David M Williams
Wednesday, 25 March 2009 18:48
Opinion and Analysis
Page 2 of 3
As you might guess, one of the most overwhelming responses was that Linux needs more games.
Sure, Linux has more card games than you can poke a stick at. It has Tux Racer. It even has Quake Wars and Doom.
Yet, Linux doesn’t have its own native version of World of Warcraft. It doesn’t have its own release of Crysis or Oblivion or Spore.
Depending on your hardware and levels of expertise and patience you may be successful in getting some measure of playability out of WINE or Cedega.
Yet, that’s not really good enough. For the ethereal “year of the Linux” to arrive, for Linux to be a truly viable option for many people, Joe Public ought to expect he or she can walk into a games store, browse the shelves and find a “Linux” section among the PC, Xbox, PS3 and other categories.
This isn’t a crazy notion on my part. A case in point –
2D Boy produced a wonderful physics-based puzzle/construction game called World of Goo.
The developers apparently tried to get major software houses interested in their title but received little interest. They wrote and released it themselves, with huge worldwide acclaim following. Best of all, 2D Boy constructed Windows, Mac, Linux and Wii builds. That’s right, they treated Linux with respect and saw it as a legitimate platform. Along with the other versions they made a full 100% Linux port.
This is what Linux needs more of – natural Linux ports of significant software titles.
Games aren’t everything. In fact, to small enterprises games are nothing.
It pains me to suggest this, but I must also question if businesses would view Linux more favourably if there were more commercial applications available.
Ironically, the most popular web server on the face of the planet is Apache – which is open source and free. One of the most popular database servers is the similarly free and open source MySQL.
Yet, I’m not speaking about the top end of the enterprise market. Corporations there have their own in-house IT, and if they’re running web and database servers then they know, or should know, their options.
No, it’s the small shops that go out and buy their computers from department stores – more often than not running Windows Vista Home and an academic licensed version of Microsoft Office – who need to see more Linux exposure.
So, this is what we need ...
