KickStarter to get Blizzard to port StarCraft II to Linux

[Bribe]

Windows 8 is getting a lot of negative rep right now. Valve recently spoke out critically about Windows 8 and called it a catastrophe.

Recently, Blizzard also condemned Windows 8. Regardless of their motive, Blizzard has publicly stated that they disagree with the direction Windows 8 is headed. Blizzard is a top gaming company - and we have built our site as more or less a shrine to their legacy. If Blizzard developed for an alternative platform, our community would no longer rely on Windows to power our favorite games.

Linux is getting a lot of attention in the gaming field lately. Valve is bringing Steam to Linux. Source engine games are now running faster on OpenGL than on DirectX, and it is these findings which may awaken the sleeping giant potential of Linux.

KickStarter Initiative

The idea is to petition Blizzard to open up a KickStarter window to create income for Blizzard developers to make StarCraft II run as well on Linux as it does on Mac OS X (as they both use OpenGL this is obviously possible). Possibly coupled with a motion to include a Diablo III port as well. Essentially every Blizzard game that works on Mac can be brought to Linux provided there is a financial incentive.

Currently, Linux represents a very small portion of the gaming market. This is ignoring mobile Linux distributions which obviously don't have the graphics pep of desktop games and still won't get there for a couple years. This is why I believe that KickStarter is necessary to convince Blizzard they can make a profit from Linux, too.

Please reply with your thoughts.

 

[rulerofiron99]

As much as I want to see this happen, I seriously doubt it will. Blizzard only does things for immediate profit, and this is a very long-term project.

 

[Bribe]

I disagree. They were working on SC2 and Diablo 3 for years.

And KickStarter would GIVE them immediate funding. They can simply say "we will do this for $10,000" for example, and if people pledge that amount they can start production on it once they know for sure the money is there. That's the beauty of KickStarter, and I would really like to see Blizzard do this.

 

[Dr Super Good]

I have been using a Unbutu virtual machine recently and... its junk...

Had to reinstall it from scratch 3 times because it got itself into an unrecoverable errored state by allowing people to accidently do actions that are on par with deleting the Windows folder just tyring to remove features you do not want. I also managed to get the system to have no administrator by removing the administrator password so it was impossible to do anything as a random admin password was assigned for some stupid reason. Trying to change passwords for an administrator account either requires 8+ characters (what the hell?!) or if you remove the password the above happens.

BlueZ is also usless as its HCI engine automaticly responds to events. Although it is one up on Windows in that it provides an HCI library, it is still unusable.

The DirectX VS OpenGL performance is entirly on a GPU per GPU baisis and also depends on what the game is using. Additionally they may produce images with different results for the same game frame due to differences in specification.

The article about valve mentions nothing why Windows 8 is a "catastrophe". Keybords and mice still function fine, although the desktop might be very different.

Performance differences between linux and Windows are very difficult to measure. One can get Linux to devote all system resources to a task (eg turning off the desktop) where as even Windows requires some for background processes. Windows on the other hand probably has a much better Kernal in it than Linux because Linux distributions are forced to use non-commercial Kernal technology. Just because a Mac performs well does not mean Linux does as even Mac uses a commercially designed Kernal so has access to procedures that cannot be legally used in Linux.

Linux's windows management system is really slow. It has to pipe all OpenGL render commands through a virtual network for most distros. This comes from the days of terminals and mainframes but is still heavilly used (this would be equivelent to Windows still using DOS for its desktop but fortunatly it does not).

Linux will not supass Windows until they improve usability (no more admin passwords for every operation) and make it more responsive. Even dedicated Linux machines with dual cores would continiously become unresponsive all the time while doing tasks. I have recreated this in a virtual machine as well so it is definatly Linux and not the computer as even Windows Vista running the virtual machine remains fluidly responsive all the time.

 

[Bribe]

I wouldn't say it's junk. I would say it's a skeleton. But a skeleton that 99% of users would use and still stay just as productive (ie. the users who only email/surf and use Office stuff). I used Ubuntu for a couple of months and the next time I install Linux it will be Mint because it's more favorable than "Unity".

However, I would need some playable games on there before I install Linux again. The only thing I didn't like about Linux was when I needed to switch back to Windows for games, it was a tedius process.

 

[Bribe]

There is also this petition online: http://www.petitiononline.com/ibpfl/petition.html

I don't see what mandates the Batman humor. Companies need resources to support cross-platform. They won't do it for free. As Dr Super Good already said, the kernel is different than OS X and would need support of its own.

 

[PROXY]

Come on. Blizzard really SWIMS in money. There is no need for a kickstarter project for them. WE ARE TALKING ABOUT BLIZZARD HERE. They have so much money that they won't be able to waste it anymore. You see whate they have done to Diablo 3 and the money-auctionhouse??? They get bonus money for creating a game that is only based on that, that the drop chance of your items is so low, meaning you can only really get further if you buy something there.

If you are really so dumb (and that is not meant offensive, in no way) to actually give Blizzard money for FREE, just to make them port Starcraft on Linux, then have fun but then you have really no idea what you are doing. If they really ever want to port it, they will do it but they don't need your 10000$ you might raise. And even if you give them that little gift, it won't affect their decision.

Instead of pumping more and more money into the company that ONCE made good games and was consumer-friendly and all that kind of things, then go ahead. But INSTEAD you could start kickstarter projects for Indie Games/Producers, who REALLY need the money.

Steel_Stallion got quite a point there.

Edit: A petition on the other hand is something completly different and for shure worth a try.

 

[Ralle]

Most of Blizzards games have been running pretty smooth in Wine http://www.winehq.org/
Any experience on SC2?

 

[Vengeancekael]

@Fan, I think I've seen you type "sure" with an "h" for a few years now, please, stop it, it gives me a headache. (/rage)

Also yeah a petition would maybe work.

 

[Mecheon]

Money isn't the reason why they haven't converted it to Linux. This kickstarter is either useless, or a scam. Either way, I wouldn't donate anything

Its more of a market share thing, the real reason. The only people who use Linux know how to run things not designed for it on their system. Windows, for all of its problems at Windows 8, is still the biggest market share

 

[Jazztastic]

As many of you probably know Activision is the owner of Blizzard. Since Moneyvision is only really interested in, you know, money, we probably won't see a Linux port simply because it isn't worth it. While all the art assests and game design is already there, why beat the sc2 dead horse for a few petty thousand? Any Linux users who sincerely want sc2 are probably running a dual-partition with Windows, especially since most games run Windows and not Linux.

If you get this to work, awesome. But I'd put my money towards this going nowhere.

 

[MGCǂSpectre]

Win8? So glad I don't have it and it not going well, I don't feel like changing Win7 any time soon. But yeah I support the suggestion, Linux is a good OS.

No one even posted any news regarding the smoother running/loading of the game since patch 1.5, boooo (P.S don't forget to backup your custom SC2Mod files, the new patch wipes them out, I lost some data..)

 

[Ralle]

It should run fine with Wine. Check this out http://appdb.winehq.org/objectManager.php?sClass=version&iId=20882 No reason to port it to Linux.

 

[Map Designer]

no reason to oppose it I guess, so yes I agree, it should be brought. matter not wheather wine or others exist.

 

[Rainbow_Dash]

It should run fine with Wine. Check this out http://appdb.winehq.org/objectManager.php?sClass=version&iId=20882 No reason to port it to Linux.

Blizz games run "O.k" in wine. However, it is VERY inefficient and wine doesn't seem to get along with ANYTHING that runs in full screen.