Purpose of gaming on Linux

[MS]

I like to explore and gaming is a big place the days current, unfortunately, not to every platform in an equal measure, but things even out in time, sometimes in ways quite unexpected. Do you think gaming and having gamers attracted is important to Linux? Simultaneously, what the Linux movement - and the Linux solutions - is all about? Towards whom is Linux addressed? Does gaming fulfill a purpose in evolution of Linux? Do gamers contribute to Linux and if so, in what way? What particular advantage does Linux offer to gamers?

[Valtam]

Not a Support request, moved.

[Artim]

Gaming is done on consoles, tablets, and smartphones more than on PCs anymore, with a few notable exceptions.  "Desktop Linux" is going to be just for businesses, schools, and maybe a home PC here and there for a few.  But the world is moving on to "smart devices" with more portability and connectivity.  Especially gaming.

[TheDead]

With Steam available on linux and the appearance of the Vulkan drivers, more gamer get on Linux... to a point.
But still, I didn't do any research but since the DirectX 12 woes, gamers, specially geek-games see Linux as a viable choice not only the sub-par annoying little brother.
+ Linux is free, open sourced for the main part and just "cooler"

[MS]

Linux is cool, indeed, but Linux is also hard. It is cool to be hard, I guess.

I am on Linux because I appreciate the ideals of the Linux world. Not particularly because I tend to be an anarchist or even a socialist, most of the time, just because I like that it has any ideals at all. Linux is as much people as much it is technology. Linux people, due to dealing with multiple difficulties in the realm of software usage, have grown solidarity, as well as social self-awareness of a movement. But Linux, is not for all.

Windows users sparsely have any notion of identity to what they do, unless they encounter some resistance, typically on the forums, if they choose to dig deeper. It is because Windows, is default, it does not take a decision to submit. With decision, awareness begins, the responsibility for path pursued.

Gamers, are an audience. Where the audience is, the money is, then, there is the infrastructure, various providers seeking to make profit. Understandably, infrastructure follows where the potential harvest should be best. Actions undertaken by the infrastructure representatives, expand adaptation of the core system.

Until certain time, there was a notion that nativity is the primary objective, that Linux needs as much of the native software as it may only get. It never has happened to a satisfactory degree. It came true, on the other hand, for the Linux users, that if they do not carry out things by themselves, nobody is really going to help them out. I think the great equalizer, should be the cloud. Linux ought to be most supportive of the cloud. Working as a kind of a Chromebook - which means, mostly a medium - Linux could show significant merits over more cumbersome and costly operating systems, but it would take a consensus in the community to reach.

To be able to provide the public with something default, a product or equivalent.

But Linux, has ideals and it is most impressive that it attempts to look further than the next easiest opportunity, which is, to actually see the cloud as a new Microsoft of the future, to be highly watchful of.

I have an impression that Linux perceives the cloud as a sort of disgrace, as something that is likely to ruin the goals the Linux was striving for. Suddenly, all becomes simply irrelevant: "nativity" is passe. Again, big corporations dictate which way to go. The just satisfaction is, deep at the bowels out there, it is Linux once more. The biggest sore, the home PC users are never going to care or even notice. Nothing really changes.

In short, the systemic purpose of gaming in my view is to attract potential consumers to a certain place, to generate gravitational field significant enough to become significant oneself, in the context of a wider ecosystem.

Gaming, is a magnet for the masses, therefore, a crucial economic tool.

True Linux, though, is about being focused on a purpose.

I want to believe Linux is about an ideal, looking beyond.

EDIT:

There is a popular song, the lyrics of which I associated, perhaps relevant fragment goes like that:

The journey is more important than the end or the start
And what it meant to me will eventually be
A memory of the time when I tried so hard
I tried so hard and got so far
But in the end it doesn't even matter

PS.

Have you ever thought that buying Windows-only games to run them via WINE on Linux, is actually supporting the Windows infrastructure, therefore, supporting Windows indirectly, while having zero support from the software developers due to being out of whack in terms of how things are meant to be?

[TheDead]

[member=8170]MS[/member]
Starting reading your post, took a nap, then got to the last chapter.

Made me think again about "the Spork analogy".
I tried Linux, did what I needed it to, in an easier less bothersome way too, plus it's able to run the Windows apps I personnaly need.
For gaming, years ago I was able to make the Windows version of World of Warcraft work in Linux, took some hard work at the time.
I left WoW because was too time sucking (yes not consuming... literaly sucking ) and left the Linux world.
Came back a few years ago and saw that Linux made some major advancements and I finally saw the Lite, wink wink.

