

John Carmack Argues Against Native Linux Games - seminatore
http://www.escapistmagazine.com/news/view/121945-John-Carmack-Argues-Against-Native-Linux-Games

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adamors
The thing about Carmack and Linux is, that everything he says is based mostly
on the QuakeLive port id did a while back (edit: he says this here
<http://youtu.be/wt-iVFxgFWk?t=45m26s>). The port was released as an
afterthought and quite a while after the Windows version), it wasn't
publicized anywhere so naturally, people ignored it. From this experience he
concluded that Linux isn't financially viable and/or there are no people
interested in gaming on the platform. Now I'm not saying that Linux is
financially viable, I don't know that. I just think that

\- a lot of people do pay for games on Linux (look at Humble Indie Bundles,
look at the indie titles or the recent titles on Steam)

\- I know people who pay for games but are stuck on Windows because they play
games. My guess is that these people would ditch Windows in a heartbeat if
their games were playable under Linux.

~~~
mtgx
Are you referring to this quakelive.com? He said it's a failure as a free 2
play game online. What does that have to do with Linux? I don't think it even
works on Linux, actually.

~~~
adamors
There is an offical, native Linux client that no one knows about. It was
released in 2009. And because no one actually bothered with it, he concluded
that the WHOLE platform is disinterested. <http://youtu.be/wt-
iVFxgFWk?t=45m26s>

~~~
cma
That isn't all he based it on. id games used to be available on Linux, with
ports produced by Loki or with unofficial binaries by staff. They never
brought in enough money.

~~~
adamors
He says "We have made two forays into the Linux commercial market, most
recently with the QuakeLive client and that platform just hasn't carried it's
weight." Watch the video I linked to.

~~~
cma
That the latest foray didn't carry its weight doesn't imply the earlier foray
carried its weight.

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rednukleus
I think focusing on WINE style emulation sounds like a very sensible way
forward. The thing for me is, though, that it would be great if more games
came _pre wrapped_ in some sort of emulation with all the relevant settings
tweaked.

I don't want to buy a game and then spend hours messing around to get it to
work.

Having a big library of emulated games is more important (in my opinion) than
squeezing every last frame rate out of a small number of native ports.

~~~
lucian1900
Winelib can be used by game developers to link their games against, to just
provide them with Windows APIs their games expect.

The results can be very good, an example is Picasa.

~~~
rednukleus
So setting aside people's emotional considerations of Linux being a second
class citizen, a library of games in Steam and DVDs including alternative
executables using Winelib seems like a great way forward.

Most games these days are designed to run on a range of graphics detail
settings, and it's not a big deal if you just have to turn a few things down a
little on the latest games.

~~~
yareally
Although I can understand why some on PC would consider Linux a second class
citizen for gaming, the larger issue that matters more is PC in general
typically being a second class citizen for games through lack luster console
ports. I would much rather see developers focus on making quality games for PC
in general than worrying about porting it natively to Linux or OSX instead of
just assuring it works well in Wine.

It would be nice to just see everyone behind that more than complaining about
whether something is native or using wine. A lousy console port that works
natively is still a lousy game.

------
buster
So he is actually saying that too few people use Linux. And few people use
Linux because it has so few good games. What surprise.

P.S.: I'm really happy how Valve pushes forward with Steam and am surprised to
"already" see some bigger games like TF2 and CS:Source available in Linux. All
that with games i bought many many years ago and now can play in Windows and
Linux (and i suppose Mac as well), nice!

~~~
Kiro
I don't use Linux because I don't like it, not because it has so few good
games.

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babarock
I'm a programmer, albeit not a game one. I have an honest question: How
difficult is it to write a game whose source code is portable?

I understand that Carmack and Id work on the kind of game which needs very
strong optimizations, and I can imagine they need OS-specific system calls or
to manipulate the hardware immediately. Porting a game like Quake to Linux is
obviously a lot of work, and the reward seems low compared to the investment.

However, I doubt most game programmers need the same level of optimization. Is
it that difficult for them to write their code once and compile it separately
for each platform?

~~~
xionon
He doesn't argue that porting the game is too difficult - in fact he implies
that porting games to linux is pretty straightforward. He's really arguing
that _supporting_ the game after release is too expensive.

You have patches, and compatibility issues, and a thousand video cards with
potential incompatibilities; customer service questions, system updates, and
that one dude in Kansas running a custom version of linux that cant quite get
your game to work, so he keeps calling and bugging you and taking up support
time.

Edit: Found a relevant quote:

    
    
      This may sound ridiculous – “Who would turn away $20,000?”
      but the reality is that many of the same legal, financial, 
      executive, and support resources need to be brought to 
      bear on every single deal, regardless of size, and taking
      time away from something that is in the tens of millions of
      dollars range is often not justifiable.

~~~
danielweber
A have a colleague who has worked a few times selling games ported to Linux,
and it leads to all sorts of hate mail when things don't exactly right. And
people who use Linux tend to think you never have to pay money for software so
your market is that much smaller.

~~~
rednukleus
> And people who use Linux tend to think you never have to pay money for
> software so your market is that much smaller.

