# The Ubuntu Forum Community > Ubuntu Specialised Support > Gaming & Leisure >  The lack of ground-breaking original 3D open source games. [RANT]

## PrimoTurbo

You have probably seen a lot of these lists for games popping up on digg and other websites.

Here is one - Top 10 free Linux 3D games - http://gamesuy.blogspot.com/2007/12/...-3d-games.html

While I have played all of the games listed and agree some of them are great (Tremulous and TrueCombat: Elite especially) I would say that Linux completely lacks any ground breaking 3D games.

Furthermore Linux suffers as a 3D gaming platform due to the following reasons:
1. Video and sound driver issues
2. Lack of commercial interest due to the low percentage of users

Using Wine is completely unacceptable because many games are poorly supported, furthermore your game suffers in many cases due to lower fps.

Some people will argue that there are some great commercial games available for linux, but all this constitutes is FPS based Quake/Doom or Unreal games. Which in most cases have been delayed in release compared to the windows counterpart. The more widely played games are completely not available and unsupported.

The open source community has also failed to produce any ground breaking 3D games. While certain people will argue that this is due to the large commitment and time needed for game development. I would argue that an operating system also requires a lot of time and huge amounts of commitment by thousands if not millions of people. I don't know why there has not been a huge project to create a big open source ground breaking game. You could develop it in sections just like Linux over a long period of time, advancing it every so often to keep up with the times. You can also run it in layers, similar to how the kernel, programs and the desktop environment interact in linux.

What are your thoughts on the state of Linux 3D gaming.

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## Zdravko

Nice article! I agree with you. I personally don't play 3d shooters, because I am a pacifist and I don't like killing. I am rather the city-builder type. There is no Linux comparable game like the Ancient Civilization series: Caesar 3 (Rome), Pharaoh (Ancient Egypt), Cleopatra (Egypt and Rome), Zeus (Greece), Poseidon (Atlantis), Emperor (China) Also there are no games like Sims, Simcity etc. Dunno why. It is very frustrating.  :Crying or Very sad:

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## sloggerkhan

http://dangerdeep.sourceforge.net/news.html
http://spring.clan-sy.com/
http://www.wildfiregames.com/0ad/
http://www.worldofpadman.com/
http://www.flightgear.org/
http://www.freeorion.org/index.php/Main_Page
http://code.google.com/p/irrlamb/
http://www.openttd.org/
http://wz2100.net/
http://lincity-ng.berlios.de/
http://icculus.org/neverball/
http://teg.sourceforge.net/
http://armagetronad.net/
http://cultivation.sourceforge.net/
and there are LOADS more free games available.

Now I agree that there aren't very many games that are highly UNIQUE which come out for linux. However, I think there are more games than people realize. They often don't have as much eye candy, though. And for the record, I don't think there have been many good, unique commercial games since about 2001/2002.

And to above poster: have you tried lin-city or open  transportation tycoon?

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## gsiliceo

I disagree, Tremulous a combo FPS and RTS with teams and online, and enemies different species, that you can control!. Is pretty unique even in comparison with comercial games.

Portal, it runs lovely in wine, groundbreaking yes, a little hard to install but it works like a charm.

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## duglambier

Free games will never be as good as commercial games. Don't be mistaken !

Free games are nice but are just here to enjoy it few minutes. Commercial games are here to play them 10 hours and higher.

Professionals are better than those coding just for fun.

Please compare Quake 3 (a 6 years old commerical game) to Nexuiz (a recent free game) and you will see that commercial games are better

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## hikaricore

> Free games will never be as good as commercial games. Don't be mistaken !
> 
> Free games are nice but are just here to enjoy it few minutes. Commercial games are here to play them 10 hours and higher.
> 
> Professionals are better than those coding just for fun.
> 
> Please compare Quake 3 (a 6 years old commerical game) to Nexuiz (a recent free game) and you will see that commercial games are better


Better is a personal opinion.
You may be right in your own eyes, but I don't buy it.

Professionals are not better coders than those doing it for fun.
They have *@%^ing resources, manpower, and money at their disposal.

