Loki Files For Chapter 11 Protection 708
yamla writes: "Loki is dead!" and points to a Linux Review article which says the gaming company has filed for protection from creditors under bankruptcy laws. Yamla continues: "Read about it here. This is terrible news! I have paid for some of their games and they were always at least as good as the Windows versions. I hope Loki can pull out of bankruptcy and keep going but if not, it will be our loss." There is also a story at LinuxToday (pointed out by reader Beee) which draws from the Linux Review report. Meanwhile, the Loki site appears business-as-usual. Filing for bankruptcy protection is not the same as being "out of business," but it's uncomfortably close.
Re:Is there anything we can do? (Score:2, Insightful)
You know, in this country there are single mothers who are selling themselves on the street in order to pay for food to feed their kids. And you're worried about a few out-of-work California video game programmers?
I realize you spend 24 hours a day logged into Slashdot and thus have very little knowledge of the world outside, but please, try to maintain some sense of perspective.
Unite! Go buy a game! (Score:5, Insightful)
Perhaps its time to change the business model. Maybe they should focus on becoming a service for game manufacturers that ports the games for a fee but doesn't sell them?
Another thought would be to get away from the damn 1st person shooters. I'm sick of them. Its getting old. Perhaps they could get in with a windows gaming company before a game is released (wishful thinking..) and simultaneously release.
Another thought would be to release bare bones versions with a CD only and a PDF of the manual for a lower price. Kohan is bloody expensive for me to buy in Canada (so I'm not going to purchase it from Loki). Maybe they should throw a wad of cash that they don't have into marketing with large chains. Up here Business Depot carries Linux of various flavours.. maybe they could get in there.
What it comes down to is this is/will be a big kick to the crotch of linux gaming. :(
I have been a very happy Loki customer (Score:4, Insightful)
Loki has always done a wonderful job in porting games to Linux. While, of course, the actual games had to be proprietary, they made a number of contributions to the Linux community, including the SDK kit.
I don't know how to say this politely, so I will sa it bluntly: The average game player is the ultimate addict of the consumer culture. They want someone else to hand them entertainment on a silver platter. I can see why many gamers do not have the willingness nor patience to learn how to use Linux as a desktop operating system.
Which is a shame, because a lot of those same gamers become the corporate IT department, and end up responding to the word "Linux" with great hostility.
Anyway, enough of my rant. I hope a miracle happens and Loki is able to pull out of this one. I will make sure to purchase every Loki game I can see at Fry's later on this week.
- Sam
Re:I see some parallels . . . (Score:2, Insightful)
As I mention in a post above, I was sorry to see Loki make no attempt to move to the Mac OS X market; I would've thought that once the work of porting to Linux was done, that they could increase their (paying) consumer base by following through with a port to OS X--although there are technical differences, it would still be easier than the original port. And, as I say, there are a few companies that have succeeded porting Mac titles.
A reminder for us to look around "linuxWare" (Score:2, Insightful)
Lets Save Loki!! (Score:5, Insightful)
Listen! Loki is only $400,000 in debt. That's not that much. "Will someone with deep pockets save Loki?" No. But we can! They may have gone chapter 11 but the web site is still taking sales.
I don't know what their overhead is but let's assume they make $20 on each sale. That means they only need to sell 20,000 games to be back at ground zero. That's a small percentage of the slashdot population! I know many of us are starving college students and trolls but most of us are well-to-do IT people making real money!
Why stick out necks out to save Loki? I'll tell you why. They have not only made games on linux a reality, but they have made the ability to have games on linux a reality. They made SDL one of the best media layers for any platform. They made OpenAL, the only cross architecture 3D sound library. They pushed the XFree and Mesa developers giving them the need and the user base to make OpenGL on Linux stop being "ok" and start to "kick ass". If it were not for Loki, there would be no Maya for Linux, there would be no glx in XFree86, there would be no SDL. If they go we will lose one of the biggest forces pushing the linux desktop's quality. All of you who remember what 3D, 2D and sound were like on Linux 4 years ago - you KNOW how far we have come, and we owe much of it to Loki.
