Is 2013, the year of Linux gaming?
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The author, a college professor, lamented how many students still come to his class making this mistake.
IANAGrammarian, but I think that the comma itself would be the copula in this sentence if the "is" was removed. With the "is", no need for the comma.
Microsoft has been crushed in the mobile game space by Android/Linux.
Windows is still the premier platform for fancy big-budget games and Android doesn't seem to be going there any time soon.
Apple completely dominate mobile gaming. 84% of all mobile gaming revenue is on iOS as per http://venturebeat.com/2012/05/06/mobile-gaming-revenue-appl...
They probably still beat Android, but nowhere near by that much.
Linux is as good if not better than Windows. It has come a long way and gaming will definitely be just another feature of Linux in 2 to 3 years time. I'm predicting 2014/2015 is when Linux gaming becomes really hot and everyone releases games on it.
1. Gaben and a bunch of other people says it's true (http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/2012-11-06-gabe-newell-rig...)
2. MS is no longer supporting cross platform (xbox/pc) development and is killing XNA. (http://www.extremetech.com/gaming/147289-microsoft-kills-xbo...)
Also steam supporting linux has significantly increased the number of linux games. Android linux compatibility is a big win for casual games on linux.
As a result, there is still a significant amount of Linux users using 2D desktops. For example, I'm using Gnome 3 fallback (i.e. classic mode) with xmonad. I know quite a few running AwesomeWM with no DE, and others using Ubuntu 2D.
That being said, setting up xmonad or AwesomeWM requires a higher initial investment but you gain more control and efficiency in the long run. It's the same argument for using vim/emacs over notepad.
https://dl.dropbox.com/u/2402047/Screenshot%20from%202013-02...
It's not doable on OSX or on Windows. It's damn fast on my own macbook (2008 edition) and on my work desktop (i5, 16 GB, SSD)
I love Linux, but I don't like Gnome Shell or Unity (or KDE or something), and on Desktop it's easy, you just install awesome and run with it. But for a few years I had only laptop, and I was always afraid that things like sleep, or volume and brightness control keys woudn't work, because they seem to be tied with Gnome for some reason.
If you could share some more about your setup, that would be great.
https://github.com/pimeys/dotfiles
Also, two branches: work and macbook. The screenshot is from the work branch.
Here's an old demo of it: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AyNkBLhIpQk
Looks like you're using Xmonad. I use it as well; it's the reason I switched to linux. It's unbelievable how nice it is to stop fussing around with overlapping windows! Combine that with all of the extensibility and you've got an incredibly productive environment (assuming you don't get caught up yak-shaving your xmonad.hs).
"Is this the year of the Linux desktop now?"
"No, that's a cliche. But Linux is getting better and Windows is bad as ever."
"Next year will be the year of the Linux desktop!"
Android has a good shot at being the platform for all things in the future, ie. Ouya and Green Throttle.
As the cell phone doubles in power every year, in the near future we will realize that our cell phone has way more than enough power to run our main stations and gaming needs. The graphics chips on normal phones today are already astounding.
No one can really claim "year of Linux gaming" until we start seeing a wide variety of publishers releasing AAA titles. And until that happens, windows gamers will like it or not remain with Windows.
Linux has always had a hurdle in the (probably mostly wrong) assumption that Linux users will pathologically not pay for software.
[1] http://www.reddit.com/r/linux/comments/17x0sh/john_carmack_a...
Plus a lot of these companies offer low quality ports and little to no customer support for Linux users, and if you don't use a supported distro then too bad for you. So again, what's the point? It's the same bad experience as using Wine.
Of course there are some who will only use 100% free/open source software for ideological reasons but these people are a small minority of Linux users in practise.
Most of the new indie game Linux ports work quite well in my experience though YMMV I guess. It would be unrealistic to expect support for every distro.
If there was a compelling collection of open source games I would certainly play them but that has never really been the case.
There are tangible advantages in having open source tools and components such as compilers,kernels and desktop environments even without every program on the system being open source.
Personally I do not derive pleasure from just playing games, I need to be able to study their source code and modify them. So I see no advantages in having proprietary games on my system. I hope that other GNU/Linux users acknowledge this as well. The one true value of the system is that it is GPL-ed.
If you look at places like /r/linux on reddit the Linux fanboys there are practically wetting themselves over steam.
