About bringing games to Linux... I work in a big gaming company and I can say that even the Windows gaming isn't really a target. It only represent 10% of the sales. The rest is split between the Nintendo Wii/DS, Microsoft XBox 360 and Sony PS3. The main flaw of the PC platform (for these companies) is piracy, that's why they got away from it. The second flaw is that it's eventually hard to code a game for all the different hardware configuration. That's why I think that before big companies reconsider the PC as a real gaming platform, the change will have to come from other initiatives, and my hopes comes from independent games studio.
And, even on Windows, creating a game isn't really easy. Microsoft played it well by distributing Visual Express and the XNA SDK for free. XNA is the best solution for any new game studio developers. It's not really powerful, but it has almost all a game team needs to create a innovative game, and without getting too much headaches to understand how the whole thing works or if it will launch on this or that hardware. XNA guarantee the fact that your game will work on Windows and on XBox. Don't misunderstand me, my point isn't to sell Microsoft to you, and my greatest wish is to see the Linux as a real, serious gaming platform. But we've got to see what's good and bad in the other platforms in order to offer the best solution to new Linux game developers. The flaws of Linux is that it misses tools to simplify the process of creating a game. There is no flawless IDE. I don't want to bring this mail to another subject, but Emacs and Vim aren't good solutions for new Linux developers. These applications are hard to understand and they miss a whole bunch of things that a Windows developer would like to have by default (for instance debugging). Eclipse is slow and Codeblocks and Anjuta still have lots of bugs. The sound is also a problem, it's the jungle in here. But there are good initiatives too! Pulseaudio and Gallium3D, for instance, are good candidates to solve part of these flaws. They standardize and, de facto, simplify the global understanding of the Linux system. The last missing part is a simple SDK (as for XNA) that allows the developers to spend time on their game and not on the platform. To help game developers, we should focus on supporting the tools that helps creating games. Create a website that helps developers choosing the right tools for their needs. We should improve libre IDE, like Anjuta. And I don't know if there is an libre game editor on Linux, but if there is one, we should support it. To conclude in few words: keep it smart and simple. Don't know if this whole speech will help, but I gave my point of view ;) Thanks for reading all this and please pardon my English. Creak 2010/9/10 Danny Piccirillo <[email protected]>: > Most free (libre) games already support GNU/Libnux. The next question > is how to support the development of those games. Blender open game > project had the > right idea > > On Thu, Sep 9, 2010 at 18:12, Martin Owens <[email protected]> wrote: >> Hey Lisandro, >> >> On Thu, 2010-09-09 at 18:57 -0300, Lisandro Vaccaro wrote: >>> >>> How do we encourage game developers to work with Linux? >> >> Which game developers? >> >> The market is split into several categories some of which already work >> with "Linux" (whatever that means) >> >> P.S. Please don't post your content in your subject, keep the subject >> for a couple of words about your question. >> >> Martin, >> >> >> -- >> ubuntu-marketing mailing list >> [email protected] >> Modify settings or unsubscribe at: >> https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-marketing >> > > > > -- > .danny > > ☮♥Ⓐ - http://www.google.com/profiles/danny.piccirillo > Every (in)decision matters. > > _______________________________________________ > Mailing list: https://launchpad.net/~ubuntu-gaming > Post to : [email protected] > Unsubscribe : https://launchpad.net/~ubuntu-gaming > More help : https://help.launchpad.net/ListHelp > _______________________________________________ Mailing list: https://launchpad.net/~ubuntu-gaming Post to : [email protected] Unsubscribe : https://launchpad.net/~ubuntu-gaming More help : https://help.launchpad.net/ListHelp
