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Linux only needs one 'killer' game to explode, says Battlefield director
- aclevernickname 13y agoSo who here doesn't think that HL3 is going to be SteamOS-exclusive?
- officemonkey 13y agoMy bet is Steam will offer a ready-baked SteamOS on an ISO a week before Half-Life 3 goes live on Linux-only. No MacOS, No Windows.
- benologist 13y agoI don't think that's at all realistic without massively subsidized hardware from Valve so the linux version can be the 'best' version, or someone risking hundreds of millions of dollars on exclusivity so the linux version can be the 'only' version.
- afreak 13y agoIf this were truly the case, it would have been long ago since we had Quake and Unreal on the platform already. Linux gaming is only going to succeed if Steam does.
- alex4nder 13y agoThose titles were easily available, and better supported, on other platforms. Why would anyone switch to Linux to play them? I bought my first Macintosh just to be able to play Q3Test, before it was released for Linux or Windows.
- rythie 13y agoIf you bought a mac to play Q3Test, surely it's not beyond the realms of reason that someone with PC, would dual-boot Linux to play a game (since it's no cost).
- devx 13y agoI think more in terms of having a breakthrough in mindshare. A big game that is exclusive to Linux, at least for a few months or more, could give Linux the buzz and mind share it needs. Saying "Battlefield 4 will be released for Windows/Mac/Linux" doesn't mean nearly as much for Linux as saying "Battlefield 4 will be released for Linux-only this year".
- baby 13y agosteam is already successful.
- ijk 13y agoThe problem with getting any 'killer' app on Linux is that most killer apps, outside of a specialized subset, aren't going to be Linux-exclusive, so there isn't any reason to go for Linux in particular...yet. Steam on Linux may shift the ecosystem enough to make it a prefered platform, but it's too early to tell.
- TwoBit 13y agoRight. Nobody is going to make an Linux-exclusive major game. On the other hand, Linux has already taken off, just not for desktop usage. And BSD Unix is successful in gaming, as the PS3 and PS4 are BSD Unix with their own shell.
- larrik 13y agoValve could strike a deal for a very short exclusivity deal to push Linux. Would PC gamers install Linux/SteamOS to play Call of Duty a few days early? Yes, I bet a lot would.
- benihana 13y agoGet real. Linux needs a better user experience to explode. The amount of work needed to get even a 'user friendly' distro like Ubuntu up and running is ridiculous when compared to getting OS X and Windows in the same state. Simple things, like listening to music, watching video and browsing the web are harder. I haven't tried to set up a gaming rig with Linux, but I imagine it will be like trying to play games on DOS 3.0 back in the 90s. At this point, it's easier to just buy an iMac and boot into Windows to play games.
- phaer 13y agoI have an different experience. When I install Ubuntu or Fedora I have things like an office suite, a PDF reader, Photomanagment, etc. If not I tick a few checkboxes in the software app and "Install". With Windows i have to download a bunch of setup.exe files and click through... every time. I admit that i have not used windows 8 so far, so maybe it has become better nowadays...
- jmduke 13y agoI haven't had the need to use it in a while, but Ninite was great at addressing what you're talking about: http://ninite.com/ http://ninite.com/
- rjtavares 13y agoIsn't that what SteamOS is attempting to be?
- vezzy-fnord 13y agoMind if I ask you to clarify? I know several people who are your average users (use their PCs as a VCR and Facebook machine) who were convinced to switch to Ubuntu a few years ago and have since been enjoying it much more and have found it more intuitive than Windows. Ubuntu has everything set up out of the box for you, and the feature that everyone seems to like the most is indeed, a Unix advantage: centralized package management. In Windows, they had to hunt down binary installers from all over the web to get some piece of software. Now they just head over to the APT/dpkg frontend (Ubuntu Software Center) and do everything in a flash. How is listening to music and browsing the web harder? You have a graphical DE that makes it point-and-click just like any other OS intended for consumer/mass use. Perhaps you were installing a minimal Ubuntu without X11?
- jiggy2011 13y agoThe example of Halo for xbox has the important distinction that Halo was an exclusive title. Almost by it's very nature Linux is not conductive to exclusive software, simply because when you build something for Linux you are likely building on top of open source dependencies which have far less legal and technical barriers to being ported elsewhere. For example most Windows titles rely on DirectX which is only supported on MS systems. If the game development culture on Windows revolved around OpenGL we would likely have seen more Mac/Linux ports of games already.
- TwoBit 13y agoI disagree with that, as the open source dependencies of a major game application are tiny compared to the application itself.
