Since Tales of Monkey Island will be ported to Mac I would like to ask if it will be possible to make a Linux port too.
Perhaps there are some more linux users who would like to play it natively on their system, if so, raise your hand!
*raising hand*
I love Amanita Design for releasing a Linux version for Machinarium, even though it's just a flash game, and I know it's not really comparable to any of Telltale's games.
I'm hoping the iPad release means we're a step closer to a native Linux version. There's no way there are more potential sales in an iPad version, especially seeing as we will probably see iPad equivalents with good sales figures and a Linux core in not too many months.
only reason im using windows is because of the gaming industrys' choice to build on DX.
once programmers realise oGL is the way forward then multi-platform games could well become true.
UT-series has been native linux for a while.
Steam has got a mac client (beta?), which can only be a good thing for linux gaming... move away from DX
end of the day, linux and mac are still a very minority userbase; 2-3% each maybe compared to windows OS.
also, as a generalisation, alot of gamers appear to be going over to consoles. dev houses definitely seem to be favouring consoles. early release dates vs PC, additional content, higher quality mapping etc.
i've been growingly tempted to over the last few months/years purely based on support.
game cost and the fact it doesn't have the perks of a PC are putting me off.
in short, i vote for native linux support. but their needs to be more linux support for linux to be my main OS.
All id Software games are OpenGL too aren't they? At least all their games have Linux clients.
I moved to consoles for several reasons: 1) My computer is severely dated, 2) my power supply isn't powerful enough for my video card and it's starting to show by causing many things like USB ports not to work, 3) I don't have the money to upgrade my PC any time soon, 4) I never have time to go down to my basement to play games anymore anyway. And there's no fiddling with getting games to work. The only thing I dislike is that you have to for an XBox Gold account to play games online. While I understand that it's pretty much the best gaming service ever and worth the money, I just don't have the money. The PS3 is free online but it's not near as good.
This is interesting. Seems the Source engine went OpenGL so that Macs could run Steam games. I wonder how possible it is for native linux clients from Valve at this point...
This is interesting. Seems the Source engine went OpenGL so that Macs could run Steam games. I wonder how possible it is for native linux clients from Valve at this point...
You know, there IS a Steam-Linux-Client out there. You cannot connect to the steam-server (yet), but it's there.
I'd be more than happy if they'd just switch to the Qt launcher for Windows or give us a command line launch option. WINE's implementation of mshtml is unfortunately lousy, it gets patched and broken against gecko all the time. All the TTG launchers were broken from March to September 2009, and it seems they broke it again now in February 2010. The games themselves have worked great for a long time.
Same issue here (Fedora, 64bit) -- I've tried out the demo on Wine which I got to work, but unlocking the full version I purchased online doesn't... Oh well.
There certainly are people interested in native linux games. Just take a look at the Humble Indie Bundle, which was sold last may -- it was sold on pay-what-you-want -basis, and even then it made $1,273,613 -- of which a quarter came from linux users. More information here: http://www.wolfire.com/humble?reddit=yay
If there is interest in porting, there are people who have quite a lot of experience in doing ports who could also be consulted on these issues.
A big +1 for native GNU/Linux support; if they port the Telltale engine, I'm given to understand, most of the Telltale games should run on Linux at once. That isn't to say it's easy, though.
I think the biggest problem is that they use DirectX instead of directly some OpenGL-based framework. The news from today, however, speak of a Linux port of DirectX 11 to run above Gallium3D.
I guess that porting isn't so bad as it sounds. Economically, once you did it once, it should be possible to maintain it without going mad; the real problem is a) testing, b) packaging, c) making sure your libraries don't disappear overnight, due to some new backwards-incompatible release (much less likely it happens on Windows or Mac OS X) - you probably want to static-link to them.
However, even considering the poor state of hardware acceleration support for Linux, it would be difficult for Telltale to say "it's not us, it's your crappy drivers" if the port wasn't up on par with the Windows one. That's bad.
I think that on the long term, the most economically interesting way to make some money out of a Linux port, would be to opensource the engine. I mean:
Do not distribute the Telltale tool.
