Linux only needs one 'killer' game to explode, says Battlefield director
polygon.com
polygon.com
Halo was XBOX-exclusive because Bungie was owned by Microsoft; their specific goal was to make an XBOX-exclusive title, and there was a very real incentive for them to funnel energy into the platform. DICE (and to a much lesser extent, Valve[1]) gets nothing specifically from having a Linux version besides the slightly larger target audience (and PR); there's nothing in it for them to spend massive development time on a AAA game and not release it on Windows + Mac + Consoles as well.
Am I missing something?
[1] From what I understand, Valve's pursuing non-Windows options to try and avoid a shootout between them and Windows Store. That's pretty understandable in of itself.
I do think however that if Linux is going to take off because of a game, it'll be a SteamOS exclusive. The advantage of Steam is that it runs on every Linux distro, (even automatically solving dependencies), versus the Software centre which is an Ubuntu exclusive.
Back when HL2 came out, I didn't want to install Steam, but ultimately I wasn't going to miss out on the sequel to the best FPS ever made. Then again, it's far easier to install Steam than it is for the average person to abandon Windows. I guess that's where the Steam Box comes in.
If you say that SteamOS means a game is Linux exclusive, you can say Metal Gear Solid for was CellOS/BSD exclusive[0].
[0]http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PlayStation_3_system_software
What concerns me about SteamOS is their (supposed, as I don't know if it's been actually confirmed yet) Ubuntu base. I personally loathe Ubuntu, it and all its derivatives seem bloated and unstable, I get the same feeling using it as I would get using Windows Vista. Remember the extra hoops Vista introduced to get to basic network settings?
Ubuntu might be Open Source, but it's not open, user-friendliness should not equate locking down an OS, there must be -and is- a better way. I feel GNOME on my Arch install does the job admirably, so much so that friends want a piece of the action.
I was tempted to go with a PS/3 back in the days because I could offset the cost of a dedicated gaming machine with the fact I could play Blu-Ray. So unless this Steambox is insanely cheap or provides a significant other use and does those other uses really well I will factor its cost into the game I want to play.
If they could get it to boot in like 5 seconds, and it came with the ability to play a range of existing steam titles, it might be a winner.
Might be a good idea for single titles, though.
SteamOS will be freely available
Not even Xbox/GFW can do that.
With all due respect, most people don't care.
You've never bought an exclusive game on a platform you already own? Given that some of the best games ever made have been exclusive to something or another, this seems rather self-defeating.
Did you mean to say you've never bought a console because of exclusives? This strikes me as still quite unlikely (else why did you buy it in the first place?), but much more reasonable.
Unity's kind of hit-or-miss, but Ubuntu as a distro has always been fine for me.
Past that unity fits in here where things change drastically between releases.
Upgrading between non LTS releases is not meant to be seamless. To make it so would take a lot of unnecessary effort. There are LTS releases for a reason.
You don't see Microsoft coming out with a new OS every 6 months.
Yes, and the reason is servers. On a computer you use, you generally want the new functionality (like, for example, the ability to read and write to a nexus 4).
I've upgraded ubuntu a few times, including once from LTS to LTS. It ranged from unpleasant to awful ("why has everything been uninstalled?") each time.
The whole OS has just never worked out in the long run, and has always felt bloated and sluggish. A myriad of odd patches and poorly implemented automation made even the simplest problem solving a major gripe. I just couldn't stand it.
This is all anecdotal of course, you obviously have a completely different experience.
You do realize that there is someone to make a comment, much like this, on every piece of software ever created, right?
> I feel GNOME on my Arch install does the job admirably, so much so that friends want a piece of the action.
Since when has GNOME been banished from Ubuntu?
I am not trying to say one is something over the other. I'm just saying I use Windows and have for years and for my needs, cost and all, it really seems to fit the bill. I have used many flavors of Linux over the years but I rarely find it compelling enough to move beyond LiveCD or Pi usage.
tl;dr Does distro matter, can the user not just customize at some point?
edit: spelins
half-life 3 confirmed
Yes, no one has the incentive to push Valve's platform but Valve. They might pay someone else, but any game of comparable interest to HL3 would be very expensive. They aren't as wealthy as Microsoft. No one is. So, really, HL3 absolutely fits - this even makes sense of its curious delay.
They can always port it later (though, not foreshadow, and well after the initial publicity, or its force will be dissipated).
Almost by it's very nature Linux is not conductive to exclusive software, simply because when you build something for Linux you are likely building on top of open source dependencies which have far less legal and technical barriers to being ported elsewhere.
For example most Windows titles rely on DirectX which is only supported on MS systems. If the game development culture on Windows revolved around OpenGL we would likely have seen more Mac/Linux ports of games already.
So you would need to have something that was either designed to be cross platform from the get-go , or you need to re-engineer around different APIs.
True I'd say (though I have no experience in porting huge software projects), but why is this? Isn't it just because the Windows platform is so much larger? I guess Linux will still keep things open since it's not part of a for-profit company, but easy portability to Windows in the future is no given unless Microsoft starts to make things that way.
