Woah, virulent post. Merry Christmas to you too, as though that were possible, the dream being dead and all.
For a kick off, what dream? Yours, I'm guessing, one where it rains penguins and video games are made by people living in cottages who will trade them for jam. And you know, it's not a bad dream, I like it too. But we all have to get used to the fact that it's just our dream, and if other people share in it, then great, if not, then soak it up.
On that note, you're talking about a single Linux gaming community. I'm not sure that one exists, and I'm certain that such a thing is not desirable. For a community to exist and thrive, it needs a leader. For example, individual games have their own communities. Individual sites, like this one, have their communities. Local Linux groups have their communities (well, they are communities, sort of). On a larger scale, these communities interact because they interconnect through individuals or groups of individuals who are part of more than one. For example, I'm logged on here but also over on Taleworld's forums, because I'm a fan of a Windows game they make. Point is this: there is no one single community which could be called the "Linux gaming community". No such thing, and whatever happens not everyone is like you - probably very far from it. To speak of "the entire Linux gaming community" as though it were one thing is to steamroll over all of the freedom of individuality that Linux was distributed to allow in the first place (well, at least, that was one of the goals anyway, I think). So let's stop lamenting the demise of a nation for a start, because there was never any such thing, and neither did anyone ask for one. Now the Nintendos and the Segas you mention, they do have very definite gaming communities. Many are employed just to the task of propogating and cultivating these communities, and this is no bad thing for them or their users. But I for one have no intention of being propogated or cultivated by anyone, and that is exactly what attracted to me Linux and Linux gaming in the first place. The knowledge that I would, or at least should, be able to stand up and shout "I love this Windows game" to my Linux-using friends without being hissed at. The knowledge that I wouldn't be homogenised into a single community. This is something that you seem to want, but I as sure as penguins were tuxedos do not.
I'm not at all convinced by this idea of the LGT being "overrun by projects demanding to be paid" (sic.). Out of a total of 2,146 games posted on this site, a total of 92 are shareware, 118 are outright commercial, and somehow we don't know about 81 others. That's a total of 291 games whose licences require or may require some kind of handing over of money, and whose source is closed. Mate, that's just 13.5%. Hardly "overrun".
Of course, numbers do not count for merit and let's face it, when you state that "the games may not have been the greatest", you show yourself to be a master of litotes. Let's be blunt, the games were awful compared to what they were then for other PC and gaming platforms. And no wonder! Even making the comparison is kind of insulting, like responding to your grandfather's Christmas gift to your daughter of a hand-crafted doll's house by saying that the one by pointing out that the edges are rough and the little doors don't open. It is to ignore all the charm that went into the games, something you come close to alluding to but then avoid like a steamtrain. Instead, you focus on this fictional idea of a community that at one point would jump in and save failing projects, would refuse to ever ask for any kind of recompense, would without a second though hand out their code; a round table of open-source knights in shining blits. No such thing ever existed, at least to my recollection, and even if it had, it wasn't producing such fine games as it is now.
And since the hell when did Tux stop being the Linux mascot just because of the history of Tux Racer?!! I'm not even going to elaborate on that.
In fact, there are plenty of people who, arguably rightly, are sick to the back teeth of having to play a penguin, or fight hordes of Windows symbols and so on. Take a look at the comments for Paradroid RPG if you don't believe me. It was novel at one point but seriously, wise software users are more mature and want to actually play a good game rather than poke fun at commercial companies. Tux, I am sure, will always have a meaning to any Linux-user's heart - to try to promote him as some kind of commercialist mascot a la Mario or Sonic, whilst deriding a "bleak, dark, and copyright restricted" (sic: copyright liberates, not the other way around - it makes me not have to keep everything to myself) is not only hypocritical, it taints everything he (for me, anyway) represents.
Gaming on Linux is better than it has ever been. I look forward to starting up my system when I get home from work and seeing the penguin we know as Tux on the booting screens. I know that when I see him I'm in for a good time. Much of it I've not had to pay for financially, but I've donated. Some of it I've bought, and it's all been brilliant. Some of it's not even meant to be played on a Linux box, but those clever folks at Wine thought of a way round for me. If I've got homework, then Tux is there to hold my hand. There is no single dream, but if I know nothing else, then this is for sure - my dream has not died. |
A 3D racing game featuring Tux, the Linux penguin