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## Naegling23

its unfortunate, but I think a lot of it is due to the massive amount of resources that go into game making.  Keep in mind that most of the commercial games license their game engines.  So, if you want to create a game, you need to either build your own engine, or use one of the open source ones, like quake3.  Add onto that the programming, and art skills required to finish the game, and yikes.  It takes 2+ years for a team of people working full time to release a commercial game, for part time workers on an open source game?  

If you want to see what the "open source" gaming community can do, I think your better off taking a look at some of the mods to commercial games.  There are some really innovative and first rate mods for ut2004 and some of the other populare games.

One last thought, if making a game takes a few years, and open source kind of rose in popularity only in the last couple of years, maybe we will see more open source games in the future.

I would love to play some of the open source games, but I dont see them as terribly innovative, They tend to copy the quake3 gameplay, or mimick a different style.  What they need is something to set them apart.

I do play frets on fire though, great game!

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## Vadi

Astromenace is 3d and open source.

(though, we really could use more games. Help us out!)

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## primski

Thats exactly it, lack of money and time.

To bad imho, but thats the way it is, Microsoft (ok, bad gaming company example, but definetly rich) can get thousands of developers and support them for a year or two, even more coding 24/7. It is natural they will come up with a better (as in nicer, more sophisticated, not necessarily better story) game than a few guys working 3 hours a day in some basement.

Sad, but thats the way it is, I wanna see it the other way around, but untill Linux get some serious 3D support (I like upcoming OpenGL3, but even that doesnt come close to DX development libraries and API's ease of use compared to opengl) (havent coded in any of those so dont quote me on that one)

until then, i love the orange box collection, portal and tf2 are just incredible. i would also play ut3 but have too schitty comp atm :s and dual boot to xp, only for 1 game, pes2008... hope to see some progress there soon.

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## hikaricore

I don't know why everyone keeps insisting that OpenGL is more complex to use than DirectX...

You're just spreading the FUD.

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## primski

i dunno, i told you don't quote me  :Wink: 

A friend who is doing a little more serious programming than me has assured me the Microsoft's documentation available online is really really good (not a ms fan boy, don't worry, just making comparisons here).

Isn't it true?

Don't get me wrong, this is not a flame bait or anything, its a legitimate question.

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## cogadh

Direct3D has a few functions pre coded into the API that OpenGL does not. Meaning to use OpenGL, you might have to write a few extra lines of code that you wouldn't have to write with Direct3D. That does not make it more complex, in fact, it makes OpenGL more flexible than Direct3D.

As for documentation, MS has a long history of only providing what they want you to know, not all there is to know about the DirectX API. Does that make for good documentation? If you only intend to do what Microsoft wants you to do, then yes. For everyone else, the answer is no.

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## KhaaL

I think there are several reasons why there is a lack of "original" 3D games:

*there are not enough quality middleware for developers to use, such as FaceGen (makes realistic faces randomly) or SpeedTree (makes trees that look and move realistic). This makes 3D games look mediocre since making such a function would be quite a burden for the developer. The good thing is that we have BulletPhysics engine which is FOSS.

**There is no easy way to make a game. I'm not talking about programming a game, I'm talking about providing the player with a story and a experience. Is this possible without programming? doubtful. The only engine I know of that provide many  tools for this kind of thin is Blender3D. However it's still a complex enviorment, lacks multiplayer support, and has somewhat outdated graphics for the game engine. There was a ambition to integrate OGRE rendering engine into it, but it seems to have died.

I'm not a programmer, so I may be talking out of my rectum. But as someone who wish to put across my vision to a player, these things are obstacles in the process.

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## Perfect Storm

I don't care how flashy a game is or not. I measure a game on other qualities. Ofcause nice graphic is a plus, but nothing I'll go OMFG!!1 about.
Dominions 3 is a good exampel. Medicore 3D graphic but a gameplay beyond belief. Though it isn't GPL every Dominions game have a linux client.

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## KhaaL

Dominions3 is indeed nice, and content wise it's mindblowing. But, to be honest, having units with diffrent names but has the same unit graphic. A better example would be neverwinter nights. The graphics is dull to say the least, but again, the content and the experience is mindblowing.

Bottom line is yes, the graphics isn't everything. but it adds to the realism and experience.

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## Perfect Storm

I thought we play games to escape realism  :LOL:

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## matthewcraig

So you want commercial-level games, but you want them open source, so you don't have to pay for them?

