Is Wine hurting Linux Games dramatically ?

[Vitamin-Carrot]

We shouldn’t have to use wine/cedega/xover,

There are plenty of games out there that use proven Linux friendly engines, it really just comes down to how much money the game studios want to make and if they can be bothered throwing a dog a bone.

All we have done here so far is talk and debate over this topic since I got here. Why don’t we pull finger and dev some good games using the unreal engine or id's engine? and I’m not talking about mods.

If the game studios aren’t going to do it then we should instead of crying over it.

Independence is freedom

[NeoLithium]

Well, I don't think it's hurting in the least either. Developers are not generally interested in releasing a linux version of their games, so things such as WINE are helping to bridge the gap and allow people to play games on linux. Before I switched I was playing WoW on Windows, now I can play it on Ubuntu just fine. All in all though; I don't play a wide variety, I keep to a few that I generally like a great deal and don't tend to shop around, aside from my gaming console, which is an XBox 360 for various reasons.

[John Hughes]

I think the bigger thing here is why are people having to use Wine rather then Is wine hurting linux games.... As someone else Said its the entire standards thing. They cant release something for every distribution it'd take quite a bit of money to do so in terms of Linux due to a wide variety of core packages etc. Cedega's development is a good thing its allowing more and more games to be run properly through it. You can even use Native Linux games through cedega to create game folders for easier access if you dont want to make a launcher.

There are some people like Google for instance with Picasa that are starting to do Wine optimized stuff some tweaks to a linux download that makes it more compatible with wine specifically... Its a question wether or not Linux can gain enough ground in the next coming years with windows flailing in the air due to vista and DX10.

[Sockerdrickan]

Microsoft might hurt Linux gaming dramatically. Nothing more.

[greentiger]

if i had the programmers to do it i would take my gaming group and make three games for linux:

1) a tactical rpg game like vandal hearts that has single player, multiplayer and a mission editor. 2) a fps that's like quake arena (maybe start from warSow or open arena). and 3) an rts game for linux that's as fun to play as starcraft/warcraft.

we got artists and designers. we lack coders and modelers.
but that's the whole problem with OSS; no reliable source of talented people and no one is willing to stick with a project when the road gets bumpy.

[rudeboyskunk]

To be honest I don't know why people get so worked up over this issue. Wine is nothing but a temporary fix on the matter. We just have to be patient. We will get our ports, our native games, etc. all in good time. Slowly but surely the gaming companies are coming around. We saw it with CCP and Valve. What does Blizzard use to run their servers? That's right, Linux. They know it rocks. Once they introduce a Linux port, -everybody- will fall in line. It's just a matter of time.

[John Hughes]

The key thing here is how will OpenGL 3.0 really be will the development packages get easier to use etc. A big draw for Direct X has always been that the packages are outright easier to use the OpenGL is while openGL did advance alot of features that were only now just introduced in directX 10 it was harder to use. To 2 above post this isnt entirely true but alot of people in this line of work usually already work for commercial entities of some sort or they dont have the time between their real life jobs and this.... Microsoft with Vista is helping Linux gaming if anything however if they actually shape up (yeah right its MS ) it could be more a threat.

it is somewhat the developers that think they wont make money off a linux version

[Vitamin-Carrot]

A threat?

Im Afeared *starts shaking*

[FG123]

I'm not sure what to think.

On the one hand, if a game works well in Wine, there's little incentive for the developers to port the game to Linux natively, except as an act of good will or just out of interest.

On the other hand, many developers wouldn't have considered porting their games to Linux in the first place, hence Wine doesn't make things worse, only better.

[MyR]

almost 80% of the thread relating a game on Linux involve a Windows game + Wine.

That's simply because those people using wine need more support; this is a support forum after all.

The amount of support requests does not accurately indicate popularity.

peace