I agree that more open source games would be a good thing, but I don't see it as necessarily more important than having access to the unedited recordings of a piece of music.
Seriously, because people sometimes pays for games, and that's OK, despite of whatever you choose to believe.
On the other hand, if one distribution emerges as the clear desktop leader (and no, Ubuntu isn't there yet) then maybe we will see support for it.
The issue is commercial. The mere existence of PS3 games proves that, as the PS3 was very hard to develop for, but it was worth it because the games would sell.
Steam makes possible for developers to target Linux and sell the games there, in an easy convenient way that is easier to use than pirating games via torrents, but with some DRM to prevent uploading the purchased game to torrents just after the purchase. Ubuntu also has a store that sells games, I can see at the very least: Bastion, World of Goo, Amnesia, Braid, Space Pirates and Zombies. I don't know if they use any DRM, I guess the answer is no.
The final success of this endeavor is also of commercial nature. The number of games sold in Linux will determine the future of Linux gaming, and nothing else will, no matter what the technical merits of Steam in Ubuntu are.
I'm completely unaware of games, or any software, that is sold specifically for Linux (sold, being the keyword here). I've never installed Linux and purchased software for it.
So, my question, does the Open Source ecosystem for Linux simply eclipse the for-profit software, or are there special licensing requirements that are difficult to comply with?
http://store.steampowered.com/app/70/?snr=1_614_615_linuxrel...
Obviously, I am simplifying a complicated legal system with my reply. I am not a lawyer, but I have studied open source licensing.
With some exceptions, the Linux ecosystem does not eclipse for-profit software. You are free to run closed source software within an open ecosystem.
With that said, I personally develop and sell open source games. Linux is a first-class citizen in my market. I find that the person who makes the decision to run Linux as their main OS is the same type of person that will avoid a purchase of software that is closed source. In that case, the barrier is the mentality of your users rather than licensing restrictions.
I am in fact still crying of joy by the release of Brutal Legend in Steam.
That was one of the two reasons for me to have planned to buy a PS3 this year. Now I don't have to, PS3 purchase is canceled. The other reason is GT5, but iRacing is more than good enough.
looking forward to the day i'll finally purge windows from my hard drive. installing linux and playing some recently released AAA titles^^
Besides, it would seem that whatever games are made available for steambox would be binary compatible with other Linux distributions anyway (and software for other Linux distros should run on steambox) unless they do something really crazy with it.
For me the distinction is, can I play the game on my computer running my distro of choice, or can I only play it on the Steambox, which happens to be running Linux.
it would seem that whatever games are made available for steambox would be binary compatible with other Linux distributions
I have seen nothing that would indicate this one way or the other.
Regards distros, they don't seem to mind people repackaging for other distros though it would be unrealistic to expect support for running the games under every conceivable distro of which there are thousands.
For instance, with OUYA they can spend say $20-50 in parts to build the latest ARM box and turn around and sell it for $100. The total cost of R&D to design and build the OUYA is probably less than $10 million. There is already an existing pool of Android software with an average selling price of less than $5 a unit. It will probably launch with hundreds or thousands of games on day one. Compare that to the PS4 which will launch with probably 5-10 games and have maybe 100 games year one, and each game will cost $60 (or more).
OUYA - $100 + < $5 per game. PS4 - probably $400 + $60 per game.
OUYA - say $10 million to develop/produce PS4 - say > $1 billion to develop (PS3 CPU alone cost $2 billion to develop)
In short, the economics for both development of hardware and selling of software have shifted down so dramatically that it is going to hurt the PS4, XBox 3, and Wii U substantially. It already had a huge impact on the mobile space.
SteamBox is going to be basically the same story only at a $200-300 price point and with $5-20 games.
Why on earth would people (especially parents) pay $400 for a console and $60 for a game when they could pay $100 for a console and $5 for a game. You can buy a lot of OUYA games for the price of a next gen (or even current gen) console.
The market for $60 games won't go away, but it will shrink fast.
Linux is a big contributor obviously, but it's as much about the hardware economics as it is the software.
That's not to say that more expensive games are necessarily better, just that there are no shortage of people willing to pay $60 on launch day for games like COD or Skyrim.
Where are you getting these prices?
>and with $5-20 games.
Steam regularly sells games at $50+. I really doubt this is going to change any time soon. There is always going to be a market for expensive "premium" games.