In my web wandering I recently came across the Ubuntu Gaming team which is a marketing effort which was started from a post over on pinstack.
Here is the problem: the Linux gaming landscape is a wasteland, and more marketing couldn’t hurt but it sure wont fix the problem.
So what does Linux Gaming really need? Well I thought about it, and here is what I came up with.
A Lack of High Quality Game Engines
When you look at the titles of the really successful game company’s such as Ubisoft, Epic, and others they all run on these amazingly powerful proprietary game engines. The game engine itself is a huge piece of the puzzle when it comes to any half-way decent game and unfortunately this is an area where Linux is lagging behind other platforms. One could say that the reason for this is because there are simply not enough open-source developers dedicated to the cause of creating high quality open-source game engines (quite a mouthful), and while that may be partly the reason I suspect that organizing those developers is also to blame.
Open source works differently than regular development, in an open source project you’re aren’t assigned to a team and given a to-do list and a manager to check your list and while you may be thinking “Hey that sounds good!” The downside is you aren’t given a paycheck either. You are simply a volunteer who does what she wants when she wants on what she wants, and in that kind of situation it is very hard to accomplish everything that needs to be done.
Despite the inherent problems of lack of developers and lack of organization there are some open-source game engines out there who have figured out how to get things done and are actually quite good! Take two open-source game engines for example: Panda3d: an interesting combination of C++/Python, and jMonkeyengine: written in Java. Both of these engines have been used to make commercially successful games so they are certainly respectable projects, but realistically they are years behind even moderately successful proprietary engines despite being two of the best engines that the Open Source world has to offer.
A Lack of Game Artists
You could have the best game concept in the world but without professional artwork your game is going to look end up looking like a pile of molten slag and unless your game is about the zany adventures of a boy and his pile of molten slag then you have a serious problem.
I wont go into just how eye-popping even the moderately successful proprietary games look these day because I’m sure we know already, the real question is how did those games get to look so good and how can we bring that over to the Linux system.
The first thing to understand: Game artists can’t work without tools. As an artist my tools are just as important to me when I’m creating art as when I am creating code, and many of the artists that I know also feel the same way. Non-artists may find it surprising that artists care deeply about their software, perhaps you thought that Emacs vs Vim type wars only happened in geeky programming mailing lists but let me tell you that artists can feel just as strongly about their favorite weapons of choice.
So what is the quality like of the artist tools available for Linux. The best three available are Blender, Gimp, and Inkscape and I can say in all good faith that they are simply amazing. I’d really like to emphasise this point. Just 2 or 3 years ago I would not and could not have said this with such confidence, but the beauty of open source is that it just continues to get better and better. I have total confidence that for anything I need to do open source tools meet the challenge.
However tools are only one piece of the puzzle, another important factor is money and recognition. Money is important to every professional but it is particularly important for artists because art is one of the more difficult industries to make a successful living. Your average programmer doesn’t have that much difficulty finding a job after college but that is not the case with the average artist despite being no less talented.
If I were to ever setup an open source game I would ensure that any serious artists linked to the project received a percentage cut of the donations or in some other way be compensated. I would also make sure that the artists got in-game and on-site named credit for their work and contributions.
A lack of Games Itself
By “Game” I mean the concept and code which connects the players to the game-engine. Despite the two previous problems of a lack of high quality game engines and a lack of game artists this problem is in my view the most difficult to overcome. People need to write more games for Linux, there is no way around this.
You may have a good idea, but I’ll tell you what Guy Kawasaki told me once and that is that good ideas are not hard to find, it is making them happen which is the trouble.
How do we get around this? Tie a bunch of artists and programmers together and don’t let them go until they start making some awesome games? That seems like a good idea but in actuality it is a really hard thing to do.
My Open-Source Indie Game Developer Formula
I think a lot of people would like to head down the road (myself included) of independent open-source game developer, but how exactly to do so is a bit of a mystery.
After some thought I’ve come up with the following suggestions on how it could be done:
1) Write out a rough draft of your concept: It doesn’t have to be perfect but you need to set some simple goals about what you are actually trying to accomplish with this project.
2) Figure out your business plan, how will you make money from this game (AdSense? donations? whatever). Having a business plan is important, if you do not plan for this game to make any money whatsoever then chances are the development will be slow going and you will have trouble finding support or getting recognition for your work. Do not waste time planning to get rich, but do figure out some way to turn your efforts into some cash. This will help you to stay motivated.
3) Write and release an open-source proof of concept that runs, it doesn’t have to be pretty it doesn’t have to be fun it doesn’t even need to work, it just needs to run.
4) Turn to the Open Source community and to your friends for support, ask bloggers that you know to write an article or to mention your project on their site. Start to offer incentives to artists who would be willing to help your project. Here is where the offering to give name credits on the work as well as a slice of the pie (i.e. money) which I mentioned earlier would help a lot I think.
5) After you’re done schmoozing for help, you need to return to your project and continue to work. Push out another release even if you’re still all alone and even if the game is still as ugly as hell. Once your next release is out then head back to the blog sphere again and try to drum up more interest and help for your project, then once again return to your project and continue to work.
6) Repeat step 4 and 5 until you reach the goals set out in step 1
I hope this article will interest and motivate some of you out there to give open source game development a chance. Linux is a great platform with great tools and some pretty good open-source game-engines just begging to be abused. All it needs is more people with killer game concepts and enough willpower to get a basic game project up and running.
