A few days ago my friends compiledkernel aka CK one of the LxGC — Linux Gamers Codex staff members and UbuntuForums moderator, Liam Dawe aka ELD the Gaming On Linux website admin, and myself had a discussion on UbuntuForums about Linux Game Publishing.

CK was wondering about those old games Disciples 2: Dark Prophecy and Bandits: Phoenix Rising that were announced by LGP about 7 years ago at 2003.

ELD had expressed his frustration about LGP :
Your not the only one who gets stupidly frustrated at LGP. Bandits is another game that has been in “early beta” for as long as i knew it existed.

I really struggle to understand why LGP keeps everyone in the dark about their ports. It makes actual business sense to announce them to get people interested, to get the community worked up over, it will bring more people to LGP and could easily generate interest in older games too, seriously LGP needs to get their act together if they are to survive as a business.

I mean there’s not even teaser screen shots, no updates other than “we are working on them at the moment”, great well a little screen shot won’t hurt, we are not the only ones either, the LGP blog is full of them, I’ve called them out on it a few times and they cant seem to give me a straight answer other than the usual “we are working on it”, I’ve seen multiple posts from multiple people on this forum too asking about it and we seem to get left in the dark.

I mean it’s not like they are creating a new game, they are “simply” porting it to Linux. Please note the quote marks before a certain someone jumps on me saying it isn’t an easy task, i know it isn’t always easy but god a few years for one port from a business who’s business it is to port…something’s up.

I’ve wrote :
Maybe they got stuck at some point and decided to port other games ? (that what basically happened, the port was announced at 2003, meanwhile they released a few games).

Anyways, the thing is that I basically agree with all the other points.
I also think that LGP should be more involved in the community and not leave us ion the dark.
I also think they they need to update us with their porting process, considering the fact that some people did preorder those games.
I also think that LGP should in some way discuss with the community on what games they want to be ported (maybe not specific games, but genres).

CK also added :
Root issue here — Doesn’t Simms take viable responsibility for what his vested interest in the Linux gaming world is? ie when he says something does he, and or his company as a whole, deliver? Invariably this has been a gray area discussion, because while delivery of whatever it is (Sacred for example), it took quite a bit longer than was previously assumed it would take, it “eventually” saw the light of day. This could easily be coincided with LGP’s community involvement (which the blog aside is absolute zero, and no, I don’t count a person spewing a few lines in an irc channel either), A clearer road map on current projects (Also totally non-existent), and a general consensus from the player community about suggested ports (as of now, its really only what Michael Simms decides should be ported, not what users want).

ELD Responded:
After some more research i would like to again point out the fact that they are sitting on their thumbs.
MaximB you constantly say they are working on their ports as they tell all of us, but there is no proof.
Also this:

Maybe they got stuck at some point and decided to port other games ? (that what basically happened, the port was announced at 2003, meanwhile they released a few games).

You realize out of all they games LGP has “released” since they announced those two “ports” that 8 of them they didn’t do any work on to port, they merely “publish” them. So i would like to point out again that they have been sitting by and as far as we can all see, doing nothing.

CK said:
ELD, are you pointing at the releases of Postal 2, Candy Cruncher, ShadowGrounds, Gorky17, ColdWar, and JetsNGuns? Because as far as I can tell (I know for a fact that Gordon ported Postal 2) no work on those games was actually ever done by Simms himself.
That’s a pretty sad state when the games that keep you afloat aren’t actually games that your company ported itself?
Total dreck.

After our discussion ELD decided to send an email to LGP about the topic and even got a replay which he posted on his Gaming On Linux website :

For those of you not familiar with the matter Linux Game Publishing (or LGP for ease) is a company who specialize in porting and publishing others ports of games to the Linux platform. They have gained a rather bad reputation for being unreasonably silent with their customer base on ports being done.

To give you examples “Disciples 2” and “Bandits” are 7 years, yes 7 years into “Porting” with no signs of ever being released.

So after finding a member of LGP who is signed up on Ubuntu Forums I decided to ask a few questions to which I actually got a response.

