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Businesses Linux Games

Are Commercial Games Finally Going To Make It To Linux? 242

Posted by Soulskill from the yes-no-maybe dept.
colinneagle writes "Those of us who actively promote Linux as a viable desktop alternative to Windows are often greeted with the following refrain: 'Nobody will use Linux because there are no good games.' The prevailing wisdom is that the abundance of high-quality, commercial video gaming is a key factor in the market-share dominance that Microsoft Windows enjoys. And, in all reality, this is somewhat true. So, then, the obvious course of action is to convince the video game publishers and developers of the world that Linux is a viable (if, perhaps, a bit niche) market. And by 'viable' I mean one thing and one thing only – 'profitable.'Luckily, there have been three high-profile recent examples of Linux users going absolutely nuts over video games, forking over their hard-earned cash in the process: the Humble Indie Bundle (drawing in huge numbers of sales — for a DRM-free product, no less — with sales numbers by Linux users consistently beating out sales to MacOS X users); Canonical's Ubuntu Software Center (where video games make up the top 10 paid software packages); Valve's announcement that it is bringing the Steam store, and community portal, to Linux desktop (specifically Ubuntu). Will the indie game developers (along with Valve) reap the bulk of the rewards that releasing games on Linux is offering...or will some of the big publishers realize what they're missing out on and join in the fun?"
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Are Commercial Games Finally Going To Make It To Linux? More

Are Commercial Games Finally Going To Make It To Linux?

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  • Sure! (Score:3, Insightful)

    by pietromenna ( 1118063 ) on Saturday September 15, 2012 @06:02PM (#41348665)
    But only when they see that it makes sense and it will not require too much technical work to allow some! Ahhrg by the way! First post!

    • My guess is that if this does gain momentum, it will be for a limited set of distros such as Ubuntu, to ease the issues of installation problems, drivers, what have you.

      • Fine. You can pendrive boot Ubuntu when you want to use Steam if Ubuntu isn't your preference. A 16GB USB drive costs $15.

        • Maplin UK recently had a While-Stocks-Last promotion on Intenso 64GB pen drives - three for £18. That promo lasted all of half an hour before even the distribution centres ran out.

          Pissed me off, I was ready to buy nine.

          • Holy crap, and I thought getting 4x 4GB or 2x 8GB for 20€ two years ago was a good deal.

            • last good deal I had on portable memory was PNY Olympic Edition 8GB Class 6 SD cards, 2 for £12 (this was June this year). That was a PC World thing. Before that, it was an Integral Class 4 32GB SD card at £24 (when everyone else was selling them at £40+ - Feb/March this year).

              • Portable memory, I use a usb bridge. Sata/ide to usb, any hard drive becomes portable. If you know tech people or know which dumpsters to root through 40g, 80g, anything up to about 500 if you are lucky are free, as in $0. The bridge is $10 to $20. Nice for extracting data from burned out drives too as the computer doesn't have to handle booting with the drive connected so you can usually copy data without any need for recovery programs.

                As to linux games, I have always been one of those wanting to move

          • Maplin UK recently had a While-Stocks-Last promotion on Intenso 64GB pen drives - three for £18. That promo lasted all of half an hour before even the distribution centres ran out.

            I'm pretty sure that was one of those attention-grabbing below-cost-price offers on an intentionally-limited amount of stock that one has to be fast and lucky to catch. As such, it doesn't say much about the everyday price of a 64GB pen drive.

            That said, one can probably pick up a 16GB drive for more like US $10 these days.

          • and Newegg has the 32GB type for less then $20 on a regular basis. I'm planning on getting either them or a 64GB after the Xmas season depending on what's cheaper

    • I point you to my post from 2007 [gamerslastwill.com]

      We'll see if it rings true.

      • Re:Sure! (Score:4, Interesting)

        by DragonTHC ( 208439 ) <{Dragon} {at} {gamerslastwill.com}> on Saturday September 15, 2012 @06:31PM (#41348801) Homepage Journal

        here's the text for lazy people.

        Here is my prediction for the next big thing in PC games.
        live DVDs. You’ll get your game on a live DVD that runs a custom operating system or perhaps Linux to make it easy. A huge portion of the overhead costs for games involves support. If publishers could control the environment their software runs in, end-user support costs drop dramatically. The real hurdle to overcome? Driver support. Though, when publishers cross the live DVD bridge, I’m sure hardware manufacturers will jump onboard and sure up some unified driver technology like Nvidia and ATI already have.
        This all makes it much easier to play games and easier still to troubleshoot them. What about copy protection you ask? CD keys still work for online play. Why not have a game run its own operating system from a usb thumb drive? this allows the publisher to add dongle-type hardware to the usb thumb drive if they so choose to add that level of copy protection.
        You heard it all here first.

