Is 2013, the year of Linux gaming?

http://www.pcauthority.com.au/Feature/332124,is-2013-the-year-of-linux-gaming.aspx

by rainmaker23 • 13 years ago

35 71 13 years ago

pcauthority.com.au

SlipperySlope• 13 years ago

Because android has the Linux, We already have dominating Linux games - right?

Microsoft has been crushed in the mobile game space by Android/Linux.

cbeach• 13 years ago

crushed in the mobile space by Android/Linux?

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...

rednukleus• 13 years ago

In the US, based on Q1 2012 data.

They probably still beat Android, but nowhere near by that much.

jiggy201111• 13 years ago

Interesting that the article claims that Apple dominates mobile gaming but then shows a graph that does not include any of the dedicated mobile gaming platforms such as the Nintendo DS.

pekk5• 13 years ago

Android games are not Linux games at all. They only work inside Dalvik VM with Google's APIs. Linux is not even relevant to them. And, these mobile games are almost always little puzzlers, platformers, stuff like Angry Birds.

Windows is still the premier platform for fancy big-budget games and Android doesn't seem to be going there any time soon.

testimoney24• 13 years ago

There is a "Is 20xx, the year of Linux gaming" thread somewhere every year.

http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=2021249

ramayac• 13 years ago

And there is someone who always beat me to post this answer :)

W4RH4WK• 13 years ago

probably not this year.. but 'soon'. from my point of view, linux is a great choice for gaming, not only that this 'platform' is much more open than windows/mac, it's also extremely lightweight compared to windows. we have already seen that great games can be created using opengl (Rage for example).

looking forward to the day i'll finally purge windows from my hard drive. installing linux and playing some recently released AAA titles^^

qompiler• 13 years ago

There used to be these articles with the title "The year of the Linux mobile phone" around 2006. If anything we will see something like Android /using/ Linux. Linux is, after all, just a kernel. Having said that, the gaming platform (The Android OS if you will) of 2013 will probably be HTML5.

pekk5• 13 years ago

Steam has now officially launched its Linux client, rounded up a surprising number of Linux games, and is selling all of them at a decent discount for a week. It's do or die time for games on Linux. There is currently no such effort for HTML5 games and I can't see what the advantage would be in making yet another incompatible platform on top of the Linux kernel.

darxius• 13 years ago

I'm not sure I like the position of the comma in the title.

bernardom• 13 years ago

The NYT grammar blog had an excellent entry on this: http://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/05/21/the-most-com...

The author, a college professor, lamented how many students still come to his class making this mistake.

pessimizer• 13 years ago

I didn't even understand the position of the comma in this title until I mentally removed the "is." Maybe the headline writer has a first language that is more regular.

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.

edit: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zero_copula

evck• 13 years ago

The real question is: "Is 2007 the year of the Linux Desktop?"

pekk5• 13 years ago

It wasn't, largely because of games. PC clones sold for years under the thinnest pretense that they were business machines, with games being one of the biggest reasons people bought them.

dasloop2• 13 years ago

The year of Linux gaming? no. Will Valve use Linux for a gaming console? Yes. Similar but not the same.

jiggy201111• 13 years ago

Not sure if I see the distinction. Whenever a linux based system becomes popular for some use people always seem to make the claim "but that's not really Linux". I'm not really sure what the definition of real Linux is.

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.

dasloop2• 13 years ago

Why Valve will be interested in Linux gaming? A linux based console (or whatever a console will be in 2013) makes sense and, as a by-product, supporting some Linux distros (mainly for development). I can imagine that not all the distros will be supported. So, Ubuntu gaming maybe.

dagw• 13 years ago

Not sure if I see the distinction.

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.

brudgers5• 13 years ago

No. SteamBox is vapor. There is no EA FIFA. And there are no significant Linux only titles.

pekk5• 13 years ago

If Steam can get viable business out of selling indie and smaller-publisher games then that is self-sustaining even if Linux does not take over the entire industry (FIFA, Deer Hunter, etc.)

brudgers5• 13 years ago

They may be able to make a business out of it. For it to be the Year of Linux gaming, publishers need to be doing so. I can still run Solitaire on my Windows 2000 laptop, but that doesn't make it a gaming platform in the sense implied by the article. Few people are going on eBay to pick up a Windows 2000 laptop for gaming, likewise, few people are going to install Linux in order to run games.

jiggy201111• 13 years ago

It seems a bit harsh to call something that was only announced as being in development a couple of months ago "vapour".

Shorel4• 13 years ago

Most big titles are multi platform nowadays.

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.

DigitalSea• 13 years ago

I doubt 2013 is the year of Linux gaming because lets be honest everyone has been saying 20xx is the year of Linux is some aspect. However, the support behind Linux appears to be stronger compared to 2007. I don't want to speculate Windows 8 was behind it, but it kind of is (Gabe from Valve expressed his disdain for Windows and their new app store model a while back).