The community deserves answers certainly, but as has been (somewhat colorfully) pointed out in the thread, there are still the cases of Bandits and Disciples. We want to avoid another story like those, however unlikely that might be.

That said, we are working on several projects at the moment, and I’m hoping we can announce something soon, and I’m talking to our project teams to see when I might be able to pass something on to the community, and as soon as I get a go for that I’ll get it out there.

Until that though, there’s not much that can be done. I will be running another giveaway soon (prepping a blogpost about it, just checking some things internally first) to try to keep up some level of public activity.

What I’m writing here though is pretty much the same as has already been said before, and in an already inflamed forum thread, it might not help at all.

There you have it folks, pretty much the usual response “we are working”, but again no evidence, no nothing, only the usual.

Also the two long overdue ports had a very small mention:

They are going to be released. Neither of them is getting dropped and we have people working on them, and they are making progress. I have no time-frame however, but I am hopeful we might be able to provide one in not too long.

It’s a shame because I used to support LGP big time and think they could do wonders for the Linux gaming scene, if they only got their act together and upped their communication a bit.

What the future holds for LGP ?
I and many others hope that LGP will change and be more open and involved in the community.
GNU/Linux is FOSS, freedom and openness was always part of the community, it’s still holds at some point with closed source/not free games.
The OS is the heart and the community is the soul.
A company that wants to success with us needs to respect it and understand it.

We embraced LGP when it was founded and because of us it’s still exists in 2010.
We support the indies who support us and donate more then anyone else.
All we ask is be mutual respect and openness.

We will hate to see a company that we once prayed for, disappear like it happened with Loki (no matter the reasons).
We understand that LGP apart from the business issue wants to bring more games to Linux, and we want to help her achieve it even by waking her up to the real world, the our community, to the heart of the matter.

LGP, be more involved with us, speak your mind and listen – the IRC channel is almost always dead, you not always replay to emails and getting in touch with Michael could take ages.

We want the best for you, please help us to help you.


Read Michael Simms Deep And Detailed Answer At

The Bottom Of The Page !

Links
GOL Article/Email About LGP
Gaming On Linux
LxGC — Linux Gamers Codex
Ubuntu Forums Thread About This Topic
Linux Game Publishing
Disciples 2: Dark Prophecy
Bandits: Phoenix Rising

  1. Eddward says:

    This is why I don’t preorder. It’s a hard rule for me. It started back when I had to wait over a year for a pre-ordered Ultima on the C64. I was almost willing to break that rule recently for the Indie bundle with Overgrowth and Natural Selection, but there was no commitment to port NS to Linux. In general though, I won’t even consider a preorder. I’m an old fashioned ‘cash for goods’ kind of guy. Getting used to the whole ‘digital downloads only’ model if the Indies is pushing my limits at the moment. (And that is saying something for Overgrowth & NS by the way. The Indies have gotten impressive.)

    Overall I’ve liked LGP and I don’t see the point in hating them for games they haven’t released. There are several companies that haven’t released games for Linux. I pay attention to what gets released. I did get upset once at Apex for a game they were showing Linux screenshots and videos of and chose not to release. I’ve since decided that it’s not worth it. I actually have more games at the moment than I have time to complete. That is mostly because of the Indies these days and I’ll show my support as appropriate. Should LGP release another title that interests me, I’ll buy it. I don’t really care if they do the port. Why should I? Really, why?

    And if LGP folds, I won’t hate them. I’ll be sad, but not angry. They don’t owe it to me to be a Linux game porting company. They believe there is a market for games on Linux. I hope they are right. I also hope that the need for 3rd party porting becomes less necessary though. I hope portability just becomes more common place.

    The only issue I could see here is the people who preordered. I don’t think that is wise, but it is a common practice and LGP owes those people. This is too long to hold people’s money and not deliver.

    Edd

  2. Liam Dawe says:

    Eddward the point is we are not hating them for not releasing stuff, i think you don’t get the point of all of this at all.

    I have seen minor indie game devs to multimillion game development companies updated a blog with a screenshot or video once a month of at least something, even them just being stupid in the office.

