[Linux-aus] Computer users and linux: moving upstream to software producers.

[Chris McCormick]

Hi Janeene,

On Mon, Feb 12, 2007 at 09:37:38AM +1100, Janeene Beeforth wrote:
> Look further into the games development, and you find that the *tools*
> used to produce the games (stuff like havok, gamebryo, etc) will only
> produce games for Windows or Windows consoles. This means that the
> developers of the game get tied to a specific OS by the tools that they
> feel are required to be able to develop the game.

Anecdotal evidence to the contrary; I was doing some contract work
for a USA company on a video game last year, and was faced with the
ridiculous situation where their entire toolchain was built from FOSS
parts, but I had to run it under Wine because they had undertaken the
immensely laborious task of porting the whole stack to Windows, instead
of just building the ROM under a much cleaner, more stable Linux-based
development environment.

I have a feeling that FOSS tools are becoming more and more common in
commercial game development, because they're simply better than their
proprietary counterparts. For example, I am hearing a lot more people
in the industry using Python, a language that was early-adopted by us
Linux folks.

> Getting together information about the tools that *can* be used to produce
> cross-platform (Linux/MAC/Win) games *of at least* the same standard as
> recent releases (shaders, physics, etc). For example, if you were to
> produce a game like Oblivion as a cross-platform game rather then
> Windows-only, what  tools are available to duplicate this development? Are
> there any tools that are currently missing?

The entire games sector is changing rapidly. One of the fastest growing
segments of the market is casual games. The demographic is 76% women
and 71% over 40. They are not spending their money on games that use
top of the line shaders and physics engines. The tools to write these
kind of games are available and being used right now under Linux.

Here is a quote from the CEO of Popcap Games who create mostly 2d, casual
games and are immensely successful doing so:

> Our audience is 76% women, 71% over the age of 40, 2/3 married. Only
> half have graduated from college, and 2/3 work part or full time. Only
> 10% are stay-at-home moms (ie, these are not your classic suburban
> soccer moms). They are hard-core casual game players, for the most
> part - 77% have been playing casual games for 3+ years, and 57% play
> games daily, with 52% playing 5 hours a week or more. As has been
> widely reported, they play games to unwind and relieve stress.  Most
> gameplay happens at home, not work. Many of our users do not have
> credit cards. Average household income is lower than you might think.

It's definately not just about high-end glossy 3d games any more. We can
compete in smarter ways than that. Remember; The Sims was the highest
selling game of all time, and the people that bought it are the same
people described above. A game like that could easily have been made,
and made to run under Linux.

The problem isn't the tools, we have excellent tools.

Best,

Chris.

-------------------
chris at mccormick.cx
http://mccormick.cx