Unigine Announces Its OilRush Game For Linux

[loonyphoenix]

One of the better ways to deal with open sourcing games, is to do it like id software have done, after its been out for a bit, and made its money, open up the engine but not the art.

Lets people use the engine for mods etc, without giving the whole game away for free

For example how Urban Terror[1] is a mod now based on the OS Quake3 code


[1] http://www.urbanterror.info/news/home/

For Unigine, that's impossible. Their main product IS the engine. They're selling it to other game developers. How would they do that if it were open-source?

[Xanbreon]

For Unigine, that's impossible. Their main product IS the engine. They're selling it to other game developers. How would they do that if it were open-source?

Older versions of the engine maybe.

Slightly OT:

I don't have a problem with the idea of proprietary applications like games running on linux, after all, that is the kind of thing which helps get linux more eyeballs (in terms of general end users), which never hurts.

After all, you cant sell something to the general public on the idea of freedom, most people don't have a clue.

I mean, you can play the whole, less viruses thing until you reach critical mass, then you get infections via social engineering (Here, download this package and install it for epic free smiles!).

[ModplanMan]

For Unigine, that's impossible. Their main product IS the engine. They're selling it to other game developers. How would they do that if it were open-source?

Why assume they need to sell the engine - just because that's what they've currnetly chosen doesn't mean it'll be the most successful or that they should stick with it just 'cause.

[V!NCENT]

fix my mouse please :< some1 :<

Create a thread... WTF...

[Setlec]

this game will replace my starcraft 2 game for sure!

[babai]

For all those shouting to make this open source or they wont use it or all that BS pls convert ur closed source mobo bios, gpu bios, and cpu microcode to opensource and then come back.

Finally a linux game that I'll buy!

to Unigine: pls release a demo!

[not.sure]

What I'd love to see with this engine would be a FarCry-ish game. Old-fashioned, conventional gameplay, but visually stunning.

[nanonyme]

For all those shouting to make this open source or they wont use it or all that BS pls convert ur closed source mobo bios, gpu bios, and cpu microcode to opensource and then come back.

Sense: you make none.
You obviously don't understand that there might be other reasons - like, say, maintenance-related - than just ideological behind wanting it to be opensource. There's pretty much three options here.
1) Game companies keeps spending resources on porting the game to future GNU/Linux userspace API's and ABI's
2) Distro maintainers keep spending resources on packaging deprecated versions of system libraries along with the system and desperately hoping that if they fix security holes, it won't break the applications which need them
3) The software - or at least the parts of it which connect with the userland - are opensource and community can push patches to ensure that it works in the future too. You probably have seen this with ATi and nVidia closed source drivers too that users end up pushing patches to make them work with newer kernels than the development companies are capable of. Users tend to want to keep their software working if possible.

[kazetsukai]

Yeah that'll really drive Linux forward, releasing it in some convoluted confusing way that require Linux users to have "someone else" install it for them. No, fail, wrong.

This works really well in Windows land. Show me an example as successful as Steam in Linux and you have me convinced.

There needs to be one cross-distro installer released for Linux that installs menu entries on any distro and be completely distro-agnostic working with Linux standards and be easy to run, i.e. from the GUI with a few clicks, so that any user on any Linux distro will have no problem.

Your "ideal" has been tried many times before - and failed. You're basically the guy with the "cool game idea", and nothing to show for it. Why don't you take a look at package management design and start solving the problems with RPM, DEB, and the like.

That would actually be productive, versus your "no lets just slap down what I don't like, regardless of the fact that it has proven itself to work" strategy.

[nanonyme]

This works really well in Windows land. Show me an example as successful as Steam in Linux and you have me convinced.

It really wouldn't be as simple in Linux as it is in Windows. Heck, Steam in OSX would be trivial compared to Steam in Linux too. In Linux you run into that icky icky userspace with all of its dependency problems and your program might just be compiled against the "wrong" versions. If we went the OSX way, it might just about work: as in all installed programs would be shipped with the libraries they need.