    We get nothing. No information on ports already promised 7 years ago and nothing on what is being currently ported.

    We are tired of the lack of communication, we don’t “hate” LGP at all, we wish them luck but want them to be more active in communicating with the people who actually keep them afloat.

  3. Eddward says:

    I guess I don’t get it. I know companies like Wolfire seem to have something to say every day. It’s cool and all but I don’t really care. There are other companies that post blog entries every so often and I almost almost skip them now without looking because their posts are monotonous and uninteresting. I might even miss their release notice some day if it doesn’t get posted some where else too. Not that I’m not interested in their game. It’s just that some folks like John at Wolfire have the gift of Gab. Others don’t. It can be done wrong.

    I’m on LGP’s mailing lists and monitor their rss feeds. If they have something to say, I’ll notice. If not, whatever. I don’t have a need for them to give me updates. Some anticipation of new titles can be nice. I’m looking forward to the next Eschalon and Overgorwth which I trust will be released. As we’ve seen with “Bandits”, anticipation can get tiring. I’ve let it get frustrating with titles like “Payback” by Apex Design, “Aftermath” by Blackhole Sun and “Escape from Alcatraz” by Philos Labs just to name a few. Maybe I’m just antisocial. Maybe I’m just burnt out on anticipating. These days I get excited when something releases.

    I will say that some of LGP’s blog posts were interesting. Others where less so. I would probably enjoy more technical articles on things like how you create an compile environment that generates code that will run on all of the distros or issues with porting these days. I know they’ve covered somethings like that and I would guess some of the details they rather not share to keep an edge in porting to Linux. If LGP had interesting observations like David at Wolfire (again) did when he’d look at other Indie games, that might be cool.

    But if it’s a trade off between coding and blogging, I’d go with having them code. If they have something they want to say, fine. But don’t force it. At least I don’t have the need to have them write thing for me. Releasing games is what I’d most like them to do.

    They could benefit from attention if they do it right. Again, Wolfire deserves a mention. I’ve also noticed that Troy Hefner at My Game Company sometimes has something interesting to say (but he needs an RSS feed). Attempting to be too open before the community can be bad too. I’ll just mention LGP’s Angry Pixels and let it go at that. I’d leave it to LGP to decide if they think they have something to say.

    Edd

    PS: I just noticed that Lugaru has been released under GPL. I had to share. Wow!

  4. Well, I thought I’d reply here because, well, why not, I didn’t feel like using a company channel to reply to it.

    Sooo lets get on with it shall we… I have probably messed up some attributions, I have probably criticised people who don’t deserve it, and I am sure that I will get lots of flames for this. Bear in mind, I won’t read the replies, so dont bother flaming. I wish this thing let me preview so I can be sure it will look OK.


    “Your not the only one who gets stupidly frustrated at LGP. Bandits is another game that has been in “early beta” for as long as i knew it existed.
    I really struggle to understand why LGP keeps everyone in the dark about their ports. It makes actual business sense to announce them to get people interested, to get the community worked up over, it will bring more people to LGP and could easily generate interest in older games too, seriously LGP needs to get their act together if they are to survive as a business.

    Well, it may surprise you to know, we don’t keep people in the dark for fun. I don’t sit up all night thinking ‘wow, how can I piss off my customers next’.

    To be frank, as this reply will be, your arguement is one I embraced, 9 years ago. I have since come to realise it is nothing more than wishful thinking.

    I will go into more detail later in my reply, because as I address specific points, it will become clear.


    I mean there’s not even teaser screen shots, no updates other than “we are working on them at the moment”, great well a little screen shot won’t hurt, we are not the only ones either,

    Yeah, there is in fact a video on our site, and plenty of screenshots available elsewhere online. You see, the point is, when a game has hit a blockage, whatever it may be, WHAT is the point in going ape in publicising it?? Do you have any idea how much money and energy it takes to keep a publicity train on the rails? Do you have any idea how long one burst of publicity lasts before we have to do something else, bigger and better to keep the SAME level of interest?
    As such, no, before we know for damned certain exactly when a game will be released, we WILL NOT be going out of our way to publicise it. This is the exact reason we have no screenshots for prerelease games right now. We have some videos because we at the time we started putting videos on the site the videos were drawing people towards some of the games we had recently released at the time.

