ubuntu-gaming team mailing list archive

[Olaf Piesche <opiesche@xxxxxxxxx>]

I agree with the combination of commercial vs. FOSS games. I realize that
FOSS gaming is set as the focus point of this group, but I also believe that
we'd automatically lock away a large amount of potential high quality games
by ignoring the commercial factor.
Sorry to keep hammering on this, but as for the perceived reasons for the
lack of commercial game development, *the only real reason for a studio to
not develop a game on the Linux track* additionally to, say, 360, PS3 and
Windows, is the cost vs. expense relationship, and it's often not even the
developers themselves that we need to worry about.
Developers are almost always either fully owned by a publisher, or have a
project funded by a publisher. These contracts include which platforms the
game is being developed on, and the funding usually does not include
development on Linux - so this is something the studio would have to do
after the other platforms ship, on their own time - if the contract is even
permissive enough to allow for distribution of the game on a different
platform, or if they can talk their publisher into supporting it. Once their
project ships, however, they're usually worrying about other things - for
example, which project to try to get funding for next in order to keep the
company running.
So, as for big huge commercial development, it's not really as much the
studios we have to convince. It's the people who fund the development of
games - the publishers, and that's going to be a tough nut to crack. A big
AAA title isn't considered a success until >1.5M units sold (because it took
two years and $20M to develop). Even if the game is a straight port to Linux
and doesn't involve much additional development or content creation time, a
big-time publisher is unlikely to consider it except under one of the
following conditions:
-The Linux port would with certainty sell more than 300K units
-The publisher does not take responsibility for customer service, marketing
or distribution of the additional platform, or ideally, is even involved
with development of the port

The second here being the reason why LGP has been somewhat successful in
bringing commercial games to Linux.  It's a harsh reality, but if we want
big, commercial games on Linux, we have to get several hundreds of thousands
of people to buy them.

That being said, I think there are avenues we can use. Steam is a huge
factor in PC gaming, simply because it cuts the traditional publisher and
distributor out of the picture, which really enables independent developers,
and happens to skew the numbers in our favor. Independent games are already
having big successes, partially on and through platforms like Steam, and
independent developers are much more likely to take on the additional work
of porting to another platform.
I believe independent games is where the best chance of Linux as a gaming
platform lies. No publishers, enormous contracts, and scary legal teams
involved, and potential big successes to be had. If we can get lots of
successful, independent, commercial games on the platform, the big, huge,
AAA titles will eventually follow suit, because the big publishers will
eventually not want to miss out on that slice of the pie.
They just have to be sure that there's a pie to begin with, and I think that
independent developers eating it is the best way to show it to them ;)


Sorry for being so wordy. Didn't realize this was going to be so much until
I was done ;)



On Wed, May 13, 2009 at 3:32 AM, Ryan Swart <serjndestroy@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:

> 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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>> Post to     : ubuntu-gaming@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
>> Unsubscribe : https://launchpad.net/~ubuntu-gaming<https://launchpad.net/%7Eubuntu-gaming>
>> More help   : https://help.launchpad.net/ListHelp
>>
>
>
> _______________________________________________
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>
>