I know money is tight (it's always tight), but we have an opportunity to save one of the coolest Linux companies around. Like games? Buy some right now, while we still can. Don't like games? Make a 'donation' to Loki to say thanks for all their hard work. Poor? Get one of the older 'on sale' games. Company just IPO'ed? Get two of each and give them to your friends. There are SO many of us!! Sure, Linux companies are dropping like flys but none fill the niche that will be left empty once Loki is gone.
Re:I have been a very happy Loki customer (Score:2, Insightful)
Ahem.
You're damn right I want my entertainment on a silver platter! And why the hell not?
Give me a Shigeru Miyamoto produced console game (like, say, Super Mario 64) over a "hardcore" PC game ANY day of the week (be it a Linux or Windows version - and that's not saying that HOMM or Tycoon aren't fine games; they are.) When I sit down for a good movie, I want to drop my 7 bucks, grab a pack of sweet-tarts, and enjoy. Same thing when I sit down to enjoy a game: I don't want to screw with drivers, installation, complex control schemes - I want to plug the cartridge into the slot (or drop the CD in the tray) and go.
Games are supposed to be about FUN above ALL else, and I am amazed at how many game developers fail to realize this - instead releasing a game that is "cool" or "edgy" or has nifty 3D graphics.. not really ever stopping to pay too much attention to whether or not someone can sit down with their game and actually enjoy playing it.
I'm all for games that make me think, but as far as the issue of OS, I could absolutely care less when it comes to my entertainment. I don't give a rats ass what kind of projector the movie theatre uses and I shouldn't have to care about what OS my games are running on for the same reason. Too bad these days I still do, but hopefully we're moving towards an eventual medium and presentation system that is powerful and standardized for presenting game content. For now, consoles are IMO the closest thing (and even there, we have to put up with 2 or 3 platforms that change every 4 years.) Maybe by the time we get to that point we will have learned to focus on the style, content and most of all fun of our games, and not get distracted by the technology.
paulb
Re:fuck you too (Score:0, Insightful)
They should do both. (Score:5, Insightful)
Write a decent compatibility library, or tweak SDL for your own uses. Port to that. It would be a bit more work to try to cover up all the loose places where the compatibility library doesn't fit that os well, but you'd be able to simulteneously release for linux, mac, mac os x, and linuxppc, and maybe later on put together a SUPER HAPPY FISH BONUS PACK! with playstation2 versions of like four of the games you just ported to linux/mac.
If you're going to bother with the herculean task of porting spaghetti code (which most games are) to a different operating system, take the extra time to work in a sane portability architecture. In doing so you'll probably at least double your possible target audience with not *that* much work.
That being said, you probably could make more money off the mac users. Mac users probably aren't as heavy into gaming, true, but mac users are a captive audience. Unlike (((the majority of!))) linux users, mac users do'nt have the option of booting into windows. Now that bungie is dead, they have only what can be ported or emulated, and because there have been almost no new mac ports to speak of in nearly forever they are mostly starved for decent games and will probably run anything even mediocre that runs on their computers.
What? Bitter because Loki seems to be gone, and dynamix seems to be gone, and i will probably never get that mac os x version of Tribes 2 [petitiononline.com] i've been wanting so badly? Who, me?
Re:Twist of Fate - the PC gaming business explaine (Score:2, Insightful)
Hear hear!!!!!! ^^ I wouldn't necessarily say that $200,000 automatically buys a cheesy game, but this would be a step in the right direction.
Fix the economics first, then the game market will do much better.
I agree about the console market too. Console games are less expensive to build and more reliable, therefore more profitable.
The game industry needs to stop this "one more $10 million engine and we'll finally be like Hollywood" business model and start concentrating on gameplay.
Just my $0.02Dynamix taking Loki with them? (Score:3, Insightful)
Think about it. Dynamix close their doors. Tribes2 is doing ok for Loki, but now without Dynamix about to pay guaranteed money for patches and upgrades, they don't have the money to stay with their current financial setup.