    So yes, actually a ‘little screen shot’ will hurt. It will mean that when we do one thing people will complain because we haven’t done the next thing. And the next thing is more time and money and energy. And then that will also not be enough, and so we have to spend more and more time doing more and more to keep people happy, instead of actually making the games.


    the LGP blog is full of them, I’ve called them out on it a few times and they cant seem to give me a straight answer other than the usual “we are working on it”, I’ve seen multiple posts from multiple people on this forum too asking about it and we seem to get left in the dark.

    I love how you’ve ‘called us out on it’ – makes you sound so authorititive, puts me all ashiver.

    Because if I responded to all the queries asking for more information, all I’d do all day is respond to queries asking for more information, and then the responses asking for more information and more and more and more.


    I mean it’s not like they are creating a new game, they are “simply” porting it to Linux. Please note the quote marks before a certain someone jumps on me saying it isn’t an easy task, i know it isn’t always easy but god a few years for one port from a business who’s business it is to port…something’s up.”

    OK, so, I’ll jump on this, as one of the few people who can legitmately say I know what is involved, and say ‘you don’t know what you are talking about’.
    Did you know, for instance, that in X3 we had to rewrite over 20% of the game. Completely rewrite it. Look in the manual at the size of the Egosoft team that made it, then look at the size of the LGP team. It took them years to make X3. We had less resources, a LOT less resources, more constraints, as we had to make our 20% rewrite look EXACTLY like the original, where they had a lot more flexibility.


    I’ve wrote :
    “Maybe they got stuck at some point and decided to port other games ? (that what basically happened, the port was announced at 2003, meanwhile they released a few games).

    Actually we got past the point we had a big problem in with Bandits, which was one of those hugely subtle differences between Linux and Windows. However we have not had the available resources to finish off the networking, as a number of other projects have taken priority. Why did they take priority? Because people complain when a game is released too late and so when we get access to newer games we try and get them completed. This is us responding to what people want. However as you have maybe possibly just realised, everyone wants something different, and without twice the staff numbers we have, we can’t do them all.


    Anyways, the thing is that I basically agree with all the other points.
    I also think that LGP should be more involved in the community and not leave us ion the dark.
    I also think they they need to update us with their porting process, considering the fact that some people did preorder those games.

    Actually we have no obligation to do so, because, you didn’t order the games from LGP. This is SPECIFICALLY why LGP does NOT EVER accept preorders. We never have, we never will. Until we know exactly when a game is being released, we do not accept orders. If you have purchased preorders from a reseller, who has taken our information, which if you check on our site does not promise a release date, then really, not our fault, not our obligation to provide you with extra information because of promises another company makes.


    I also think that LGP should in some way discuss with the community on what games they want to be ported (maybe not specific games, but genres).”

    But the problem is, we have a lot of genres and we are doing our best to cater a little to all of them. We have tried time and time again to find what people want. Sometimes you DO NOT REALISE IT IS US. Have you ever STOPPED to CONSIDER that we may want to gain opinions from the community without obliging ourselves to then jump all over the results and ‘obey the community’ or be accused of ignoring the community. We have made a NUMBER of anonymous forays in information gathering, and we have often acted on the results. But because of the number of community members who feel we owe them our very souls and we should obey every little whim, we don’t always let you all know it is us who is after the information.