        • That would be annoying as hell. On top of that, it'd force the development studios to support everything beneath the game as well as on top. Rather than diminishing the support costs, you've just exploded them.

        • Of course! This makes perfect sense, especially when many new computers are shipping without optical drives!

          • Re: (Score:2)

            by donaldm ( 919619 )

            Of course! This makes perfect sense, especially when many new computers are shipping without optical drives!

            You know that you can boot into an OS from a USB key and install or run appropriate software. I have not used CD's, DVD's or BD's for that matter to install software for over 4 years now. Of course if you have a locked down device that has no input peripherals then you are definitely at the mercy of the vendor.

        • That's actually a great idea. There's one big problem, though: hardware support. Your custom distro would only support hardware up until that point in time, which meant you'd have to look for legacy hardware two years from now. But what if you offered the hardware, too, in a bundle? That way you'd have control over both hardware and software - there's nothing easier to support of develop for. And, to reduce costs, you could share a platform like that across many games, so... oh, wait...

          • It's actually a really stupid idea. Why the fuck would I, as a consumer, want to have to reboot to play a game, screw around keeping track of all discs or USB drives or whatever, and lose the ability to do anything else with my computer when it's playing a game?

            On top of that, yes, as you say, hardware support would be problematic. Updates would be a pain in the ass. There would be absolutely no way of knowing if any two games would do something incredibly weird to your system because maybe neither one of t

      • I highly doubt it (Score:5, Insightful)

        by Sycraft-fu ( 314770 ) on Saturday September 15, 2012 @08:26PM (#41349369)

        I see a few big problems:

        1) Hardware/drivers which you touch on, but is bigger than you think. I am going to be all kinds of pissed off when I buy a new graphics card and instead of just working with all my games, but faster, as it does now, it works with nothing because none of them have drivers. I then have to wait for each and every game to update, which many, particularly old ones, won't do. This is a really major issue, PC gamers are not going to accept the concept of having to stick with the same hardware forever to play games, and having to give up games when they do change.

        2) Multi-tasking. Part of the reason to own a PC is to be able to do more than one thing at once. This includes in games. With my PC I can chat on Teamspeak, listen to MP3s, and play a game all at the same time. With a live DVD I couldn't do that, unless all the programs I happened to want were included.

        3) Game size. Many games are pushing past one DVD in size now. If you are doing a live system, there are interesting challenges to trying to have swappable DVDs.

        4) Access time. A big advantage of PC gaming is having low load times. Things stream fast of a HDD, and lightning fast of an SSD. DVDs crawl by comparison. People are not going to want that.

        5) Launch time. Right now, if I want to play a game on my system, I just run it. I can be in game in seconds. No big commitment, I don't even have to close whatever I was doing, just come back to it after. With a live DVD I have to shut down everything, reboot my system, and a slow reboot at that since it is off DVD, just to play the game.

        6) Now the biggie: The rise of digital distribution. Gamers and game companies are all about the concept of direct downloads. That really doesn't work with live DVDs. Nobody is interested in downloading an ISO, burning it to DVD, and rebooting their system. They are interested in downloading and playing. Heck companies are working (with some success in the MMO market at least) on letting you stream in assets so you can play before the download completes. It is all about less cost for the companies, more convenience for the consumer.

        The window for this idea is long past.

    • I am can't wait to see what happens. The Linux users I know won't give money for software unless it is some indie semi-open source "please donate your money" developer like the case with Humble Indie Bundle. I wanna see how big titles like Call of Duty do. I predict disaster.

      • All machines I use run Linux, both at home and work. But I still have a dedicated $1000 machine with a $200 Windows license I start a few times a week and play the ~160 games I have in my Steam Library. I don't know of any Linux users over the age of twenty-something (e.g. has a job) that is hostile to non-free software if there is no free-software alternative, as is the case with games.

  • Yes, the lack of commercial games is a barrier to Linux. It's not even close to the largest barrier to mass market adoption on the desktop: The largest barrier to Linux adoption, by far, is that your typical computer comes with MS Windows or OS X, and both of those are decent enough to do what most computer users want to do, which is check their email, stay in touch on Facebook, browse the news, view video on Youtube, etc. They don't need to make a change, so they don't.

