Do people buy Linux games or are they all GNU or freeware?

It will depend on who is publishing the games. Your indy developers will usually put games under the gnu licence and give it away for free on places like freshmeat. Loki ported games to linux and sold them. I think ID also sold versions of its quake for linux. People will buy linux games, just not very many people. Everyone has their own theory about why so I won''t get into that.

almost every linux game you buy at stores was either ported from windows or has instant portability (can be played on all systems)... However, most linux games are usually for download...
Not many people **buy** linux games unless their UNIX diehards because they usually have a Windows machine or a Windows partition.

I think Loki sold ports of windows games ... but they went out of business

-------------------
The Reindeer Effect
Insomniac Software

personally i would pay for a linux game, since there arent enough of them out right now.

imho, a good strategy would be to distribute the game on one cd, with an "unsupported" directory containing linux and mac binaries, and editing tools, etc. linux ports arent that hard to make, unless you do everything with directx

I''ll pay for Linux games if I don''t own a Windows version of the game already and I like the game (go figure). For example: I''m planning on purchasing Neverwinter Nights when it''s released; and I doubt I''ll even install it in Windows. I might buy Doom III (I assume Id is porting it, like most of their games) if it turns out that my Geforce 3 (or whatever I have when it comes out) can run it decently. Whether or not I''m an example of the common Linux user is another matter though .

I think good game programming, whatever op system deserves credit, so if it is a worthy game such as civ 3 or morrowind or the quake series....buy it, those guys can then use that cash to continue to keep us entertained.

This can delve across to the piracy issue of games. I have a huge problem with ppl that NEVER buy games because you can just get a copy. How can software companies employ would be killer programmers from this site and other sites if ppl are not prepared to pay money for a good game?

ask yourself: If you spent a whole 5 years of your spare or full time writing quake 6, and the previews heaped praise on it, would you release it for free? The same can be said about piracy - I have known of people who have made copies of games and SOLD the copies much to my protest, how F*CKIN rude is that? Why do they think they are entitled to anything?

my two cents



[edited by - fatherjohn666 on June 5, 2002 10:37:01 PM]

Sure ppl by linux games. I bought Sim City 3000, Q3A, Uplink (which has a linux version on the cd), and Myth II.

I would certainly buy linux games if:

1. I could find them. I can''t find too many, and as of yet, I have only bought Quake III for linux.

2. I had money. Not having a job sucks

rm -rf /bin/laden

quote: Original post by green_guy
Do people buy Linux games or are they all GNU or freeware?

I would most definitely buy games written for Linux, and expect to be able to buy a much wider selection in the future.

It also seems like it would be perfectly viable to make multi-player-online games with open source clients (gpl, bsd, or whatever license) and charge only for the service.

-- Aaron

HollowWorks.com

[edited by - mrhollow on June 6, 2002 11:35:08 PM]