So for me, the kichen drawer utensils are slowly but surely getting replace by sporks. Yes, it takes some will power, following the heard is what people are used to.
Fortunately, the main stride is I think Linux getting a little less marginal in peoples eyes.

Marginal :
"One that is considered to be at an outer limit of social acceptability."

Oh, and as for "cloud", I like the internet and I create my own "cloud services" with servers at home.
The idea of having my pictures/documents (Dropbox, etc.), voice (Siri, Google Home,etc.), finger print/face (Cellular unlock, etc) and so on, all being sent so servers who knows where and probably stored, is quite unconfortable for me.  Seems like George Orwell's Big Brother in more ways then one. Heck, even the grocery store over here asks for your postal code and email... the worse is getting a "funny look" when you DON'T give it.
A lot of influencial persons in history got that the information is a valuable asset (WWII anyone) and like Tom Clancy more recently said, "If you can control information, you can control people."

[MS]

Dead Space is one of my favourite games. When I was on the Windows 10, I have utterly completed the game, with 70+ hours in. Even made some edited screenshots. I have Dead Space 2 dormant in my shelf, a physical copy - similarly to the first one, also a physical PC-DVD - but I would not play it. I played only some multiplayer, back in the Windows day. Never made it to the singleplayer before I moved to Linux. But now, I would not play it, simply because running WINE, is not using Linux, samewise as buying Windows games, is not supporting Linux, even if you buy these with having a "Linux" tag added under your purchase belt of some sort. Maybe one day I will get to it, maybe not. Rather doubtful I would actually get it under PC Linux.

EDIT:

Somewhere I have phrased it the way telling that in order for me to consider using something Linux, is to use only native Linux software throughout all the links of the chain. Understandably, the final link in the usage of WINE disqualifies anything run with WINE as Linux, even if WINE is Linux.

[TheDead]

I'm not a "good" consumer. I only buy games when they get in the bargain bins.

Dead Space is not available on Linux and I would not get a Windows machine "just" for windows games.
Making a Linux game for a company is more a "social" statement then anything (at the moment).
PC/Console games market share were about equal in 2018 but even both combined, mobile gaming was King. 2019 should be similar.

Still, playing the game you want to play wihout having to support the Redmond giant with an OEM or Retail OS is better than nothing at all.
If a game is worth playing, I like to support the gaming company itselft for its product because developpement choice are often based on survivability.
Not speaking avec the distribution company here, which is a whole other story.

[MS]

However controversial this may sound, I do respect EA, because for the corporation they are, they know what are they about. They are about making money, because big branch gaming industry, is a business just like any other. It is a dissonance to expect of a grand company the behaviour patterns matching those of an underground developer. It is also a dissonance to witness underground developers start behave like grand corporations.

I do not expect Dead Space to ever come to Linux in a traditional sense, since it would primarily take the Origin platform to adopt Linux support, which is more complex than just making a Linux port for Dead Space. On the other hand, avoiding all the fuss with the Linux support, Stadia may be a window of opportunity for companies having the possibility to come up with Linux ports of their games, without the necessity to deal with nuances of the Linux world in terms of consumer support.

I am done with Dead Space, so even if it comes to Stadia, I am probably going to skip it, nonetheless, if Dead Space 2 and Dead Space 3 come to Stadia, consider it a great chance I could eventually go for it.

By the way, Dead Space 3: The Awakened, I recommend watching this one hour long - on average - playthrough, it is a well done story.

Likewise, Alan Wake: The Signal, excellent story, in the heavy vein of World of Darkness [White Wolf]. Also a third person perspective action horror. I loved the skirmish arcade mode in Alan Wake: American Nightmare, with perfected combat mechanics this kind of impoverished retake brought in.

Gameplay example HERE. The AI was vicious.

EDIT:

By the way, I like when games have "noble origin", which means, their concept and narrative base on something that predates digital gaming, through which I understand novels, tabletop games and narrative games.

PS.

For those new to the topic, Stadia hardware runs Linux, therefore - technically speaking - usage of Stadia service is playing native Linux games on leased hardware. The fall of Stadia could also mean the significant future of Windows game versions streamed in Microsoft owned cloud.