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Less than 1%, since that is all linux users combined, including the ones who don't play games.
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There really isn't any way to know how many people are using what OS other than by sales and browser statistics, both of which are going to be skewed. I am, for example, using Windows at work right now but I am almost completely a dedicated Linux user. Every computer I buy puts another tally up for sales, and every time I browse at work it adds a mark for browser statistics, but that incorrectly shows me as a Windows user when I am not.
You also have to take into account all the people using more than one. If using an OS were a set, then what are the intersections of those sets, and the unions as well? How many people share the same computer?
Linux is the most likely of the three to get discounted when people are actually using it so I wouldn't be surprised if the real number were much higher than 1%
Besides, even if the real market for the games was 1/3 of 1%, that is still 1 million people, and at $50 a game that is more than enough to make the port and keep your customers happy.
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Afaik, the only developer currently supporting Linux would be id. And only with their upcoming game Rage. And it doesn't even sound 100% sure that they are going to port.
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On February 09 2010 06:33 bluegoo wrote: who fucking cares?
sc, wc3, and wow... ALL THREE WORK 100% PERFECTLY WITH WINE IN OPENGL MODE
and sc2 will too.
so why is this relevant?
edit: I only have slackware 12 as my OS and i've played all three games perfectly for many years.
The second line is a doozey lol
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Mac is completely different from linux, not only because of its market share being higher than linux, but linux have no support at all. for instance, most drivers are written by common users and there is almost 0 support from the distro companies.
Mac is all developed by Apple and they give support and everything needed to make OS X viable and all drivers are written by Apple... there is a BIG company behind Mac, what about linux? a community of developers who can do some code in their free times... lol
also Mac users are completely different from Linux users. they are "modern" people while Linux users are happy playing a video file from the command line lol Mac users are potential customers for everything. they are looking for something new, with quality, with a good user interface and will pay a lot for it.
targeting one distro is a completely insane idea, no offense. first of all, you can't guarantee that one distro will remain forever. then you become too dependent of one distro, which means, they have some power over you... also you are putting all your hard job and investment in someone else hands. and for last, its probably against the law.
Linux is not viable atm, its sad, but true.
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I still don't get what Linux does that windows doesn't do better... I've never had a problem with the OS that EVERYTHING works on.. and ultimately is built for..
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On February 09 2010 06:17 Velr wrote: ... Does anyone actually know someone that only has Linux and no Windows or Mac?
Hell.. I don't even know a single guy that has only Mac-stuff...
Nice to meet you sir. I have 2 computers at home and none of tham has anything but Linux on it (that's since last year, before that I was a Windows user but after a couple months on Linux I decided to switch entirely).
On February 09 2010 08:54 ilbh wrote: Mac is completely different from linux, not only because of its market share being higher than linux, but linux have no support at all. for instance, most drivers are written by common users and there is almost 0 support from the distro companies.
Mac is all developed by Apple and they give support and everything needed to make OS X viable and all drivers are written by Apple... there is a BIG company behind Mac, what about linux? a community of developers who can do some code in their free times... lol
also Mac users are completely different from Linux users. they are "modern" people while Linux users are happy playing a video file from the command line lol Mac users are potential customers for everything. they are looking for something new, with quality, with a good user interface and will pay a lot for it.
targeting one distro is a completely insane idea, no offense. first of all, you can't guarantee that one distro will remain forever. then you become too dependent of one distro, which means, they have some power over you... also you are putting all your hard job and investment in someone else hands. and for last, its probably against the law.
Linux is not viable atm, its sad, but true.
Linux having no support? My nVidia graphic card and its drivers would like to disagree with you...
BIG company behind Mac? Behind my openSUSE stands Novell, apparently an unknown company that has nothing to do with computers whatsoever... Behind Ubuntu there's Canonical, they seem pretty wealthy seeing as they're shipping the OS dvd's worldwide for free...
Haha, Mac users being "modern" is going a bit over the line here. How are they modern? By eating all the shit Steve Jobs throws at them? How are they more modern than Windows or Linux users? OS X is just a dumbed down version of Linux.
And different Linux distros still have the same or very similar core so it's not really a big deal to release a product that works on all of them (take HoN for example).
Linux is viable.
