4 ms·

I notice the lists are mostly games. I wonder if that shows Linux's lack in entertainment compared to other platforms. The lists also don't seem very diverse,

I notice the lists are mostly games. I wonder if that shows Linux's lack in entertainment compared to other platforms. The lists also don't seem very diverse, which is probably due to the store being so new. It's good to see people able to make money selling software for Linux. It has traditionally been difficult compared to other platforms.

julian37 15y ago
I notice the lists are mostly games. I wonder if that shows Linux's lack in entertainment compared to other platforms. I'm arriving at the opposite conclusion: not too long ago it used to be that the only game available on Linux was TuxRacer (✝), now there appears to be a plethora of choices and people are actually downloading and even buying them. (✝) I'm exaggerating a little bit here. There was also FreeCiv and Battle For Wesnoth.
- jiggy2011 15y ago
  and nethack , xbill , UT99 , UT2004 , Quake 1 - 3 , Doom3 and..
  - rkowalick 15y ago
    quakelive.com also works well with linux.
  - icebraining 15y ago
    Hedgewars is awesome, obviously heavily inspired by Worms but with its own innovations (and a very cool rope based mode which I don't think was possible in Worms). But Linux doesn't really lack games (the Debian games section has 1130 packages, which even with more than one package per game is still a few hundreds), only AAA style.
jiggy2011 15y ago
I can't think of many pieces of commercial software available for Linux that aren't games. I think games are really one of the few pieces of software that don't really make sense as "free" software. Even on my Windows boot (apart from the OS itself) the only proprietary software I run are games + steam.
- hendrix 15y ago
  There are a few including houdini/maya/mathematica/matlab/nx (old version).
  - jiggy2011 15y ago
    Those are pretty niche stuff for mathematicians , engineers and 3d artists. In terms of mainstream apps pretty much everything on Linux is open source I'd imagine because there is an itch there to scratch. Games are an exception to this (I think) because although lots of developers love games the amount of entertainment value derided from playing a game is unlikely to be worth the time investment to build it.
- shadowfox 15y ago
  > I think games are really one of the few pieces of software that don't really make sense as "free" software. I am curious as to the distinction. What is different about games, say compared to a complex piece of software like an office suite or a medical imaging/diagnosis suite?
  - jiggy2011 15y ago
    Well there's a few reasons. Firstly high quality games (AAA or even professional indie titles) require a huge amount of time and specialist skills to develop including some (art, music etc) that are not usually possessed by developers themselves. Secondly the usefulness of a game is pretty low, playing games by and large will not help you do another task which makes you money (Dev tools , libs and creative software will). Also their perceived entertainment value degrades over time relative to other newer games with better graphics etc. Also you are unlikely to play any one game for a massive amount of time without becoming bored of it and wanting something else. Most open source software is developed either because. 1) There is an economic reason to pay somebody to do it for you, for example if you are facebook and you use allot of PHP it is in your economic interest for PHP to be as good as possible. If you are IBM it is in your interest for Linux to be as good as possible so you can sell servers based on it. This doesn't really exist with games since there are less people making money from the gaming market who are not game developers, I can't think of a good economic reason to pay somebody else to build or improve on an open source game. This is because games make money from either charging one off for the game or by including adverts (which could be removed in a fork of an open source version). The only other model is selling subscriptions services (Wow) etc but then you are subsidizing the development of the game and another company could simply launch their own game servers for your game without subsidizing development and have an economic advantage. 2) You are "scratching an itch", this is partially valid as evidenced by the large numbers of people who start projects to build open source games. But due to reasons outlined above they will eventually find that either they lack the skills or that it is not an economic investment of their time. If you build some office software than only you and a handful of others like to use than that may be a good investment of your time because you need an office suite and you will get many hours use out of it. If you build a game that few other people play this is probably not going to feel like a good use of time. There are plenty of open source tools for game developers (engines etc) presumably these were built by game developers to scratch their own itch for a high quality free engine that was then used in a commercial game.

julian37 15y ago

I notice the lists are mostly games. I wonder if that shows Linux's lack in entertainment compared to other platforms. I'm arriving at the opposite conclusion: not too long ago it used to be that the only game available on Linux was TuxRacer (✝), now there appears to be a plethora of choices and people are actually downloading and even buying them. (✝) I'm exaggerating a little bit here. There was also FreeCiv and Battle For Wesnoth.

jiggy2011 15y ago
and nethack , xbill , UT99 , UT2004 , Quake 1 - 3 , Doom3 and..
- rkowalick 15y ago
  quakelive.com also works well with linux.
- icebraining 15y ago
  Hedgewars is awesome, obviously heavily inspired by Worms but with its own innovations (and a very cool rope based mode which I don't think was possible in Worms). But Linux doesn't really lack games (the Debian games section has 1130 packages, which even with more than one package per game is still a few hundreds), only AAA style.

jiggy2011 15y ago

I can't think of many pieces of commercial software available for Linux that aren't games. I think games are really one of the few pieces of software that don't really make sense as "free" software. Even on my Windows boot (apart from the OS itself) the only proprietary software I run are games + steam.

hendrix 15y ago
There are a few including houdini/maya/mathematica/matlab/nx (old version).
- jiggy2011 15y ago
  Those are pretty niche stuff for mathematicians , engineers and 3d artists. In terms of mainstream apps pretty much everything on Linux is open source I'd imagine because there is an itch there to scratch. Games are an exception to this (I think) because although lots of developers love games the amount of entertainment value derided from playing a game is unlikely to be worth the time investment to build it.
shadowfox 15y ago
> I think games are really one of the few pieces of software that don't really make sense as "free" software. I am curious as to the distinction. What is different about games, say compared to a complex piece of software like an office suite or a medical imaging/diagnosis suite?
- jiggy2011 15y ago
  Well there's a few reasons. Firstly high quality games (AAA or even professional indie titles) require a huge amount of time and specialist skills to develop including some (art, music etc) that are not usually possessed by developers themselves. Secondly the usefulness of a game is pretty low, playing games by and large will not help you do another task which makes you money (Dev tools , libs and creative software will). Also their perceived entertainment value degrades over time relative to other newer games with better graphics etc. Also you are unlikely to play any one game for a massive amount of time without becoming bored of it and wanting something else. Most open source software is developed either because. 1) There is an economic reason to pay somebody to do it for you, for example if you are facebook and you use allot of PHP it is in your economic interest for PHP to be as good as possible. If you are IBM it is in your interest for Linux to be as good as possible so you can sell servers based on it. This doesn't really exist with games since there are less people making money from the gaming market who are not game developers, I can't think of a good economic reason to pay somebody else to build or improve on an open source game. This is because games make money from either charging one off for the game or by including adverts (which could be removed in a fork of an open source version). The only other model is selling subscriptions services (Wow) etc but then you are subsidizing the development of the game and another company could simply launch their own game servers for your game without subsidizing development and have an economic advantage. 2) You are "scratching an itch", this is partially valid as evidenced by the large numbers of people who start projects to build open source games. But due to reasons outlined above they will eventually find that either they lack the skills or that it is not an economic investment of their time. If you build some office software than only you and a handful of others like to use than that may be a good investment of your time because you need an office suite and you will get many hours use out of it. If you build a game that few other people play this is probably not going to feel like a good use of time. There are plenty of open source tools for game developers (engines etc) presumably these were built by game developers to scratch their own itch for a high quality free engine that was then used in a commercial game.