And I mean "future", like, when Microsoft's lock-in products like Office and Windows have a <50% market share. After that it'll be over soon altogether, or Microsoft must come up with something brilliant.
Hmm, something brilliant that must be. In the past they bought stuff they didn't have themselves. Good luck buying (and selling) LibreOffice or GNU/Linux :D
A Linux exclusive can be made, and running an unauthorized "Windows port" can easily be made to exceed the technical skillset of your average gamer.
Naah, not a problem, just require systemd.
How would that not be a huge win for the platform? Unlike Microsoft or Sony, Valve is mainly in the business of selling games not platforms.
Essentially the PC eats the console market?
Removing windows from the equation would be a necessary step in bringing down the price of such a device and would allow Valve to squeeze every last drop of performance out of a device in the same way that Sony and Microsoft do with their respective console OS's.
Consumers don't want to buy a new $1,000 computer once a year, but many are close to doing it with their phones. The subscription/contract masks to cost to a degree. I'm not sure what the economics will come down to, but a new Steambox once every 6 years seems quite unlikely.
I bought my first Macintosh just to be able to play Q3Test, before it was released for Linux or Windows.
Saying "Battlefield 4 will be released for Windows/Mac/Linux" doesn't mean nearly as much for Linux as saying "Battlefield 4 will be released for Linux-only this year".
Android/Linux has more than 500 million users!
(Perhaps it was meant GNU? But I would assume it was assumed this killer game would not be freedom software. Then how would that help GNU explode? No, what would help GNU explode, is more people able to program, and asking for freedom software).
Windows $4.62
Mac $6.04
Linux $7.50
On some, the total Linux donations even beat the OS X donations, despite having a fraction of the number of users.
[0] Certainly all the ones I've participated in, which is a lot of them.
However, from a pure market standpoint, the Humble Bundles do point out that there's money out there to be made from Linux gaming. Niche markets can be lucrative, and it's even better if the people in that niche have money they're willing to spend. Whenever I see games on Steam that are multiplatform (that includes Linux), I'll buy them over anything else. But, I think that's also something of a confirmation bias--and the fact that I buy them on principle. (I'm not really an avid gamer, and I don't bother much with AAA titles, either.)
Of course, there is one major downside. The Linux market is relatively small compared to Windows and OSX which brings with it other disadvantages.
On the whole, I think this is a positive development. At least someone in the industry seems to be recognizing the need to embrace platforms beyond Windows or consoles.
It would be better if we could see price paid vs. platform the game was downloaded for.
Windows has 20x (probably more) good games than linux, is as stable, comes already loaded on almost every machine you buy, has a far larger choice of other apps, Everyone is used to the windows experience (although win 8 changes that), and maybe most importantly - it has a user base that is 20x that of desktop Linux (you won't be able to play most of your friends in a Linux exclusive game today).
The claim in this article may be true someday, but today is not that day. Linux has a LOT more ground to make up before this article/premise can actually hold water.
I know several people who are your average users (use their PCs as a VCR and Facebook machine) who were convinced to switch to Ubuntu a few years ago and have since been enjoying it much more and have found it more intuitive than Windows.
Ubuntu has everything set up out of the box for you, and the feature that everyone seems to like the most is indeed, a Unix advantage: centralized package management.
In Windows, they had to hunt down binary installers from all over the web to get some piece of software. Now they just head over to the APT/dpkg frontend (Ubuntu Software Center) and do everything in a flash.
How is listening to music and browsing the web harder? You have a graphical DE that makes it point-and-click just like any other OS intended for consumer/mass use.
Perhaps you were installing a minimal Ubuntu without X11?
One problem is that it wouldn't shut down. I had to edit the grub2 config to get it to shut down.
Also, at one point the sound randomly stopped working. Would only see the dummy output. Had to reboot to get the sound back. So I don't think I fully fixed that issue.
I was using xubuntu before, and it's really hard to resize the windows. There's a weirdly small area to click on, which is frustrating. There was also a problem with the right mouse click which needed to be fixed with a config change.
It's just buggy, where I would expect things to work.
For example after a Windows 7 install you need to go and install a plugin before you can watch youtube videos and you need to install a viewer for PDF documents. Both of these things are provided by default on an Ubuntu machine.
People on this thread that did move to Ubuntu a few years ago found it far better than the naysayers would have them believe - smooth install, better GUI, more useful software with a repository. They haven't had to look back or 'need' this new Windows thing you use and they don't cling on to legacy Windows programs. So Windows now able to open files without having to install arcane plugins first is a bit 'meh' to those that can't be bothered with Windows cruft any more.
>I haven't tried to set up a gaming rig with Linux, but I imagine it will be like trying to play games on DOS 3.0 back in the 90s.
Install Steam, install game, play game.
>it's easier to just buy an iMac and boot into Windows to play games.
As someone who actually does dual-boot a Mac using Bootcamp for gaming purposes, and who also games on Linux, the former was far more difficult to set up (installing Windows on a MBP from a USB stick is a fool's errand).
