you are a very admirable developer for using and supporting Linux, you already got some fans for that, I guarantee it.

And I’m getting your games to support you .

The answer is simple:

There aren’t many Linux gamers because developers still don’t write games for Linux.

It’s a chicken-or-egg problem, make games available for Linux and there will be A LOT of Linux gamers overnight, I guarantee it.

There is a lot of cases of Windows gamers wanting to switch from Windows to Linux completely but they still can’t because the game is not available or Wine wont run it yet.

So make the games for Linux available and you will see how the numbers of Linux gamers grow.

Another misconception is how the Linux’s 1%-3% of desktop market is insignificant. That’s still an enormous number of users. As discussed in our essay, “The Loki Demise”, the problem was fundamentally their business plan to release a Linux port 9-19 months after the initial Windows release, at a higher price, and when the original could be found at a discount. Today, just like back then, people buy the cheaper version or the earlier release, when the two versions run on the same architecture. (Take a look at Savage 2 and Unreal 3, for modern examples. Both got the Linux community excited by promises of a same-day cross-platform release, but then they did not fulfill this promise. Witness the Linux users breaking down and reluctantly buying the Windows-only versions anyway.)

So, those are really the two big misconceptions we are trying to clear up with the LGW website: that there’s no commercial game, and that there’s no market for developing on Linux.

Also, I want to applaud Troy Hepfner, above, for being such a champion of Linux gaming. His compendium on GameDev is the only complete and up-to-date Linux game development guide that I know.

They are publishers of Savage 2, and Savage. They have done a fair job of keeping the linux crowd in the loop.

We also develop our games on Linux and port to the other platforms. We use a simple text editor (NEdit) and Makefiles, and ddd for our debugger. While it isn’t a nice integrated solution like Visual Studio, we get along just fine. And I like the simplicity of this system – compiles go very fast, and everything is much more responsive than VS. Plus there are some extremely useful free tools for Linux development, such as Valgrind for finding memory errors and leaks. Valgrind works better than Purify, and you can’t beat the cost. But it only works on Linux.

Plus, I don’t think I have to point out that when I’m developing on Linux, I don’t have to worry about spyware, viruses, or malware interrupting my work. Or my virus scanner kicking in and bringing the responsiveness of my system to a crawl.

We run our business entirely on Linux, from development, art and sound production, bookkeeping, office programs, etc.

I would be happy to talk more about this with anyone who is interested. You can e-mail me at info@mygamecompany.com.

For this to work, it has to be FOSS model. A paid model won’t work, as Loki found out. There can be a symbiosis between a proprietary software company and FOSS. The result is more games for us, and a (slightly) bigger profit base for the game developer at very little monetary cost.

The developers get a free game out of it and a credit in the credit list.

Everyone wins. I’d do it.

Providing the source code isn’t necessary, just the binaries, but very early in the internal alpha process of a new game so you can identify issues early and possibly get some cooperation early on resolving issues.

By comparison if you use the cedega model, it’s not as good. They have a limited set of developers. We’d have everyone else. It’s not rocket science.

That’s the best way to get wine packages made. Start a project like cedega, only use the FOSS model. Call it the GoWINE(Gaming on WINE) project or something. Build debian(and ubuntu), red hat, gentoo, SuSE, slackware etc packages and build them correctly. Also provide a tar file for just untarring in drive_c with a registry patch.

Develop a relationship with the various gaming studios to get them to release alphas to the GoWINE developers so the linux packages are ready on gold day.

We could also submit patches back to the WINE direct x developers for evaluation and possible inclusion in the WINE project where they deem the patch appropriate, well written, and meeting standards.

Of course the cedega guys would put a hit out on you ROFL. I bet it would work very effectively. The game studios might even start throwing incentives at the project to get priority if it became well regarded >wink