Windows Are we seeing the death of Windows for PC gaming?

I suspect that if Linux becomes a reasonable alternative to Windows, then it will affect new gamers more than it will affect current ones. Someone starting gaming on a PC will have the option between classic Windows, expensive flashy OS X or free but potentially missing features Linux. If Linux gets the support it deserves with drivers and games alike, then it could very well sway the decision.

Of course, for this to work we need to start seeing Linux as an OS choice on pre-built machines. The Average Joe will just pick up a PC and use it, regardless of the OS on it. As a few have pointed out in this thread, some people don't even notice the difference - they just want the computer to do what they want it to.

 

There's a simple reason why Linux isn't going stronger and never will be: unification and support!

A professional software-developer needs an OS he can get support for and make sure that the bigger share of the customers can get this kind of professional support aswell.
With Linux being an open source project there's no unified OS, as every distro is ever so slightly different then the other. What works flawless on Ubuntu for example doesn't automatically run flawless on RedHat etc.

Windows and OSX are currently the only OS that professional developers are developing consumer-software for, and as the majority uses Windows, there's basically no game-developer supporting anything else than Windows for the above reasons.

If SteamOS will be an unified OS with lots of professional support for devs and consumers, then it may have a chance at becoming the next GamingOS to be, but if SteamOS is just another Linux-distro, then it won't make it.

Basically SteamOS needs to be like a game-console OS, but installable on custom hardware, and if there's a problem, then the consumer needs to get professional help fast and easy, without understanding any technical stuff.

With Windows 7 and OSX I've not had any need for support during the last few years, and everything worked just like intended, especially the consumer-software (office, DTP, internet, multimedia) and games. That's why Windows and OSX are the most used OS' in the world and why Linux isn't used as much.

I'm running a HTPC with LinuxXBMC, and it runs like a charm. However, it took me some effort to get it to do what I wanted, and there's no additional software running on the machine besides the one needed for video-playback and LAN. Linux is good for these specialized tasks, as the OS can be very slim and once all runs like intended, there's no need to modify anything - I'm not even doing any updates on this machine, because I fear to get into troubles after the update.

Ease of use and professional support, these are the two mainaspects that make an OS succesful, even if it costs a few bucks.
Note: Most PCs are OEM-machines, so the OS is usually "free of cost" for the endconsumer.

 

Valve sold Steam to pc gamers overdosed on drm-hatorade with Half-Life 2.

Now imagine a world where Valve makes Half-Life 3 a SteamOS exclusive. If they're feeling particularly vindictive towards MS, they'll give the game away for free with SteamOS download. Add Portal/Team Fortress 3 and rinse & repeat if necessary.

Suddenly linux would have an userbase of millions of gamers overnight.

 

Not trying to make it out as insecure you have completely twisted my words. I just said because of the large majority of machines that run Windows there are more exploits & root kits, in comparison to the very small number of Linux desktop machines. Hence the statement, less secure because there are more vectors of attack.

And the "********" you have referred to I didn't mention a word of any of that. Off on another tangent there mate. Take your fanboi rant else where.

Sent from my GT-I9300 using Tapatalk 2

 

Please try to keep up with yourself.
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Can you quote yourself saying this? ..have read the thread twice now and cant see where you said this, are you sure you're not just rewording my earlier point & trying to pass it off as your own?

 

Sometimes you just wish Nexxo was still a mod...

 

Yeh, nexxo would have banned all the nix fanbois trolling the windows forum.

Btw interesting statistic: there are 13 threads total in the linux forum compared to 5801 threads total in the windows forum ...though the fact its a geek site might be skewing the data in favour of linux.

 

PC gaming is healthier now than ever before. Not that I would expect anyone on this forum to understand.

 

On a pc gaming forum?

Of course its going to be at its healthiest, the current console generation have been out for a decade and as a result people are turning towards pc gaming for the latest and greatest graphics.