On February 09 2010 09:03 ErOs_HalO wrote: I still don't get what Linux does that windows doesn't do better... I've never had a problem with the OS that EVERYTHING works on.. and ultimately is built for..
Customization, security, control, networking. Just some of the stuff Linux does better than Windows. The only thing Windows is better at is the number of games being released for it and Visual Studio working on it and not working under Linux (no big deal here). Hell, I could even get Internet Explorer to work on my Linux if I needed it.
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Free products typically aren't commercially viable
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On February 09 2010 08:54 ilbh wrote: Mac is completely different from linux, not only because of its market share being higher than linux, but linux have no support at all. for instance, most drivers are written by common users and there is almost 0 support from the distro companies.
What, you mean like Intel and Nvidia? Since they make up the majority of processors, graphics cards, and internal hardware, esp on laptops, I didn't realize their official drivers were written by common users with 0 support?
Mac is all developed by Apple and they give support and everything needed to make OS X viable and all drivers are written by Apple... there is a BIG company behind Mac, what about linux? a community of developers who can do some code in their free times... lol
What, you mean like Red Hat, Novell, Google, and IBM? All of whom have profits in the millions, at least.
also Mac users are completely different from Linux users. they are "modern" people while Linux users are happy playing a video file from the command line lol Mac users are potential customers for everything. they are looking for something new, with quality, with a good user interface and will pay a lot for it.
This is too stupid to argue against.
targeting one distro is a completely insane idea, no offense. first of all, you can't guarantee that one distro will remain forever. then you become too dependent of one distro, which means, they have some power over you... also you are putting all your hard job and investment in someone else hands. and for last, its probably against the law.
This is the cherry on the sundae!
What, you mean like the way people trust MS and Apple and give them power everyday?! Illegal? You must be either insane or joking.
Linux is not viable atm, its sad, but true.
And your an idiot who has no idea what he is talking about.
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On February 09 2010 09:03 ErOs_HalO wrote: I still don't get what Linux does that windows doesn't do better... I've never had a problem with the OS that EVERYTHING works on.. and ultimately is built for..
After switching from Windows to Linux last year, the only thing that Windows does better from what I use are games and tax software. Everything else so far has been relatively equal or better in Linux. And wine runs diablo 2 and starcraft, so I'm pretty good on the games front also.
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When will people understand? Not everything released for Linux has to be free (or even open source for that matter). The only thing blocking it for commercial use is small user base compared to Windows (which I believe is pirated so much that the real market share on that should be cut by 1/3-rd at least).
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On February 09 2010 06:36 sfdrew wrote: @Bluegoo
Well, no, actually they don't, and even if they did the point is that we shouldn't have to resort to emulators, virtual machines, and hack libraries to in order to play their games. you can't tell me they don't ROFL
I FUCKING PLAY SC and WC3 ON SLACKWARE WITH WINE....like RIGHT NOW...and for a long time.
roflrofl
and yes we do need to resort to that because we are less than 1% of the market using an os for nerds and we tend to be more savvy anyway so its not hard to use emulator (not to mention any retard can use WinE)
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On February 09 2010 08:05 Chuiu wrote: Afaik, the only developer currently supporting Linux would be id. And only with their upcoming game Rage. And it doesn't even sound 100% sure that they are going to port.
S2 releases all of their games for 3 platforms (Windows, OSX, Linux). But that really doesn't matter, what does matter is that most Linux users don't give a shit about it. I would be really happy if Blizzard would release native ports of their games but if they won't I'm not going to cry about it. Personally, I really don't care if they will do that or not as it's not going to affect me in any way (if SC2 isn't going to work under WINE I simply won't buy it).
What Linux really needs is another company like Loki who made contracts with original game developers and released Linux ports for it (I have their Alpha Centauri).
From their web page:
For Linux users, Loki brings best selling games, fully supported and sold through traditional retail channels -- something the Linux community has been lacking until now. We are very proud of our commitment to Linux, and are excited about bringing a rich gaming experience to our platform of choice.
Unfortunately, they disappeared somewhere around 2002 (went bankrupt due to bad marketing) and stopped maintaining the games that were already released (and with the fast developing kernel, some of them were really hard to get working but, thankfuly, there's quite a lot of experienced people out there who made proper scripts and what not to make this old software work on modern systems).
