It has just been announced that yet another Linux-friendly company, Grin, has gone under. Add this to the big name of Ascaron a couple of months ago, and it is a sad time for those that had some faith in Linux gaming.

I just wanted to take a moment to send a thought out to those companies, and thank them for the time and effort they went to, working with us on bringing their great games (Ballistics, Bandits, Sacred) to Linux, and to wish the employees of these companies good luck in finding new places either within or outside the gaming industry.

We didn’t have an update in May, as very few issues seemed to be similar, and we simply dealt with them on an individual basis.

This month we have a couple of new issues to discuss.

X3: Hanging or Crashing

This issue has been affecting a small number of people, where X3 seems to be leaking memory. We are in the process of assigning a new staff member to look for this issue, as a matter of priority. The problem does not seem to affect everyone, as many players play for long periods of time with no problem, where some can hit the problem in five minutes of play.

While we acknowledge that the bug does indeed seem to be there, it may be some time until a fix can be provided, as it may take some time to locate such an elusive bug.

Sacred Networking Bug

The networking bug in Sacred that we have talked about previously seems to be more widespread than first suspected. We have found what could possibly be a solution, and we are hoping to have a patch out soon. However we are still working on a few other issues to resolve before the Sacred patch is ready.

We have listened and created the reseller download system.

From today all resellers will be able to sell downloadable copies of LGP games, and these will be cheaper than boxed copies. LGP is not selling downloadable versions directly, as to do so would seriously damage the ability of the reseller chain to compete meaningfully.

When buying a downloadable game you are guaranteed the following:

1. All LGP games will be re-downloadable from LGP itself for as long as we are in business
2. All full downloadable games, while keylocked, will always work, even if LGP shuts down
3. In the unlikely event of LGP going out of business, all downloaded games will be placed onto the bittorrent network (in a keylocked state obviously) so that they will remain in circulation for as long as people demand them.

Rental Option

We have also listened to those who wanted ridiculously low prices on their games. We have created the LGP Rental system. Any downloadable game is now available for rental. This means you can pay just a fraction of the price, and have the game for a week, or for a month. The rental games DO require internet access to start up, but apart from that are exactly the same as the full game. I know some of you will dislike this, but really, it is rental, we have to have stronger security on it. The downloadable purchased game does NOT require internet access to start the game.

Right now, the only games we have that are available for download or rental are the three newest games that have the LGP Key System, X3, Jets’n'Guns, and Sacred. Other games will follow as we get time to add them into the system.

I hope that this will be what you all wanted, and will give everyone, even those that want their games for next to nothing, the ability to play LGP games. If you can think of other things we can do with downloads, please do comment here and let us know. I wont promise that LGP will do everything that people ask, but I can say, and I think we have now proved this, we DO listen {:-)

There is only really one new common issue this month:

Sacred – problem starting a new game on Open Internet multiplayer option

This problem seems to affect people with certain network setups that are designed to block network traffic, such as symmetric NAT or Firewall systems.

You can find out your current setup’s networking facilities by downloading our Test Tool and checking that the networking section. If it says that networking is only available via TURN, then you are going to experience this problem.

The way around this problem for the moment, simply, is patience. The game will connect in the end, although it can take between 30 and 60 seconds to negotiate its way past your network security systems. We are working on a way to speed this up, and we hope to have a patch out soon which will address this problem.

A lot of people have made the complaint ‘but I can get this game for half the price on Windows’.

Sure, you often can. But that isn’t the point. The point is, Linux isn’t Windows. We try and release our games at a price that is comparable to, if not a little lower then, a new release game on other platforms. For example, our newest three games have been priced with X3 at £30, Jets’n'Guns at £15, and Sacred Gold at £27. Compare this to 3 new releases for Windows, Sims 3 at £40, Spore’s expansion at £20, and Street Fighter IV and £30. The prices are comparable.

We agree that most games we produce have already been out on Windows for a while, but thats the big point. Why does a Linux user care about what is available on another platform? It is a new game to THIS platform. A couple of years ago, I saw a copy of Doom 1 for the PS2 for £50 when the engine was already open sourced and you could buy the windows version for about a pound. Thats what happens on other platforms.

So, thats one reason.

The other is, the price reflects what it costs us to make it.