Do you see the errors in your logic?

There are commercial Linux games out there.  There are even some great ones.  Why aren't there more?  Well, why aren't you buying the ones that are available?  Developers make games for people who buy them.

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## Sockerdrickan

I don't see how they can be released as open source directly after release. I support the ID Software strategy however (open source after a couple of years, but media still costs) and I will use it in the future when I release cross platform games.

And duglambier, Nexuiz owns Quake 3 in most ways.  :Smile:

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## Wazeem

It would make more sense that there is open source engines and tools that should be built. This would mean that if the community got together and wrote some robust Video Game Development environment (that was not based on a set genre) modules could be added slowly that do things for you.

The idea is to separate the core coding and and actual game design. This would surely make an increase in games being produced and quite possibly improve the quality too (as everyone is using one massive engine it can constantly be improved). Think of the way linux as being the engine and the distro being games (just an analogy).

Im quite young and not skilled to program full games but there is bound to be open-source developers out there that can get the project started... or is there a project like this already. (If there is like it should be given more exposure and support and if there is more than 1 then we should try consolidate the projects to make one be-all-end-all project). 

Being a beginner coder i'm starting to see the possibilities of open source strengths and what people mean when they say its free.

Anyway thats my ignorant 2 cents :Guitar:

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## matthewcraig

@Wazeem: There are some open source engines, already.  Go ahead and take a look.  Sounds like you're ready to make some games, and using existing engines to create your own content is the way to go.

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## Vadi

I think that so far, Viewizard with their AstroMenace game have made -the- opensource game. They open-sourced game, and the linux version is freely distributed, so you pay what you want (click)

While the game certainly doesn't come from an original genre, it's 3dness is really amazing and it's a fun play. They even went as far as making an "openAstroMenace" on sourceforge (not sure why o.O).

Oh and the game is built on Ubuntu. How cool is that?

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## cogadh

*Open Source does not equal free of charge, Open Source only equals free to view and modify the code.*

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## dziemecki

> Professionals are better than those coding just for fun.


Nonsense.  In fact, many who code for fun do it for a living, too.

Now, a "for fun" _project_ is probably disorganized and under-resourced, but the coders themselves are often top notch.

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## nikoPSK

> Free games will never be as good as commercial games. Don't be mistaken !
> 
> Free games are nice but are just here to enjoy it few minutes. Commercial games are here to play them 10 hours and higher.
> 
> Professionals are better than those coding just for fun.
> 
> Please compare Quake 3 (a 6 years old commerical game) to Nexuiz (a recent free game) and you will see that commercial games are better


I will have to disagree with you there. Nexuiz is a winderul game whatever anyone else thinks. Now all I need is open source starcraft...  :Razz:

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## Harpalus

The open source model doesn't really work well for games. It works wonderfully for other types of software. I can reuse code, and people can reuse mine, et al.

A game is a work of art, though. In many cases, game developers _don't want_ people to reuse their work. An open source game, by the traditional definition, would also mean that all of the artwork and 3d models, along with the general universe, plot, and setting, would all be freely reusable. Do you really want this? Does anybody really want this? I want to see fresh, original games, not games that rehash old concepts.

Indeed, the term "groundbreaking open source game" seems to contradict itself. Many groundbreaking games (not all, but many) were in effect, coded from scratch. Or the engine they were based on was very heavily modified and whipped into shape. Most of that code is _original_ code, not _reused_ code, which, again, is not the open source way, which is to collaborate and work together.

I don't think games will ever be anything _but_ closed source. The engines might be open source someday, perhaps - unlikely, in my eyes, but possible - but the content never will. Not many people want to see their artwork, characters, plot, environment, etc, getting shamelessly ripped off by another game. Indeed, such games are usually given bad reviews.

This isn't even getting into the cost of a modern game. Quite a substantial amount of money to make a game nowadays, what with everyone demanding next gen graphics. Fork over millions to create a game, then inexplicably allow your competitors to use your character models? Never mind how they'll get horrible reviews even if they did. Why help a competitor anyways?