THAT is what Linux needs, not the sudden change of mindset in major gaming industry giants. We need a small company that would take their products (through a contract, not steal it) and port it to Linux. I don't think any of the big companies would have anything against it either, seeing as this market is rather small, it would be a way for them to advertise/reach out to it without all the fuss about developing/maintaining code for different platform.
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On February 09 2010 09:14 sfdrew wrote: What, you mean like Intel and Nvidia? Since they make up the majority of processors, graphics cards, and internal hardware, esp on laptops, I didn't realize their official drivers were written by common users with 0 support?
yes, intel and nvidia.
What, you mean like Red Hat, Novell, Google, and IBM? All of whom have profits in the millions, at least.
ibm? novell? do you really think they have the same investiment/dedication for their distros than microsoft for windows and apple for their OS?
MILLION IN PROFITS WITH LINUX?! WOOWW oh yeah, IBM dropped his database infrastructure to dedicate to linux!! LAWL
google? why google??
Show nested quote + also Mac users are completely different from Linux users. they are "modern" people while Linux users are happy playing a video file from the command line lol Mac users are potential customers for everything. they are looking for something new, with quality, with a good user interface and will pay a lot for it.
This is too stupid to argue against.
no, its not stupid. linux users dont buy anything. all linux distros comes with lots of command line tools, graphical tools, all for free and they are all happy with it.
Show nested quote + targeting one distro is a completely insane idea, no offense. first of all, you can't guarantee that one distro will remain forever. then you become too dependent of one distro, which means, they have some power over you... also you are putting all your hard job and investment in someone else hands. and for last, its probably against the law.
This is the cherry on the sundae! What, you mean like the way people trust MS and Apple and give them power everyday?! Illegal? You must be either insane or joking.
I mean, Blizzard will NEVER become dependent of any linux Distro or linux company, that would be really dumb. It can be legal, but thats not the main argument here...
And your an idiot who has no idea what he is talking about.
yes, I am the idiot here. I am the programmer who thinks that porting 2 decades of software development to another platform is like changing the TV channel.
its so viable, that there is a linux version for all blizzard games haha
grow up, its not that blizzard is forcing you to buy windows... omg
OH BTW, MAC OS IS NOT A THUMBED VERSION OF LINUX, ITS AN ENHANCED VERSION OF UNIX. OS IS MUCH BETTER THAN ANY LINUX DISTRO.*
* thats my opinion, please, dont start discussing which one is better... lol
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United States47024 Posts
On February 09 2010 12:20 ilbh wrote: yes, intel and nvidia. Last I checked, their proprietary drivers are written by in-house programmers. How would they hold rights to the source if the source didn't belong to them?
On February 09 2010 12:20 ilbh wrote: no, its not stupid. linux users dont buy anything. all linux distros comes with lots of command line tools, graphical tools, all for free and they are all happy with it. So free = backwards and un-modern?
You could twist your statement around and say that Linux users have better discretion when it comes to their money, while Mac users are willing to pay top dollar for features that are largely irrelevant. It would be just as wrong as the original statement. Honestly, generalizing about peoples' attitudes based on their OS preference is beyond retarded.
Linux is not viable atm, its sad, but true. Actually, it depends on what you mean by viable? As a general-use platform for people with certain needs from their operating system? Yes. As a target audience for a big-budget video game that needs a large return to break even with its investment? Certainly not.
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On February 09 2010 12:29 TheYango wrote:Last I checked, their proprietary drivers are written by in-house programmers. How would they hold rights to the source if the source didn't belong to them? Show nested quote +On February 09 2010 12:20 ilbh wrote: no, its not stupid. linux users dont buy anything. all linux distros comes with lots of command line tools, graphical tools, all for free and they are all happy with it. So free = backwards and un-modern? You could twist your statement around and say that Linux users have better discretion when it comes to their money, while Mac users are willing to pay top dollar for features that are largely irrelevant. It would be just as wrong as the original statement. Honestly, generalizing about peoples' attitudes based on their OS preference is beyond retarded. Actually, it depends on what you mean by viable? As a general-use platform for people with certain needs from their operating system? Yes. As a target audience for a big-budget video game that needs a large return to break even with its investment? Certainly not.
viable to port their games to linux. its not
I based on facts, not on personal preference or attitude. 99% of linux users don't buy a single software.
if you are a linux user, please, tell me how many softwares have you bought for your linux? not even your distro is bought.
