Twenty Bucks

2DBoy posted some very interesting numbers on Linux sales for World of Goo.  That’s good news, but how was it possible?

One reason is that World of Goo is like a lot of games these days.  The soundtrack is in Ogg Vorbis format, a patent-free and free software audio codec.  The underlying rendering software is not DirectX – it’s libSDL, a free software direct media library developed by Sam Lantinga back in the Loki Software days (useful projects never die).  All of the images in the game use the PNG format – a free software replacement for GIF, which is patent-encumbered.  Porting the game to Linux wasn’t entirely trivial, but it was done in a couple of months by Maks Verver and the 2DBoy developers.

Other games are following the same path.  OpenAL.  Zlib.  GIMP.  Blender.  Cube 2.  They are using the free software tools that have slowly accreted over the years, some to save money, others to support free software, some to do a little of both.  These tools make porting to Linux easy, because they all started in the churning pit of free software development and Linux is their home.  You tend not to see these parts of the games, because they are down deep, embedded in the system, and most people simply don’t care.  Developers need good tools that don’t cost much, and the free software community is providing them.  The days of writing your own engine for everything are gone – there’s no reason to re-invent the wheel, because the wheel is free software and can be integrated into games without qualms, thanks to the foresight of the LGPL.  These tools  shorten development time, reduce technical issues, and allow the game developers to focus on what really matters – the game.

The second attribute of World of Goo that drove Linux sales is obvious – no DRM.  Heck, that probably drove Windows sales, but the Linux crowd is much more attuned to the problems of DRM.  Note that being closed source isn’t much of an issue – Linux users argue about that all the time, but when it comes to games they don’t seem to mind it.  I think this is because code being open is a philosophical position, for the most part.  One can argue the merits of it, but people don’t see it as anything but a developer’s own decision.  The arguments over free software are about the evironment that software grows up in, and about freedom to tinker.

DRM is not a philosophical argument.  The arguments for and against DRM are complete.  DRM is a knowing business decision to directly screw your customers in the hope of getting more revenue, and customers don’t want it.  The music industry has all but abandoned it, the movie industry is still tilting back and forth, and the games industry is starting to get it.

Yes, I did buy World of Goo, and yes, it was fun and I’ve gotten about ten hours of play out of it – and I’m not done yet, nor have  I replayed any of the levels.  My twenty bucks didn’t go to Fallout 3, which was encumbered with two different kinds of DRM – Steam and SecuROM.  My twenty bucks didn’t go to Mount & Blade, though the temptation was great, because of their on-line activation DRM scheme.  My twenty bucks went to 2DBoy, because they made a good game, didn’t have DRM, and supported Linux.  World of Goo could have been free software, and I still would have paid – in fact, I hope they release the source at some point because I would *love* to know how they pulled some of that stuff off.  I’m voting with my wallet for what I want.

In fact, I think I’m going to start voting with my wallet some more.  I’m going to commit twenty bucks a month to supporting free software gaming – not because I feel like I have to, but because that’s what I want, and I’m willing to pay.  The criteria are simple:  No DRM, supports Linux, and free software games get priority over close source games.  World of Goo is my purchase for February – I’m open to suggestions for March, though my default will probably be Urban Terror (if they accept payment) because I’ve played it so much in the last few months.  Suggestions welcome!

EVE Linux Client – A Win for WINE

CCP has announced that they are terminating support for their Linux client.

This is  a good thing, not a bad thing.  EVE was never designed to run in Linux – the Linux client (and the Mac client) are hacks built on top of Cedega and Cider, respectively.  In the post, you’ll notice that they link to a knowledge base entry that details how to get the EVE Windows client running … on WINE.

This is instructive to game developers in a couple of ways.  One, Linux users are not interested in settling for a second-class client, which the EVE Linux client was – it didn’t support the Premium graphics.  This is especially true when the EVE Windows client runs better on WINE than the EVE “native” Linux client.  Two, trying to support custom Linux ports using WINE-associated technologies is becoming more and more of a waste of time – why do separate builds when you can just run on top of WINE instead?

CCP probably will catch some flak over this.  The best way to deal with this, however, is not to give up entirely.  It’s to officially support main-line WINE.  (Tacit support like Blizzard does with WoW would also work.)  Very little hardware is necessary and there’s no build support needed – just test the Windows builds on WINE and make sure they work.  If they don’t work, it’ll probably be instructive to find out why, because you probably just broke the Mac client, and maybe the Windows client as well on some people’s systems.  Problem solved, and no bad press or grumpy players.

WINE Going Production

From Slashdot, Dan Kegel of the WINE project posted a forum thread that lead to a wiki page of applications that officially support WINE as a platform.  The list is short, for the moment, but not zero.

Think about this for a second.  The developers and supporters of these applications are willing to officially support WINE as a platform.  Consider this quote from the Slashdot article:

“I was at the credit union today waiting literally hours for a banker-type person to do their job. On the table, a CU industry magazine. I picked it up and started flipping through it. (Interesting how every article followed the same exact business-like structure and format, no matter what the topic.) One of the ads was for some kind of “check transport” device. The thing that zips your check through a U-turn and puts a timestamp or something on it, I think. At the bottom of the ad in big bold letters was the statement:

Compatible with all versions of Windows and Linux with WINE.

I was floored. I got that same feeling as the first few times I started seeing World Wide Web URLs pop up on billboards and on TV commercials.”

The craziest software project ever attempted has gone production.