We usually don't report on games, but I would like to make an exception today. Blizzard Entertainment has announced the sequel to what many see as the best realtime strategy game ever made: they announced StarCraft II. The original StarCraft, released in 1998, tops many best-games-of-all-times lists, and has sold over 9 million copies worldwide; it is still one of the most popular online games, despite its age. In fact, in South Korea, StarCraft matches are even broadcast on TV.
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Member since:2005-07-24
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A company like Blizzard, Bioware, or Id are in a much better position to provide ports and profit off of them.
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Profit from whom? That huge mass of home Linux users who are into games and are willing to pay for them?
I'm encouraged that business Linux desktops seem to be making some progress. That's where the Linux desktop action is. And I don't see the fortune 500 ordering huge quantities of StarCraft II for their employees' desktops.
Id Software has provided Linux client binaries for their games forever, explicitly because it is a cool thing to do. That is currently the best reason to support Linux clients. (Game servers are a different matter, altogether, of course.)
Id *did* officially support Linux for Q3. You could by a boxed set just for Linux. It had Tux on the front. The first run even came in the promotional tin box that Windows users got.
They discontinued support fairly early on. Their business manager stated that it was mainly because Linux was "a support nightmare".
Basically, even though they felt Linux was way cool, and they gave it a *really* good try, Linux support was a liability to them from a business perspective.
They ended up losing a bunch of money owed them when Loki went under, too. But that was later.
I've been using Linux *exclusively* on my desktops since 1997. I greatly enjoy the Linux games that I have.
But it's usually best, in the long run, to face reality squarely.
Member since:2005-07-09
Selling specially boxed 'linux' versions of the game was a mistake. But making the game available for Linux obviously worked out, because Doom 3, and Quake 4 also recieved support for linux.
If a company is going to use linux for a dedicated server, its actually pretty trivial to offer a client, especially if the game is OpenGL based.
Its really a catch 22, serious gamers don't use linux because nobody releases games for linux, and nobody releases games for linux because there aren't any serious gamers who use linux exclusively. So the fair number of casual gamers like myself who use linux either snatch the few bones the PC gaming industry does throw our way, or we just spend our cash on console games instead.
Edited 2007-05-20 02:58
Member since:2006-12-15
Member since:2005-07-24
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Member since:
2005-07-09
Loki was also terribly mismanaged and had a business model that wasn't all that hot. A company like Blizzard, Bioware, or Id are in a much better position to provide ports and profit off of them.