ubuntu-gaming team mailing list archive

[Ryan Swart <serjndestroy@xxxxxxxxx>]

One question though, which team is covering the development of software that
enables Ubuntu (or Linux as a whole) to be considered as a viable gaming
platform? Not software that enables the development of games, but software
that promotes games and the communities around them..

In my opinion, It's more than a packaging issue and it's more than a LoCo
events issue.

To get back to the topic that the op stated, "identifying obstacles in
ubuntu gaming and pushing it forwards"( something that I feel has been
covered before, but never really set in stone somewhere)

As I see the situation (regarding advertising "ubuntu as a gaming
platform"):

We lack a *large quantity* of *quality games* (no linux game rivals any
other "platform selling" game. )

So, in order to get a *large quantity* of *quality games* we need:

1. Commercial Support: (Root of problem is marketing based, so we might be
able to influence it, also has a few technical issues)

   - Large game companies say the profit margin for developing games on
   linux is too low due to:
      - The perception that linux users don't pay for software
      - The perception that linux users aren't interested in games
      - The perception that gamers who use linux dual boot for gaming
      purposes
      - The fact that there way fewer linux users than Windows and even Mac
      users (interesting point too, if Macs cant get developers to
support them,
      how will linux?)
      - Large game companies complain that development is too difficult due
   to
      - Large amount of distros that need to be covered
      - Percieved hardware issues (fuddy, I know, but that's what they say)

Roughly, we can change all of the percieved problems. I could factor in Indy
devs, but they aren't platform sellers.

Also, WINE and its associated arguments.

2. FOSS Game quantity & quality: (Root of this problem is technical and
community based, so we might be able to influence it slightly)

   - Small/Low incentive to develop
   - Leads to few trained/proffessional game developers
   - Large amount of work until game is usable
   - Different contributor pool

Of course, these points aren't as relevent if we stop looking at Linux as a
"gaming platform" and turn down the expectations, but you can't market
linux/ubuntu is equivalent to windows or consoles until those above problems
are addressed and we have the games to back up those claims.

On Wed, May 13, 2009 at 7:20 AM, sakuramboo <sakuramboo@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:

> Arc Riley wrote:
>
>> On Tue, May 12, 2009 at 7:29 PM, Pedro Sosa <sosavpm@xxxxxxxxx <mailto:
>> sosavpm@xxxxxxxxx>> wrote:
>>
>>    Hello to everyone
>>    I was even thinking that as a FPS engine we should use the Quake
>>    engine, OGRE for the RPGs maybe, there is anotherone called the
>>    Genesis3D don't know much about it
>>
>>
>> Who is this "we"?
>>
>> The Ubuntu Gaming Team is not involved with the development of games, nor
>> is there one solution for the free software gaming community in any genre of
>> game.
>>
>> I strongly feel that everyone on this list needs to become much more aware
>> of the politics surrounding these issues.  I know it was not intended, but a
>> few people in the Debian Games Team (which packages games for Ubuntu) have
>> already become miffed at some of the initiatives taken by members of this
>> team in assigning bugs and proposing fixing the games packaging situation
>> (which they know little about).
>>
>> Similarly proposing specific library projects (ie, toolkit, game engine,
>> etc) will only serve to alienate the alternative projects.  In the above
>> example, if I were to read the above email out of context I would be fairly
>> irked by it as the maintainer of another game engine, as would developers
>> and maintainers of many other game engines.
>>
>> We, the Ubuntu Gaming Team, need to focus on promoting Ubuntu as a gaming
>> platform and less about trying to decide what software or methods should be
>> used to build games or what versions of which games are packaged.  There are
>> other groups, many other groups, you can join if those are your interests.
>>
>> It's seriously confusing everyone to see this sort of discussion taking
>> place here.
>> ------------------------------------------------------------------------
>>
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>>
> I agree with you Arc. This project is about getting the word out there that
> Ubuntu (Linux in general, for that matter) is a viable OS to use for gaming.
> I don't agree completely that we should push more for FOSS gaming, but that
> is a whole other discussion and not really what the scope of this discussion
> is about.
>
> Ryan Gordon said it best. (Paraphrasing) "We shouldn't push Linux as the
> alternative. We should push EVERYTHING as an alternative." In the context of
> this discussion, we shouldn't single out one or two game engines. We should
> be pushing EVERY game engine. We should be pushing for the concept of
> cross-platform game development. To give people a choice for what OS they
> want on their computer. To make the excuse of, "I use Windows because I'm a
> gamer," totally irrelevant.
>
>
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>