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General / Re: Supported Platforms
« on: July 07, 2007, 10:01:02 am »
I'd love to see your game on Linux.
I'm normally much more willing to buy a game if it's got a Linux port. About 100% more willing
Small title games tend to get a lot more attention by the Linux Game community, then the Windows. The Linux game community is small, but is starving for games, and with small titles it's best to cover as many potential customers as you can. The size of the "Linux Gamers" community isn't well know, but last I check the game RTCW:Enemy Territories was reporting a total of 12,000+ Linux clients playing, about a month ago. More then the number of Windows clients, although it is an older game, and the Windows users have most likely moved to other games, or aren't using XQF. The Linux users like my self have also moved on as well, to games like Quake 4, Doom 3, Defcon, and oddly enough World of Warcraft (using Wine), so I would assume that this number is far less then the actual number. I personally haven't player RTCW:ET in about three years, I'm waiting for Quake Wars.
Also many Linux Gamers are willing to buy games ported to Linux, more then ones that use Wine layered on top. It's more or less the idea of helping a weak area in the Linux community, and that's high quality games that natively run on Linux. Many are willing to over looked the closed source, just to play a good game.
As for the complexity of porting, it matters what was originally used to make the game, and how neat, and tidy your code is. Moving from DirectX to OpenGL can be a trick but it's not impossible. Linux is full of libraries for games like SDL, and OpenAL. If you make a Linux port, the Mac OS X port wouldn't take very long, considering the fact that almost all the most popular libraries for making games, are also available for Mac OS X.
I don't really care about the open sourcing of games, because they are so fleeting.
I'm normally much more willing to buy a game if it's got a Linux port. About 100% more willing
Small title games tend to get a lot more attention by the Linux Game community, then the Windows. The Linux game community is small, but is starving for games, and with small titles it's best to cover as many potential customers as you can. The size of the "Linux Gamers" community isn't well know, but last I check the game RTCW:Enemy Territories was reporting a total of 12,000+ Linux clients playing, about a month ago. More then the number of Windows clients, although it is an older game, and the Windows users have most likely moved to other games, or aren't using XQF. The Linux users like my self have also moved on as well, to games like Quake 4, Doom 3, Defcon, and oddly enough World of Warcraft (using Wine), so I would assume that this number is far less then the actual number. I personally haven't player RTCW:ET in about three years, I'm waiting for Quake Wars.
Also many Linux Gamers are willing to buy games ported to Linux, more then ones that use Wine layered on top. It's more or less the idea of helping a weak area in the Linux community, and that's high quality games that natively run on Linux. Many are willing to over looked the closed source, just to play a good game.
As for the complexity of porting, it matters what was originally used to make the game, and how neat, and tidy your code is. Moving from DirectX to OpenGL can be a trick but it's not impossible. Linux is full of libraries for games like SDL, and OpenAL. If you make a Linux port, the Mac OS X port wouldn't take very long, considering the fact that almost all the most popular libraries for making games, are also available for Mac OS X.
I don't really care about the open sourcing of games, because they are so fleeting.