Re: Loki files for banruptcy protection.

[Steve Baker <sjbaker1@airmail.net>]

Chris wrote:

> Their key market is ports. They write conversions of old Windows games and
> try to sell them to a market containing a large number of people who dual
> boot Windows. The same people who dual boot Windows mainly to play Windows
> games. The same games that Loki port, months or years after they were
> available on Windows. Ever heard the expression "Selling coal to Newcastle"?
> In fact, the situation is worse - they are trying to sell the ports at the
> same price as the original release, while the Windows version has had its
> price cut in half or more. Sure, Loki are doing more than ports now, but
> that's where most of their money comes from and where the big debts are.
> Linux users may want native games, but how many of them are prepared to pay
> twice the amount that it would cost to buy the Windows version (those that
> didn't buy it when it was released on Windows anyway)

The computer games busines is booming - I spent last week at SigGraph where
computer games applications have come to totally dominate the world of
graphics.  There was a LOT of very serious talk about computer games coming
to take over the role of TV and Cinema as the principal means of story telling
before the end of this decade.

* We used to see "The game of the movie" - but this year, we have already seen
  at least a couple of instances of "The movie of the game".

* The top three games made last year each made more profit than the movie Titanic.

* HOWEVER, only one game in 35 ever makes a profit.

Just as in the movie business, it's very hard to know in advance what games titles
will "take off" and which will simply sink without trace.  Everyone knows that
no matter what, the next James Bond movie will do quite well - and everyone
knew well in advance that Quake III would turn a profit...but if you are an
unknown - then there is a HUGE risk factor involved.

So, for Loki, if they had set out to incur the enormous expense of writing
a new game from scratch *just* for Linux, they would bear the dual risks of
only having a 3% chance of getting a hit *and* even when if it is a hit,
the relatively small market of Linux users would shrink the potential profits
by a factor of 50 or so simply because of the small user-base.

Their idea (and it was basically a reasonable one) was to port games that were
known to be successful.  That eliminates the 97% chance of coming up with a dud.

But (as you have already pointed out), people can dual-boot.  If you are a Linux
enthusiast who is also a dedicated games player then you *HAVE* to dual boot (or
buy only console games).  That means that the vast proportion of Loki's market
will already have the game in the Windoze version - so they are now working only
a small percentage of an already small percentage of the market.

What needed to happen was for Loki to port each game as it was being written and
release it on the same day and at the same price as the Windoze version and have
it on the shelves of the exact same stores.

The bottom line is: Why did they fail to do that?

I don't know the answer - but if I had to guess it would be that the big games
companies are VERY busy that close to the release date and they simply don't
have the time or energy to even THINK about talking to Loki.

So we are back in the usual chicken-and-egg situation:  We need more games to get
more Linux users.  We need more Linux users to get more games.

The only way to get out of that loop is to write FREE Linux games ourselves...which
is what I do.  The problem is that it can take 100 people three years to write a
major game - you increasingly need to hire actors to do the voice overs, full scale
orchestra's to record the music and pay skilled artists to do the artwork.  Programmers
make up a tiny fraction of those 100 people.  Most games are *programmed* by just a
handful of people.

Hence having a lot of Linux software people try to write a game is a very tough proposition.

In my two OpenSource games (Tux-A Quest for Herring and TuxKart) I was able to write
all the software single-handed in a relatively short time - but getting 3D and 2D
artists and musicians to throw in some effort has been more-or-less a dead end.

So we end up with freeware games being things where you don't *need* artwork - things
like Tetris (of which there are now 45 versions that run on Linux).

My next game "The Chronicles of The Evil Overlord" is designed to need a minimum of
artwork and make up for it with much more programmed features.  But I'm under no
illusions about how hard that will be to do.

> There's a lot of talk about how Linux users refuse to pay for things.

I don't believe that.  RedHat is profitable - QED.  Linux users not only pay
for things, they even pay for things they could theoretically download for free!
The shelves in Fry's have about two shelf-feet of Loki games and about 40 shelf-
feet of Linux distro's - there is a reason for that.

> I
> expect it's true that Linux users refuse to pay twice the price for a game
> they already have. In my experience Linux users are quite prepared to pay
> for a product they believe to be worth their money, they aren't people you
> can sell any rubbish to, or peope you can overcharge very easily. Because of
> this, ports, especially when playing the original is a reboot away, are
> never going to support a company for very long. Especially given the greed -
> and the immense license fees this reults in - of Windows publishers.

Yes indeed.

> If Loki had been a company which got 100% of its income from selling
> Linux-only, original games. THEN I would be worried, but this is a long way
> from being the case.

Well, I don't think they could stay in business that way.  To have to write
35 games from scratch just to get a statistically good chance of having a
winner would be hard enough - but then to have to survive on the relatively
small sales volume of the Linux community while they write the next 35...I
don't think so.

What I think MIGHT work would be to very carefully research what genre of
game the Linux community wants - then write a game that's carefully
targetted at exactly that.  I suspect that Linux users are generally a less
diverse crowd than the Windoze community - so you could leverage that to
change that one in 35 chance of hitting the money into perhaps a one in
three.

> But on the whole, this is not a big disaster from my point of view. It's a
> setback, and it is a disaster for those who decided that Linux Gaming ==
> Loki, but this may turn out to be a good thing. Loki have been a millstone
> on the market for some time - talk to dealers, try to get them to take you
> seriously when you tell them that you aren't from Loki. Loki's domination of
> commercial Linux gaming has resulted in a situation where anyone who tries
> to set up commercially in opposition, or even along side, Loki is ignored
> by distributers, sidelined by many groups and treated as some kind of
> abomination.

I don't think you need dealers.  Linux people are on the Internet all the time.
I bet most of us buy things over the web on a fairly regular basis and getting
software that way would not be unnatural.  Distribution is expensive.
 
> Yes, it's a shame for the people who work there.

It is - but there are LOTS of jobs in the games industry.

> But I'm not going to mourn
> the death of Linux games simply because Loki have been 11ed.

No - the loss of Loki in itself is no big deal - but the publicity it's
demise (well - it's only chapter 11 - it's not dead yet)...has generated
will make it much harder for the next contender to get funding/credibility/whatever.

----------------------------- Steve Baker -------------------------------
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