7 ms·

I never understood why people on Linux always fight to have games on the platform. From the dev perspective, Linux is probably a sub 5% market share so it's nev

by pduan 10y ago

I never understood why people on Linux always fight to have games on the platform. From the dev perspective, Linux is probably a sub 5% market share so it's never worth the effort compared to releasing new features/content. Why fight this losing trend when you could easily dual boot or even have a dedicated gaming rig?

mpd 10y ago
Because as a developer, it's often easier to develop for Linux than other major platforms. You often get Linux compatability for "free". It's worth asking for for this reason.
- hackits 10y ago
  Calling BS here.
- yladiz 10y ago
  That's not exactly true. With some newer tools, it's possible to export to an OpenGL Linux executable, but in other tools, especially older ones, it's still so specialized for DirectX that's it's not always possible especially with AAA games, and companies don't have much incentive to make Linux versions because the market share is significantly lower than Windows. The only reason that it's more easily possible with game platforms like Sony and Nintendo's hardware offerings (MS uses a special flavor DirectX for Xbox) is that the two aforementioned companies plus a lot of other game dev companies pour a lot of money into developer resources that Linux distros doesn't have.
  - shmerl 10y ago
    You mean to say they put resources into lock-in to tax cross platform development. Those who care about the progress of the industry put resources into shared technologies like Vulkan, which makes cross platform development more affordable.
    - yladiz 10y ago
      Yes, some do development in OpenGL, but why would a big company put resources in the development of something unless it has tangible benefits for the company? E.g. why would a big AAA company like EA put effort into changing their tooling to support OpenGL when they make millions from consoles and PC? It would only make sense to develop for non-DirectX or change tooling if the cost of changing is outweighed by the benefit. It's the same reason why a team like Github took 2 years to change from Rails 2.3 to 3 even though 4 had already been released for a while by that point. I'm not saying it's right, and I wouldn't mind seeing better gaming support on Linux and Mac, but I'm saying it's reality.
      - shmerl 10y ago
        Asking common sense questions about practices of legacy publishers is a futile endeavor. I stopped asking such questions for a while already. Those who want to innovate, do it, and find it useful for them. Size of the budget has nothing to do with interest to release for Linux and have wider cross platform reach. If anything, big publishers have more resources to do it. At the same time, innovators happen to be smaller studios, who actually are expanding Linux gaming market, while legacy publishers don't pay attention.
- JesseMeyer 10y ago
  For anything seriously graphical, you're wrong.
  - shmerl 10y ago
    For anything seriously graphical there is Vulkan which is basically the same where it's supported.
    - yoklov 10y ago
      This is not a good argument, Vulkan is both brand new and much more difficult to support than other graphics APIs. Also Vulkan support doesn't fix busted drivers, wonky fullscreen, OS integration, etc. It also doesn't fix audio, or HID support, which is both huge headaches on linux.
      - shmerl 10y ago
        So what if it's new? Technology shouldn't stand in one place. MS got so scared of it, that they rushed to push their NIH lock-in alternative (DX12). It demonstrates they understand the strong potential of competition here. Drivers can be busted anywhere (including Windows). But with Vulkan they are reduced to hardware layer which is ironed out rather fast normally. Not sure what you mean about OS integration (sounds too vague). Fullscreen, input and etc. are mostly issues related to X11, which should be cleaner with Wayland usage. The later takes longer than it should to get adopted, but all major DEs are already close to it. Sound - never had any sound problems on Linux for a while. Are you sure you aren't measuring it by experiences of some early broken Pulse releases?
        zamalek 10y ago
        > never had any sound problems on Linux for a while. User experience is not the same as developer experience. Debian (where Pulse seems mostly standard) is not the only distro. Vulkan is expensive, time consuming and difficult to develop against - for a game that already had multiple launch delays.
- yoklov 10y ago
  This is true for certain types of software, but it is neither easier nor free to develop games for linux, by any stretch.
ekimekim 10y ago
a) A few years ago it was a sub 1% market share and no games bothered. Now it's a sub 5% (disclaimer: I'm making these numbers up) and i'd say approx 50% of indie games and 10% of AAA bother. We fight because we're slowly winning. b) A dual boot setup is awfully annoying. I keep a ton of things open in a "i'm in the middle of this" state, and shutting everything down/losing that state in order to reboot is a massive cost, and it means in practice that I only ever boot into windows to play games if I plan on playing a specific game for several hours at least - it means I can't play a game casually. Over time, I've started avoiding windows only games altogether. As for not having a dedicated gaming rig: Space, mainly. And cost, secondly. I could potentially set something up, but I'd need to share monitors/keyboard for practical reasons, which is a ton of setup I don't really have time to get right. Other solutions like a windows VM, same reason.
- rhubarbquid 10y ago
  a) It never hurts to let the developers know you want it b) In theory, you should be able to hibernate Linux and boot in to Windows > I'd need to share monitors/keyboard for practical reasons, which is a ton of setup I don't really have time to get right I use a fairly cheap KVM, which isn't problem free, but is less hassle than swapping cables between my macbook and my PC (used for nothing but games). Even swapping the cables between 2 computers isn't that huge of a hassle ;-)
- mvkel 10y ago
  It's still sub-1% market share. Would you design a site that only works on IE6?
  - c22 10y ago
    No, but I might design one that also works on IE6.
  - eon1 10y ago
    That sounds like an interesting challenge, actually..
  - khedoros 10y ago
rtpg 10y ago
Mac used to be the same story, but now I would bet that at least 10% of indie game sales are on Mac. If you're using tools like Unity, then shipping to Linux is not nearly the headache it used to be. I play a lot of games, but thanks to this shift I no longer have to run Windows (can't play overwatch but I can live without it for now). I, for one, am glad I don't have to double my purchases.
