flux

As a developer I'm not saying that. Way too painful right now to develop for. It may be free but from my point of view it isn't better. I'll use it as a server but not on my desktop.

Even my university is making a transition over to MS from linux. They went from 80% unix based when I was an undergrad 10 or so years ago to being 80% MS based today. We use to have to make sure our apps were able to compile on both platforms, now linux isn't much of a priority.

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flux
[tg-c1]

SmokingTarpan

Curious, how do you come to the conclusion that it's what the market wants? Are you talking the computer user market as a whole? The gamer's market? The graphic designer's market?

As I see it, the general computing market desires an OS that requires little to zero thinking in order to use, that is easy to update and that works with just about any piece of soft/hardware they get with minimal fuss. That's not Linux. I would venture to say that even gamers in general desire the same thing, though those of us that are more technical/eccentric might be willing to put up with more difficulties.

Take a look here (yes, I know, wiki):
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Compari...dows_and_Linux

and here (scroll down for OS stats):
http://www.w3schools.com/browsers/browsers_stats.asp

Windows has roughly 90% of the market, while Linux has about 3.3%, and Apple 3.5%. If I'm a developer, I know where I'm spending my money. Dump millions in development on the small chance that Linux will suddenly bump out Windows? Not likely.

Now, the interesting question that pops up: If Apple and Linux are so similar in market share, why are companies willing to develop for one but not the other? All other technical issues aside, the answer is marketing/budget and having a single unity. Linux has neither. I mean, we see MS/Apple commercials on television all the time, but when is the last time you saw one for SUSE Linux? Note though, that in terms of hardware and games, there's still far more development that goes to Windows platforms than Mac. Warcraft is one of the very, very few games that hit both systems.

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[squadl]
"I am the prettiest african-american, vietnamese..cong..person." -SugarNCamo

flux

Well I do think that MS is making it harder for some people to "acquire" their OS. The price is getting up there and with activation over the web they are making it harder to keep your copy invisible from Bill. I know I was turned off by the price and if I hadn't gotten my copy for free I'm not sure I would upgrade anytime soon. Having said that vista is coming pre-installed on newer machines so this really only applies to enthusiasts.

I suspect more people will venture into linux over the coming years, but if someone doesn't pick up the slack and make it a more user friendly desktop OS then I think Vista/OSX will be the only practical choices.

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flux
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AzrealDarkmoon

Cost of MS License doesn't matter to the average end consumer. Its bundled with the hardware. Now lets say for instance cost dropped 100 bucks for a non MS package at walmart/bestbuy/dell. Initial surge based on price alone and then returns up the wazoo when their video games did not work, when websites refused to work, when excel sheets didn't open up properly that there Tech cousin programmed a VBA macro to do there taxes in and so on.

Az

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gunjunkie

Several good points already listed...

QA costs, for one. Install base, for two, are probably the biggest reasons.
Three is an interesting one, that hasn't really been mentioned before. Most Linux users are not used to paying for software. There was a rush of linux ports and original games in around the 1999/2000 timeframe. Without exception, these failed commercially. Most Linux users at the time were suspicious of closed, for pay code (including games), therefore, the studios doing this folded almost to a studio. Loki was probably the most prolific, and their head Linux guy went on to work for Blizzard. About the only group who have had any success with Linux based releases are iD, mostly, imho, because they have freed the quake sources as their new iteration comes out, and have gained a lot of trust from the free software advocates (who still make up the majority of Linux users).

Maybe the landscape is different now, but I think a new company would be hard pressed to convince investors to fund a Linux games company. Existing companies, with rare exceptions, won't do it for cost reasons, or because they are tied to DirectX.

Having said that, back in the day, UT on Linux outperformed UT on windows by 20%, which tells you a lot about the cruft that exists within the win32 kernel. Linux, with the quality graphics drivers, and a correctly tuned kernel would smoke a windows install any day of the week, performance wise. There is just no easy way to make that accessable to the consumer, however.

Sadly, you can view Vista and DX10 as another move by microsoft to ensure that Linux never becoimes a viable gaming platform, and to kill off what support there is in OSX for games too. The less developers who use open standards like OGL, the less chance of a game ever appearing on a non MS platform.

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Do or do not, there is no try....
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AzrealDarkmoon

I dont think its the Win32 Kernel where the problem occurs, from all my experience the NT Kernel performs just as good as linux, its the cruft on top of it that gets in the way.

Az

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xTYBALTx

Is Vista/DX10 going to change this at all? I recall (vaguely) hearing about this a while back - something about Vista turning off nonessentials when gaming.

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perry

Loki published quite a few games for Linux, but it seems as if they weren't a viable enterprise..

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Twisted_Firestarter

The simple answer: Teeny tiny user base. Horrible dev tools. Crappy driver support. No budget to do so.

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Twisted Firestarter
a.k.a |TG| Harkonian

gunjunkie

Okey... Fair enough, I guess the NT micro kernel is alright. Running stuff like GDI/WinMan and Configuration Manager in kernel space is a bad idea imo, though. The other factor is configurability, at least in my pursuits. With the Linux kernel, I can build the system I need, without having to carry a bunch of baggage. I guess we're digressing though...

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Do or do not, there is no try....
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gunjunkie

I'll disagree respectfully with that one point. Rest of it is pretty much spot on.

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Do or do not, there is no try....
-- Yoda, Dagobah

Twisted_Firestarter

I originally had, "compared to the Windows platform" tacked to the end of that sentence. If I add that back do you still disagree? Because there are very few game-specific dev tools for Linux flavors. All the custom 3D tools, game engine dev tools, etc that game companies have been developing and tweaking for the last 5 years are not available on Linux.

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Twisted Firestarter
a.k.a |TG| Harkonian

AzrealDarkmoon

Linux dev tools are adequate, honestly some of my favorite editors are on Win. Notepad++ for quick n dirty python scripts to VS for my main job of .Net. MonoDevelop is good but not comparable to VS. Eclipse was good the little i used it for JAVA but I could never get it to handle C correctly.

i am no linux guru but i have ubuntu as a VM on a few machines to play around with and if i need something specific, been looking at porting our application to mono for fun but haven't had the time other than a cursory glance.

Az

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Twisted_Firestarter

We are talking about game-specific development tools. These have typically been developed in-house by the game companies. Notepad++ and Python aren't dev tools for games.

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Twisted Firestarter
a.k.a |TG| Harkonian

flux

I'm not sure you can count asset tools such as Max and Maya in the mix as you can create assets on any platform. The real problem is compiler tools and since most big games are written in C the real concern is the IDE. The best tools I have seen on Linux are the KDE IDE and Eclipse + CDT. Both are decent but Visual Studio just makes things so much easier thus increasing productivity.

So yes it is possible and probably not overly difficult but when a Publisher (or whoever is putting up the money) says "How much money do you need to develop on Platform X vs Platform Y" You can bet the Windows platform is going to win out.

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flux
[tg-c1]