I'm guessing this is what some of the companies that Loki have ported games for were obligated to, assuming here that the patches were GAME fixes and not PORTING fixes. I'd expect porting issues to be the responsibility of Loki, and game design changes to be the company that wrote it in the first places problem. I may be wrong, but it seems rather likely to me.
Plus, there is no maintenance money for Quake3Arena now that ID Software have taken over the support for the Linux port themselves (happened a while back). This probably makes things a little hairy, and now that Dynamix have gone down the tubes, it sounds like they have just been pushed over the edge, and need a little security, hence the Chapter 11 reorganisation.
Well, I'm off to buy more Linux games from Loki, because while they are still around, I'm still going to support them. And this time I'm buying them direct from Loki. None of these places in the middle that absorb some of the cost themselves. Every little bit helps.
PS: Those that suggested cutting down on manuals and stuff, and putting PDF manuals on disk, well thats what they did with Tribes2. You get the CD in a plastic DVD-style case (the semi-decent ones), an 8 page (4 x A5 sheets of paper with double sided black and white print, stapled down the center) guide that tells you your Tribes2 Serial Number, the minimum system requirements, a quick "Getting started" install guide, how to register online with the Tribes2 system, tech support info, customer service info, a quick guide to the in-game voice menu keys, and a keyboard layout map of all the keys in the game. Everything else is in the PDF. I've yet to even open that PDF file though. *grin*
Re:There is no justice in the world..... (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Small target group? (Score:3, Insightful)
If I had bought Tribes 2 and wanted the Linux version, I wouldn't object to paying Loki for the work they did in porting it. However, that $50 that you'd pay to Loki includes both paying Loki for their effort and paying the original Tribes 2 developers. While someone who already owns the Windows version hasn't paid the former group, they've definitely paid the latter.
A more equitable agreement would be one where people who've already bought Tribes 2 for Windows could purchase the Linux version at a discount. Rather than cutting into Loki's revenue, the discount would come out of the licensing fee. It wouldn't necessarily have to be 100% of the fee (allowing the original developer to still reap some extra benefits from their relationship with Loki), but it should be enough to help stimulate sales.
Re:Open Source LOKI!!! (Score:5, Insightful)
Does anyone on slashdot actually know what the hell is going on anymore?
Re:I bought Heavy Gear 2 err also (Score:3, Insightful)
So how long would Loki last anyway? They have proprietary code that they port with no chance of Open Sourcing. They have to make money or die. They have to make you and I WANT their products. Without demand any business fails. There are so many companies out there with completely awesome ideas and great products. Especially in the consumer market we see a lot more tension than ever before. Take netaddress.com for instance. For the longest time (YEARS!) they provided a free e-mail service to whomever wanted it. When they suddenly realise that they aren't making money they start to charge for it. What do people do? They sure as hell don't start coughing up dough for it. They run over to hotmail.com and get signed up with Microsoft. It makes me think of "bought" friends. As long as you have cash, people love you. When you're out, you're no longer any good to them. While the context is not applicable to the Loki situation, they do try to cater to a consumer market. And a very condensed one at that. There are tons of Linux users out there and most of them are using it because it is a cost effective alternative. These users live in countries where Cable Modems and Pentium 4's don't fall off of trees. Most of these people don't have the fattest 3D accellerators and CPUs available. I imagine that the average Linux box is a Pentium II something with a fairely limited amount of RAM. Not only does Loki cater to Linux geeks, but the ones with the neat Linux machines. I can't imagine that this market is that great.
I am not going to buy any copies of games that I'll never play. I have a pretty decent machine which could handle it all, but I have no interest to play games. Loki's cause is great, but if they can't make money, why should I feel bad?
Alex
Re:There is no justice in the world..... (Score:2, Insightful)
Considering that Loki is simply releasing games originally written by other companies, perhaps it simply too expensive to port existing games when you have to pay license fees for the right to do so.
And this isn't a "going out of business" event. This is a bad thing, yes, but Loki still has a chance to pull this off. Maybe they've just been managing their cash flow poorly, or putting their money into areas that don't directly feed revenue growth.