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.

illumen• 13 years ago

Android is linux.

brudgers5• 13 years ago

The goalposts are moving. That's not what the article claims.

testimoney24• 13 years ago

As a developer I find Linux very annoying to use. I have tried Ubuntu on different boxes, even on powerful gaming computers, but it doesn't seem as stable as Windows 8 does. Launching programs, or switching between windows has sometimes a little bit of lag (and I'm on an i7, 8gb of ram etc...) I hate having the slightest bit of lag. For me it would be easier to work on linux, but its just not as nice to use as Windows 8 is.

pimeys4• 13 years ago

Or then you have a super fast, super productive desktop with no distractions. Depends how you configure it. Here's mine. (the configs can be stored to github, of course)

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)

BCM43• 13 years ago

What desktop environment are you using? That can change things a lot. I find the default Debian Gnome3 to be pretty good.

wting• 13 years ago

3D desktops are not at the responsiveness level of Windows or OS X despite improvements over the years.

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.

Shorel4• 13 years ago

There's work underway to make Unity faster. I expect Raring Ringtail 13.04 to have a lot of improvements in that area.

EthanHeilman• 13 years ago

The biggest change for 2013 is that microsoft is throwing PC gaming under the bus and trying to move all gaming to the consoles. Evidence, you want evidence:

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.

gosu• 13 years ago

What you're saying is reasonable, but I'm amused by the fact that the standard template for this discussion is NOT "it's the year of the Linux desktop, I just know it!" but rather:

"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!"

lost_name• 13 years ago

This might be a little naive, but I'll ask.

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?

pekk5• 13 years ago

Neither. http://store.steampowered.com/sale/linux_release/ is currently showing off their Linux sale, you can page through the games they are selling and become less naive/unaware of what is out there. It's no Windows, but there are some games.

brudgers5• 13 years ago

One of them is Half-Life. It's fifteen years old.

http://store.steampowered.com/app/70/?snr=1_614_615_linuxrel...

XBigTK13X• 13 years ago

That's a great question.

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.

AUmrysh• 13 years ago

I think there is a real possibility that Linux will be a legitimate gaming platform from this point on thanks to steam and html5 games, it will still take a few years to knock MS off their throne due to the proprietary nature of DirectX and the perceived ease of development using it. When almost every game is supported on Windows, it will take a serious effort (like the steam box) to change that paradigm. The only reason I still use windows is because of the gaming. Wine helps a lot here as well, but it's not perfect. Developers will have to see the benefit of targeting linux before it becomes the platform for gaming.

Shorel4• 13 years ago

The point is not 'the perceived ease of development' or something technical like that.

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.

rrreese• 13 years ago

I don't see anything in this space attracting Windows gamers to Linux, but if you are already a Linux user, things are getting better.

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.

jiggy201111• 13 years ago

It is early days yet, proving any market for Linux games at all is big at this point.

Linux has always had a hurdle in the (probably mostly wrong) assumption that Linux users will pathologically not pay for software.

niggler• 13 years ago

Linux had always had a hurdle in the correct assumption that uniform Linux support is difficult (playing the distro game is difficult when supporting redhead-based and Debian-based distributions) and there's nothing that will change the landscape.

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.

mhaymo• 13 years ago

Assumptions have nothing to do with it. As John Carmack has stated[1], games have been released to Linux, and they have mostly failed to make money. The only major exception that comes to mind are the Humble Bundles, whose unique business model makes them a special case.

[1] http://www.reddit.com/r/linux/comments/17x0sh/john_carmack_a...

spacelizard5• 13 years ago

Why would GNU/Linux users pay to use proprietary software? As long as these games are proprietary, they will only see adoption among recent Windows converts who want the same experience. What's the point? I mean I get it that Windows 8 is bad, but I've seen the same share of gripes about Unity.

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.

charlesju• 13 years ago

As a mobile game developer it's strange that no one has brought up the obvious conclusion that Linux will win because Android will win.

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.

smogzer• 13 years ago

The two games i enjoyed the most in 2012 were played in linux: FTL Faster Than light, Redrogue. I don't care much about fancy graphics, i prefer a good story and gameplay.

programminggeek• 13 years ago

OUYA and Steam Box are going to make a dent, but it's going to be because of the economics of it more than anything else. Both Steam and OUYA are software that rely on companies like Apple, Samsung, nVidia, AMD, and Intel to spend billions of dollars on hardware R&D and they can just run their software stores on top of them. That makes the economics of putting out a box that hooks up to a TV and plays games a lot better.

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.

spacelizard5• 13 years ago

> SteamBox is going to be basically the same story only at a $200-300 price point

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.

jiggy201111• 13 years ago

There's a qualitative difference between the games you can economically produce for a $5 launch price vs what you can produce for a $60 launch price.

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.

AdrianRossouw2• 13 years ago

I could see this happening, but more in the sense that 2013 is where linux gaming becomes a reality. Not that 2013 is going to be the year that linux gaming becomes dominant.

Is 2013, the year of Linux gaming?

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