Date: Tue, 9 Jan 2007 17:51:05 +0100
From: Adrian Bunk <bunk@stusta.de>
To: Lennart Sorensen <lsorense@csclub.uwaterloo.ca>
Cc: Dirk <d_i_r_k_@gmx.net>, Kasper Sandberg <lkml@metanurb.dk>,
       Helge Hafting <helge.hafting@aitel.hist.no>,
       Jay Vaughan <jv@access-music.de>,
       Trent Waddington <trent.waddington@gmail.com>,
       linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org
Subject: Re: Gaming Interface
Message-ID: <20070109165105.GM25007@stusta.de>
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On Tue, Jan 09, 2007 at 11:04:44AM -0500, Lennart Sorensen wrote:
> On Tue, Jan 09, 2007 at 08:22:20AM +0100, Dirk wrote:
> > If there is no problem with Linux gaming I should shut the hell up and 
> > start buying all these Linux games I keep hearing about and seeing in 
> > those TV commercials.
> 
> There is no problem with linux gaming.  There is a problem with game
> development companies and their marketing decisions.  Unless you somehow
> make linux have 100% compatible directx and able to natively execute
> windows code, the game companies aren't going to give a @#$#.  They have
> a limited budget and for them it is more important to aim for 99% of the
> market than 100% of the market if it means saving 20 or 30% in
> development costs.  Even if it saves 5% in development cost, it makes
> sense financially.

It could also simply be that a developer adding a new feature or fixing 
a few bugs is generating more income than a developer working on a 
Linux port.

And no matter how much money you have, you can't always solve such 
issues by adding more developers.

> Some companies of course realize that the installation base does not
> always equal the gamer installation base and write portable code in the
> first place using abstraction layers where needed, and stick to opengl
> and such.  This is why quake, and other titles from ID are ported to
> linux and mac and such.  Some companies believe the hype from microsoft
> about directx and write for that instead, which makes the games not
> portable to mac or linux or anything else.

This is no hype, this is reality.

Microsoft has a an enormous market share at the desktop.
And among hardcore gamers an even larger one.

> The problem is not that linux doesn't have any decent stable api for
> games.  The problem is that it isn't directx which is what a lot of
> companies believe they want to use.
>...

DirectX is simply _the_ state of the art technology you have to use in 
some areas of game development if you don't want to make your game 
technically inferior before you even started developing.

> Len Sorensen

cu
Adrian

-- 

       "Is there not promise of rain?" Ling Tan asked suddenly out
        of the darkness. There had been need of rain for many days.
       "Only a promise," Lao Er said.
                                       Pearl S. Buck - Dragon Seed

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