    An obligatory car analogy: If your Fo

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by laffer1 ( 701823 )

      Linux adoption needs to happen in business first. Linux can compete with Windows in that arena. It's going to take a long time before we can consume content on Linux effectively. It's not a technical problem, it's a lack of interest from DRM loving companies.

      Linux needs business apps and lots of them. They need quickbooks, good office suites, clients for various ibm and oracle products, etc. If anything, the lack of consuming content can be a feature right now in this space. It means the employees won

      • Linux has lots of business apps. RHEL (RedHat Enterprise Linux) comes with a stack of them.

        I had a little cry when I migrated from 4D6* and Seagate Info**, which I'd been using for years, to RHEL, where I had to take everything I'd learned from the previous solution and bin it, and learn a whole new syntax. It was hard. I wouldn't honestly recommend a migration from an NT based SAP solution to Linux, it's something you need to go into with a virgin mind or it'll fuck you up.

        *Long gone 4th Generation busines

  • Maybe (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Sycraft-fu ( 314770 ) on Saturday September 15, 2012 @06:18PM (#41348727)

    It'll depend on two big things:

    1) The willingness of Linux users to pay for software. Big name games are not going to go OSS, they are not going to be free, they are not going to function off of donations. They cost too much money for that. When you sink $10-30 million in making a game, you have to have a way to make it back. Unfortunately I've met more than a few Linux users who think all software should be no cost, they are just unwilling to consider paying for something. Others will pay, but only a small amount. So we'll have to see how many people are willing to pay, if it is enough to cover the costs of porting and supporting.

    2) Linux getting a better graphics setup. Right now there's a real problem with regards to using modern features of GPUs. The binary nVidia drivers provide OpenGL 4.2 and are fast and stable, but that is about it. So if a game wants to use new technology, and more and more do, then there's a real issue with what you support. Ask Mozilla about the problems they had with GPU acceleration under Linux. It was a case of "It works well with binary nVidia, but has X crashing bugs with anything else." That isn't a setup that will be ok for many game companies, particularly if the expectation is that they scale things back or do tons of work and hacking to support various chips/drivers, since that'll increase the cost of doing it.

    It'll all come down to money, as it always will in business. The desktop Linux market is not that large so there isn't a huge amount of people to tap in to. Thus how with it it will be will depend on what percentage of people will pay, and what it costs to support. If a high percentage of people are willing to pay for the games, and ports are rather easy, then you probably will see it on the uptick.

    I mean if I'm running a publisher and the finance people say "For about $50,000 in development testing and support we can add Linux as a platform and even conservatively we can expect $500,000 in additional sales, and $1,000,000 is fairly realistic," well I'll do it. Why not? Even if I'm looking at $100,000,000 in sales on other platforms a small investment with a good reward is a great idea.

    However it is is more along the lines of "It'll cost us at least $500,000 to get everything working and there will still be bugs with AMD cards, and at best we could see maybe $600,000 in sales, but realistically probably half that or less," then I'll say no. It is not worth the risk of lost money for a small potential of a small reward. Just stick with the other platforms.

    So at this point, we really can't say. We'll have to see how Valve does, and in particular some of the Kickstarted games. The Linux people were very, very vocal so many games added a Linux port. However we'll have to see what it ends up taking to make, how well it works, and how Linux sales of it goes. That'll likely determine if those companies try Linux again, and other companies will see their success or failure and decide what to do.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by skine ( 1524819 )

      I definitely get your argument that Linux users tend to expect things for free.

      However, I think that the majority of people who are excited about the prospect of gaming on Linux are definitely those who are willing to pay for software.

      I mean, most of them have spent $100+ for the privilege to play games, aka Windows.

    • The metric you are missing is that the Windows Marketplace destroys Valve's app store business model. Gaben used to work for Microsoft and he knows what that means. He has no choice but to do the hard work of building a new viable business. Otherwise it's game over. Since it's not about best return on investment anymore, but survival, your argument is invalid.
      • You seem to be assuming valve will just abandon windows and the many hundreds of millions they make there or that somehow valve has more control over what platform a gamer plays on than the consumers and publishers funding the games. I am sure that valve will do everything to fight what at this stage looks like inevitable destruction for them, but if you think the result will be millions and millions of gamers suddenly ditch there windows gaming platform and all there libraries of games to jump into a small

        • Re:Maybe (Score:5, Interesting)

          by symbolset ( 646467 ) * on Saturday September 15, 2012 @09:02PM (#41349541) Journal

          Gabe Newell used to work at Microsoft. He knows about Stac and Sendo, WordPerfect, Novell, Lotus, Aldus, Borland, Netscape and the entire litany of other companies Microsoft decided had had enough time to develop an interesting basket of customers to steal. He knows Microsoft has now decided to have his share, and he cannot defeat them while working on their operating system. That strategy always fails because Microsoft deliberately makes the operating system incompatible with their victims' software. Always. He knows he cannot win on Windows in the long term.