But should someone with deep pockets save Loki? I think we both agree that is pretty stupid. For my part, I don't really care if there are a bunch of proprietary games available for Linux. Should I be so concerned about Linux "taking over" that I'm willing to spend money on something that I would barely play, and isn't Free Software anyway, just to see that happen? Hell no.
Do we really think that millions of Windows machines out there are just waiting for Sim City 8000 to be ported to Red Hat before they become Linux desktops? Absurd. I can think of so many better reasons why people aren't switching to Linux. And the availability of non-Free games for Linux isn't one of them.
Twist of Fate - the PC gaming business explained (Score:5, Insightful)
But wait! There is almost no profit in the PC game market PERIOD. It's is very difficult to make a profit in this business. Game development is an expensive proposition - especially when it comes to the advanced graphics and gameplay that we all expect today.
Even high-quality Windoze-centric shops have gone away - just look at Looking Glass studios for one. Gone! And they didn't do ANY linux. And they had great games, and excellent sales. And they were liquidated just last year.
The fact is that computer games like "Who wants to be a millionaire" sell bigger than all the rest, and they're cheap-as-dirt to create. Why spend $5 million for game development, when for $200,000 you can create a cheesey game that has 10x the number of sales???
Strangely, these days, the home console market is the only place where sophisticated computer games have a fair chance of being profitable. The sales volumes are significantly greater than those sales for Linux... and Windows.
Re:Not a big surprise (Score:2, Insightful)
Second, you obviously have no idea what "free software" means. Often confused, Free as in Freedom. Not as in cost. Surely because of freedom there is no cost of software most of the time, but this is not always true. The only people in the world that truely use Free Software because it costs free are the 17 year old demograph who have no money in the first place. Perhaps you fit into this category?
Re:Linux game market (Score:5, Insightful)
Why?
1. Most has short development cycle and almost no benefit from long-term improvement. (There are exceptions, like multi-player-games that people play for a long time)
2. It is important to not release to much info, because too much information spoils the game for people. This goes against normal development-policies.
3. The developers mostly cannot have the same fun playing the game as others (again, as in 1. there are exceptions), this makes participating for "scratching an itch" impossible.
4. There are a huge amount of people involved that aren't normally in geek-communities; artists, story-developers, musicians, etc.
5. Because of graphical issues like speed, a lot of info is often in the client, that the gamer shouldn't know about, and an open-source version may more easily allow for cheating. It shouldn't be like this, but because of technical obstacles, it is.
This all means that you take away almost all the benefits of regular open-source software (more eyeballs, more developers) and add inn a few bad side effects (spoilers, cheating, sheer costs), and you still demand that all games should be free-as-in-speech?
It just isn't possible to make a living by creating most types of open-source-games. Some may be possible, but your narrow-minded view, would destroy the market for most types of games, if most people thought like you.
Think about the added benefits to the community by having a company like Loki porting even closed source games. They release all of their common libraries under free licenses, and they have helped the community in developing free gaming and multimedia APIs.
The point is, without Loki (a closed-source company), the free software community would be worse off.
Re:Paypal Account? (Score:5, Insightful)
The linux community has rallied behind causes we felt were worth supporting in the past, however cannot remember any instance in which the community has rallied behind a commercial venture before.
Nor can I, and I think the reason is simple: the Linux community has not and probably will not rally behind commercial organizations. It's generally counter to the open-source, share-information culture inherent in the Linux community.
Anyone interested in setting up a Paypal account for the purpose of helping out Loki?
Maybe, but not me, and not a lot of Linux enthusiasts. I prefer to apply my time and financial resources toward a cause that better suits my needs in the end, and gaming is not it.
Today, my strongest Linux interests are: stronger office suite offerings, stronger video editing offerings and Sorenson codec cloning/grafting/hacking -- whatever to get the damn support working under Linux.
I believe such endeavours are more beneficial to the Linux community at large, and if I'm wrong, at least such endeavours better fulfill my needs of Linux, which is the whole point.
Contribute where it matters to you most, worry about your own self interests, others will do the same, and if we share our results, we all win in big ways.
Maybe games fill that role for more Linux enthusiasts than I think. I have been known to make mistakes
Would you be willing to donate a few bucks to help keep Loki afloat?