In terms of windows losing to linux, don't forget that its a fairly small minority of people who game with windows PCs. I would have already converted but I need Publisher and I find Visual Studio a much better IDE than any linux open source alternatives and developing .NET applications is so easy

 

I think there's an interesting shift taking place. Consoles became the scourge of PC gaming and affected it in a very negative way, more recently the PC is under attack from the tablet. In spite of all this it is coming back stronger than ever. Gamers won't be forced to use consoles because a gaming PC is too expensive. Some gamers like to play both console and PC. The line between console and PC is now blurring. The next generation of consoles closer to PC and PC embracing console controllers and of course let's not forget Oculus Rift which is enormously popular and well supported even in current dev stage.

 

Man this definitely gives me a reason to play with Linux I've got a spare SSD too.

Any suggestions? I've still got at least two weeks of downtime so I may as well start leeching.

 

I can remember say six or seven years walking into pc world to look at games and they're was loads of different titles.
Now the amount has diminished drastically. Seems the more advanced we get with the pc's the less there are pc game titles.

Remember this discussion a while back and I said then it was getting worse back then and I got shouted down.

Wish I took pictures back then at any store. Even cex have hardly anything in pc games.

Sent from my GT-I9505 using Tapatalk 2

 

Yes, because the giant corporations who are only interested in profit took over from the bedroom coders. Now if you notice they too are striking back since the invention of Kick-Starting. PC games are once again being developed out of love rather than solely for profit.

 

Linux is a kernel.
Ubuntu is an operating system based Debian which is based on the Linux kernel.
It is down to Canonical to provide support for Ubuntu. And they do.

Again Red Hat.
Separate operating system. Has actually some of the best support around due to the fact that you have to pay for it. Cent OS is the free version.

There are many different desktop environments around to take a look at.

Elementary OS is my go-to distro at the moment. Super slick. Uses their own DE.

Ubuntu will have the most support I suppose. Uses Unity DE.
Xubuntu is Ubuntu with the XFCE DE. Very good option.
Lubuntu is Ubuntu with the LXDE DE. Very lightweight.
OpenSuse is a solid implementation of KDE.
Fedora uses Gnome 3.
Debian is very stable but can require a little setting up. Uses whatever DE you choose.

Pick the one you like the look of is my recommendation.

I think Steam and digital distribution has a lot to do with this.

 

Shops are so last year man our high streets are changing, and those that don't move with the times tend to go out of business. Shops are more places you go to try things out, sit in them, look them over, touch them, test them, with items like games you can decide if your going to buy it from information online, and most of the time find it cheaper.

And that there is what holds Linux back from being widely adopted, give people to many choices and they have problems making any choice at all.

 

wait, are people still debating OSes? Did you guys not get the memo? It's 2013 and everyone's too jaded to care.

That said...

PC gaming isn't likely to go anywhere. it might wax and wane with the release of new consoles, but it's unlikely to die. Microsoft spend a lot of money ensuring windows remains a popular OS in use by millions of people. This will continue to be the case so publishers and devs will continue to develop for windows so they've got the largest possible target audience, in order to get the most sales, make the most revenue, and (after taking their personal shares) reinvest the most back into game development, so they can make the very best games they can.

Valve will market SteamOS well (steambox is more a console alternative) to us gamers. But i doubt they'll ever get the coverage microsoft gets out of windows, so there'll never be the same incentive for devs to target it as a platform.

Now if the steambox takes off, it'd need to be competing with consoles; the PC gaming market isn't big enough to support a device like that on it's own, you need to be shifting units in far larger numbers and at a loss to get the user base consoles have and the number of people buying them to supplement an existing PC based gaming setup isn't a big enough demographic to make a difference with that.

That taken into account, I can see the steambox being a less successful console because it won't get the same coverage of AAA titles. It'll get some, maybe even good coverage, but there'll still be stuff that either isn't available on it that is elsewhere. HL3, Portal 3, L4D3 etc would help, but dependence on first party titles has already been an issue for nintendo, so maybe not a competitive model. Now couple the willingness of sony and microsoft to pay devs to make a title platform exclusive, and the willingness of publishers to accept such an offer from companies with large established user bases. I don't see how valve will compete.

OSX isn't too viable because the supported hardware tends to be performance limited to price. That is, it would potentially cost me a lot of money to get a mac with the same gaming performance as my i7 930 with a 680. The people buying those higher end macs aren't doing so for gaming, and OSX ends up being a much smaller target audience. Steam can succeed as it has lots of casual games suitable for lower end machines, but I don't see it ever competing with higher end gaming in larger numbers, so again, not that viable as a long term gaming platform.

