Linux Game Publishing Remains Offline, Three Years After The CEO Shakeup

[phoronix]

Phoronix: Linux Game Publishing Remains Offline, Three Years After The CEO Shakeup

It was brought up today in the forums that it's been three years of having a new LGP CEO while Linux Game Publishing's website remains down for the better part of the year, their web presence is disappearing, and it simply doesn't look like there's a bright 2015 ahead for this one leading provider of games to Linux...

http://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=news_item&px=LGP-CEO-Three-Years-Down

[dungeon]

Bruce Lee is dead, Steam has 920 games for Linux

[Delgarde]

Bruce Lee is dead, Steam has 920 games for Linux

Agreed. There's just no point in continuing to report on LGP, unless they stage a miraculous comeback.

But gaming is alive and well on Linux, and while it doesn't have the full selection available to Windows users, it's far healthier than it's ever been.

[AnonymousCoward]

920 games on steam? Damn, I should really check steam out... has been a while since I last did.

[gbudny]

Bruce Lee is dead, Steam has 920 games for Linux

I do not care too much about Steam because I have many games published by LGP, and I just want to play them on the modern distributions of Linux. Steam is no a solution in this case because many original developers of these games are closed, or they do not create patches for any operating systems.

That is a list of companies that still exist:

DestraX Entertainment Software (Software Tycoon)
Strategy First (Disciples II: Dark Prophecy)

That is a list of companies that still exist, but they do not publish new games:

Creature Labs (Creatures: Internet Edition)
Hyperion Entertainment (Gorky 17)
Slingshot (Soul Ride)
Pyrogon (Candy Cruncher, NingPo MahJong)

That is a list of companies that were closed:

Ascaron Entertainment (Sacred)
Cyberlore Studios (Majesty: Gold Edition)
CogniToy (MindRover: The Europa Project)
Eon Games (Hyperspace Delivery Boy!, NingPo MahJong)
Grin (Ballistics, Bandits: Phoenix Rising)
IGIOS (Shadowgrounds, Shadowgrounds Survivor)
Joymania Entertainment (Knights and Merchants: The Shattered Kingdom)
Metropolis Software (Gorky 17)
Loki Software (MindRover: The Europa Project)
Mindware Studios (Cold War)
Monkeystone Games (Hyperspace Delivery Boy!)
Tribsoft (Majesty: Gold Edition)

That is a list of companies that sell/will sell own versions of Linux games

Egosoft (X3: Reunion)
Frozenbyte (Shadowgrounds, Shadowgrounds Survivor)
RakeInGrass (Jets'n'Guns)
RuneSoft (Knights and Merchants: The Shattered Kingdom)
Running with Scissors (Postal?: Share The Pain)

That is a list of programers that ported games for LGP:

Ryan C. Gordon (Candy Cruncher, Postal?: Share The Pain)

Finally, you can still see games published by LGP that you can not buy for Windows or Mac OS X e.g. Hyperspace Delivery Boy!.

[gbudny]

Agreed. There's just no point in continuing to report on LGP, unless they stage a miraculous comeback.

Runesoft came back to the porting games to Linux after 4 years, and I still hope that LGP will make the same decision.

But gaming is alive and well on Linux, and while it doesn't have the full selection available to Windows users, it's far healthier than it's ever been.

I do not believe that in the future users can play in every game on Linux that was originally created for Windows.

[Svartalf]

I do not care too much about Steam because I have many games published by LGP, and I just want to play them on the modern distributions of Linux. Steam is no a solution in this case because many original developers of these games are closed, or they do not create patches for any operating systems.

That is a list of companies that still exist:

DestraX Entertainment Software (Software Tycoon)
Strategy First (Disciples II: Dark Prophecy)

That is a list of companies that still exist, but they do not publish new games:

Creature Labs (Creatures: Internet Edition)
Hyperion Entertainment (Gorky 17)
Slingshot (Soul Ride)
Pyrogon (Candy Cruncher, NingPo MahJong)

That is a list of companies that were closed:

Ascaron Entertainment (Sacred)
Cyberlore Studios (Majesty: Gold Edition)
CogniToy (MindRover: The Europa Project)
Eon Games (Hyperspace Delivery Boy!, NingPo MahJong)
Grin (Ballistics, Bandits: Phoenix Rising)
IGIOS (Shadowgrounds, Shadowgrounds Survivor)
Joymania Entertainment (Knights and Merchants: The Shattered Kingdom)
Metropolis Software (Gorky 17)
Loki Software (MindRover: The Europa Project)
Mindware Studios (Cold War)
Monkeystone Games (Hyperspace Delivery Boy!)
Tribsoft (Majesty: Gold Edition)

That is a list of companies that sell/will sell own versions of Linux games

Egosoft (X3: Reunion)
Frozenbyte (Shadowgrounds, Shadowgrounds Survivor)
RakeInGrass (Jets'n'Guns)
RuneSoft (Knights and Merchants: The Shattered Kingdom)
Running with Scissors (Postal?: Share The Pain)

That is a list of programers that ported games for LGP:

Ryan C. Gordon (Candy Cruncher, Postal?: Share The Pain)

Finally, you can still see games published by LGP that you can not buy for Windows or Mac OS X e.g. Hyperspace Delivery Boy!.