Put the Telltale engine under the GPL, so that business rivals could not exploit it without releasing source code for all the improvements that could be ported back to the original engine.
Make a marketing campaign about this. Mostly, the GNU/Linux community would tam-tam this out by itself, since it would mean a lot for us. We're always looking for "good" companies releasing source code under the GPL. Thus, free publicity for Telltale.
The community would be responsible for keeping the port compatible; to package it, to make it compile on a pletora of distribution, to improve it to run better on existing hardware.
Free bugfixes.
After this, why would you still buy the game for Telltale? But why, the artwork. The plot. The puzzles. That would still remain of propriety of Telltale, and could not be reproduced without permission.
Many GNU/Linux users would immediately be interested to buy a game from a "good" company; most of us passed nights compiling ScummVM when it was still a beta project, just to run The Secret of Monkey Island again, while on Windows XP it didn't start properly (the Italian version, at least, didn't). Don't underestimate the passion that links GNU/Linux users to adventure games! There are many of us interested.
Really, a half-working port to be opensourced seems the best thing in my opinion, all things considered. After all, here in hell we all run Linux, and that's a huge userbase (there are more people here than in heaven!). ;-)
ok, without reading the whole thread, here are some facts i like to post here, because they come up every time someone talks about a linux port of some windows game:
linux isn’t the text-only operating system with geeky green letters nobody understands, if you don’t want it to be. especially the KDE desktop is graphically very advanced.
linux sure comes in different versions (called “distributions”), but xp and vista are far more different than fedora and debian regarding binary compatibility (meaning “stuff that runs in linux x most likely runs in every other one”)
if a 3D application is already ported from directx to opengl (3d api) and from windows to mac (system architecture), the main deal is done. linux uses opengl, too (like mac) and is a unix-like (like mac, unlike windows).*
a linux port wouldn’t hurt any of the windows users
*of course developing something in opengl from the start is the best choice, because the features which would require e.g. directx 10 or 11 (only for vista or 7) are available in opengl 4 (every windows, linux or mac os), too. there are no disadvantages except there are some more directx developers than opengl developers (microsoft really pulled off a good advertising campaign here)
Personally, all that I care is that it works flawlessly in Wine. The only problems I have with the telltale games are the launcher; if they switched the windows launcher to be natively implemented or Qt or something, I'd have no problems. That said, if they can port their games to Mac, there's barely any effort from there to make a native Linux port; Macs and Linux are practically cousins in terms of the technologies they use: CUPS, OpenGL, etc.
I'd really love for Telltale games to be ported to Linux. I switched to Ubuntu a few months ago, and anytime I want to play a Linux game it's an unsatisfactory choice between an unreliable Wine or a slow boot into Windows XP.
I am not convinced of that. There are a lot of Linux users including myself that have held off from buying these games in hope that they might create a Linux port. Unfortunately it seems the people running Telltale have not caught on or have some miss guided idea about Linux. Many Independent game makers have Linux ports because there is a market out there. 30 million users to be exact. Many computer geeks have switched to Linux or at least use them as servers and second machines if not first like my self. I just don't want to have to set up a Windows box or do some Wine hack for these games. Maybe Telltale will me nice enough to help with ScummVM support and port these games
Comments
*raising hand*
I love Amanita Design for releasing a Linux version for Machinarium, even though it's just a flash game, and I know it's not really comparable to any of Telltale's games.
Off topic, do iPad's have webcams?
I would buy all Sam & Max games one more time...
And Monkey Island.... and Wallace and Grommit..
once programmers realise oGL is the way forward then multi-platform games could well become true.
UT-series has been native linux for a while.
Steam has got a mac client (beta?), which can only be a good thing for linux gaming... move away from DX
end of the day, linux and mac are still a very minority userbase; 2-3% each maybe compared to windows OS.
also, as a generalisation, alot of gamers appear to be going over to consoles. dev houses definitely seem to be favouring consoles. early release dates vs PC, additional content, higher quality mapping etc.
i've been growingly tempted to over the last few months/years purely based on support.
game cost and the fact it doesn't have the perks of a PC are putting me off.
in short, i vote for native linux support. but their needs to be more linux support for linux to be my main OS.