- rhubarbquid 10y ago
  > Mac used to be the same story, but now I would bet that at least 10% of indie game sales are on Mac. One of the big things that changed was that Macs got a lot more popular and became a bigger market. I think the main reason we don't see more games for Linux is that it's just not a big enough market (yet?)
  - shmerl 10y ago
    Actually we do see way more games for Linux. If you paid attention, their amount increased a lot in the past several years. From major engines, to major distributors, Linux is now in the gaming mainstream. Only legacy publishers mostly lag behind (the likes of EA and Blizzard). But they are always followers, not innovators.
    - rhubarbquid 10y ago
      I think we agree, I meant "more than we could" not "more than there used to be" ;-)
- wyager 10y ago
  Almost half my 150 steam games are on mac, and I don't specifically target any type of game.
vanattab 10y ago
I hear what your saying and agree. But in GP's defense the developer did talk about a linux release but then went quite.
CyberShadow 10y ago
> I never understood why people on Linux always fight to have games on the platform. Because it is important to challenge monopolies least they abuse their position of power. With DirectX, XNA etc., Microsoft pretty much holds the monopoly as the PC gaming OS. Microsoft has made bold moves against individual freedom and privacy in Windows 10, and I'm sure more will follow. And what better platform to compete against Windows' monopoly on PC gaming than the most popular free OS? I think that in the long run, continuing to create and display demand for PC games on Linux will only help gaming and even computing in general.
- NEDM64 10y ago
  Sorry, but you're being naive. Rarely there are standards bodies that aren't controlled by companies and their interests. If they allowed OpenGL to flourish, it would ultimately be controlled by either Nvidia, ATI, PowerVR or someone else in the interest group to suit their hardware. Somebody has to pay the engineers. Look at W3C, if is practically controlled by Google, and they only do what suits their needs, the way they want. Look at Bluetooth, Apple is controlling the thing, and now they are releasing a newer version that's selfishly taylored for Apple to sell expensive headphones probably with patented methods, which they will use to protect themselves in court in case someone goes on a patent war against them.
  - shmerl 10y ago
    So, you think it's better not to have open standards and let lock-in and monopolies run rampant? Hard, doesn't mean it shouldn't be done.
    - kordless 10y ago
      I agree with you, but I also think asking leading question sucks. Just say what you mean! Open Standards are the MOST CRITICAL thing we can be considering right now. If we can agree on standards that can adapt to other standards, using AI most likely, then we can get on with being able to trust each other again. In order to trust each other, we have to be honest about our intent. Personally, I think the use case of games on insecure hardware is probably fine. To a point.
shmerl 10y ago
I have a gaming rig. And it runs Linux. Hopefully this makes things more clear for you. And I don't see any losing trend here. Amount of Linux games continues growing, same as Linux gaming market itself. So trend is clearly winning. But some developers need more pushing.
wtbob 10y ago
> Why fight this losing trend when you could easily dual boot or even have a dedicated gaming rig? Because I don't want to pay Microsoft. Because I don't want Microsoft to collect my data. Because I care about my freedom. What better reason is there?
- sfifs 10y ago
  Sure. But then folks like you need to be willing to pay the game developer whatever it costs them to hire an engineering bench to maintain a linux port - ideally with significantly higher profitability than the windows version to make it worth the effort.
  - wtbob 10y ago
    > But then folks like you need to be willing to pay the game developer whatever it costs them to hire an engineering bench to maintain a linux port - ideally with significantly higher profitability than the windows version to make it worth the effort. I've no problem paying for Linux games. At one point I spent quite a bit on Humble Bundles (before they got boring), and I always paid twice what the averages for Windows & (then) OS X were.
    - Erwin 10y ago
      A Humble Bundle is a last-ditch effort to sell an old game -- appealing to hoarders for the company to gain some publicity (as some just give all to chaity). The last "2K" bundle had $360 worth of games -- for $8.97 and only a small proportion of that comes back to the company. If you want to support Linux as a platform, I recommend you donate at higher e.g. $50 or $100 tiers to Kickstarter projects that have Linux stretch goals and be vocal about your donation. Paying 5% of the sale price years after the game has come out doesn't strike me like fruitful.
  - shmerl 10y ago
    > But then folks like you need to be willing to pay the game developer whatever it costs them to hire an engineering bench to maintain a linux port Many Linux users do. Especially with backing crowdfunded games which pledge Linux support.
chucksmash 10y ago
Because they a) have Linux and b) want to play games? What's not to understand? Enjoyment of a game is not contingent on the slice of the OS market share pie chart I'm in.
nurettin 10y ago
Not sure what you mean by "fighting", perhaps you mean expressing opinions and needs online which would mean pretty much everybody is fighting here. I like to stay on linux because it is a great development environment and as soon as I am done with a game or get psyched for implementing an idea during yhe game, I am able to switch immediately back to whatever I was doing before I started playing. Your suggested alternative of waiting for a reboot and restoring all the files and editors is just uncomfortable and I am surprised you couldn't figure this out.
simulacrum 10y ago
In addition to all the other replies (because we have computers with powerful GPUs that run Linux, because many other games run on Linux, because all the modern games engines support Linux, etc), in this case one of the devs previous games also runs on Linux: http://store.steampowered.com/app/242110/ http://store.steampowered.com/app/242110/. That seems like reason enough to at least ask the question of whether they have any Linux plans.
vamur 10y ago
Maybe people don't want the hassle with dual booting and a $100 Windows license to play games. Instead, they can save $100-$150 more and get 480 or 1060. And thanks to 2500 games on Steam there are plenty of games on Linux now. And Linux marketshare and number of games are still rising, so it's anything but a losing trend.