          That doesn't mean he's abandoning Windows immediately. Of course not. The money's still coming in and there's no reason to throw it away. But right here in this thread are the first trickle of "increasingly glitchy, unreliable, unstable..." that eventually will become a flood not because Valve suddenly forgot how to write code, but because the ware cannot transcend an OS that deliberately undermines it. It is just not possible . It's not Gabe that's going to take Valve on Windows away from you: it's Microsoft, who will make it work worse and worse until you uninstall it.

          So the man has no choice. It's this or fold your tent and retire to your private island.

      • Because Valve is the only company out there for who the majority of revenues is dependent on selling other people's software through digital distribution. Most other developers don't have their own DD service (only EA and Ubisoft do that I know of), they make their money selling games which they can do anywhere, on Valve's Steam on MS's marketplace, in Walmart, whatever.

        I also don't know that I buy Valve's argument that MS's store will kill them. It may well become the big way to buy software for Windows bu

        • You said it yourself: Steam has 90% of the PC games revenue, and the same issue affects the other 10% too. The fraction of game sale revenue your comment applies to is therefore at best a fringe 5%. Little enough to be not relevant to the broad scope of the discussion. You're picking at nits.

          Microsoft has decided that Valve has fattened itself enough to be harvested. That's how Microsoft sees the ISV market: grazing cattle, some who fail, some who wander about doing nothing but making more cattle, and

          • Come play! Here, we have a pen drive you can boot to that doesn't have this buggy Windows crap."

            Don't worry, Microsoft is working on fixing that little vulnerability as well. With grandson-of-UEFI in place, nobody is going to boot anything but Windows 11 and later versions.

            It's for "security reasons," dontcha know.

    • ... The willingness of Linux users to pay for software ...

      Being willing to pay for a Linux version of a game is insufficient. With most Linux gamers already buying the Windows version and dual booting or running under Wine these gamers are already customers. Its only new customers who justify the Linux version, not someone switching from the Windows version to a Linux version.

    • Unfortunately I've met more than a few Linux users who think all software should be no cost,

      Riiiiight.... and all Windows users just love to pirate, arrrrh, matey!

      Last times I checked the average amount paid by Linux users was higher than Windows for the Humble Bundle

      • Proves the problem. Linux users sprain their elbows they reach over and pat themselves on the back so hard because they spent $10 on average as opposed to the $6 Windows users spent... Except that $10 works out to like $2/game. People are cheapskates on the Humble bundle. Few pay what is actually a reasonable amount and many Window gamers have already paid more.

        I've never bought a humble bundle because I have already owned any games from them I've wanted. Usually the price per game I pay is $10-20. World of

      • >Last times I checked the average amount paid by Linux users was higher than Windows for the Humble Bundle

        Does it mean that companies can charge $80 on Linux for $60 Windows games?

        I hear people pointing to this factoid but it's simply not true at all. Since people on Linux have a limited choice of games, they'd pay more for games supporting Linux.

    • I think Kickstarter can maybe help with the profitability issue.

      I would think that for most developers, there's some number of dollars, no matter how large, that would make them willing do to a Linux port. The key is getting developers to go for this.

      For example, I would have figured that the Torchlight 2 developers would be up for attempting a Linux port funded by Kickstarter, since they're also supporting Mac. But they're pretty plainly saying they're not interested in pursuing a Linux port. Not sure w

    • Unfortunately I've met more than a few Linux users who think all software should be no cost, they are just unwilling to consider paying for something. Others will pay, but only a small amount.

      It's not a comprehensive answer to the question, but the makers of the Humble Bundles (packs of mostly cross-platform indie games sold through a name-your-own price model) publish their sales figures [humblebundle.com], and they consistently show Linux-using buyers choosing to pay more than Windows and Mac buyers do -- sometimes much mor

    • 1) The willingness of Linux users to pay for software. Big name games are not going to go OSS, they are not going to be free, they are not going to function off of donations. They cost too much money for that. When you sink $10-30 million in making a game, you have to have a way to make it back. Unfortunately I've met more than a few Linux users who think all software should be no cost, they are just unwilling to consider paying for something. Others will pay, but only a small amount. So we'll

  • The best way to get Linux on a large number of desktops would be a desktop Android distro. And what would the killer app be that would make everyone want an Android desktop? Why, Steam [steampowered.com] of course.