That hurts... You forgot me.

I know I dropped off the face of the Earth a while back...but I'm still around. I just finally clawed my way out of the HELL I ended up in due to the day job I held, coupled with a string of *ssholes that caused all kinds of legal fun for me. Hopefully, I'm back (I owe a couple of Indie studios Steam ports and updates/fixes. I'm hopeful that I can manage that now with the new Day Job.) and maybe for to stay a while.

The list of programmers that ported games for LGP includes myself. Technically, I'm still a contractor for LGP. The titles and work I did for Michael didn't seem to produce much revenue- or if they did, I never heard about it...so I kind of wandered off to do the two titles I did solo.

Stuff I still have the source code and most, if not all, of the assets to:

Ballistics
Bandits
Disciples II
Soul Ride

In order to do a patch/release for any of these, I need permission from LGP (under the auspices of my being their contractor) or by the studio or it's successors in interest (As a freelance consultant... Rights to ports ultimately belong to the Studio since it's THEIR game).

I don't know if Soul Ride's a big deal, to be honest. Source is out there to fix most problems with that game to make it run on modern distributions- if someone actually wanted to. Data's a differing story. That still belongs to Slingshot or their successors in interest. The FOSS code base will run the assets as if it were the provided binary running them- so long as you don't "improve" upon the data read routines. Game's quite old, to be honest, it'd need to have someone take an emory board to it and polish it up a bit to matter, to be honest.

Ballistics and Bandits present an interesting conundrum. I've assets for both to the level of being able to package them up and ship an installer on a CD or as a download. Unfortunately, unless I have permission from the successors in interest for Grin SE's IP assets, which could be the publisher or even Bo and Ulf themselves (with no means as a company to officially carry them forward)- it's a no-go. Not doing "abandonware" here. I will do a bit of digging to see if I can find the rights holder and see what can be managed for people on these. They're fun little games- and if there wasn't as much of a royalty story as LGP had with them, they'd sell nicely out of Steam, Desura, or GOG for the prices that this stuff would go for ($5).

Disciples II - Strategy First is still around, but I don't know if they were the publisher or the studio. Since Valve ultimately owns Strategy First and they're flogging Disciples II on Steam, I might be able to get THEM to sign off on something. I'll ping my contacts in Valve (if they're still around...) to see what the story is there. The game would do well for Linux out of Steam, Desura, and/or GOG.

I was getting myself and my stuff dusted off to fufill a few promises and then see if I couldn't get back into the game here and maybe make IT my day job- providing services to one or more players in the space. I know I wouldn't have had half the woes and problems if I could've had that sort of thing going like Ryan has. It won't be a big deal to see if I can make people happy on the stuff I can actually help with there while I'm getting up to speed and then look at the old porting request thread and see what's worth contemplating at this time. With the traction on Steam and GOG, it won't hurt to see if people might not mind a Linux port if it costs them little to nothing.

[Svartalf]

Runesoft came back to the porting games to Linux after 4 years, and I still hope that LGP will make the same decision.

Depends on if they're solvent or not. I "left" (not that I really did, but...) because of being overwhelmed with life's tribulations- and it not being my day job or it, at the time, being able to be it. It's looking slightly different now.

I do not believe that in the future users can play in every game on Linux that was originally created for Windows.

This would depend on how successful people are at making WINE or CDProjekt's solution work- or how many games Ryan and other people, like myself, can convince studios to move over. Do they want GOG or Steam sales? If so...deal is I port it, we share in proceeds. No charging me up-front for things. NDA me and bind me by contract to either provide or not the game on Linux and then we're off to the races. We'll see what comes of it all.

[Ancurio]

Haha, I bet with Svartalf posting Phoronix will immediately pump out a follow up article about it.

[Svartalf]

Haha, I bet with Svartalf posting Phoronix will immediately pump out a follow up article about it.

Very probably so. I won't bore people with the details. Let's just say I've no love lost with certain people, including my former employer. 60+ hour work weeks without break tends to leave you with no bandwidth to work on things.