ubuntu-gaming team mailing list archive

[Jo-Erlend Schinstad <joerlend.schinstad@xxxxxxxxxx>]

Hello everyone.

I've just joined this team. Reading the Launchpad profile, it seems to
me that this team is mostly about advertising FOSS games. If that's the
case, then this post might seem slightly off-topic, but I still think
it's an important topic.

Diablo 3 is one of the real biggies out there. And from experience, we
know that Blizzard has always been easy to deal with. Now, it's being
reported that Linux users are being banned by Blizzard. I would like to
caution against accepting this as fact. Because as a community, Linux
users and Ubuntu users in particular, are highly connected. We have
#WineHQ on FreeNode and lots of other channels on IRC and elsewhere.
This means that if one of us gets banned for reasons unknown, we talk
about it. Then another user experiences the same and then there is a
pattern. But what we don't see, is whether the problem also affects
users of Windows and OS X or if it affects all users of Wine on Ubuntu.
Because satisfied users doesn't make themselves visible, and Windows and
OS X users are far less connected than we are. For them, it'd be a
direct issue with Blizzard and maybe they'll post it on Facebook for
their friends to see, but it won't hit the media. And Blizzard has no
interest in showing off their difficulties.

In other words; it might seem as if this is related to Wine or Linux
even if it isn't. But if we propogate this rumour prematurely, we might
scare people away from using Ubuntu. Because Diablo 3 really is a big
one. On the flip side, if we can prove that this was an issue on
Blizzards end and that Ubuntu is perfectly able to run Diablo 3, then we
have something really attractive that works to brag about. And, of
course, we want as many Ubuntu users as possible to purchase and play
Diablo 3 because that proves that there is a market for games on Ubuntu.
We really do want Diablo 3 to hit the USC. That would be a big deal.
Might take some time, but if people are using it with Wine without
issues over time, then Blizzard might see the light.

Oh, and I really do love FOSS games as well. I am a total Wesnoth
addict. But I would like to promote blockbuster proprietary games as
well. It proves that Ubuntu is a viable platform for serious games –
free or non-free.

Jo-Erlend Schinstad