Linux has potential, but ultimately it's too fragmented as it stands, and it'll never get the user base because it's never going to be marketed as well as Windows, or even OSX. We might, but the vast majority of people don't want to have to become educated to an extent to understand all this crap. There are far more of them than there are of us, so they're going to be what gets targeted, and that's going to be where the money goes (and comes from to be fair).

Windows on the other hand is likely to remain pretty dominant as a desktop OS, making it an ideal target platform for PC gaming devs. More focus on gaming won't happen to any great extent for fear of cannibalising the xbox market, but it's likely to always be there.

The big threats i suppose would be de-centralisation (or centralisation depending on your eprspective), where people use whatever client device for input/output and most processing is done remotely and streamed. The tech, communications infrastructure and raw bandwidth don't exist yet to make this commercially viable on a large scale. That would in theory remove all the current players from the scenario (it's not something anyone's already an established successful market leader with a growing market for), but you can bet once the tech is viable it'll be the likes of Sony and Microsoft who develop, implement, patent and release it in line with their current offerings.

It's not like a company will spring up overnight with the new tech, the implementation, the background infrastructure and the end product line to sell to customers. Anyone making the first few steps of that would need massive investment to try and change the status quo, and the only people with the finances and existing infrastructure to do that effectively are the ones who are on top with the current system. So they'll pursue it, but in a controlled manner so as to not compete with their own existing products/services until such time as it makes commercial sense to bring out a new offering and either capture a new market or migrate an existing one to it because it makes commercial sense going forward.




tl;dr No, we're not.
Also, Monday = cynical ranting

 

The PC gaming market is big, as in One-Billion Gamers Worldwide big. So you don't need to sell hardware at a loss to gain market share, the market is already there, and its growing.

While i agree gaming on Windows isn't going away, i do question the type of games that will be played on Windows in the future. When Microsoft released the first Xbox and Vista their focus switched from Windows being optimised for serious gaming to gaming on the Xbox and making Windows a more stable platform.

More recently we have seen another switch with the release of Windows 8 the do it all, mobile OS.
People will still be playing games on Windows in the future, but these games will be things like angry birds, plants v zombies, etc, etc.

 

You are absolutely right and I think what would help is if people stopped looking at Linux as an operating system, which it is not.

They need to look at individual distributions and compare those directly. Ubuntu, Elementary and Mint are tight operating systems. They have culled the choice and this I think this will be what makes or breaks an OS.

Anyway this is supposed to be about gaming so back on track.

OSX will continue to do its thing with gaming and some titles will be released some wont. That's not going to change.

SteamOS will lead to more games being ported to Linux systems and may increase the uptake of some distributions but not on its own. Other factors previously discussed will affect this more.

It depends greatly on what you use your PC for and what titles you play. I almost exclusively play small coop or independent titles, because I don't have the time for a big AAA FPS, and this is why it may be possible for me to move to a Linux based system full time come next year.

 

People said the same thing 5 years ago just before windows 7 was released, 5 years later windows gaming is at a peak whilst all the Linux OS between them are still below OSX which has become a lot more viable alternative in the last few years.

It will take a major shift of the 2 main publishers. Kickstarter is a nice project but you don't code for 2% you code for 80% plus if you hope to get cash. I've backed a few projects none of which have yet come to a finish product. Look at star citizen it's down as q1 2015 release date now.

1billion total active seems unrealistic to say the least. Might be 1bil that have played something at some point.

 

As Corky said and what I basically said before... Linux needs unification down to a maximum of maybe two or three different distros, and all of them need professional support, i.e. these distros will have to be paid for, like RedHat which runs on most servers for exactly the reason of it not being freeware and having professional support.

The future for Linux would look like this, and has to be marketed as such:
RedHat = enterprise and servers @ $150
Ubuntu = standard home-users @ $50
OpenELEC = lightweight HTPC-systems @ $20

And last but not least, you need to make sure that professional software is running on these Linux-machines... stuff like AdobeCS, Autocad, Solidworks, etc, etc, etc.
Without the professional software and the support for it, no OS will ever make it into the mainstream.