ubuntu-gaming team mailing list archive

[Ingo Ruhnke <grumbel@xxxxxxxxx>]

2009/5/24 Tim Wells <timnwells@xxxxxxxxx>:
> I have to agree here, promoting the use of wine to play commercial games
> does nothing towards FOSS gaming or promoting ubuntu.

The point of promoting commercial/Windows games on Linux is that it
promotes Linux as a useful platform for all your needs, as gaming
tends to be the need that is nowhere near to be full filled by FOSS
software anytime soon. And as mentioned before, how is playing a
non-free game really any different then watching a non-free movie? It
might be better to have both of them Free, but that isn't going to
happen anytime soon, so you pick the next best thing: The ability to
run them on a Free platform.

> The problem being that commercial games have the time and money to invest in engines, storylines,
> etc etc.

Yes and that isn't going to change. FOSS gaming is light years away
from commercial AAA game titles and things are only getting worse over
time, since the polish that gets put into commercial games is
constantly increasing at an insane rate. Now that doesn't mean that
FOSS gaming can't do anything, games such as World of Goo or Braid are
widely popular and certainly not that far away from FOSS games, so
with enough effort there is certainly potential to produce some good
FOSS games, but getting anywhere near a game such as Metal Gear 4 is
not going happen.

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