Unless you're expecting so many people to work for years on a  game, all for free. Although, It's not unheard of. (One of the biggest game mods, just as an example. But how many mods open source their content? I'm not sure I've ever seen one, but I'm sure there are exceptions.) Or, you're expecting companies to start opening up. Perhaps, due to the increasingly skyrocketing costs of game development, we'll start seeing more collaboration and open source from the companies - but never the content.  And even open sourcing game engines isn't likely - companies like to make money by selling rights to their game engine, to help recoup costs. Open sourcing these engines would only hurt their income. Even so, it's possible we'll start seeing more open source game engines - but by definition, games whose content isn't open source are not themselves open source. Their engines are. And it's the content, not the engine, that really makes for a "ground-breaking  original 3d game."

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## Jaxco

Another problem with OpenGL is the age and lack of development of the OpenGL API itself...  The OpenGL 3 (IF it is released) is supposed to almost catch up to DX10... Problem is, many details about DX11 have already been released.

I think the Khronos group is supposed to be working on this... I cannot help thinking everytime I play a OpenGL game: Welcome to 1997!

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## chungy

What do you consider a "ground breaking game" anyway?

IMO, I haven't seen any that fit my description since 1996 with the introduction of Quake (the first game were almost every gameplay aspect is handled in three full dimensions).  All the rest just seem to improve models and textures; not really what I'd consider ground breaking.

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## charlieg

Most kernel / gnome hackers are paid, FYI.  Who will pay the game creators?

Nobody.

OS FOSS is strong because market forces and geeks demand it.  No FOSS no way away from commercial monopolies.  It's a far greater cause than just people enjoying themselves creating games in their spare time.

This rant is as ridiculous as all the other complaints about FOSS games.  It's volunteer driven.  Dig in or pipe down, because you don't light a fire by hosing it down.

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## EMR

I'm trying.  Getting a working 3d Engine is difficult on this platform, but I'm going to get one working, even if it means making a windows version that is tested against WINE...

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## Irritant

LOL, how do you people even FIND these ancient threads?

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## ELD

> LOL, how do you people even FIND these ancient threads?


Too much spare time? lol

But seriously since the OP was made not a massive amount has changed, although we do have X2 and X3 from LGP, and Spring RTS has come a long way too  :Smile: ...0ad still not released heh.

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## Shea7993

My 2 cents on the topic... 

Problem with Linux is it doesnt support DirectX (dont know why someone hasnt gone and made DX10 for linux, instead of making it for xp), instead it uses Open GL which unfortuantely isnt as capable as DX, however with OpenGL3 coming close to perfection and close support from Graphic card Manufacturers (Nvidia and ATI) gaming will become a future prospect on linux, for the simple reason that OpenGL3 is said to do whatever DirectX10 can do, just beter (usin less resources which means you can get more out of your hardware) and for devolopers, its said to be easier to make games on openGL than with DX

so with that in mind, Ubuntu developers should take a stand and just do gaming, so as to make it the official desktop Distro to support gaming =] (btw do the ubuntu developers read these forums for feedback and ideas?)

1 little problem i have with this though is 2 things (go figure)

1- most people do play games yes, if majority goes over to linux, and microsoft loses the market, wont most security threats such as viruses and mallware become more apparent on linux, leaving us at risk and needing to pay for crappy anti-viruses?

2- I hate crappy games, especialy games that derive from movies (developers that make small budget games to make a quick buck), and other boring crap weve seen being remade for the past 10years just with a diferent title... Yeah these games will then become available on linux, and honestly it will not realy be putting gaming as plus on ubuntu... I like how only the best must play games get linux native clients, and i like that since everything is free that people mod and make free games for linux keeping to the whole freedom of linux... but i also would like to see unreal engine 3 based games and crysis and other GOOD games reach linux...

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## hessiess

Personaly I would like to see some new games on *ANY* platform which are `ground-braking'. Almost all recent games have bean all graphics, no game play, no storyline. There also seams to be a complete absence of originality, there are far too meny damn FPS `games'.

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## Shea7993

Yeah agreed, too much graphics and too little good game play... I play alot of old games, hell the most recent is Heretic 2, anyone seen how bad that looks? but still it brings back memories and still is a fun and great adventure...