- jiggy2011 13y agoPorting something Linux -> Windows is likely much easier than the other way around. For example you can run GTK/QT on Windows but you can't run Win32 on Linux without relying on something like Wine. So you would need to have something that was either designed to be cross platform from the get-go , or you need to re-engineer around different APIs.
- nrivadeneira 13y agoThe fact that it's easier to port from Linux to Windows, could be great incentive to build for Linux first then port out. As a converted Ubuntu user for the past 1.5 years, I'm rooting for this to happen. I could fully drop Windows if it does.
- asdkjahsdkjsh 13y agoThe lack of Win32 API is not a big deal porting-wise.
- jiggy2011 13y agoIf you application is built on top of Win32 (or some other proprietary API)?
- jmduke 13y agoThe question at the heart of this: what stakeholders exist that are incentivized to create a Linux-exclusive game? Halo was XBOX-exclusive because Bungie was owned by Microsoft; their specific goal was to make an XBOX-exclusive title, and there was a very real incentive for them to funnel energy into the platform. DICE (and to a much lesser extent, Valve[1]) gets nothing specifically from having a Linux version besides the slightly larger target audience (and PR); there's nothing in it for them to spend massive development time on a AAA game and not release it on Windows + Mac + Consoles as well. Am I missing something? [1] From what I understand, Valve's pursuing non-Windows options to try and avoid a shootout between them and Windows Store. That's pretty understandable in of itself.
- rythie 13y agoWhat about Ubuntu? they have their own store so they could benefit directly from the game's sales
- Mikeb85 13y agoBut Ubuntu is open-source, so if Ubuntu tries to lock anyone in, Valve just forks and has full control. The very nature of Linux and open source distros is what Valve likes, Ubuntu is simply the most accessible and easiest to recommend. Steam works just fine on a number of other Linux distros BTW (I've run it on Arch and openSUSE machines too).
- rythie 13y agoIt only has to be exclusive to the Ubuntu store, doesn't stop people playing Steam games. Valve forking Ubuntu, doesn't give them right distribute the game.
- Mikeb85 13y agoSorry, misunderstood. I do think however that if Linux is going to take off because of a game, it'll be a SteamOS exclusive. The advantage of Steam is that it runs on every Linux distro, (even automatically solving dependencies), versus the Software centre which is an Ubuntu exclusive.
- tomrod 13y agoI nominate 0 AD. I've been quite impressed with it, and would love to see it reach widespread distribution.
- dageshi 13y agoI wonder if at the end of the coming console cycle there will actually be no need for new "consoles" per se. That is, effectively a "steambox" which will likely just be a well designed, well integrated PC will be cheap enough and powerful enough to compete directly with whatever new console comes out. Essentially the PC eats the console market? Removing windows from the equation would be a necessary step in bringing down the price of such a device and would allow Valve to squeeze every last drop of performance out of a device in the same way that Sony and Microsoft do with their respective console OS's.
- AJ007 13y agoSomething I've been thinking about is the smartphone release cycle verse the console release cycle. Valve could inflict a lot of damage on Microsoft and Sony's market share just by releasing an incrementally better Steambox once a year. Consumers don't want to buy a new $1,000 computer once a year, but many are close to doing it with their phones. The subscription/contract masks to cost to a degree. I'm not sure what the economics will come down to, but a new Steambox once every 6 years seems quite unlikely.
- hrkristian 13y agoAs SteamBoxes are modular much like a regular stationary computer, I should think the GPU would see more upgrades than the rest, making the annual upgrade budget much lower than that of a smartphone...
- sigzero 13y agoHaven't we been hearing similar statements for YEARS now? Yes, yes we have.
- cranklin 13y agoone killer game that isn't ported to Windows.
- goggles99 13y agoThe comparisons drawn in this article are far from accurate. Comparing the Xbox taking off vs the ps2 is a far different comparison than of Windows vs Linux. If we are talking in terms of gaming by itself, it still is a bad comparison. The Xbox and PS3 had a comparable quantity and quality of games at the point when Halo was released. The buyer was already making a choice between two fairly closely matched (in terms of cost, available games, and features such as online experience ETC.) machines. One game MAY have been able to persuade them to purchase one system or the other, but this is a far different situation. Windows has 20x (probably more) good games than linux, is as stable, comes already loaded on almost every machine you buy, has a far larger choice of other apps, Everyone is used to the windows experience (although win 8 changes that), and maybe most importantly - it has a user base that is 20x that of desktop Linux (you won't be able to play most of your friends in a Linux exclusive game today). The claim in this article may be true someday, but today is not that day. Linux has a LOT more ground to make up before this article/premise can actually hold water.
- philjackson 13y agoI wonder if releasing HL3, on Linux, a week before Windows would do the trick?
- moccajoghurt 13y agoMake HL3 an exclusive Linux title. That would do the trick for sure.