by pduan 10y ago

mpd 10y ago

Because as a developer, it's often easier to develop for Linux than other major platforms. You often get Linux compatability for "free". It's worth asking for for this reason.

hackits 10y ago
Calling BS here.
yladiz 10y ago
That's not exactly true. With some newer tools, it's possible to export to an OpenGL Linux executable, but in other tools, especially older ones, it's still so specialized for DirectX that's it's not always possible especially with AAA games, and companies don't have much incentive to make Linux versions because the market share is significantly lower than Windows. The only reason that it's more easily possible with game platforms like Sony and Nintendo's hardware offerings (MS uses a special flavor DirectX for Xbox) is that the two aforementioned companies plus a lot of other game dev companies pour a lot of money into developer resources that Linux distros doesn't have.
- shmerl 10y ago
  You mean to say they put resources into lock-in to tax cross platform development. Those who care about the progress of the industry put resources into shared technologies like Vulkan, which makes cross platform development more affordable.
  - yladiz 10y ago
    Yes, some do development in OpenGL, but why would a big company put resources in the development of something unless it has tangible benefits for the company? E.g. why would a big AAA company like EA put effort into changing their tooling to support OpenGL when they make millions from consoles and PC? It would only make sense to develop for non-DirectX or change tooling if the cost of changing is outweighed by the benefit. It's the same reason why a team like Github took 2 years to change from Rails 2.3 to 3 even though 4 had already been released for a while by that point. I'm not saying it's right, and I wouldn't mind seeing better gaming support on Linux and Mac, but I'm saying it's reality.
    - shmerl 10y ago
      Asking common sense questions about practices of legacy publishers is a futile endeavor. I stopped asking such questions for a while already. Those who want to innovate, do it, and find it useful for them. Size of the budget has nothing to do with interest to release for Linux and have wider cross platform reach. If anything, big publishers have more resources to do it. At the same time, innovators happen to be smaller studios, who actually are expanding Linux gaming market, while legacy publishers don't pay attention.
JesseMeyer 10y ago
For anything seriously graphical, you're wrong.
- shmerl 10y ago
  For anything seriously graphical there is Vulkan which is basically the same where it's supported.
  - yoklov 10y ago
    This is not a good argument, Vulkan is both brand new and much more difficult to support than other graphics APIs. Also Vulkan support doesn't fix busted drivers, wonky fullscreen, OS integration, etc. It also doesn't fix audio, or HID support, which is both huge headaches on linux.
    - shmerl 10y ago
      So what if it's new? Technology shouldn't stand in one place. MS got so scared of it, that they rushed to push their NIH lock-in alternative (DX12). It demonstrates they understand the strong potential of competition here. Drivers can be busted anywhere (including Windows). But with Vulkan they are reduced to hardware layer which is ironed out rather fast normally. Not sure what you mean about OS integration (sounds too vague). Fullscreen, input and etc. are mostly issues related to X11, which should be cleaner with Wayland usage. The later takes longer than it should to get adopted, but all major DEs are already close to it. Sound - never had any sound problems on Linux for a while. Are you sure you aren't measuring it by experiences of some early broken Pulse releases?
      - zamalek 10y ago
        > never had any sound problems on Linux for a while. User experience is not the same as developer experience. Debian (where Pulse seems mostly standard) is not the only distro. Vulkan is expensive, time consuming and difficult to develop against - for a game that already had multiple launch delays.
yoklov 10y ago
This is true for certain types of software, but it is neither easier nor free to develop games for linux, by any stretch.

