problem with that setup. If Windows craps out (it happens), reinstalling my games is effortless thanks to Steam and Impulse. At this point, Windows is just a videogame console.

Like McGee said, game development is about money first and foremost. Why waste manhours programming for an OS that comparatively few people use? When it comes to games, the money's with Windows and maybe OS X.

Why waste manhours programming for an OS that comparatively few people use?

It depends on if the extra development cost (which I believe that if coded directly for OpenGL instead of DirectX would be minimal aside from the initial training costs of the devs) would be less than the profit made from selling to the number of Linux gamers that exist

Quoting mickeko,

reply 6

Actually, *all* people I know (would be around 30-50 people in total) who use Linux as their one and only OS are sticking to ONLY support companies that release free software for Linux. They are commercially challenge folks....

Some Linux users share the FSF position that proprietary sotware is unethical and will never support anything under a non-free license. Most however, are simply voting with their wallets. A company that releases free software for Linux is worth supporting. Don't underestimate how many SuSE & Red Hat packages are sold each day in retail. Turnover is better than many other software packages sold in retail.

Likewise, Linux users regularily reward companies releasing usefull software for Linux. Opera, when it was still payware, saw a significant portion of its income coming from Linux users. Reason: It provide a much better alternative over Netscape 4.x and people were not unwilling to pay for such hard and usefull work.

Commercial software is two-sided: As an example nobody uses Nero for Linux, partially because it's not user-friendly enough compared to tools like K3B, but much more importantly that people are not going to buy a program that is expensive for the value it adds. What does Nero add over K3B? Yes, it has some advanced features, but who uses those? Other products are a huge smash hit, like the Intel compiler suite, sell like crazy because you cannot even get close to the performance of the Intel compiler with GCC. It's a myth commercial software on Linux is a problem. In fact, the size of the industry is considerable.

Regarding games, the question is wether user will put them in the category "useless to pay any money for" or "welcome support for Linux". I believe it is the latter category.

Quoting dmantione,

reply 9

Don't underestimate how many SuSE & Red Hat packages are sold each day in retail. Turnover is better than many other software packages sold in retail.

Umm... As SuSE and Red Hat are operating systems rather than software packages, I don't really see the significance. You buy service, not the software...

Tell me about the successful commercial software for linux instead (I'm assuming we talk strictly desktop software here, server side is a fair bit different)... Hmm... You can't? Oh.. There's a reason for that, and it has nothing to do with the free alternatives since pretty much all of those are ported to windows too...

When it comes to gaming, linux compatible games doesn't bring additional income, those who want to play games dual boot windows or play it on a console, which means they buy the game anyway. I don't think we're going to see any increase in games for linux until emulation works good enough to run with very little extra development (which is what we see on OSX, pretty much all OSX compatible games are non-native).

Umm... As SuSE and Red Hat are operating systems rather than software packages, I don't really see the significance. You buy service, not the software...

You're just pointing out that even if the software is free, there can be a business model that takes advantage of that. Distro companies have discovered a business model that works. Game companies can do the same. The fact that you specifically can't think of it, does not mean it can't exist. People couldn't think of a business model for free operating systems 20-30 years ago but advances in technology (internet) and awareness (linux is cheaper, safer and more stable in the long term), have made it possible.

ID Software makes games with OpenGL, and Doom 3 and Quake 4 can be made to work with linux natively (Linux executables are available from ID's FTP server). I'm not sure if their IdTech 5 engine, that they use for RAGE and Doom 4, is still based on OGL, but ID has been very favourable of linux gaming in the past, so i don't see why that would change. Unfortunately in those games the gameplay was not on par to graphics, so hopefully they found a "John Carmack" of gameplay for RAGE and Doom 4

Quoting db0,

reply 11

Game companies can do the same.

I suppose they could, but I don't see them doing 60% more work on a game to get it ready for linux resulting in a 0.5% increase in sales...

And just because there ARE games made for linux doesn't mean the title has sold any better because of it. There's really no indication that the availability of a linux version has an impact on sales of anything at all (with the exception for server software and emulation software like cedega and crossover for obvious reasons)...

I suppose they could, but I don't see them doing 60% more work on a game to get it ready for linux resulting in a 0.5% increase in sales...

Whatever else you arguments might be, please refrain from pulling statistics out of your ass.

Btw, one thing that wasn't mentioned is that by coding for GNU/Linux you're effectively coding towards Mac as well as the two systems have a very similar architecture. That another hefty chunk of people with no competition from other games.

It's not uncommon that a codebase of 500 KLOC has something like 200 lines of platform specific code. That's less than 1% of the work and sales do increase by more than 1%. So, the amount of work cannot be the reason. Very often, as in the case of GC2, it is the desire to code platform specific and nothing else.

Quoting db0,

reply 14

Whatever else you arguments might be, please refrain from pulling statistics out of your ass.

My bad, sorry. I should have used better wording.

Quoting db0,

reply 15

Btw, one thing that wasn't mentioned is that by coding for GNU/Linux you're effectively coding towards Mac as well as the two systems have a very similar architecture. That another hefty chunk of people with no competition from other games.

The trend is coding toward emulated compatibility.... (Cider, Cedega, Wine)... And I already mentioned why it's not really a hefty chunk of people at all (dual boot and consoles)...

