How to get the Linux version of my games?

[Ex-Cyber]

Think record company exec...you'll make more sense of this if you think of this in terms of being akin to a cover song done by another performer.

I imagine LGP would be quite happy if it worked the way that cover songs do in America (compulsory license with a royalty of a few cents per song per copy).

[Svartalf]

I imagine LGP would be quite happy if it worked the way that cover songs do in America (compulsory license with a royalty of a few cents per song per copy).

Heh... Perhaps the wrong analogy, but it's close to that thinking. I honestly WISH that we could get that sort of deal. It'd make things a HELL of a lot easier on all parties involved, from LGP, to the gamers out there.

In all honesty, though, I am working on trying to make the story more what you guys talk to than the way it is. It's not easy and it doesn't help with what we've got going on right now. However, NDA's HAVE been signed on a deal for an older title (and it's follow-ons) for no royalties paid, published by the publisher themselves, downloadable for a reasonable amount. If it works out nicely enough, we might see vastly more of the same sort of deal out of the publisher- and we honestly do want this.

[Svartalf]

Companies like LGP have to convince them, that it won't be the case.
LGP has done a good job in porting games so far, so you should have the right arguments.

And it's why we might see some nice stuff, maybe next year, as a result of some Michael Simms is working on right now.

It's hard for me, to understand how the Linux gamers community can be too small to be considered as a market, and significant enough in "lost sales" at the same time.

That's because you're more of a tech sort...think "suit" from Secret of My Success and you'd be closer to understanding it.

They can't use the same argument to defend two opposite positions...

Ever read Dilbert? Middle managers do that sort of crap all the time. Same with record company execs. It's the sort of circular reasoning they apply to sue their own customers over "lost sales".

Even in the worst scenario, if 90% of the Linux copies are pirated, it's always more sales that not releasing the game under Linux at all.

Heh... If they don't make it for Linux, and the Linux crowd BUYS the Windows titles...why bother? You're going to get those sales out of those rubes anyhow and you don't have to expend 10-15% more and get it to market that much faster... (We know better, but that's THEIR thinking all the same. I'm dead serious about that one...).

By not releasing the game under Linux, they perform the only true "lost in sales" themselves.

They're not losing sales unless we ALL quit buying the Windows stuff.

I agree that it may not be enough if they make the port themselves. But if a company like LGP, proposes to bear the extra financial cost, they have truly no valid argument to refuse.

Unless it nets them serious money (remember- anything less than 10K units does not equate to serious money to many of these studios and publishers, when they expect to sell 250-750k units of a given title...) they're not interested. They want their money without risk.

This means you pay that royalty up front and when you cut a publication of X number of units.

It's a business model that works well for console makers and game publishers, it should also works for us.

You're under the impression that they work the way you describe. They don't. Unless the publisher is the one making both PC and console versions, a royalty IS paid there- to the publisher and then to the console company. Even in cases of the same publisher, unless the studio is a captive one, they're going to be paying that selfsame royalty.

I suppose that it will end up like with DRMs... One day they will start to understand that Linux is another opportunity to make money (even if it's small at the beginning).

Yeah... Once we hit 30-50% of the market share and Windows sales are flagging. We might be at that threshold- we might be another 5 years out from it.

I think you are right, it's mainly a political issue... They are afraid "to loose" the control in the sale of their IP, but they shouldn't.

Give that man a cigar!

But what can I do if they don't release the game I would like to play ?
I won't buy and install windows just to play games.

You're like me there- I just have no desire to do Windows just to play games (and that and tax software are the only reasons I'd do XP or WINE at this point...). If you can get enough thinking that way such that they see a dip in sales and can get them to twig onto the fact that there IS an underserved market here, you'd be getting somewhere.

And wine is not a reliable enough solution to make me spend my money for a windows version. Moreover, I don't like the idea of buying windows version in order to play under Linux, it doesn't help us.

No, it doesn't. I wish more people saw that.

So we are in a deadlock.

It's why I feel so down about some of this at least part of the time.