  • Not likely, I'm afraid (Score:3)

    by Baldrake ( 776287 ) on Saturday September 15, 2012 @06:25PM (#41348757)

    Some game developers might support Linux if it comes essentially for free - e.g., because they're developing using Unity, or the game just runs under Wine. But even then, with current adoption numbers of Linux for desktop, the cost of testing, packaging, retailing and supporting is going to be more than revenues for most publishers. Sure, Indie developers are loving Linux, but their costs and expectation of profit are far lower than the big studios.

    It's worth looking at what's going on with the Mac. Around a quarter of university students are using Macs these days, yet the Steam store for mac is a pathetic shadow of the store for Windows.

    I wouldn't throw away your Windows partition just yet.

    • Considering how hard it is to convince some developers to "port" their PS3/360 games to Windows when their engine already supports it, somehow I doubt many developers are going to release a Linux port just because the engine supports it.

  • Nothing new (Score:3)

    by Tastecicles ( 1153671 ) on Saturday September 15, 2012 @06:26PM (#41348763)

    These guys [tuxgames.com] have been running since 2000. They not only sell commercial games ported to Linux, they do some of the porting themselves.
    Oh, and here [wikipedia.org] is their wiki page.
    Disclaimer: I know the founder.

  • 'Nobody will use Linux because there are no good games.'

    Someone please tell that to my Frozen Bubble addicted wife.

    • Frozen Bubble is just a port of bust-a-move. You can buy it on every platform under the sun. Hell, I've seen at least 3 DIFFERENT ports of it on iPad alone. (None of which give credit to the original, of course.)

      If Frozen Bubble is your best selling point, you got problems.

  • Linux has no advantage over windows.... (Score:5, Insightful)

    by blahplusplus ( 757119 ) on Saturday September 15, 2012 @06:31PM (#41348797)

    ... when it comes to games. If linux made a performance distro FOR games that was significantly faster then windows in terms of framerates/etc only then would people think of changing.

    • I agree with this guy. Gamers will jump ship if they think installing Linux will make their games run, say, twice as fast. They are always looking for the best platform available. (Which is why C64 was popular even while the 1983 videogame crash was happening.) (And why most serious gamers owned Amigas in the 80s not PCs.)

      • Ya but you can't do that (Score:4, Informative)

        by Sycraft-fu ( 314770 ) on Saturday September 15, 2012 @08:17PM (#41349329)

        The thing is that OS overhead on Windows isn't all that high. It offers pretty efficient access to the GPU, particularly if you use DX10 or newer (which games are starting to do more and more). So there isn't huge gains to be made in Linux. Even if you designed the most optimized path possible, it just wouldn't offer 2x improvement. It might not even offer a 5% improvement.

        As it stands right now I don't know what if any improvements it would offer. Valve has a small improvement, however you have to remember that is with very old code on Windows, and a new port on Linux. If they went back and optimized their Windows renderer the difference might shrink, vanish, or even go the other way. We need more information to see generally if there is any performance improvement and from this data point if there is, it is probably quite small.

    • Re:Linux has no advantage over windows.... (Score:5, Informative)

      by FunPika ( 1551249 ) on Saturday September 15, 2012 @07:34PM (#41349131) Journal
      Valve has been getting faster FPS (but not by a huge amount) in Linux than in Windows [valvesoftware.com].

      Windows (DirectX): 270.6 FPS
      Windows (OpenGL): 303.4 FPS
      Linux: 315 FPS
      • unfortunately even that is not an apples to apples comparison. they used a 32 bit Linux build vs a 64 bit windows build. perhaps the differences there end up being small, but still you have to wonder about any comparison where they don't try to equalize the variables as much as possible, especially when it is known that that difference can be a factor.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by x1n933k ( 966581 )
      I think the biggest issue is Direct X. It is what continues to lock developers and big studios to the Window's platform.

    • ... when it comes to games. If linux made a performance distro FOR games that was significantly faster then windows in terms of framerates/etc only then would people think of changing.

      Do you really think so? Why would people start switching when there are already so many game console games? smartphone/tablet games? online games? and even now new TV-set top box games or smart TV games? Do you really believe that PC-only games are as important a reason to switch to Linux as it was 10 years ago?

