I'd like to see SafeDisc, StarForce, SecuROM, and other copy protection monstrosities provide Linux binaries for their protection. It's a stupid and ugly thing, but how many games are tied to windows for the sake of making sure you have an original disc?

@justcallmejim
The few that where so miserable not to be worth cracking ;-)

It's not hard to make a disc uncopyable in Linux:

Provided the game checks the CD/DVD properly (ATIP of the disc) You can hardly make an exact copy without the proper media (ATIP) - problem solved.

Silkroad Online

Then code the the game using OpenGL that works for most all OSs and you'll learn some extra money from the Linux games that will buy the game, and the Mac, and the FreeBSD and so on. and that IS economically viable since you don't restrain your sells to just one platform ignoring the increasing Mac and Linux comunity

Unreal Tournament has done it's game for DX and OpenGL and it did not took 10 years, and hell, I bet my hand that game is gonna be worth it! If the guys from Unreal can do it, so can do it all the other companies.

I agree.

There are hundreds of games out there which have implemented engines capable of doing DX and OpenGL side by side which didn't suffer the added years of development which lordSaurontheGreat thinks there would be. There are just to many examples where both were implemented for it to be a valid argument.

There are many reasons why Linux gaming isn't considered by game makers. Market size is one of them, but the rest of Sauron's post is without merit.

But does Macrovision, for example, offer a Linux equivalent for their SafeDisc? Do many corporate minds think it's absolutely necessary to have big name copy protection? See what I'm getting at?

I don't see why is so important the copy protection on CDs and DVDs. Nowadays is completely unconceivable a game wich does not run online. Thus, is far more easy to control key codes that are activated online than protecting the CD.

Take for example World of Warcraft. You can crack the CD, but without a valid CD Key, the game is totally worthless. So do you think Blizzard put a lot of efford in that? I bet no. And even more, WoW runs in OpenGL mode. Runs on Macintosh, so why the hell not make a simple Linux binary? Since Mac and Linux are *nix alike, it should not be that difficult to just provide a binary.

Same happens to UT2004. You can play offline with bots, but hell, is not the same experience at all!!

What I think is the worst problem in Linux is not the low OS market share, but rather the big differences existing in different distros. This is not a problem for the distro itself, but for the tech support from the game company. which has to adapt to each distro. And this is pain in the ass.

Another problem I see is the emulations. I mean Wine and Cedega mostly. Though they make a HUGE efford to Linux community and I'm completely thankful to the guys who maintain the projects, I also think they provide a big barrier for game developers to take an efford to make Linux native versions. In the point of view of a game developer is a perfect solution, since they don't have to provide a Linux version since some other people is making the efford to make that software run under Linux.

Although we all want native Linux ports for games and other software, and in many cases it would be arguably easy to port them, I just don't see it happening--with or without the existence of Wine. To many game producers, it's not that a Linux port doesn't matter because of Wine. It's that Linux matter to them at all.

If Linux did matter to a game co and they still didn't want to port it, wouldn't they test it in wine to see if it works? Perhaps tweak it a bit so that it does work or work better? As far as I can tell if a game works in Wine it wasn't due to any effort by the game developers.

One aspect of Wine/Cedega/Crossover that seems to get over looked is that these emulators demonstrate a fair amount of demand amongst Linux users for games. Take a look at the application database over at winehq.org. There are more game applications than any other software category. A lot more. (Only thing Linux people want from the Windows world is games it seems.)

Not only, but most wanted, sure enough!

The mindset is changing, time will only tell how hardware offerings with Linux preinstalled will tilt the balance and availability of future titles to the platform.

I think that may be because Linux has a lot of other things to offer. It has email clients, web browers, music/media programs, DVD playback, graphics, office, etc, you name it. and a lot of that IS better than windows.
But what seems to be lacking ARE the games. Sure, you don't need outlook; you have something that works the same, maybe better like KMail or thunderbird. You may have a clone of a game (depending on copyrights, etc, but sometimes, the real deal or real game is what you really want, thus is why I believe most linux users that keep a copy of windows, or wants one thing from windows are games.
Speaking of games, I have yet to find the Loki Version of Descent 3.

Have you tried TuxGames yet? I believe they've got some used ones.

it says "discontinued". Maybe I heard wrong, but I thought someone said you can make a loki installer out of the windows version. ha, like I know how to do that, still a noob.

Of course this is true, but my argument applies here perfectly. There's a lot of demand because developers don't supply Linux versions. As long as people are happy with Wine/Cedeg/CrossOver, there's no change developers will take seriously Linux a platform to take into account.

And please, don't get me wrong. I love Wine and I truly thank Wine developers for the big efford they're doing, but I'll be happier to see Linux ports of those apps.

Getting back on topic
I would LOVE to see the Blood omen and Legacy of Kain series ported to linux
The way linux runs it would look and play even better then on Windows.... Anyone agree?

don't know any of the games, but I agree that most games run better on linux.