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## Sockerdrickan

> My 2 cents on the topic... 
> 
> Problem with Linux is it doesnt support DirectX (dont know why someone hasnt gone and made DX10 for linux, instead of making it for xp), instead it uses Open GL which unfortuantely isnt as capable as DX, however with OpenGL3 coming close to perfection and close support from Graphic card Manufacturers (Nvidia and ATI) gaming will become a future prospect on linux, for the simple reason that OpenGL3 is said to do whatever DirectX10 can do, just beter (usin less resources which means you can get more out of your hardware) and for devolopers, its said to be easier to make games on openGL than with DX
> 
> so with that in mind, Ubuntu developers should take a stand and just do gaming, so as to make it the official desktop Distro to support gaming =] (btw do the ubuntu developers read these forums for feedback and ideas?)
> 
> 1 little problem i have with this though is 2 things (go figure)
> 
> 1- most people do play games yes, if majority goes over to linux, and microsoft loses the market, wont most security threats such as viruses and mallware become more apparent on linux, leaving us at risk and needing to pay for crappy anti-viruses?
> ...


DirectX does not support Linux, not the other way around. And AMD does not support OpenGL 3.1.

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## hessiess

> DirectX does not support Linux.


DirectX could be supported on Linux, or any platform for that matter, its just an API. But Microsoft won't allow hardware manufacturers to implement it on anything but Windows. In fact, There already is some support from the Wine project.

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## mjkerpan

I've never really seen this so-called quality gap in free games. There are several commercial-quality free shooters, boatloads of amazing dungeon-crawlers (Angband, Zangband, and Nethack, just to start) plus tons of great free text adventures and at least two ex-commercial but now free (and very fun) graphic adventures.

Methinks that anyone who says "there aren't many good games for Linux" doesn't really know what they're talking about.

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## Sockerdrickan

> DirectX could be supported on Linux, or any platform for that matter, its just an API. But Microsoft won't allow hardware manufacturers to implement it on anything but Windows. In fact, There already is some support from the Wine project.


Still that doesn't change what I was pointing out. You can't say "Linux does not support DirectX" It's got nothing to do with Linux or any kernel from the first place  :Smile:

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## cb951303

Somehow I have the impression that you mean FPS when you say 3D. In that case, there won't be any ground breaking games because there aren't any even for Windows  :Smile:  FPS is an *over*-saturated genre and I truly didn't see any good -let alone ground breaking- FPS for at least a few years (Bioshock maybe an exception, and no, Crysis, Half-Life, COD series are not ground breaking at all they just have state-of-the-art graphics and *nothing* else)

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## Shea7993

> Somehow I have the impression that you mean FPS when you say 3D. In that case, there won't be any ground breaking games because there aren't any even for Windows  FPS is an *over*-saturated genre and I truly didn't see any good -let alone ground breaking- FPS for at least a few years (Bioshock maybe an exception, and no, Crysis, Half-Life, COD series are not ground breaking at all they just have state-of-the-art graphics and *nothing* else)


Crysis should be an exception, gameplay was new for most who never got to play farcry instincts, otherwise HL2 only offers the gravity gun which makes the gameplay unique in its own way, as with portal the portal gun makes the gameplay rather unique... hmmm, bioshock is much like their older systemshock, not too ground breaking, though the ADAM and EVE that allow for special abilities are quite unique, without that id say systemshock was nicer to play... COD may not be total ground breaking, but it does what every other WW2 and modern warfare game does, just better... its not always about graphics, its in the details where the heart and true potential of a game lies... Now farcry2 is an example of a complete and utter FAIL...Games are fun, and should provide a fun experiance for fans as such a new and unique experiance to compete with other titles to set them apart from the other wannabes, not realistic graphics or realistic physics and realistic everything, that becomes too much of a simulation, and simulations become frustrating -sigh- simulations arent games, that is why need for speed franchise has went down the hill, 2 mistakes, 1- its become a sim, and 2- its deriving from a movie franchise (Fast and the furious)... Viva la Burnout!!! lol

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## Sockerdrickan

> DirectX could be supported on Linux, or any platform for that matter, its just an API. But Microsoft won't allow hardware manufacturers to implement it on anything but Windows. In fact, There already is some support from the Wine project.


It's a bit more than a standard, I was referring to the implementation.

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## EMR

I saw it on the list of threads in the cat.  Or maybe I was searching for something.  I can't remember now.

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