EDIT : Anyway, I wish you an Happy new year 2009 from France !! (we are just January the 1st here ).

Many thanks! We're several hours off right now where I am. May the New Year bring us wonderous things for Linux and us all!

[RealNC]

[Off topic]

Since you had a chance to look at the code of quite a few games, can you comment on the accusation of today's gamers that the code of most games is badly written and/or not really optimized resulting in too high system requirements? No specifics of course about individual games There are many people out there (including me) who suspect that if today's games were actually making proper use of the hardware, system requirements would be quite lower.

[Svartalf]

[Off topic]

Since you had a chance to look at the code of quite a few games, can you comment on the accusation of today's gamers that the code of most games is badly written and/or not really optimized resulting in too high system requirements? No specifics of course about individual games There are many people out there (including me) who suspect that if today's games were actually making proper use of the hardware, system requirements would be quite lower.

Heh...I'll bite, but only as much as I feel comfortable with answering here.

Short answer: Yeah...while not wholly true, there's something to the accusations.

Longer answer: Development is often focused on "time to market" more than anything else. This translates into shortening the time that a developer has to take to make some feature happen- however that is done. As a result, many times shortcuts are taken that either sacrifice speed, memory, stability, or two or three of the aforementioned.

If efforts were focused on not worrying so much about time to market on things, you would be more likely to see lower requirements and better, more stable titles out there.

[niniendowarrior]

Yeah... Once we hit 30-50% of the market share and Windows sales are flagging. We might be at that threshold- we might be another 5 years out from it.

I hope the netbooks help in that respect though they are too weak hardware-wise.

Give that man a cigar!

+1 person who understands the situation. The more people who understand it, the better. Now how are those... ahem... titles going, Svartalf?

[Svartalf]

I hope the netbooks help in that respect though they are too weak hardware-wise.

As it stands, the partially cleaned-up, tweaked up, version of Soul Ride I've been tinkering with for various reasons is marginally playable on my eeePC. This is at least partly due to the fact that the Intel drivers are still rather sub-optimal, even for Intel's standards, on Linux and will be for a bit yet to come, beings that we lack a few things to make them more usable in this context.

Having said this, while there's a potential market there, it's going to need some serious clean-up/tuning on the driver front as well as whatever titles you try to run up the flagpole in that space. One can manage games on these machines- just can't do some of the stuff I've alluded to earlier in this conversation.

Now how are those... ahem... titles going, Svartalf?

Waiting to hear back from the studio/publisher on the actioned NDAs. Not gotten very far (yet!) on anything else.

[grantek]

I finally broke down and installed Steam a few days ago, given their big sale and the recent free(beer) copy of Crossover Games I picked up when Codeweavers had their promotion.

It prompted me to do one of their monthly hardware/OS surveys, which I've always thought were cool/interesting, but painful for Linux/Mac users who need to present a "Windows" answer to the probes Steam does.

Much to my satisfaction though, although it did report that I was running Windows XP 32, there was explicit reference to Wine in the Audio hardware section - it picked up that I was using a "Wine audio driver" or something.

The survey results seem to lump everything that could be Wine-related in the "Other" bins for each category, but it'd be cool to know just how much Wine is used on Steam. At least Valve knows the games I just bought are running on a non-Windows OS

[NeoBrain]

The survey results seem to lump everything that could be Wine-related in the "Other" bins for each category, but it'd be cool to know just how much Wine is used on Steam. At least Valve knows the games I just bought are running on a non-Windows OS

That has actually been done in one of the Wine news articles:
http://www.winehq.org/wwn/333#Number...0using%20Steam
It has been quite long ago now though, but I think 0.13% won't change that much apart from "small number" to "small number" within the next few years

[grantek]

That has actually been done in one of the Wine news articles

Cool, thanks for the link. I think the number certainly has changed in the last year though - not specifically Linux, but mainly the fact that Macs run Wine now and 2008 would have been a big growth period for Intel Macs, coupled with big advancements in Wine itself.