ekimekim 10y ago

a) A few years ago it was a sub 1% market share and no games bothered. Now it's a sub 5% (disclaimer: I'm making these numbers up) and i'd say approx 50% of indie games and 10% of AAA bother. We fight because we're slowly winning. b) A dual boot setup is awfully annoying. I keep a ton of things open in a "i'm in the middle of this" state, and shutting everything down/losing that state in order to reboot is a massive cost, and it means in practice that I only ever boot into windows to play games if I plan on playing a specific game for several hours at least - it means I can't play a game casually. Over time, I've started avoiding windows only games altogether. As for not having a dedicated gaming rig: Space, mainly. And cost, secondly. I could potentially set something up, but I'd need to share monitors/keyboard for practical reasons, which is a ton of setup I don't really have time to get right. Other solutions like a windows VM, same reason.

rhubarbquid 10y ago
a) It never hurts to let the developers know you want it b) In theory, you should be able to hibernate Linux and boot in to Windows > I'd need to share monitors/keyboard for practical reasons, which is a ton of setup I don't really have time to get right I use a fairly cheap KVM, which isn't problem free, but is less hassle than swapping cables between my macbook and my PC (used for nothing but games). Even swapping the cables between 2 computers isn't that huge of a hassle ;-)
mvkel 10y ago
It's still sub-1% market share. Would you design a site that only works on IE6?
- c22 10y ago
  No, but I might design one that also works on IE6.
- eon1 10y ago
  That sounds like an interesting challenge, actually..
- khedoros 10y ago

rtpg 10y ago

Mac used to be the same story, but now I would bet that at least 10% of indie game sales are on Mac. If you're using tools like Unity, then shipping to Linux is not nearly the headache it used to be. I play a lot of games, but thanks to this shift I no longer have to run Windows (can't play overwatch but I can live without it for now). I, for one, am glad I don't have to double my purchases.

rhubarbquid 10y ago
> Mac used to be the same story, but now I would bet that at least 10% of indie game sales are on Mac. One of the big things that changed was that Macs got a lot more popular and became a bigger market. I think the main reason we don't see more games for Linux is that it's just not a big enough market (yet?)
- shmerl 10y ago
  Actually we do see way more games for Linux. If you paid attention, their amount increased a lot in the past several years. From major engines, to major distributors, Linux is now in the gaming mainstream. Only legacy publishers mostly lag behind (the likes of EA and Blizzard). But they are always followers, not innovators.
  - rhubarbquid 10y ago
    I think we agree, I meant "more than we could" not "more than there used to be" ;-)
wyager 10y ago
Almost half my 150 steam games are on mac, and I don't specifically target any type of game.

vanattab 10y ago

I hear what your saying and agree. But in GP's defense the developer did talk about a linux release but then went quite.

CyberShadow 10y ago

> I never understood why people on Linux always fight to have games on the platform. Because it is important to challenge monopolies least they abuse their position of power. With DirectX, XNA etc., Microsoft pretty much holds the monopoly as the PC gaming OS. Microsoft has made bold moves against individual freedom and privacy in Windows 10, and I'm sure more will follow. And what better platform to compete against Windows' monopoly on PC gaming than the most popular free OS? I think that in the long run, continuing to create and display demand for PC games on Linux will only help gaming and even computing in general.

