The Witcher 3 on Linux?

[Gilrond-i-Virdan]

And the only AAA games that were sold there were from THQ bundle...

Not sure what you mean by AAA and how exactly it relates to what games are worth attention. I actually evaluate games on their merits, not on the base of some marketing nonsense. So I don't care whether something is called AAA, BBB or whatever. A good game is a good game even if it's made by some small team without any monstrous company behind. And some blank game without essence made by some big corp can call itself AAA all it wants, but it won't make it any better.

But this actually is irrelevant to the subject of this thread. CDPR are known for producing elaborate games. So I see no reason to worry for the lack of users in their case, especially in the market where demand exceeds the supply.

 

[cdred]

It's too early to say if Linux will be a success in gaming world but I don't see any reasons why it couldn't be. Steam is a huge step forward. Along with Valve's push many of Kickstarter games will be released for Linux as well - Wasteland 2 and Project Eternity for example.

I understand that gaming companies doesn't want to rush on Linux before they see it's a viable option. Well, if TW3 will come to Linux someday I will buy it immediately even if I would have Windows version already. TW3 is definitely a pre-order game anyway.

Mikko Hyppönen (F-Secure): It does blow my mind ...
Supercomputers TOP 500: Linux 93.8%

 

[linux_gamer]

I've made the switch to linux and would love the game to be available on it. With valve and all the humble bundles there's so much good stuff to play that if a game I'm interested in isn't available on linux, there's plenty else for me to play rather than having to bother with wine or dual booting windows.

 

[SystemShock7]

Linux is an operating system. It can run on every high end hardware that exists and it is definetly the future. So spare us your stupid comments next time. />

For the record, linux is not an operating system, but a kernel, upon which an OS is built.

 

[Gilrond-i-Virdan]

That's right. Formally saying, Linux is the name of the kernel. But it's used as a derived name for naming the actual operating system as well. I'd even say it's more often used with such meaning, rather than with formal kernel meaning. Usually you can guess what was implied from the context.

 

[cdred]

Q&A session with Defender's Quest (Steam) developer in Reddit:

Defender's Quest developer: "The majority of the purchases were from windows users of course, just grabbing something on sale, but we saw about 2x-3x as many linux users as mac users during that time period.
Looking back at our direct sales, our lifetime downloads for Linux are twice that of Mac, roughly."

Defender's Quest developer: "For the record, our direct sales show 2x the number of linux game build downloads as mac. And that's been going on for well over a year."

Steam Linux dev asks - what kind of stats do you guys want to see?

 

[Sirnaq]

Only problem with GNU linux is lack of directX 10 support and native directX 9 (wine is not good enough, and we will wait years for reverse engineered dx10). Games natively designed for linux runs way faster than on windows. So id say linux is potentially superior gaming platform than windows but unfortunately it's less popular. Personally im playing games on system that is more appropriate, so if cdpr decide to make linux version i gladly get linux on dual boot. Also im pissed that even windows 8 still using ancient ntfs shit.

http://blogs.valvesoftware.com/linux/faster-zombies/

 

[volsung]

They used to make games using OpenGL, a multiplatform standard. And then came the X Box and MS marketing of the product they make. We don't need DirectX. We need companies to follow standards.

 

[CostinRaz]

You do realize of course that DirectX existed long before the Xbox did right?

As for standards. In what exactly? Using OpenGL for DirectX? That hardly sets a standard in the quality of a game.

 

[Gilrond-i-Virdan]

DirectX and OpenGL story is long and complicated, and it's not only MS fault that OpenGL didn't become the de-facto standard even on Windows. MS obviously played a part in hindering it, but only a part. Here is an interesting historic review:

http://programmers.stackexchange.com/questions/60544/why-do-game-developers-prefer-windows

Now however OpenGL overcame this stuff, but this gives a historic perspective why it wasn't adopted as it could be.

As for standards. In what exactly? Using OpenGL for DirectX?

I think .Volsung. meant simply to use OpenGL instead of Direct3D even on Windows.

Only problem with GNU linux is lack of directX 10 support and native directX 9 (wine is not good enough, and we will wait years for reverse engineered dx10).

Lack of DX10 and DX11 in Wine is unfortunate - they are supposedly working on it in "long term". But Wine is good enough for translating DX9 into OpenGL. Many heavy games are working fine - the overheard of translation is not too taxing and they also work on improving it. Ah, and you'll never get native DirectX on Linux - forget it. In the good scenario support for OpenGL will improve on Windows (it is already improving) and more game developers will ditch DirectX. Microsoft tries to prevent it by banning OpenGL from Xbox (you can't use anything besides DirectX there).

Defender's Quest developer: "For the record, our direct sales show 2x the number of linux game build downloads as mac. And that's been going on for well over a year."

I expected there are more Linux users who are gamers than Mac OSX users. So for example for GOG and CDPR it doesn't make sense to support Mac OSX while ignoring Linux.

 

[CostinRaz]

I think .Volsung. meant simply to use OpenGL instead of Direct3D even on Windows.

I know that's probably what he meant as well.

 

[volsung]

Yes, that is what I meant, OpenGL instead of DirectX on ALL platforms. This would make it easier to port software to all major platforms. However, as Gilrond said, XBox doesn't support OpenGL, and it played a part in helping MS consolidate their alternative in the gaming market. In fact, as far as I know, the XBox is one of the very few devices that doesn't support OpenGL. Even a Nintendo DS does.

I have been playing since before DOS/4GW. I fondly remember Glide on my Voodoo 2, which I thought was amazing! Eventually games moved on to OpenGL and then, suddenly, switched to DirectX. I know the practical gamer doesn't see a difference and modern video cards support the latest OpenGL and DirectX, but as a GNU/Linux user and enthusiast and long time PC user I like games to include viable Personal Computer platforms that my friends and I would use.

Back then, "Linux" wasn't really a home OS but there were versions of games like Prince of Persia 2 for IBM-PC and Macintosh. Nowadays, GNU/Linux is a widely used platform that draws the attention of the general public and power users, including PC gamers. I believe it is time for companies to include Linux in their plans, and in order to do so they might as well start by switching to platform-independent, open-specifications like OpenGL that make it possible to run software natively on almost all modern platforms. A community of very dedicated users have made it possible to run certain Windows binaries on GNU/Linux, through Wine and other tools, but we should not have to go this far to play games, especially when there ARE cross-platform technologies.

So yes, I didn't mean quality assurance standards, but that goes without saying.

 

[Mblackwell1024]

Obviously statically compiling solves a heck of a lot of issues with deployment. Valve is deploying Steam as a subset of Ubuntu 12.04. You compile against Steam's Linux libraries which are guaranteed to be the same on every platform, even across distros/versions. They do this so applications don't have to include individual libraries unless necessary so things don't become a mess. Kind of front-loaded but it will pay dividends for developers trying to deploy software.

Wine isn't really a decent solution unless it's a specifically hacked version of Wine done to get as "close to the metal" as possible, or the game was programmed to be as agnostic as possible, using things like OAL, OGL, etc (Rage comes to mind).

 

[Gilrond-i-Virdan]

Statically linked or just bundled dynamically linked libraries - the result is some isolation from the system libraries. For example Trine uses bundling of dynamic libraries on Linux.

Wine is always only a workaround. I don't agree with Carmack who said that Wine should be used as a primary "porting" tool.

 

[Mblackwell1024]

Agreed.

 

[jerf.674]

I really hope that The Witcher 3 will be released on Linux. I'm sure it will sell very well. Now the hope is that it won't be too difficult for CD Projekt to make a port. Since the engine already can run on OpenGL, probably it's not that difficult.