I have a horrible feeling the Linux gaming community will start to go the
way the Amiga gaming scene went many years ago, which will be a real shame
Only if we let it, through apathy or gross incompetence, and I think either is unlikely. But we’re not going to see any massive growth overnight.
Linux started out as a grassroots platform with no commercial support. So has the Linux gaming scene. The Linux kernel developers created a world-class OS kernel with many innovative features and more efficient implementations of old features. And yet Windows NT has more marketshare than Linux; not due to technical superiority (questionable at best), but due to mindshare as a result of marketing and PR. (I’m not bashing Microsoft here; it is a fact that MS’s marketing engine is huge in comparison with the various commerical Linux marketing departments.)
Microsoft’s DirectX is extremely popular among game developers. SDL may well have a better API; I think so at least. But go to the bookstore sometime and compare the number of DirectX books to the number of SDL books. It is no surprise that DX is more widely used than SDL, even though SDL is much more portable, easier to learn, and fully open.
I think the Linux gaming scene is about where the Linux kernel was in 1994 or so. There is a lot of promise, and there are plenty of interested developers, but for now we are pretty much on our own. Nobody has really heard of us. The groundwork is in place; between SDL, OpenAL, Crystal Space, ClanLib, Allegro, Ogg Vorbis, and other libraries too numerous to name, we have a formidable multimedia platform. As these projects improve, they will gain more mindshare (through word of mouth, largely), and become more compelling for serious game development. Loki has proven that Linux and its associated toolkits can handle today’s games; the next step is to make these toolkits desirable for mainstream game development, not through marketing but through simple superiority to the commercial alternatives. We don’t have extensive financial resources to throw at the problem, but we do have massive amounts of technical skill.
It’s an API war, and currently the battle is uphill. But not impossible, if we care enough to see it through. Like I said earlier, the only things that can block us are apathy and gross incompetence, and I don’t think the latter is an issue with this group. If we as a community fail to provide a viable alternative to the Windows multimedia platform, we should not be surprised to see interest in Linux as a whole decline.
I for one don’t buy the argument that Linux belongs in the server room and not on the desktop. Without at least a reasonable level of desktop usability (document processing, music, games, ability to view media files), I believe Linux development will slow down drastically. (That’s a two-way relationship, by the way.)
That’s my $0.02; no refunds.
-JohnOn Fri, Jan 25, 2002 at 06:19:25PM -0000, Sweeney, Steven (FNB) wrote:
That bit about pirating games is very very similar too. I can’t understand
why some member of the community that want more ports of bigger titles
pirate games and then bitch about no support.
Sorry… rant over.
-----Original Message-----
From: Sam Lantinga [SMTP:slouken at devolution.com]
Sent: Friday, January 25, 2002 5:57 PM
To: sdl at libsdl.org
Subject: [SDL] icculus.org news
Many of the open source projects previously hosted by Loki have been
moved over to Ryan’s game development site: icculus.org
Among the many projects hosted there are SMPEG, SMJPEG, and OpenAL.
I will be updating the web site this weekend.
On a more personal note, since I am fairly close to Loki and care
about the Linux gaming scene, I suggest that anyone who is interested
in either check out Ryan’s announcement:
http://www.icculus.org/news/news.php?id=209
See ya,
-Sam Lantinga, Software Engineer, Blizzard Entertainment
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SDL at libsdl.org
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SDL mailing list
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–
John R. Hall - Resident, Sol System, 3rd Planet Out
Student, Georgia Tech; Author, Programming Linux Games