In short, you simply don't appear to know what you're talking about. The trouble with gaming on Linux is selection, not anything intrinsic to Linux itself.
- Both network and wireless drivers weren't working, so I had to go to a different machine and dig up some some sources from some obscure blog, copy them to a pen drive, go back, compile and install.
- What's that, you want to update anything? Well fuck you, I'll rollback the network drivers you installed.
- What's that, you're trying to watch more than 5 youtube videos in a row? Fuck you, Compiz has crashed!
- While you were sleeping last night, I threw away all the stuff that you had on your desktop. Also, you can't right click on it anymore. What's that, did you right click more than 5 times in anger? Fuck you, Unity has crashed!
- You're trying to search the web for solutions to all these crashes? Fuck you, Compiz has crashed! Also, your mouse and keyboard don't work anymore. Have fun rebooting by holding your power button.
- What's that, you didn't pay attention to me for more than 5 minutes and I went to sleep? Well I'll just replace your screen with gibberish.
- What's that, you want to step out without people replacing your desktop background? Well I'll just hide this password prompt and show you a nice picture of your desktop background instead.
- What's that, you're trying to listen to music? Don't you just miss the old days when the cd would skip on a regular basis? I sure do! Besides, I don't like your music so as a bonus, Compiz has crashed!
- What's that, you're in a dark environment and you want to reduce the brightness? Well fuck you, everything has crashed. But here, I'll just run this awesome flashlight app that maximizes your brightness. Have fun going blind, asshole.
This last occurrence is the moment when I decided to format this hellspawn and go back to Mint.
In short, you simply appear to be an active-aggresive douchebag. Just because something works for you, doesn't mean it does for everyone.
Definitely still a user experience problem inexperienced Linux users, but on fully supported hardware the user experience is good as Windows.
>In short, you simply appear to be an active-aggresive douchebag.
Yeah, a lot of that going around these days, isn't there.
It's based on Ubuntu, so probably shares some of the same problems, especially when it comes to driver support.
Network and audio hardware is most often the main culprit, lots of no-name brands out there that mobo makers toss on to keep costs down, unlike CPU's and GPU's where there are only a few well known, well-supported options.
The experience has been similar to that of Windows. Some combinations are really easy. Others are fucking awful.
I've never had the problems you describe, and I'm an idiot.
On the off chance (though I find it hard to believe) that it is ignorance it may be of interest to you that this site runs on Linux. So I guess you'll be leaving our piece of shit forum now that you know.
The installation takes about 15 minutes (less with a USB stick). Installing media codecs is an option at install that requires one box to be ticked.
Installing Steam requires downloading the Steam installer from their website, double clicking it, and hitting the 'install' prompt that Ubuntu sends you (ie. at least as easy as Windows). Once Steam is installed, it's the same experience as on Windows.
As far as things like Nvidia drivers go, it's also very easy with Ubuntu. Peripherals are mostly plug and play.
As long as you don't have extremely old, obscure hardware, it will be a very easy, smooth experience.
And installing Ubuntu on a computer is much easier than setting up OSX/Windows to double boot...
Windows 7 on the other hand is hard, it installs with virtually no drivers leaving you to find them from all over the web, it's a awful experience.
P.S. I played DOS games in the 90s it was harder than Ubuntu is now.
1. Insert disk (as always) 2. A: 3. DIR.EXE 4. Type in the name of the exe
Precise commands were often printed on the label. Having to manually figure out a correct SET BLASTER command was rare but sound cards came with a useful manual to keep you going. No one seemed too bothered by the lack of a GUI. Now people ask me if they should click the left or right mouse button all the time and I have to tell them to single-click hyperlinks and buttons. Heck, some don't even see them until I point them out. Does a GUI really enable them to use a computer more easily or would they more easily adjust to a written language akin to commandeering a dog?
I've personally had really bad luck doing this. The Mac Windows drivers seem to be very sub-par, and my recent Macbook heats up like an oven and the fans go nuts. I've only attempted to play a few games on a 2011 iMac, but the performance hasn't been very good as a whole (TF2, StarCraft 2) and there still appear to be heat issues. Meanwhile, I can fire up my 2010 gaming rig and play brand new AAA titles without so much as a stutter in Windows, and performance is decent under Linux as well.
As far as the games I have purchased on Steam, I actually have more that are compatible with Linux than Mac OS. I just don't think gaming has been a high priority for Mac OS (they make a ton of money with it on iOS). They seem to be very sluggish about updating their GPU drivers, and they fell pretty far behind in OpenGL support (10.9 is supposed to bump this up a little).
If I want something I don't know whether comes as default or not, I press the Windows key, start typing a keyword. If anything matching is installed, it shows up, or I pick the "applications" tab to get a list of not-yet installed applications available from the software centre.
I'm listening to music now, browsing the web of course, and regularly watch videos, none of which took anything more than the above.
(I don't know about a gaming rig either, as I don't play many games)
It sounds to me like you last tried a Linux distro 5+ years ago, or hav been extremely unlucky.