I moved to consoles for several reasons: 1) My computer is severely dated, 2) my power supply isn't powerful enough for my video card and it's starting to show by causing many things like USB ports not to work, 3) I don't have the money to upgrade my PC any time soon, 4) I never have time to go down to my basement to play games anymore anyway. And there's no fiddling with getting games to work. The only thing I dislike is that you have to for an XBox Gold account to play games online. While I understand that it's pretty much the best gaming service ever and worth the money, I just don't have the money. The PS3 is free online but it's not near as good.
All? I thought that Neverwinter Nights 2 didn't have one. If that has changed, I'll buy the game.
But then again Dragon Age doesn't have a Linux version either.
You know, there IS a Steam-Linux-Client out there. You cannot connect to the steam-server (yet), but it's there.
See:
phoronix.com
Checksums for Steam-Linux-client on Steam-website
Links to Linux-Binaries (they work, somehow)
That does explain it. I was almost hoping there was a game to play again.
Same issue here (Fedora, 64bit) -- I've tried out the demo on Wine which I got to work, but unlocking the full version I purchased online doesn't... Oh well.
There certainly are people interested in native linux games. Just take a look at the Humble Indie Bundle, which was sold last may -- it was sold on pay-what-you-want -basis, and even then it made $1,273,613 -- of which a quarter came from linux users. More information here: http://www.wolfire.com/humble?reddit=yay
If there is interest in porting, there are people who have quite a lot of experience in doing ports who could also be consulted on these issues.
http://icculus.org/~icculus/
http://www.phoronix.com/forums/showthread.php?t=17492
I think the biggest problem is that they use DirectX instead of directly some OpenGL-based framework. The news from today, however, speak of a Linux port of DirectX 11 to run above Gallium3D.
I guess that porting isn't so bad as it sounds. Economically, once you did it once, it should be possible to maintain it without going mad; the real problem is a) testing, b) packaging, c) making sure your libraries don't disappear overnight, due to some new backwards-incompatible release (much less likely it happens on Windows or Mac OS X) - you probably want to static-link to them.
However, even considering the poor state of hardware acceleration support for Linux, it would be difficult for Telltale to say "it's not us, it's your crappy drivers" if the port wasn't up on par with the Windows one. That's bad.
I think that on the long term, the most economically interesting way to make some money out of a Linux port, would be to opensource the engine. I mean:
After this, why would you still buy the game for Telltale? But why, the artwork. The plot. The puzzles. That would still remain of propriety of Telltale, and could not be reproduced without permission.
Many GNU/Linux users would immediately be interested to buy a game from a "good" company; most of us passed nights compiling ScummVM when it was still a beta project, just to run The Secret of Monkey Island again, while on Windows XP it didn't start properly (the Italian version, at least, didn't). Don't underestimate the passion that links GNU/Linux users to adventure games! There are many of us interested.
Really, a half-working port to be opensourced seems the best thing in my opinion, all things considered. After all, here in hell we all run Linux, and that's a huge userbase (there are more people here than in heaven!). ;-)
Cheers!
Matteo
*of course developing something in opengl from the start is the best choice, because the features which would require e.g. directx 10 or 11 (only for vista or 7) are available in opengl 4 (every windows, linux or mac os), too. there are no disadvantages except there are some more directx developers than opengl developers (microsoft really pulled off a good advertising campaign here)
Personally, all that I care is that it works flawlessly in Wine. The only problems I have with the telltale games are the launcher; if they switched the windows launcher to be natively implemented or Qt or something, I'd have no problems. That said, if they can port their games to Mac, there's barely any effort from there to make a native Linux port; Macs and Linux are practically cousins in terms of the technologies they use: CUPS, OpenGL, etc.
I'm a big fan of IDSoftware Quake games (QII, QIII & ETQW)... yeahhhh i'm a linux user for more then 12 years
But 12 years playing (mainly) with FPS, it's a bit boring... I love point & click games...
I bought machinarium (native linux support) last year I think, to change a bit !!! A real good game, with good music...
I'm ready to buy some of your game too !!!
Make a pre-order offer to see how many linux user would buy if you port your game on linux ?!!!
Regards