Seems there is a demand for Linux gaming.

[fatality_uk]

http://unigine.com/press-releases/101125-linux-giveaway/

With what seems like a top notch gaming engine, this could prove to be a great foundation for gaming on Linux.

[Oxwivi]

Not open-source, unlikely to become a great foundation. With the competition, only three teams are likely to be able to use it. I doubt any open-source developer would pay to use it.

[3Miro]

I have seen their benchmarks and those look amazing.

I don't care for FOSS games, games are a non-vital software and I am perfectly happy to pay for games and don't pirate them if:

1. They don't put any of the DRM crap on my machine.
2. They are actually worth the money.
3. We can mod them easily.

I hope they start using this engine soon.

[Oxwivi]

Neither do I, but paying for something is difficult for many.

[forrestcupp]

Not open-source, unlikely to become a great foundation. With the competition, only three teams are likely to be able to use it. I doubt any open-source developer would pay to use it.

I don't think the hope is for more crappy open source games. The hope is for commercial game studios to use a top notch engine that makes their games easily portable to Linux.

Linux isn't necessarily equal to open source.

[fatality_uk]

Not open-source, unlikely to become a great foundation. With the competition, only three teams are likely to be able to use it. I doubt any open-source developer would pay to use it.


It will give a free license for its top-notch Unigine engine to an experienced team willing to work on a Linux native game

In this case, they are not asking game devs to pay. The are offering the engine FREE to a team who will be able to develop a "commercial" quality game.

http://unigine.com/clients/heaven3.jpg
A game looking like this, perhaps C.O.D. style, released cross platform. Yes please.

[Simian Man]

I don't think the hope is for more crappy open source games. The hope is for commercial game studios to use a top notch engine that makes their games easily portable to Linux.

Linux isn't necessarily equal to open source.

Exactly.

[Spice Weasel]

I don't think the hope is for more crappy open source games. The hope is for commercial game studios to use a top notch engine that makes their games easily portable to Linux.

Open source games? Crappy? :o

You forget yourself sir!

*coughallofthequakeseriescough*

[kaldor]

Open source games? Crappy? :o

You forget yourself sir!

*coughallofthequakeseriescough*

Ah, but Quake is not open source.. just the engine! ;)

[3Miro]

There are good FOSS games, but not nearly enough. Commercial games are the ones that we need for Linux.

[kaldor]

Agreed. And not like Quake's "here's a downloadable .run file. Buy the windows version, run a bunch of terminal commands and copy files off the disk and hope it works" style. Native games with a good installer from mainstream companies and I am happy.

[Spice Weasel]

They used to sell DVDs of Quake 3, but I haven't seen one for years.

[kaldor]

They used to sell DVDs of Quake 3, but I haven't seen one for years.

Honestly? Were they sold in stores?

[madjr]

Neither do I, but paying for something is difficult for many.

just because something is open source, doesn't mean it cant be commercial or have commercial versions.

I dont use linux because everything is free, i use it because of all the advantages in security, customization, etc. and of course the code can be improved upon and standardized by the world.

Linux and open source is like the public areas of a city: community supported and no one owns them. The basics are free, the parks are free, the streets are free, but you can have your shops on them and sell extra services or products.

if i needed to pay or buy linux preinstalled i would (and have).

same with commercial software and games, if i like it and the quality / support is good, i pay for them. and If they go open source i would pay even more, just for the effort (which some have successfully done already) . :)

Specially indie developers are the ones that give the most back when they receive support from communities like ours. They need us and we certainly appreciate them.

Even adobe was a small company at one point, back in the day, looking to get support from individual users.

If a new company is willing to support us, then we should definitely support them.

[bash]

Open source games? Crappy? :o

You forget yourself sir!

*coughallofthequakeseriescough*

idTech 4 is open-source?

[aeiah]

best hope we have is that if steam for the mac takes off big they'll port it to linux too, since a lot of the work is already done

[Spice Weasel]

idTech 4 is open-source?

It will be next year, but all of the previous engines are.