I think you may be largely underestimating the problems that Loki faces. Maybe some donations will pull them out of their current financial crisis, but there's no indication that they would come up with a long term strategy that works both for the Linux community and fiscally.
If a company cannot work at a financial level, the battle is already lost, it's just a matter of time. Nobody wants to sink money into a black hole, even if it feels like a good cause. If you don't think it will make a difference, then what's the point?
Anyone with me?
I'm sorry, but I think anyone who follows this proposition on its face is asking to waste money. I think it only wise to "chip into" projects that can demonstrate (or at least illustrate) an endgame that makes sense - namely: a company that can sustain itself and provide value to the Linux community.
I like Loki. I like its games. I like the quality of its work. I like its contributions to the open source community. It did everything right, and I haven't bought a game. I probably would never have. It's cold. It's hard. It's probably flamebait. It's the truth.
Re:correct (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Linux game market (Score:5, Insightful)
A lot of people on this board go on at length about how they won't use this app or that app because it isn't Free-as-in-whatever. There are people here who won't even *use* something released under the BSD license because of ideological reasons. It's not free enough, I guess.
I wonder what kind of percentage of the Linux market these people (zealots?) are? Maybe there just aren't enough Linux users willing to buy games, period, to support a company like this.
Re:Linux game market (Score:1, Insightful)
Games are more like music than like an operating system; they take lots of creative work for a quick release, and they don't keep getting maintained, since they lose popularity and new games arrive.
Re:Not a big surprise (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Paypal Account? (Score:1, Insightful)
So you should probably not plagiarize off him.
Re:Holy fuck (Score:2, Insightful)
Gee, I just can't imagine why they went under.
Few/No Linux Games != Death of Linux (Score:1, Insightful)
PC game development is a marginally profitable endeavor anyway. For every iD [idsoftware.com], there [bc3000ad.com] are [interplay.com] lots [ionstorm.com] of [godgames.com] losers [dynamix.com]. Aside from Wal-Mart specials like Deer Hunter [wizworks.com] and Millionaire, PC game development is a risky proposition at best. Retail software in general is an incredibly competitive business; the retail game software business is brutal.
Linux gamers, as a group, are willing to pay for games, but only for mega-elite titles. These are games that are already successful on Windows. In particular, multiplayer games are only successful with a large gamer population, most of which will be running Windows.
Console gaming is the only profitable market for most game companies. The margins are higher, the technology is simpler due to uniform hardware, losses to piracy are low, and there is significant revenue from rental outlets.
To those of you unwilling to dual-boot to Windows, do what I did - buy a cheap second [dell.com] (3rd/4th/etc) machine and a KVM switch [buy.com]. Or get a game console and rent software. Don't let funky OS advocacy blind you to reasonable alternatives. Hey, I love my TiVo [tivo.com], but the fact it runs Linux means diddly to me.
so go BUY a game NOW (Score:2, Insightful)
BTW they are totally /.'ed now, so don't bother for a couple of hours...
Jan
Pirates? (was Re:Not a big surprise) (Score:3, Insightful)
You know, I find that really offensive. There is no pirated software on any of my machines - none at all. I'm sure that's true of many other Linux users, probably most. There is proprietary commercial software on my machines, including Loki games; but it's all paid for.
Yes, I'm an open source person. Most of my own work is available under BSD license. I maintain three separate open source packages. I use, in my work, many other open source packages. And there are a huge range of packages I don't use because their licenses are not compatible with what I'm doing.
Open source people are not pirates. Most pirated software, lets face it, is Windows software. How many Windows machines do you know which have no pirate software at all? Closed source people are far more likely, in my experience, to be pirates than open source people.
Re:I think most linux gamers use windows for games (Score:2, Insightful)
Loki's games come with static libraries, so that they don't care what binaries you have on your machine. I've got a Voodoo 3, and it's worked perfectly with every OpenGL-based game I've played in the last 6-9 months. Loki may be losing money because of people who remember a time when running games on Linux was a PITA and don't realize it's gotten better, but such *is* the case. XF86v4 has worked out of the box for me every time, DRI and all, and I haven't had a glibc-related issue in years (specifically, since they added symbol versioning).
