[NTLUG:Discuss] Wine presentation

[Steve Baker]

Steve wrote:
> 
> Steve Baker wrote:
> 
> > Daniel Hauck wrote:
> >
> >>Sounds like a chicken-egg thing that might work itself out either way.
> 
> I don't have high hopes for any sort of "let's run this Windows game on top of
> Linux." Games demand a lot from code and hardware. With this type of quicksand,
> non-native solutions that even somewhat consistently perform acceptably would be
> a remarkable achievement.

Yes - but they claim to have gotten The Sims to run - and that crosses a MAJOR
obstacle which is that many Windoze games use Direct-3D (D3D) as their graphics API -
and that doesn't work on native Linux (we have OpenGL instead).  With WINE
supporting D3D, *MANY* more games will at least stand a chance of working.

But you are right - it's a very hard thing to do.

What make this *possible* is that it demands the kinds of skills that OpenSource
projects are good at.

  * It requires a solid target to shoot for.  OpenSource projects that have
    that tend to do much better than vague things like "Lets build a first person
    shooter of some kind".

  * It's better suited to having a large number of people working on different
    parts of it.

  * Much of the work is of the "find a small bug - nail it" variety - and that's
    also something that the Bazaar model of software development is good at.

  * It doesn't require artistic skills. Games do - there are virtually no
    OpenSource artists - and programmers are generally not good at doing
    game-quality artwork.

So, whilst getting WINE to work well enough to run complicated games is
certainly a much harder job than writing native Linux games, it's better
suited to the "hoards of willing helpers" model than designing a game would
be.

> > Well, we've tried the reverse - starving the Linux market of Windoze games
> > to create a market for native Linux games for all those dedicated Linux
> > types who won't boot into Windoze...it didn't work.
> 
> It will be a while. The economics are not yet there for the game market in
> Linux. I think it might've been Carmack who said something like: You make games
> in Windows in hopes of making some money. You port those games for the MacOS in
> hopes of making a marginal amount of money. You port games to Linux for love of
> Linux but you're not doing it for money.

Right - which neatly explains how come Quake is the only succesful commercial
game to date that's been written for Linux and Windoze simultaneously. Carmack
and his *small* team are successful and independent enough to do things the
*WANT* to do.

Every other commercial games house will be totally dominated by the money men -
marketeers - advertisers - the movie companies...the creative team (artists
and programmers) can't just say "we want to make a Linux port - just for
the love of it"...you'd get laughed out of the company.

Games programming is generally a ferocious business (which is why I don't
do it for a living - preferring to write games for fun and give them
away - taking a more relaxing day job instead).

> A lot of people thought Loki did pretty good work, and games are one market
> where the Linux community is actually willing to pay Windows-esque prices. But
> the market isn't large enough to justify the port, and so Loki's in financial
> troubles. Some people think that Loki just had bad business sense, but I suspect
> that it's the Linux game market that's the killer.

They did well within the parameters they set for themselves - but their business
model is fatally flawed by the fact that they can never get a game ported in
zero time.  The long delay between the Windoze game emerging with all the
hoopla and advertising - and Loki finally getting their port out - means that:

 a) Their games look expensive compared to the same game under Windoze
    (which being six months old is now discounted below production costs).

 b) They miss the big advertising campaign that promoted the original game.
    The magazines have long stopped printing reviews and cheats and other
    things that keep the game 'alive'.

 c) All of the other 16 to 20 year olds have already played the Windoze
    version to death and are looking forward to the next big thing.
 
> Or...we could let nature take its course until the Linux desktop is in higher
> numbers. One day, you'll see a small shop just make games for Linux because of
> love and enough money to at least break even. Later, the market will grow large
> enough to maybe justify a port. After that, maybe you get natives. Nothing wrong
> with this; that's how everybody else did it.

Well, that's where the chicken-and-egg thing bites us.  A very large section
of the population want to play games.  The hassle of rebooting into Linux
every time you want to do some non-game thing is enough to stop people from
using it - even for non-games tasks.  Play a game...reboot...write a letter
to my bank manager...reboot...watch a DVD...reboot...update my web page...
reboot...play another game.  That sucks.

So games players don't use Linux - Linux isn't an economic target for
games companies -  so games players don't use Linux.

If WINE allows us to break that cycle - then it can be a fairly short-term
measure.

----------------------------- Steve Baker -------------------------------
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