Quoting dmantione,

reply 16

It's not uncommon that a codebase of 500 KLOC has something like 200 lines of platform specific code. That's less than 1% of the work and sales do increase by more than 1%. So, the amount of work cannot be the reason. Very often, as in the case of GC2, it is the desire to code platform specific and nothing else.

So they skip coding multiplatform and "lose sales" just because they find it desirable? Sounds extremely unlikely.

Quoting dmantione,

reply 16

It's not uncommon that a codebase of 500 KLOC has something like 200 lines of platform specific code. That's less than 1% of the work and sales do increase by more than 1%. So, the amount of work cannot be the reason. Very often, as in the case of GC2, it is the desire to code platform specific and nothing else.

Unless you're familiar with the code yourself, it's impossible to make any sort of claim to how hard or simple it would be to port a game.

I agree, and I'm not claiming at all I know how much work it would be to port GC2. Actually I believe it is a lot of work. What I am pointing at, is that multi-platform code, and I have seen quite a bit of it, including games, tends to have very little platform specific code, often a few kilobytes max. Given this information I conclude that the extra work cannot be the reason why game developers decide to code Windows-only.

Given this information I conclude that the extra work cannot be the reason why game developers decide to code Windows-only.

I think the case of why GPG/Stardock does it in this case is probably because theyr current devs are experienced with DirectX and not OpenGL so it's probably a retraining issue.I still think it would be worth the effort.

The trend is coding toward emulated compatibility.... (Cider, Cedega, Wine)... And I already mentioned why it's not really a hefty chunk of people at all (dual boot and consoles)...

There is however a large number of people who do not have a dual boot or a console. Between Macs and GNU/Linux I believe there's certainly a lot of sales to be made, especially when there is no competition.

Impulse is designed to deliver Windows products to Windows machines. Impulse is a key component of Stardock's games, so they'd have to make a Linux version, which is totally pointless since its primary purpose is to sell Windows products. If you read Brad's report on Stardock, he pretty much says that the company is uninterested in developing for other platforms.

That should not stop us customers telling what products we are prepared to put our money in, no?

It's a matter of time. Many reports show Windows market share to be below 90% now, already below the 95% of the market that is considered comfortable in business. I believe a few extra % drop in Windows market share will make the business case for many software vendors.

Quoting mickeko,

reply 6

Quoting MasonM, reply 5As a long time Linux user (Slackware since 1995) I can say that I would and do support companies that support Linux. I belive that most Linux users are the same way.

Actually, *all* people I know (would be around 30-50 people in total) who use Linux as their one and only OS are sticking to ONLY support companies that release free software for Linux. They are commercially challenge folks....

I also know about 50 people who use Linux on a regular basis, but I only know 10 of them well enough to say something about their game purchase habits.
All 10 of them (including me) have already bought games that run natively on Linux. This includes id Software (Quake 4 and Doom 3 mostly) as well as smaller games like Darwinia and Defcon. The Linux version of Neverwinter Nights is also very popular here.

True, most gamers use a dual boot and so the Linux version just replaced a sale of the Windows version. Still, you get the word of mouth and a loyal and dedicated fanbase to promote your products.

About the 1% platform specific code: If the whole engine is written in D3D it is quite a lot of work to port it to other platforms. That's why people simply shouldn't make the mistake and start with D3D in the first place.
The problem here is that Microsoft pays good money so that programmers get educated to use D3D. They in return program D3D products which only work on Windows, making Microsoft money. This is what anti trust laws are meant to fight, but they obviously don't work well in this case. Instead of just forcing Microsoft to pay yet another fine I hope the anti trust guys will one day just order Microsoft to open-source D3D. If D3D applications run on all systems, the Windows dominance will be broken within weeks. I do realize that this wouldn't be too great for StarDock ... but that's yet another reason to stop depending on Windows completely for your business model and starting to build at least the foundation for other ways of earning money. The Windows market share is constantly dropping. Very slowly, yes - but it sure won't rise any time soon. A business should think 10 years ahead and I at least don't see Windows having a market share greater then 80% in 10 years.

About the "there are no successful commercial products on Linux": Every distribution comes with tons and tons of free software that does everything a normal user could ever want. The quality of free software for Linux is generally better then for Windows. It just doesn't make much sense to buy software if you already got everything you need ...
Games are different here. There are very few good free games for Linux. So it makes a lot of sense to buy (good) games.

Quoting MegaVolt,

reply 23

Instead of just forcing Microsoft to pay yet another fine I hope the anti trust guys will one day just order Microsoft to open-source D3D. If D3D applications run on all systems, the Windows dominance will be broken within weeks. I do realize that this wouldn't be too great for StarDock ... but that's yet another reason to stop depending on Windows completely for your business model and starting to build at least the foundation for other ways of earning money.

Ok, I'll just do a few changes to your comment...

Instead of just forcing Microsoft to pay yet another fine I hope the anti trust guys will one day just order Microsoft to open-source WINDOWS. If everyone can improve on the OS, Linux will be gone from the desktops within weeks. I do realize that this wouldn't be too great for the fanboys ... but that's yet another reason to remain on Windows completely for your business model and keep the foundation for the current way of earning money.

And keep in mind that "open source" is not necessarily the same as "free"...

If everyone can improve on the OS, Linux will be gone from the desktops within weeks

Eh, don't be so sure. The Windows source code is insanely bloated and the Free Software developer base will have to retrain themselves to get on it.

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