The ancient rivalry I shall awaken
We don't need to develop games... You're totally wrong... All we need is games to run on linux like on windows... All the game developers need is to create a new installer for the game maybe deb like the whole rest can be supported with help of wine... So I'm not saying free games... It is an industry I know... But you know what? There is no shame about getting some money for our work... If Windows didn't have the monopoly games would be cheaper much much cheaper... And cheaper games also means less piracy... Isn't that the problem? Piracy? Why there is piracy? Because people can't pay the things so they steal... When Windows may cost more than 200 euros and office almost the same. I mean seriously? A paid office? Why? Games cost like 50 euros each? If we all would buy our games at 50 euros each one of the guys who develop it would been smoking golden cuban cigars with diamonds incrusted while bathing in caviar and Cristiano Ronaldo would their towel boy. Nope we don't want fuck up with the industry what we want is to make it better. And wanna know what? If we could develop that we could also make some nice bucks with consoles. Can you imagine a video game console with hardware and software developed by the *nix community? Maybe ourselves could have some money. The world isn't free we all should be able to put food on our tables and even get rich. But Microsoft abuses a lot...
I believe one of the problems as Codex said is the hardware drivers
but:
1- There are great open source games, you just need to dig battle for wesnoth and Alien arena are two examples, and there is a cool game engine called Spring, you just need to dig very hard.
2- The developed games mostly aren't good enough, and they don't use the abilities provided, a friend of mine ran Generals on wine in ubuntu, but I think writing games is a new thing to the free community, because using linux for a long time was restricted to Hackers (eric raymond's definition), but now with all the good looking GUIs and powerful programs it's spreading more and more, so artists and games developers are joining.
I believe every thing will be different in the near future
but:
1- There are great open source games, you just need to dig battle for wesnoth and Alien arena are two examples, and there is a cool game engine called Spring, you just need to dig very hard.
2- The developed games mostly aren't good enough, and they don't use the abilities provided, a friend of mine ran Generals on wine in ubuntu, but I think writing games is a new thing to the free community, because using linux for a long time was restricted to Hackers (eric raymond's definition), but now with all the good looking GUIs and powerful programs it's spreading more and more, so artists and games developers are joining.
I believe every thing will be different in the near future
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I would put the graphics of Battle for Wesnoth (aside from the resolution) at closer to the mid 90s games like Command & Conquer, not only that but it looks like it doesn't offer much in the form of features for a seasoned gamer. Alien Arena looks like a UT2003 which was released in 2002 and probably is a good game just like UT2003 but I still doubt that there is anything that would make even a reasonably skilled computer user interested enough consider installing or even having a go on someone's *nix.
Compared to what modern gamers have come to expect from new releases I don't think open source or simply even Linux will ever be able to compete, maybe if all graphics cards became completely standardised so Linux would have a chance to catch up then maybe a financed game could be impressive on there but it still wouldn't make up for the smaller market that would be likely to keep the big and most sane game developers away, as for impressive games being open source as well that seems a fair bit more far-fetched because of the slower rate of development as a result of peoples financial needs.
On a side note I do think that old games do have charm for the gamers who have enjoyed them in their day or were impressive for their day, as it is myself and friends still play older games on occasion such as Metal Gear Solid, Tekken, Deus Ex, Worms (certainly not the GNU one though), Pokemon Red/Blue, Final Fantasy games and so on and yes I was a child in the 90s.
Compared to what modern gamers have come to expect from new releases I don't think open source or simply even Linux will ever be able to compete, maybe if all graphics cards became completely standardised so Linux would have a chance to catch up then maybe a financed game could be impressive on there but it still wouldn't make up for the smaller market that would be likely to keep the big and most sane game developers away, as for impressive games being open source as well that seems a fair bit more far-fetched because of the slower rate of development as a result of peoples financial needs.
On a side note I do think that old games do have charm for the gamers who have enjoyed them in their day or were impressive for their day, as it is myself and friends still play older games on occasion such as Metal Gear Solid, Tekken, Deus Ex, Worms (certainly not the GNU one though), Pokemon Red/Blue, Final Fantasy games and so on and yes I was a child in the 90s.
*sigh* Final Fantasy... *dozes off*
You know, it is strange you brought up Final Fantasy. I have been thinking... most games are written for Windows not because of the hardware, but because of the market. Imagine Linux being the dominant OS. How many games would have been written for it by now?
I agree with yeni_ceri about this though... people who use their computers for more than Facebook or games don't need anything too fancy... I just play Battle for Wesnoth and AisleRiot Solitaire from time to time, and the Warcraft III and expansion CDs are dusty all over. Point is, the way things are progressing now, commercial games may become a Linux thing too, but not in the near future.
Also, CodeX has right in this aspect: true games enjoy gameplay and plot more that graphics and visual effects. Final Fantasy and other oldies prove this a thousand times over. Hmm, here is another idea: anyone interested in re-writing an oldie for Linux? It can become a great reverse-engineer experience too
You know, it is strange you brought up Final Fantasy. I have been thinking... most games are written for Windows not because of the hardware, but because of the market. Imagine Linux being the dominant OS. How many games would have been written for it by now?
I agree with yeni_ceri about this though... people who use their computers for more than Facebook or games don't need anything too fancy... I just play Battle for Wesnoth and AisleRiot Solitaire from time to time, and the Warcraft III and expansion CDs are dusty all over. Point is, the way things are progressing now, commercial games may become a Linux thing too, but not in the near future.
Also, CodeX has right in this aspect: true games enjoy gameplay and plot more that graphics and visual effects. Final Fantasy and other oldies prove this a thousand times over. Hmm, here is another idea: anyone interested in re-writing an oldie for Linux? It can become a great reverse-engineer experience too
George T. I.
I think old games (DirectX 8/9) work with Wine and mybe even 10 but not sure, I also don't know if older games based on 7 and prior work on Wine as I have never tried. If that fails you could probably just run a virtual machine within Linux with an old Windows OS such as XP (which is easy enough to get) and install/run the games via that, I know VMWare is very good for this kind of thing.