[kaldor]

It will be next year, but all of the previous engines are.

Can't wait for that. It'll be a fresh turn away from the dozen Q1-3 clones. FreeCoD anyone? :)

[Oxwivi]

Yes, Linux doesn't necessarily equate to open-source, but runs on it, which is what I meant by my first post as most of the Linux developers develops open-source things.

And while I don't use Linux because it's open-source, doesn't necessarily mean I could've paid for it was sold. Which is what I meant by second post. Everyone can't simply afford to pay for it.

But well, I guess it's great for you guys, you seem to be anticipating commercial games. Hope you guys can enjoy.

That's all for me in this thread. *period*

[madjr]

Yes, Linux doesn't necessarily equate to open-source, but runs on it, which is what I meant by my first post as most of the Linux developers develops open-source things.

And while I don't use Linux because it's open-source, doesn't necessarily mean I could've paid for it was sold. Which is what I meant by second post. Everyone can't simply afford to pay for it.



thats understandable. At one point i could not afford anything either, but open source helped me keep going and still be normal computer user. :)

[forrestcupp]

Open source games? Crappy? :o

You forget yourself sir!

*coughallofthequakeseriescough*The content that makes the game playable isn't free. Anyway, the original Quake was the only one worth playing. ;)



And while I don't use Linux because it's open-source, doesn't necessarily mean I could've paid for it was sold. Which is what I meant by second post. Everyone can't simply afford to pay for it.
I hear ya, brother. I think it would be awesome if we could get some commercial quality open source games that aren't just another multi-player death match with different scenery. Unfortunately, it usually takes quite a team of full time developers, commercial artists, musicians, etc. to come up with something of that caliber.

I've basically gone to consoles for my gaming now, anyway. There was a time when I aggressively defended computer gaming over console, but those days are slipping away.

[Dustin2128]

battle for wesnoth is an excellent open source game.

[fatality_uk]

No one is saying that there aren't some great examples of Open Source gaming. The issue at hand I think is that there are not enough great games or Linux full stop. By using a good engine, that is also cross platform, a developer could release TOPGAME v1.0 and if lets say 10,000 Linux users purchase the game @ £25, that will VERY quickly make the rest of the game developers think "There might be a new market here"

[3Miro]

No one is saying that there aren't some great examples of Open Source gaming. The issue at hand I think is that there are not enough great games or Linux full stop. By using a good engine, that is also cross platform, a developer could release TOPGAME v1.0 and if lets say 10,000 Linux users purchase the game @ £25, that will VERY quickly make the rest of the game developers think "There might be a new market here"

+1.

If I see a commercial Linux game I may buy it even if it is not one of the top games, I will at least know that it will work well on my machine.

[Arex Bawrin]

How in the world are these publishers going to make any money with an open source game? I would have no problem playing proprietary games on Ubuntu if they were fun.

[Oxwivi]

How in the world are these publishers going to make any money with an open source game? I would have no problem playing proprietary games on Ubuntu if they were fun.
There are open-source MMOs for which you buy access to official servers. Other than that I don't know any other way to sell open-source games.

[fatality_uk]

Look at the success of World of Goo. Very simple game, but very well done. It was an Angry Birds for the PC. A small dev house releasing a game that took off.

[I'mGeorge]

As I've observed the comercial software available for linux it's far more cheaper than it's windows equivalents. Because I assume the same thing it's with the most if not all retail games available for linux than why not? I mean is it so hard to pay a couple of bucks for a game that's fun and has good graphics either ('cause let's face it, most open source games, not all of them of course, have crappy graphics. Though I don't find graphics being so important it still counts)

[forrestcupp]

('cause let's face it, most open source games, not all of them of course, have crappy graphics. Though I don't find graphics being so important it still counts)

My experience is that it's usually the game play that's crappy, at least for FPSs. I could probably find a hundred or more different open source multi-player death match games, but how many open source single-player campaign FPSs are out there that actually have a story line?

There are some good games of other genres, though.