I'm not sure that is fair. Linux users, when faced with the choice of a free
open source tool or a paid proprietary one usually tend to go for the free
one. But things like the Humble Bundle show that there are plenty of Linux
users who are willing to pay for content. It's just that there aren't that
many Linux users compared with Windows.

~~~
dickbasedregex
I get so tired of hearing people trot out the humble bundle example. Linux has
historically been mostly ignored by game devs. Of course linux users are going
to (initially) earnestly support developers in the hope that more games/devs
will start coming their way.

Lets say the humble bundle worked as a means to encourage a non-trivial amount
of indie devs and publishers to build for or port to linux. Lets say this
trend remains significant for more than a year or two. I don't for a second
believe you'd see anything close to the same level of support. Right now games
on linux are a commodity.

I defy someone to find another software category... hell, an individuel piece
of software that has enjoyed any real, monetary support from the linux
community. You don't get to argue enterprise support for distro X or open
source framework Y from Z corp. Show me end users purchasing software for
linux.

Don't get me wrong, I used linux as a desktop for years and still use it every
day on the server. I'm a fan but the desktop community? As a developer, I
wouldn't waste a second of my time building something for linux unless it was
purely an open source passion project. Linux desktop users seem overwhelmingly
more than happy to eschew a paid product for a free one even when the free one
is absolute crap by comparison. <Insert snide comment about linux desktop
users not valuing their time as evident by their use of linux as a desktop in
the first place.> I hate to use the term freetard but as someone who makes
money from building things, that's how I largely see the linux desktop
community. To put it bluntly, there isn't much evidence that they are worth
the time.

~~~
rednukleus
> linux desktop users not valuing their time as evident by thier use of linux
> as a desktop in the first place.

You lost me here. I dual boot Windows and Linux - Windows is currently the
best platform for games, Office, and a few legacy and specific apps; Linux is
the best platform for programming (unless its for Windows or Apple specific
programs)

I don't think using Linux is a waste of my time.

~~~
dickbasedregex
This was mostly a joking jab and honestly not as true today as it used to be.
I spent a lot of years fighting just to get a gfx or network card working with
any distro but that was honestly a long time ago. Linux has come a long way.

I'll agree that linux is a fine development platform. I might well switch back
if the direction OSX/Apple goes continues to be questionable.

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melling
WINE is 20 years old.

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wine_(software)>

I remember how 10 years ago I thought that it would be the answer to help
bring Linux into the mainstream. No, native Photoshop? Not a problem.
Unfortunately, the problem has turned out to be much harder to solve.

------
dimitar
Does testing on Wine complicate the development of a game?

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lampe
this is why valve says this: Faster Zombies!
<http://blogs.valvesoftware.com/linux/faster-zombies/>

so they benefitet from linux and windows does too...

Oh a few people use tool X so tool X must be bad!? strange kind of logic...

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programminggeek
He is right, but I"m not sure for how long. Right now there isn't a huge
market for Linux games, especially big budget ones. Smaller games might see
good ROI, but I don't know.

When a real Steam Box happens running Linux, things might change quite a bit,
but it needs to sell in the millions of units before it starts being a big
deal.

In the short term OUYA is more interesting.

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mtgx
If Valve releases the Steam Box and ends up selling at least 10 million of
them, Carmack will come around to it (considering Valve's own Steam Box will
be based on Linux). Valve even said Steam for Linux will have more titles than
Mac.

~~~
rm999
Steam's potential success on linux is part of his thought process. From the
reddit thread:

>I truly do feel that emulation of some sort is a proper technical direction
for gaming on Linux. It is obviously pragmatic in the range of possible
support, but it shouldn’t have the technical stigma that it does. There really
isn’t much of anything special that a native port does ... Ideally, following
a set of best practice guidelines could allow developers to get Linux versions
with little more effort than supporting, say, Windows XP. Properly
evangelized, with Steam as a monetized distribution platform, this is a
plausible path forward.

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drivebyacct2
Wine is great, it comes really close, and then it breaks overnight for no
reason. I was playing CS:GO and playing it rather frequently and then all of
the sudden it has simply stopped working. On the other hand, all of the Steam
games with Linux native ports work _great_ on both my Intel and Nvidia
graphics setups.

I hope Carmack is wrong and I hope Steam for Linux will drive the point home.

Also, the whole "support" point is lost on me. If the impetus is really post-
release support, I can guarantee you going through Wine is going to complicate
things greatly... and you still have the same supposed moving target of Linux
underneath. It's not as if using Wine normalizes sysv init vs systemd vs
upstart or pulseaudio vs oss vs alsa. Those issues are still there and anyone
who games on Wine seriously knows that those issues are MORE present with Wine
than they are with the native ports.

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craftman
Looks like the "one OS fits all" concept has proved to be flawed.

Windows is great for corporate end-user workstation s (desktop, tablet...) but
not for servers. Linux is great for servers, and highly skilled computer users
(aka hackers/programmers) but not for corporate users. Mac OS is great for
hipsters.

Games are somewhere in the middle of all this, including the consoles. Looks
like there is no perfect solution and for sure, a good strategy could be to
replicate what's have been working until now.

~~~
kzrdude
Everything has to be formulated through clichés?

