Mark,

The past few weeks i've been thinking about the development and popularity that Ubuntu has seen since I began using Warty. The new Dell deal is very exciting, and hopefully we'll see people who have heard of the product purchase a Desktop with Ubuntu. In the four years I've spent at my university, I've actively attempted to introduce people to Linux, Ubuntu, and Open Source software as a whole. I have found that people who are not willing to accept Linux, are mostly those who play a lot of video games. I just finished reading the interview you've had with Phoronix.com. And you mention you'd like to see more support from video game developers.

I think this is an important time to act on it, and I wouldn't think it requires a significant amount of resources, either. In striking the deal with Dell, Ubuntu has been put further into the public eye. Recently Blizzard has announced Starcraft II, which I estimate will be very successful. But Blizzard has always developed games cross platform, Mac and PC. Obviously the big deal here is the implementation of both Direct3D and OpenGL by the software manufacturer, so it wouldn't be too tough to cross-platform to Linux (WoW over wine is pretty seamless, anyways). Companies like iD and Epic have released cross-platform Windows/Mac/Linux games for years now, but with the popularity and success of Blizzard through their previous titles and World of Warcraft especially, I think it would be an appropriate time to suggest to Blizzard supporting Linux.

I don't mean to waste your time because `I want to play Starcraft II on Linux.' That's not what this is about. I believe with the current publicity and traction that Ubuntu has, you have the influence to at least suggest a dialogue with Blizzard on this issue. Getting game developers who are already massively popular and open to suggestion such as Blizzard can more unify the Linux Desktop experience which is the goal of Ubuntu. So i simply suggest that this could be an option to pursue. I've cc-ed Michael Larabel at Phoronix who perhaps would also be interested in this venture. I plan on contacting Blizzard myself through some form, but I doubt they will be responsive to one individual user.

Thanks for your time,

Mike Cretella
Worcester Polytechnic Institute
Worcester, MA, USA

Do you think Ubuntu could make Starcraft 2 a reality for Linux gamers?

I don't think Blizzard will release a game for Linux :( I think for StarCraft II it's too late already.

Wine is a funny thing here. Its existence and use makes developers reluctant (laziness) to port games.

By the way, Michael, I am concerned to see that ATI/AMD make no progress on their drivers. It's probably a greater concern (than games).

I sent Blizzard an e-mail myself about a Linux port but haven't received any reply. I guess the market share is just too low.

It would be really nice though. Maybe they could partner with Transgaming like Maxis did with The Sims 2?

"I don't think Blizzard will release a game for Linux :( I think for StarCraft II it's too late already."

So how is Starcraft II too late? It is still the most popular game in Korea and there are still many followers. You need to go on Battle.net and see how many people are still playing Broodwar.

Man, I think we should rally at some of these big companies and show them that they should make their games for Linux too. Wine is nice, but games made for Linux would be seem less, which is what we want right?

...is the current lack of a universal programming platform. Yeah, programmers are lazy or we/they would have taken over the world already. :)

But really, if a company is reluctant to port to Linux, especially if they don't want their product to be decoded and recompiled, its because its not going to be just one port. Its going to be several. Can you say Gnome and KDE? Both have distinct traits and while they both run on top of Linux, apps have to be compiled for each desktop manager to run properly, so thats actually two ports. AND, that doesn't count all the permutations, custom implementations, needless to mention all the other desktop managers, and your talking about many many ports. No commercial vendor in their right mind will touch that (for now). And yes, it is about the money, but as gamers we already know, and for the most part accept, that.
Even if someone could get a hold of Blizzard's ear and pitch one variant (only Gnome on Ubuntu, for example) it would be open source community suicide as fans of every other DM would riot because they want it to run on THEIR DM.
IMO, its gonna be really hard to get ANY commercial software vendor/dev. to port to Linux until it has a universal programming library for all desktop environments.
If you don't understand, its basically a universal translator for your Linux apps. You can code in virtually any language or script you want and it will work with any desktop management app. you choose to use. Linux does not have that, which translates into a real economic restriction to most commercial software vendors. Why pay for someone to port and debug that software over and over and over again so that it works on all flavors, and heaven forbid you leave a DM out or there will be ... something to pay.
Until the day this type of interface is available that makes it so you only have to do ONE port (IBM's SOM anyone?), we will never really have the key to securing PC gaming's freedom.

Valentine.

I stumbled across this article looking for any news on Blizzard + Linux support, as I have also sent numerous un-answered inquiries about this. I have to say firstly: Hurrah!

I see a lot of comments: Linux doesn't have enough market share, blah blah blah. Bottom line is the market share is stuck in a catch-22, the people who haven't switched yet either don't know how different *nix is today from 20 years ago, or want to play games. Game developers wont do it until there's more market share... deadly circle.

I offer a contrary view point: I play WoW, a lot, and I help maintain my guild's website/am technical support. We have 35 accounts at this moment in our guild, and 7 of them are running Linux (Ubuntu). That's 20% of our guild. Not to mention we have an additional 4 people running Mac's... Thats about 30% of our guild NOT running Windoze. The Windows market share is waning. And its time for the developers/release labels to accept it and start developing on the new platforms. Its always been a bad business model to support only a diminishing market segment and Ubuntu IS steadily growing.

Anywho, thats my 2 cents worth, keep spreading Ubuntu!

The last video game I spent my money on was Doom 3. People from Blizzard, know this: I WILL GLADLY PAY 100€ for a Starcraft 2 box IF there is a Linux version !

Ubuntu definitely has a lot of traction among the distributions, but believe me, except for those who do port because "they can and want to" you're not going to see anyone else sign up for Linux ports.

Blizzard? That's NOT going to happen. Not now, not a year from now... not decades from now. They are right there on their comfy bed of money generated by WoW and Starcraft 2!

I'd even pay 100€ for Starcraft II, if I could only be sure that it runs well on wine.

A native Linux version would definitely seal the deal for me.