Now... as for Quake 3, making you pay twice isn't Id's thing. The issue is that Id didn't pay Loki to do the port, rather Loki paid Id. Thus, they have to charge twice -- otherwise, Loki is out what they paid for the rights, and their actual porting costs.
As for kernel graphics, there really are issues there -- as opposed to most other IO, graphics drivers tend towards being large, complicated and thus unstable. Many of the framebuffer drivers are not only large and complicated but additionally ugly (see the MQ-200 driver for an example). This will be getting much better RSN -- the ruby tree from the linuxconsole folks (which should be integrated into Linux 2.5) allows shorter, and thus simpler and less bug-prone, framebuffer drivers to be written. Furthermore, the framebuffer interface doesn't allow userland access to many of the card-specific features that make 3D (and even 2D) accelaration possible -- and, except with a 3rd-party addon like DirectFB (which has its own issues), that's not about to go away soon.
Re:There is no justice in the world..... (Score:3, Insightful)
Buy It. Don't Burn It. (Score:2, Insightful)
Come on people. If we want Linux to truly dethrone M$, we're going to actually have to spend some money! Why is Dell halting Linux installs on their consumer desktops? Because no one bought them. What's the point of forking out $1700 for a computer from Dell with RH7 preinstallted when you can rebuild that 2 year old one and throw your downloaded copy on it? Face it, Dell can't continue throwing money, people and time into products that no one is buying. That's Business Management 101, braniac. Why is Loki going under? Same reason. They invest resources into products that only a few buy and the masses copy!
So get off your penny pinching asses, take some of that cash you saved by using a "free" OS and support the revolution by actually buying Linux-based apps.
Re:so go BUY a game NOW (Score:3, Insightful)
Because Loki writes Linux software. The more professional Linux software that exists, the more valid an operating system it becomes. There are many people that boot into Windows just to play games. I'm not one of them (I only play Quake III Arena, and Loki did a hell of a job on that) - but I know a lot of people who are. If all games are available for Linux from the get-go, more people will make the full switch. When this happens, more people grow more knowledgeable about the inner workings of Linux. Then they put these newly found skills on their resume. Managers get the resume and go "you know, with all these people coming in with serious Linux experience, we can probably put Linux to work for us." Then Linux is a valid corporate operating system. Then it grows even more.
We need to support Linux companies because it's good for Linux and, therefore, good for its users. And if you really care about the Linux community, what better way to show support than buying products from Linux companies?
Paypal Account? (Score:5, Insightful)
Anyone with me?
Slim chances of recovery (Score:4, Insightful)
It's not over until the fat lady sings, of course, but I think I hear her sucking air into her lungs and clearing her throat. That fat lady is going to sing soon and when she does she's going to blow some eardrums. There are very few companies that survive the chapter 11 stage. Stop deluding yourselves guys.
Terrible news? (Score:2, Insightful)
If proprietary software is evil, then Loki was evil.
If Loki was good, then proprietary software is good.
Pick a moral stance and stay with it. To paraphrase J. C. Watts, integrity is doing the right thing, even when it's inconvenient.
Catch 22... I know nobody cares, (Score:2, Insightful)
The situation here is a conundrum, a no-win situation, a bootstrapping problem, but that's not what Catch-22 was. In the book, Catch-22 means:
I know, that's pretty nitpicky, but the concept is so interesting that I like talking about it (even when no one's reading). Unfortunately, there's no simple way to explain it that makes it clearly distinct from the no-win situation. It's related, but not the same. Catch-22 is a paradox... that's what made Joseph Heller so cool; coming up with stuff like that.
So, just to plead for mercy from the -1 Offtopic mod, I tried to think of an equivalent Catch-22 for the situation the poster mentioned.... No luck so far. Somehow it'd have to involve like, "you can only make a Linux port of a game if the Windows version flops, but if the Windows version flops the game maker goes bankrupt and can't make a Linux port...." Something like that.
Ah, why bother? I need coffee....
N
later releases (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Paypal Account? (Score:0, Insightful)