    CK also added :
    “Root issue here — Doesn’t Simms take viable responsibility for what his vested interest in the Linux gaming world is? ie when he says something does he, and or his company as a whole, deliver? Invariably this has been a gray area discussion, because while delivery of whatever it is (Sacred for example), it took quite a bit longer than was previously assumed it would take, it “eventually” saw the light of day. This could easily be coincided with LGP’s community involvement (which the blog aside is absolute zero, and no, I don’t count a person spewing a few lines in an irc channel either), A clearer road map on current projects (Also totally non-existent),

    And now you answer your very own accusation. This is EXACTLY why we do not announce ports before they are just about ready any more. Because you feel we owe you something, because when we announce it you feel it is already yours, and when we don’t deliver RIGHT AWAY, we are slackers and bad guys. So we keep quiet these days. I used to be a LOT more open, until attacks like these made me more reluctant to talk in advance.


    and a general consensus from the player community about suggested ports (as of now, its really only what Michael Simms decides should be ported, not what users want). ”

    Do you think I just stick my finger in the air and see which way the wind blows? Do you have ANY idea of the money, time and effort it takes to get a game out. Do you know where this money comes from? It usually comes from MY pocket, and so I have to say, I feel I have a certain right to say what games get published. However looking on the other side. Do you know my favorite game genre? RTS. Can you spot a genre we have utterly failed to produce a game for? RTS. I don’t pick games because I like them, I pick games based on what I hope the community will like.
    You seem to feel we have unlimited manoeuvring space in choosing games. We deal with a small number of companies who are linux-friendly, and we work to get some of their games to Linux. You have no idea the number of games we have tried to license and failed. Some of them after 18 months of negotiations, flights to go to meetings overseas, painstaking presentations. On TWO occasions we had meetings right the way up to board level of big multinational games corporations only to have months or years of work blown away by a board member who couldn’t care less because Linux isn’t a big enough market.
    We publish what we consider to be good games, but we don’t have as much choice as you may think. With the cost of all the failed negotiations, as well as the successful, I would reckon that the average cost of any game, just to get the contract signed, is in the tens of thousands of pounds. This is before the first jot of porting work is done. This comes from my pocket, so yeah, I feel I should get some say in this.


    ELD Responded:
    “After some more research i would like to again point out the fact that they are sitting on their thumbs.

    I’d like to know what evidence you have that we are sitting on our thumbs, really. Come out with evidence of this. I call you a LIAR. Directly and to your face.


    MaximB you constantly say they are working on their ports as they tell all of us, but there is no proof.

    Two seconds ago you said you had proof. Make up your mind.

    Fact that it has been all of 7 months since our last release. Get over yourself and have some patience.


    Also this:
    Maybe they got stuck at some point and decided to port other games ? (that what basically happened, the port was announced at 2003, meanwhile they released a few games).
    You realize out of all they games LGP has “released” since they announced those two “ports” that 8 of them they didn’t do any work on to port, they merely “publish” them. So i would like to point out again that they have been sitting by and as far as we can all see, doing nothing.”

    Oh you who know nothing about the industry, you do make me smile so.

    Do you think that when we publish a game we just put it in a box and say ‘come get it’?

    Do you know that on the launch of each and every game we have ever released in the last 5 years, there has been an accompanying publicity campaign that can cost tens of thousands of pounds. This takes time to put together. This takes effort, money, energy. You may not have spotted our google ads, or facebook ads, or reviews we organise in magazines, or freebies we give away at community events, or even occasional purchases of billboard advertising space, but the fragmented nature of the Linux community means that it costs a LOT MORE to market to Linux users than to, for example, windows users. You blat a 5 grand advert out there, lets say on some poster ads on the London underground. a million windows users will see it. Maybe a hundred Linux users will. Publishing for Linux is a NIGHTMARE, so before you have done it, don’t have the gall to say you know we are doing nothing.


    CK said:
    “ELD, are you pointing at the releases of Postal 2, Candy Cruncher, ShadowGrounds, Gorky17, ColdWar, and JetsNGuns? Because as far as I can tell (I know for a fact that Gordon ported Postal 2) no work on those games was actually ever done by Simms himself.

    Except the beta tests. The trying to force third parties to fix bugs, the production of the physical product, the marketing, the advertising, the desperate attempts to get people to buy them. Did you know that for every pound we have made on Shadowgrounds, we have spent 10 pounds advertising it. This means we have lost 9 pounds per pound of revenue, and will need to sell TEN TIMES as many games as we have to break even. Do you think this money comes from thin air? Or maybe, just maybe, it comes from my pocket.