- babby 13y agoI keep hearing this in the thread but be realistic guys - never going to happen. Best you can hope for is early release on Linux.
- gourneau 13y agoLook at these numbers from the last humble indie bundle 9. Linux is ready. Windows $4.62 Mac $6.04 Linux $7.50
- chimeracoder 13y agoI'm pretty sure that every single Humble Bundle has had the largest average donation come from Linux[0]. On some, the total Linux donations even beat the OS X donations, despite having a fraction of the number of users. [0] Certainly all the ones I've participated in, which is a lot of them.
- Zancarius 13y agoYeah, I don't think this is a fair metric either. If anything, I think it illustrates that Linux users, on average, are more generous than their compatriots. It doesn't say anything about whether Linux is "ready" (for some value of "ready"). That said, as an Arch user, I'd love it if more games were ported to Linux (or developed there first, then ported to other platforms). I dislike having to boot to another OS just to play a game... However, from a pure market standpoint, the Humble Bundles do point out that there's money out there to be made from Linux gaming. Niche markets can be lucrative, and it's even better if the people in that niche have money they're willing to spend. Whenever I see games on Steam that are multiplatform (that includes Linux), I'll buy them over anything else. But, I think that's also something of a confirmation bias--and the fact that I buy them on principle. (I'm not really an avid gamer, and I don't bother much with AAA titles, either.) Of course, there is one major downside. The Linux market is relatively small compared to Windows and OSX which brings with it other disadvantages. On the whole, I think this is a positive development. At least someone in the industry seems to be recognizing the need to embrace platforms beyond Windows or consoles.
- Hacktivist 13y agoThose statistics are pretty useless because you set what platform your contribution goes towards. You could pay 1$ on Linux and set it as Windows. It would be better if we could see price paid vs. platform the game was downloaded for.
- baby 13y agoTotally agree, if Linux' dad, who has money, would buy a studio and create an exclusive title, it would help a lot.
- officemonkey 13y agoHalf-Life 3 confirmed.
- vonskippy 13y agoHuh? Since Gamers are only a tiny fraction of the PC User space that statement makes zero sense. Linux on the Desktop is dead because most of it's common apps either suck, or are already available (with a much better UI) on Windows/Mac.
- Mikeb85 13y agoDon't underestimate the 'halo' effect (not Halo, though it may also apply) that games have on a platform. Much of MS Windows' early success and dominance was a result of having many more games available than Mac OS.
- mortdeus 13y agoLinux needs to be sold in department stores like Walmart and Best Buy to explode. I think this guy seriously underestimates how disconnected everyday people are with tech. Everyday people don't understand the point of installing Linux when they have Windows. However when shipped on devices out of the box people don't need to question the purpose. (Take android's success as the key example of this.) Even Linus addresses this as the key problem with Linux's market share (or lack therefore of).
- qbrass 13y agoIt's been done before, they usually end up getting returned when somebody needs to install Office to do their work.
- shmerl 13y agoI hope CD Projekt Red will get to the point of releasing the Witcher 3 for Linux.
- KatherineJMoses 13y agouptil I looked at the receipt which had said $9272, I didn't believe that my mom in-law woz realie bringing in money in there spare time on there computar.. there friends cousin haz done this 4 only about eighteen months and recently cleard the mortgage on their place and bourt a great opel. additional info ========================== http://WWW.WORKS23.COM http://WWW.WORKS23.COM
- frozenport 13y agoMS Office: the game
- angularly 13y agoVery few gamers would switch to Linux just for one game. We use Windows, not because we like it especially - hell most gamers I know, use Mac OS X for their professional work - but because it's on Windows (or consoles) all the games are. I predict Steam Machines will become a big hit tho, if the controller is as good as I hope.
- simplyinfinity 13y agobecause yeah , i'm going to just ditch the 60+ games i own for windows, install linux just for that one game ? oh .. c'moon I know dual booting is possible , but why bother ?
- plextoria 13y agoYou'll be able to stream your games from your Windows PC to your living room SteamBox
- informatimago 13y agoNot you. But I only play with basically one fame, okmarguably not a game, but a flight simulator, and if ran on linux, I wouldn't have a MSWindows box.
- NanoWar 13y agoGTA V for Linux? The first "killer" game on Linux will probably be cross platform.
- informatimago 13y agoLinux has already exploded, with Android! Android/Linux has more than 500 million users! (Perhaps it was meant GNU? But I would assume it was assumed this killer game would not be freedom software. Then how would that help GNU explode? No, what would help GNU explode, is more people able to program, and asking for freedom software).
- alisnic 13y agodon't worry, Half life 3 will do its job