Bad news. id software really is abandoning Linux.

I went ahead and emailed John Carmack directly about Linux ports, considering
nothing was mentioned of the sort at Quakecon 2009.

I recieved this reply:

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> Dear Mr Carmack, I am just wondering if the graphics renderer for
> Rage is still
> built using OpenGL 3.* as a target? Will id still port to Linux if
> user numbers are
> small or not as big as say Mac OS or Windows?
>
> Gratzi,
> naikon89

The PC and Mac versions are still OpenGL 2.x.

We are not currently scheduling native linux ports.  It isn't out of the
question, but I don't think we will be able to justify the work.  If
there are hundreds of thousands of linux users playing Quake Live when
we are done with Rage, that would certainly influence our decision...

John Carmack

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And a follow up:

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> Ok, it must be alot more difficult to port
> than older id software games :(

Yes, it is.  The codebase is much, much larger, and the graphics
technology pushes a lot of paths that are not usually optimized.  It
probably wouldn't be all that bad to get it running on the nvidia binary
drivers, but the chance of it working correctly and acceptably anywhere
else would be small.  If you are restricted to it only working on the
closed source drivers, you might as well boot into windows and get the
fully tested and tuned experience...

John Carmack

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These are genuine, I can give the full mail headers if anyone wants them.

After so many years of Linux gifts, id has appeared to have given up
totally on the platform.

Shame, because I was going to personally buy
every single upcoming Windows copy with Linux support.

I don't understand why MacOSX(Unix) gets a port, whereas Linux does not.
Isn't id tech 5 meant to be cross plaform? The Zenimax deal really has killed id software.

This news needs to be blogged and passed around like wildfire.
id software is dead, long live id software!

They arent their own company anymore, Zenimax owns them now and must have laid down the "games for windows/console only/3yrs later maybe a mac port/but never linux" ultimatum on them.

ZeniMax's big bens were probably involved with the persuasion. This is not the same Carmack I remember. This is a Stunt Carmack, the same one used to put Jason Hall into submission, physically.

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Originally Posted by cor2y

They arent their own company anymore, Zenimax owns them now and must have laid down the "games for windows/console only/3yrs later maybe a mac port/but never linux" ultimatum on them.

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Very true and very disappointing, I believe Microsoft is getting worried about losing their shares with the open source community. Thus they are promoting this "Games for windows" campaign as a way to screw Linux users out of gaming.

I still think Linux will win out in the end even if it is very slowly. The market shared for Linux has already doubled in the last year alone and with more disappointing windows Vista/7 users, it will likely increase. The windows users who choose to stick with windows XP with be forced to use a unix based system eventually as XP will become deprecated.

That's unfortunate about id. Rage was one of the few newer games I've been looking forward to.

There never was high odds of linux getting a port for rage any way. EA games are in charge of the distribution of the game and wanted only windy version of the game.

You should have asked about Weinstein tbh as they are using Activision (or what ever they are called) which handled the older games they released with linux ports.

bastards

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If there are hundreds of thousands of linux users playing Quake Live when we are done with Rage, that would certainly influence our decision...

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Go!! Play!! :D

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Yes, it is. The codebase is much, much larger, and the graphics
technology pushes a lot of paths that are not usually optimized.

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You can't blame ID for this... ATI drivers suck and Nvidia while much better, is likely not up to par to the Windows drivers.

Thanks to this thread, I discovered QuakeLive and now play using Firefox and Ubuntu. Having played the original Quake, Quake II, Quake Arena, etc. Boy, does this game bring back memories!

Fantastic!

:-)