    That’s a pretty sad state when the games that keep you afloat aren’t actually games that your company ported itself?
    Total dreck.”

    I am afraid that you are under YET ANOTHER miscomprehension that the games we make keep us afloat. No, the games we make simply drain more money from me. Once we sell a game, a portion of the money goes to the developers, a portion of the money goes to the company we license the game from, leaving very very little left for the company. Certainly not enough to cover marketing costs. So where does the shortfall get made up? It gets made up in my having invested around 500,000 pounds over the last few years, of my personal money. I do this because I love Linux gaming, and before you tell me you are so much better than me, invest as much as I have, in time or effort or money. There are VERY few people I would accept chastisement from in the realm of Linux gaming. Ryan Gordon for example, I would take it from. Several of my devteam who have sacrificed months or years of their time because like me they believe in what they do, they can also criticise me. But to take abuse from someone that may have bought a couple of games, and who thinks I owe them a living, is a bit much.


    After our discussion ELD decided to send an email to LGP about the topic and even got a replay which he posted on his Gaming On Linux website :
    “For those of you not familiar with the matter Linux Game Publishing (or LGP for ease) is a company who specialize in porting and publishing others ports of games to the Linux platform. They have gained a rather bad reputation for being unreasonably silent with their customer base on ports being done.
    To give you examples “Disciples 2? and “Bandits” are 7 years, yes 7 years into “Porting” with no signs of ever being released.
    So after finding a member of LGP who is signed up on Ubuntu Forums I decided to ask a few questions to which I actually got a response.”
    The community deserves answers certainly, but as has been (somewhat colorfully) pointed out in the thread, there are still the cases of Bandits and Disciples. We want to avoid another story like those, however unlikely that might be.
    That said, we are working on several projects at the moment, and I’m hoping we can announce something soon, and I’m talking to our project teams to see when I might be able to pass something on to the community, and as soon as I get a go for that I’ll get it out there.
    Until that though, there’s not much that can be done. I will be running another giveaway soon (prepping a blogpost about it, just checking some things internally first) to try to keep up some level of public activity.
    What I’m writing here though is pretty much the same as has already been said before, and in an already inflamed forum thread, it might not help at all.
    “There you have it folks, pretty much the usual response “we are working”, but again no evidence, no nothing, only the usual.

    And I would like to thank you for posting private email without permission, shows the kind of person you are, and how much we will respond to you in the future.


    Also the two long overdue ports had a very small mention:”
    They are going to be released. Neither of them is getting dropped and we have people working on them, and they are making progress. I have no time-frame however, but I am hopeful we might be able to provide one in not too long.

    Aha, so you are cherrypicking parts of the message you feel like, credibility waning…


    “It’s a shame because I used to support LGP big time and think they could do wonders for the Linux gaming scene, if they only got their act together and upped their communication a bit.”

    Do you think communicating each and every thing we do will increase or reduce game porting speed? Come on, think the answer through and then come out with the only mathematically possible answer.


    What the future holds for LGP ?
    I and many others hope that LGP will change and be more open and involved in the community.

    Oh we have tried, we have TRIED.

    Let me list just SOME of the ways we have tried to support the community, and each time we did the community either threw it in our faces, or just demanded more and more and bigger and faster.

    * Grapple
    * PenguinPlay
    * Angry Pixels
    * The LGP Blog
    * The LGP IRC channel
    * Supporting other parts of the community (did you know for example we provide free hosting for happypenguin.org, which is one of the favourite stalking grounds for LGP trolls?)
    * Attempting to find funding for open source projects
    * Providing donations and prizes for Linux community events
    * Providing ways for people to get into the Linux gaming business.

    We do all of these, and more.

    Did you know, for instance, that the only other company to come along and do Linux ports, Runesoft, in the last few years, sure their ports sucked goats for quality, but it was better than nothing right. The last three games they made, they publicly stated they would only release them if they got a certain sales level. Did you know that on each occasion they failed to hit that level and I dug into my pocket and bought hundreds of copies of each JUST to ensure that you the average Linux gamer would be able to play them?