We have to pay developers who often have to spend months rewriting large portions of a game. Porting isn’t a 5 minute job, stick it in a Makefile and gcc will take care of the differences. Not even close. Developers take months making the games run on Linux, and we have to ensure we can pay them properly for their work.

Another question we are often asked is ‘I bought this game for Windows, can I just download a copy for Linux because I’ve already paid for it’.

The answer is no. It will always be no. We get no share of revenue from the sale of the Windows version. I understand why people are reluctant to pay for it twice, but look at it from our point of view. We spend months making a game, and then people expect us to give it away for free because they gave money to another company. Thats like going into McDonalds, buying a coke, drinking it, then going into BK and asking for a refill! The product is the same, the company is different.

When it comes down to it, we know we cannot compete with Windows games on price for the game. We take a finished Windows product and make it run on Linux. This means by the nature of our business we will release after the game is available on Windows, and the shelf-life of a Windows game is so short that it is highly unlikely we will release the game while it is still on the full price new releases shelf. And so it comes down to this:

We release games for the Linux OS. If you are going to dual boot, or have a second Windows machine for gaming, then you will be able to get it cheaper. Just like if you own a PS3, a game for Windows will be £10 cheaper when it comes out. Or if you own a mac, the games will be at the same price level as Linux games, sometimes earlier, sometimes later.

If you want more games for your OS, then you need to buy the ones that are available. If you just want cheaper, then buy for Windows, but don’t complain when there arent enough games for Linux.

We expected to have had it ready weeks ago, but some last minute issues caused some unexpected delays. The network layer, Grapple, had an error in how it communicated through certain types of firewalls and NAT routers, which meant that only around 30% of players would be able to access the multiplayer features of the game on the PenguinPlay servers.

But that is all past us now, and the game is in production! The game also has a nice new large map insert being produced with the game, just as a small bonus extra! We are also working on the finalising of the demo, which we hope to have available before stock of the game arrives, so you can try it out before buying.

Although it still is relatively new, there’s already quite a few nifty features available, such as in-game lobby, live information about ongoing games on the web site, as well as highscores for all games. Sadly though it can still at times be somewhat hard to find someone to play with, which is why we added a new feature to PenguinPlay this week, namely e-mail notifications. This lets you subscribe to notifications for games, then PenguinPlay sends you an e-mail when a multiplayer game that you can join is started. In order to enable this feature you need only log in to your PenguinPlay account, edit your account settings and then select that you wish to edit notification settings. From there you can subscribe and unsubscribe to new game notifications for the various games available on PenguinPlay.

To compliment the notification service and the on-site forums we have also started an IRC channel where PenguinPlay games can chat and schedule games in. Join #PenguinPlay on the irc.freenode.net IRC network.

One of the primary things that separates PenguinPlay from the many others similar services out there (apart from the obvious support for Linux) is that it is available, very cheaply, for developers of Free/Open source games. The Grapple library is already open, so they need only pay a (nominal) fee for hosting services, and then we take care of the rest (no proprietary code needed). The library itself is multi-platform and runs on Linux, BSD, MacOS X and Windows. Our goal is that a multi-platform online gaming community is built up around it, in particular, one where Linux gamers are real full-time members of the community and treated at least as well as gamers from other platforms.

As of this writing, the games that are available are only Linux versions, and only commercial games. There is no technical reason why the developers of the games for other platforms shouldn’t be able to patch their games to work with PenguinPlay. The games that are available are currently available for online play are Ballistics and Knights & Merchants both of which needs to be patched to the latest version, as well as high score support for Jets’n'Guns, which was the first LGP game to ship with PenguinPlay support out-of-the-box, and Candy Cruncher (which also requires a patch). The upcoming LGP game Sacred: Gold will also ship with PenguinPlay support out-of-the-box, enabling Linux gamers to adventure together, and our beta team has already done so. I for one can’t wait to quest along with fellow Linux gamers.

We are hoping that the service improves the multiplayer experience for Linux gamers, making it easier for the gamers to find people to play with, and games developers to have full multi-platform multiplayer support in their games. Keep checking this blog and the PenguinPlay website for news about more upcoming PenguinPlay features and games.

If you have any input, suggestions or questions for me, feel free to ask them here in the comments, on IRC, or via e-mail (to eskild at the domain linuxgamepublishing dot com).