      The reason most people are not switching to linux is just because they don't see much broken with their current Windows system. And it takes much more energy to try something new then keeping with th

  • I probably represent a sizable chunk of people, (Score:3)

    by goldcd ( 587052 ) on Saturday September 15, 2012 @06:37PM (#41348847) Homepage
    so here I go with my thoughts.
    I'd like to switch to Linux - not for any great philosophical/political reason, just I'd quite like to learn about it - and that would require installing and using it.
    I'd installed Live discs, and dual-booted over the years, but never really made any progress after the first couple of days of working out how to do something and then giving up in frustration (MythTV, you're to blame for my last aborted attempt).
    For me gaming is definitely one thing I want to do, and I know I'll have major issues with in Linux - but that's not the main reason. Well it's part of the main reason, which I will badly sum up as "There's nothing I need from Linux I can't do in Windows - and whilst there's plenty of tasks I'm sure I can get Linux to do, knowing I'll never get something I want working just makes it all feel a bit pointless"
    Still not to say I'm giving up, just saying that my Windows install on my main desktop isn't going anywhere for quite some time. Current plan is to replace my aged ReadyNAS with a proper home server - and for that, Linux looks perfect.
  • I think TFS misses on two big points that are helping to bring gaming to Linux.

    One of which is Android. There are some pretty decent FPS games running on the SGS3 in 720p.

    The other one is the OUYA project, which is also built on Android. They've already raised over $8.5 million and they havent even shipped a console yet.

    Will the big publishers follow suit? Who cares? The point is a new market for gaming is emerging. Competition will allow new big publishers to emerge.

    • Re: (Score:3)

      by Kergan ( 780543 )

      I think TFS misses on two big points that are helping to bring gaming to Linux.

      One of which is Android. There are some pretty decent FPS games running on the SGS3 in 720p.

      Android game development is probably doing Linux game development a disservice.

      Basically, every variation of hardware and ROM is a debugging and support nightmare. Code that works on one device doesn't necessarily do so on the next. Fixing the bug on the next frequently introduces new bugs on the first. Heck, you can't even trust the same devices to work consistently, because they occasionally get subtle hardware changes.

      Typically, you eat the extra development costs and develop on Android to try it out. Yo

  • Microsoft is closing the gates, and Apple did ages ago. But the big news is that Intel 4000 HD graphics are finally enough for most games. I've seen Batman Arkham Asylum, Call of Duty Black ops and Streetfighter X Tekken running A-OK on them. The drivers are true open source; which Valve has commented makes development much easier, and which levels the playing field quite a bit. So yeah, Linux has a fighting chance.
  • Games are the only consumer software worth paying for. Most productivity software is worth enough that businesses are willing to invest in open source projects like Eclipse, LibraOffice, Firefox, etc, and everyone, including home users, get to benefit from that. And AS a home user, I'm a good enough programmer, that I can build most of the utilities I need at home, by myself. But I'm not much of an artist or a storyteller. And unfortunately, IBM, Google, and Oracle don't feel the need to entertain their cor

  • for the most part its a pain in the ass to use that doesnt run the software people want, it doesnt matter if its games, photoshop or MS office, people are not going to put themselves in a position where they are subject to more grief and less benefits

    linux is fine where it is, quit trying to shoehorn it where it doesnt belong

  • I have a Hexxen box that says Linux on it. Maybe this is a new definition of "finally".
  • Wow, someone is really offended by the freedom of choice to purchase a decent playable production.

    By the way little tagger, it's "donotwant", as in Star Wars Episode III.


    That said, i'm all for it. We had the short-lived Loki then and the unsuccessful TuxGames more recently.
  • But the reason I can't my wife (or family) to use Linux is more related to "Office products" When she deals with her college or girls scout office(she is a GS leader), they want "MS Office" only files. "Open office" won't emulate the latest version of MS Office. that pretty much is a deal breaker for her and it is just easier to use windows/MS office.

  • Wine (Score:4, Insightful)

    by hobarrera ( 2008506 ) on Sunday September 16, 2012 @02:20PM (#41354971) Homepage

    Why do people keep forgetting wine? Every day, more and more games work out of the box. Several high end big commercial games just worked perfectly out of the box the day they were release in recent months with no issues at all (ie: Mass Effect 3).

    I think what's still missing is promoting wine if you want people to game on linux.

    However, I should point something out; if you care about FLOSS, you then you wouldn't promote stuff like Steam (DRM-infested), which goes completely against FLOSS.

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