NEDM64 10y ago
Sorry, but you're being naive. Rarely there are standards bodies that aren't controlled by companies and their interests. If they allowed OpenGL to flourish, it would ultimately be controlled by either Nvidia, ATI, PowerVR or someone else in the interest group to suit their hardware. Somebody has to pay the engineers. Look at W3C, if is practically controlled by Google, and they only do what suits their needs, the way they want. Look at Bluetooth, Apple is controlling the thing, and now they are releasing a newer version that's selfishly taylored for Apple to sell expensive headphones probably with patented methods, which they will use to protect themselves in court in case someone goes on a patent war against them.
- shmerl 10y ago
  So, you think it's better not to have open standards and let lock-in and monopolies run rampant? Hard, doesn't mean it shouldn't be done.
  - kordless 10y ago
    I agree with you, but I also think asking leading question sucks. Just say what you mean! Open Standards are the MOST CRITICAL thing we can be considering right now. If we can agree on standards that can adapt to other standards, using AI most likely, then we can get on with being able to trust each other again. In order to trust each other, we have to be honest about our intent. Personally, I think the use case of games on insecure hardware is probably fine. To a point.

shmerl 10y ago

I have a gaming rig. And it runs Linux. Hopefully this makes things more clear for you. And I don't see any losing trend here. Amount of Linux games continues growing, same as Linux gaming market itself. So trend is clearly winning. But some developers need more pushing.

wtbob 10y ago

> Why fight this losing trend when you could easily dual boot or even have a dedicated gaming rig? Because I don't want to pay Microsoft. Because I don't want Microsoft to collect my data. Because I care about my freedom. What better reason is there?

sfifs 10y ago
Sure. But then folks like you need to be willing to pay the game developer whatever it costs them to hire an engineering bench to maintain a linux port - ideally with significantly higher profitability than the windows version to make it worth the effort.
- wtbob 10y ago
  > But then folks like you need to be willing to pay the game developer whatever it costs them to hire an engineering bench to maintain a linux port - ideally with significantly higher profitability than the windows version to make it worth the effort. I've no problem paying for Linux games. At one point I spent quite a bit on Humble Bundles (before they got boring), and I always paid twice what the averages for Windows & (then) OS X were.
  - Erwin 10y ago
    A Humble Bundle is a last-ditch effort to sell an old game -- appealing to hoarders for the company to gain some publicity (as some just give all to chaity). The last "2K" bundle had $360 worth of games -- for $8.97 and only a small proportion of that comes back to the company. If you want to support Linux as a platform, I recommend you donate at higher e.g. $50 or $100 tiers to Kickstarter projects that have Linux stretch goals and be vocal about your donation. Paying 5% of the sale price years after the game has come out doesn't strike me like fruitful.
- shmerl 10y ago
  > But then folks like you need to be willing to pay the game developer whatever it costs them to hire an engineering bench to maintain a linux port Many Linux users do. Especially with backing crowdfunded games which pledge Linux support.

chucksmash 10y ago

Because they a) have Linux and b) want to play games? What's not to understand? Enjoyment of a game is not contingent on the slice of the OS market share pie chart I'm in.

nurettin 10y ago

Not sure what you mean by "fighting", perhaps you mean expressing opinions and needs online which would mean pretty much everybody is fighting here. I like to stay on linux because it is a great development environment and as soon as I am done with a game or get psyched for implementing an idea during yhe game, I am able to switch immediately back to whatever I was doing before I started playing. Your suggested alternative of waiting for a reboot and restoring all the files and editors is just uncomfortable and I am surprised you couldn't figure this out.

simulacrum 10y ago

In addition to all the other replies (because we have computers with powerful GPUs that run Linux, because many other games run on Linux, because all the modern games engines support Linux, etc), in this case one of the devs previous games also runs on Linux: http://store.steampowered.com/app/242110/ http://store.steampowered.com/app/242110/. That seems like reason enough to at least ask the question of whether they have any Linux plans.

vamur 10y ago

Maybe people don't want the hassle with dual booting and a $100 Windows license to play games. Instead, they can save $100-$150 more and get 480 or 1060. And thanks to 2500 games on Steam there are plenty of games on Linux now. And Linux marketshare and number of games are still rising, so it's anything but a losing trend.