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Red hat made 28 million on Linux alone last year, and the reason I said Google, in case you haven't been keeping up with the news, is that they are planning on releasing an OS using the Linux kernel called Chrome.
All the big players except for Microsoft, and I wouldn't be surprised if they didn't either and just kept it under wraps, use it. It powers the internet. It powers most of the worlds stock exchanges and makes the one laptop per child program possible.
The reason why most Linux users don't buy a lot of software is because of two reasons.
1. most software you could want or need, and I do emphisis most is available for free (speech and beer)
2. there isn't a lot of software to buy. You can't buy what isn't for sale, but then again that was the whole point of this thread. Despite the fact that I have bought several copies of SC in the past I just recently bought a download copy the other week because I lost my discs and cd-keys. SC is easy to pirate these days, but I paid anyways, and I would be happy to pay for a Linux version of SC2.
Trying to paint Linux users as pirates is just plain wrong and insulting. Why don't you go spout some of your BS to all the windows users who hang out on the pirates bay and fill their Windows machines with viruses.
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United States47024 Posts
On February 09 2010 12:31 ilbh wrote: if you are a linux user, please, tell me how many softwares have you bought for your linux? not even your distro is bought.
What does that have to do with anything? Lack of purchases made on Linux has primarily to do with the fact that there are few things to purchase for Linux, not because of some mentality against buying things. The only proprietary software I've bought for Linux was a license for Mathematica, but I still buy my games and other software for Windows.
In relation to Starcraft 2, you seem to be of the thinking that it won't affect Blizzard's revenue because most Linux users who care wouldn't buy it anyway. IMO, it has more to do with the fact that most Linux users who care WOULD buy it anyway.
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If I posted in the original thread I'm sure it was with a different tone than this, but the way I look at things has changed a bit. At the time I would have mentioned using Linux to take advantage of open source, to change what I didn't like. Well, it took time. And every upgrade I had to redo the change. It was a time sink for marginal gains. I get just as much flexibility out of Litestep (which I used and loved before trying Linux for 4 years).
I can't tell anyone what to do with his time, but you are wasting it with Linux. After those 4 years I realized how much time I was spending keeping it working. And it never gets better.
KDE 4.3 is starting to look nice, but 3.5 was nice years ago. Then they threw it out and started almost from scratch. Same with lots of other stuff. OSS worked (but sucked), then came ALSA and now PulseAudio. Dev got replaced by devfs then udev and now it looks like something like devfs is coming back. Supermount got replaced by hotplug and it is getting replaced by policykit.
nVidia graphics are nice but closed. But they work by reimplementing large areas of the stack. Until very recently, ATI/Intel graphics had no OpenGL 2+, no memory management, and sucked. They have been working on adding that stuff for years.
Things never just improve, they get replaced. And it takes years and though the end result might be better, in the meantime the rest of the software world has made actual substantial progress in comparison. Linux just gets behind.
Ubuntu was the hot new thing, but the more it evolves away from Debian the more it breaks. Multiple projects that based themselves on Ubuntu are going (back) to basing themselves on Debian (yay deb is my fave. if I had to use Linux). Which means either rolling release (constant upkeep) or waiting forever for the next stable version. Or one could try Fedora where occasionally boneheaded things like allowing users to install system wide software without password happen. Or Suse and deal with an inferior .net rewrite powering many of the apps. Or gentoo and waste time compiling stuff when someone else could do it for you. Or one of a million other distros.
I enjoyed my years with Linux on the desktop (until the end) but they were a colossal waste of time. It is quite nice using Windows (and Litestep!) again. And any programs I really care about I can continue to use (xTerm, Open Office, even KDE) without needing a constantly shifting, unsupported platform to run them on.
And yeah, all the people puttin their time in for free do a good job, considering it is a hobby. considering. For the marginal state everything is in that's a good excuse but it doesn't change the outcome. I don't feel like dealing with it anymore. You do of course, and I hope for your sake SC2 works natively on Linux someday (it won't). At least there's WINE.
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