Linux and gaming

[clintonharry99]

I love to play games and till now I have found out only windows based games and gaming platforms (for PC) there are no or very little games, and very little is thought about game development with linux OS's why so?? Why do people like to develop games for windows only/ play games on windows only, while just another type of Linux Kernel based OS viz Android has so many games/gamers/game developers.

[mike_2000_17]

Game developers / companies target the biggest markets. And porting a game from one platform to another is usually a pretty costly undertaking, because AAA games are generally very highly optimized for the specific platforms they target. These two factors are mainly what prevents AAA games from becoming available on platforms other than those that have a sizeable market (Windows, Mac, and latest consoles).

When you talk about indie games or smartphone games, which are orders of magnitude easier to develop than the AAA titles, they are generally a lot easier to write in a cross-platform manner, and thus, easier to port onto any platform, including Linux (e.g., through "Steam for Linux" for example).

The biggest hope right now is that efforts like the SteamBox (runs Linux) and other alternative consoles will create a bigger market for Linux versions of AAA titles.

[rubberman]

I've been having a discussion on the Linux Forums recently with a fellow about his migration to Linux for gaming. Between Steam and Wine he has managed to get most of his favorite games working great. I think he is using a recent version of Ubuntu.

[lewashby]

There are actually a lot of AAA games on Steam. Pretty much everything Valve ever produced is available on Steam, all the Half-Life titles (the original Half-Life, all the spin offs, Half-Life 2, Team Fortress Classic / 2, Portal 1 & 2, etc...) Metro Last Light, Dying Light was released for Linux the same time it was released for Windows. You can find a lot of options on both Steam and GOG for Linux support, always check GOG first then Steam. Also, if you go into the preferences on Steam you can check/uncheck your favorite OS and Steam will tailore it's advertising accordingly.