As Linux grows stronger and more widely adopted on the desktop, it also becomes a more serious focus for the gaming industry.

Linux is already recognized as a vital contender on the game server front, as we have addressed in this magazine since its inception, and shows no signs of abating there either. All in all, Linux users can rub their hands together and gobble up new ways to spend their free time, while businesses that cater to gamers might want to consider being one of the first out of the gate to take the Linux gamer seriously. It's a great way to build up brand loyalty.

Notice that I said "one of" and not "the absolute first." Many of the firsts are already spoken for!

There are many kinds of businesses that cater to the gaming community. Of course there are the game programmers, artists, story writers, and their publishers. There are also the many companies that host game servers, one of which was covered in our December 2004 issue. Then there are the hardware vendors, always eager to help push the limits of what computer games can do and what gamers will pay for a spiffy-looking box. Add in the distributors, the ad agencies, the add-ons, the entrepreneurs (from the individuals who create and sell items for The Sims to those who actually sell the in-game items they've earned and characters they've built up on eBay for real dollars), and those who make the software tools that are used to build games in the first place, and you've got quite the game economy.

In 2004 some interesting things happened involving the Linux game economy. For one thing, ATI finally served up some new good drivers, letting Linux users finally use their cards with the better games. Unfortunately, the drivers were only released for the 2.4 series kernel, while the 2.6 series has been heavily in use for about a year. Now those with ATI hardware are waiting for the 2.6 release.

In another disappointing turn of events, Id Software, a company well known up until now for including Linux as an equal in each of its major game releases, released Doom III. Well, Doom III might not be the disappointment (depending on who you speak to), but for many Linux users the client certainly is. The Linux community is used to receiving its client a bit later than the Windows user. We might not like it, but we deal with it. However, the Linux client has been benchmarked by Denver Mcanally (games editor at AMDZone.com) as 20-50% slower than the Windows client, depending on your screen resolution. Yes, that's right. According to this benchmark, people running in 1024x768 will find that Doom III runs half as slow under Linux as it does in Windows, and that's with the NVidia drivers. Mind you, Doom III for Linux doesn't even include support for ATI cards - yes, yes, ATI has had bad drivers for a long time, but no support at all?

In addition, international players can't be too happy with the fact that Doom III for Linux is only available in English, and audiophiles aren't happy that they're limited in the Linux version to regular stereo sound (no ALSA support) instead of the 5.1 surround sound theWindows players get. At least Epic Games made Linux gamers a bit happier with its Unreal Tournament 2004 release. This game's Linux benchmark ratings (done by the same person for the same site as the previous benchmark) are far closer to the Windows version on a 32-bit platform, though again the Linux versions lag a bit behind. Those using Linux on 64-bit machines get far slower performance, however, according to Mcanally.

Meanwhile, Valve Corporation released Half-Life 2 and its multiplayer component, Counter Strike: Source. While no native Linux client is available, Linux users can play this game under TransGaming's Cedega, which provides DirectX capabilities under Linux. The server, however, is powerfully available for Linux. Kurt Makse, president of GriffinRUN.com (a game hosting provider), points out why he considers these two games to be amazing successes, "Valve released the multiplayer component of Half-Life 2, Counter-Strike: Source more then a month before Half-Life 2 came out and from day one the game had a Linux server....Counter-Strike: Source had the backing of the most successful multiplayer game in the world today, Counter-Strike, and yes it still is being beaten by a player ratio of 5:1 by its older more seasoned version; it still is the second most popular online game in the world."

Maske continues, "I could go on and on and tell you why Counter-Strike is successful. The people at Valve know what gamers want and they are willing to take the extra step to provide those gamers what they need. The Linux programmer for Valve, Alfred Reynolds, has been a great help to the community and has always gone the extra mile to find and fix problems most companies would ignore. This attention to detail and relationship with the community has helped build the reputation of the company and brand of products."

Hopefully clients will eventually be provided for Valve games, and will be given as much attention. In the meantime, the independent game industry is turning its attentions to Linux in a serious fashion. Independent game publishers are having more success (and interest) in the Linux space, according to Jay Moore of Garage Games, because the number of units they have to sell in order to recover their investment is far lower than that of the larger publishers. Garage Games publishes games from many different developers who have different takes on whether to support a cross-platform space or not; however, many of their offerings are available for Windows, Linux, and Macintosh users.

Moore reports, "2004 saw the first major moves forward in the commercial success for Linux distributions and open source applications. Many of our community are building tools for [Garage Games] Torque [Game Engine] on Linux boxes for cross-platform use...we now have launched seven game titles on Linux (making up about 8-10% of our game sales) and that is just the beginning."

In 2005, as Linux continues to gain steam on the desktop, expect to see the independent game publishing trend to continue at the very least. Rumor has it that some interesting things are happening on the large, mainstream game side as well.