If you could Game on Ubuntu, Ubuntu would take over the world.

[lylepratt]

I really mean what the title says. The fact that I can not play any game I want on Ubuntu is the only thing that prevents me from make the permanent switch on my desktop. My company owns VGPRO.com and we have a lot of contact with other gamers. Their opinions are all the same. "We'd switch to Ubuntu if only we could game!"

So, why aren't more resources being devoted to finding a free solution to the gaming problem on Ubuntu and every other linux distro?

[Naegling23]

"I cant play halo 3 on my vista machine. therefore I would never want to use vista. I mean, who would want to run something that wont run all the games I want to play? This windows thing is never going to take off unless they let you play more games"

There are games on linux. There are windows only games. There are games that run on windows and mac, but not linux. There are games that only work on playstation/xbox/wii. There are games that run on linux only. Instead of saying that you cannot play play game A on linux, start saying that games x, y, and Z are available for linux. Once you start doing that, you'll see that there really are a lot of games for linux, especially considering the market share differential. If bioshock doesnt work on linux, its because they didnt port it to your system, not that your system is broken, and if they dont want your money, then be happy not giving it to them.

[hikaricore]

... I have absolutely no trouble "gaming" /w Linux

wanna try that again?

Perhaps you and your other gamers should develop a game or a port of a game for Linux.
You could even contribute to an existing game or possibly the WINE project.

[erginemr]

It will be difficult to try and convince the professional game developers to develop games for Linux, because the philosophy behind Linux is free software (as in free speech) and some Linux users believe that all software should be open source. Dont't get me wrong: not because they favor piracy or something, but because this is the philosophy behid Linux.

On the other hand, professional game developers are trying to make money. So...

Or am I wrong? What do you think on this?

[lylepratt]

Well, my point is not that there are no games available to play under the linux platform. My point is that the game choices available that run on Linux platforms have no comparison with the game choices on the Windows platform. Obviously this is primarily due to the smaller market of linux gamers not being large enough to justify developers creating a port for the linux OS.

But, to say that the gaming environment of Linux is comparable with that of Windows is simply ludicrous.

Anyways, I am not here to rant on Ubuntu. I love linux and Ubuntu and run it on my laptop. I am simply imploring why there has not been a bigger push made for a gaming solution for linux that does not require development companies to port every game they make. Sure there is Wine and Crossover, but for the average n00b user, thats almost not even an option.

[shad0w_walker]

I have no issues gaming on Ubuntu. I just finished playing Hl2: Episode 2 as it happens. Runs just as well as it did on my Windows setup and with out any issues I found.

Current games list:

Half-life 2 and Episodes 1 & 2 & Lost coast
Team Fortress 2
Portal
Garry's mod 10
Doom 3
Quake 4
Soldier of fortune
Homeworld 2 (wish i could find my home world 1 disc)
Stronghold
Darwinia
Defcon
Rail Road Tycoon 2
UFO: Alien invasion
Uplink
Unreal tournament (2003, 2004)

[rybu]

Think from another point of view. Say you're an Ubuntu developer. Is it in your interest to just blindly expand the userbase? Or are you interested in users that will contribute?

Maybe I'm skeptical, but the gamers that want to switch to Ubuntu, they mostly want to do it to save money, and a lot of them know next to nothing about development. They're not really into the whole community spirit of the project.

I'm not saying it's a bad idea to expand the userbase, just that it's an idea that, on its own, does not interest me as much as say, getting users that develop really cool apps in their spare time.

And I'm not even an Ubuntu developer.

[Naegling23]

Im a gamer, and I run ubuntu. I do not have a working copy of windows in my entire house. I get upset when people say that you "need" windows to play games, thats simply not true. Current game list:
Quake Wars (demo, hopefully the full game by tommorrow)
Doom3
UT2004
Neverwinter Nights
Frets on Fire

Via wine (by the way, they all run flawlessly)
World of Warcraft
Star Wars: Jedi Academy
Half life 2/oblivion are owned, and run under wine, but I dont play them.

My logitech g5, saitek eclipseII, and nostromo n52 gaming peripherals all work 100% too.
Not to mention that the two biggest gamer centric releases this year are quake wars and ut3...both run natively under linux. If you want to make a difference, then vote with your wallet (they track this stuff, they know what OS your using). Since ive become a full time linux user, I only buy games that have native linux ports, wine is used for legacy games.

The reason that there are not more linux games is that linux accounts for 1% of the desktop os usage. If linux gamers start to buy more games, the companies will follow the money tree. But if everyone gets upset and just boots into windows, then nothing will change.

[rybu]

And if you want the dynamic to change, to start the process of getting more games available in linux, what needs to happen is a killer-app. A game for linux (and only linux) that everyone wants to play.

Because then you'll start getting windows users setting up dual-boot systems and starting to use linux. Then game developers will know they can develop for either platform without penalty. Then it'll be less risky to develop linux-only games.

[TidusBlade]

What I think is that nobody wants to make a killer-game for linux, like if WoW was linux-only I'm sure there would have been so many games for linux now, I do hope to create good games for linux once I know how to but until then Im stuck hoping...