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| [Feb 06, 2013, 10:15 am ET] - Share - Viewing Comments |
A comment on reddit by id Software co-founder John Carmack (thanks Develop) follows the theme of a recent post by former id programmer Timothee Besset indicating that id's once-strong support for Linux gaming has waned. The post basically confirms and explains that premise, discussing how he sees a plausible path for Linux gaming via emulation on Steam, if "properly evangalized," but expressing skepticism about commercial native Linux ports: However, I don’t think that a good business case can be made for officially supporting Linux for mainstream games today, and Zenimax doesn’t have any policy of “unofficial binaries” like Id used to have. I have argued for their value (mostly in the context of experimental Windows features, but Linux would also benefit), but my forceful internal pushes have been for the continuation of Id Software’s open source code releases, which I feel have broader benefits than unsupported Linux binaries.
I can’t speak for the executives at Zenimax, but they don’t even publish Mac titles (they partner with Aspyr), so I would be stunned if they showed an interest in officially publishing and supporting a Linux title. A port could be up and running in a week or two, but there is so much work to do beyond that for official support. The conventional wisdom is that native Linux games are not a good market. Id Software tested the conventional wisdom twice, with Quake Arena and Quake Live. The conventional wisdom proved correct. Arguments can be made that neither one was an optimal test case, but they were honest tries.
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Re: John Carmack On Linux Gaming Support |
Feb 6, 2013, 13:38 |
Panickd |
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Cutter wrote on Feb 6, 2013, 12:54:
netnerd85 wrote on Feb 6, 2013, 10:59:
Cutter wrote on Feb 6, 2013, 09:57:
Why does Carmack even bother staying in gaming? He clearly doesn't need the dough. And whatever passion he had for it seems to have evaporated long ago. It's more like just doing it because it's routine. He only seems to be stoked about space related stuff so why doesn't he focus on that?
Follow his tweets, read his articles, watch his interviews and you may learn something about the man rather than selected snippets and comments by gamers. He is a passionate programmer with an interest in other things. You have other hobbies right?
Passionate programmer for what? Games? Not in a long time. Besides he was a technical savant more interested in resolving programming problems than the games themselves. I've never considered a Carmack a gamer by any stretch.
I'm not sure John Carmack ever claimed to be passionate about gaming. He's passionate about programming and passionate about problem solving through programming. The fact that he came into programming when most of the big challenges lay in computer graphics and, by proxy, games was just pure chance.
And I'm not really sure why people are hating on him so much. Unless he ran over your dog with his Ferrari or banged your wife he doesn't owe you anything. If you're upset because people still listen when he talks that's really the fault of the people doing the listening, not his. |
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