    Now, what have YOU done to push forwards the Linux gaming community?


    GNU/Linux is FOSS, freedom and openness was always part of the community, it’s still holds at some point with closed source/not free games.
    The OS is the heart and the community is the soul.
    A company that wants to success with us needs to respect it and understand it.

    Yes because those that believe that most strongly are the ones that crucify us for not making open source products.

    Trust me, I understand the community, I have been using Linux since 0.99 kernel, which I almost guarantee will be longer than anyone here reading this has been using it for. So please, dont teach me how to suck eggs. Ive created kernel patches, Ive written device drivers, Ive been, in myown small way, making Linux better for almost 20 years. So don’t tell me I don’t understand the Linux community.

    What YOU need to understand, is that I have been doing this, making games for Linux, for a long time, and all I get out of it, is headaches, abuse, and a neverending outpouring of my personal money.


    We embraced LGP when it was founded and because of us it’s still exists in 2010.

    Actually if the whole community had embraced LGP then we wouldnt be having this conversation because we would be 100 times the size we are now, and actually profitable, and I would have a PR expert who would stop me replying to flames like this, and who would spend all their time replying to the community.
    LGP exists purely because I keep pouring money into it. At a rate that could buy me a new house every year, and because I keep on doing it.

    Don’t get me wrong, GOOD numbers of people are buying our games, and some people, and I shake my head and smile and thank those that do from the bottom of my heart, buy our games whether they like them or not. Just to show support. I love those guys who do, you make it all worthwhile. You are crazy for doing it, but thank you.

    But for every ONE like that, there are 10 that complain we aren’t doing enough. There are 20 that pirate our games. There are some that buy our games and put them up for download because they feel they have the right to do so (and I bet they would be the first to complain if we violate their GPL, yet violating our license is fine).

    I spent 6 years working 12-18 hours a day 7 days a week on Linux gaming. Do you know, my family complain because I worked Christmas day. Not once, but every year for 6 years. I had ONE 2 week break in 8 years. Linux gaming has cost me 500,000 in hard cash, plus another £1,000,000 of lost earnings if I’d have just had a job instead of doing all this.
    Its cost me a fiancée who didn’t like how much time I invested in it. Its cost me friends that I neglected to keep this ball rolling, its cost me that I do not now own myown house, because that money went into Linux gaming, it has cost me grey fracking hairs! It has ALSO cost me a fair amount of my health due to the stress of this. And you know, I don’t need extra abuse to add to this. I really don’t


    We support the indies who support us and donate more then anyone else.
    All we ask is be mutual respect and openness.

    No, you ask that while I pour all this into entertainment for YOU, you arent satisfied and want MORE MORE MORE MORE FASTER BIGGER MORE MORE.


    We will hate to see a company that we once prayed for, disappear like it happened with Loki (no matter the reasons).
    We understand that LGP apart from the business issue wants to bring more games to Linux, and we want to help her achieve it even by waking her up to the real world, the our community, to the heart of the matter.
    LGP, be more involved with us, speak your mind and listen – the IRC channel is almost always dead, you not always replay to emails and getting in touch with Michael could take ages.
    We want the best for you, please help us to help you.

    If you want the best for us, then realise we are doing all we can. We can do no more. I will keep on with this, because I believe in it, because I want to. But beware. I keep this going because *I* want to. As soon as I stop wanting to, LGP vanishes that very day. Don’t push too hard, or you may be surprised at the results.

    Of course, I may not be the real Michael Simms, because, when I reply to things, I get told by people I shouldn’t feed the trolls. But you wanted an answer, this is the only one I have to give you.
    For those who genuinely support us and understand we are doing our best, I thank you, I genuinely do. Without you, I wouldn’t have the incentive to keep going.
    And for those who take take take and never give, I hope you choke on it.

    Michael

  5. naikon89 says:

    Michael Simms will continue to recieve money from myself for his efforts. The man has done far, far more for Linux gaming than the individual users of this thread. Cut the company some slack, we’re in a recession at the moment. Money does not grow off trees you know.

  6. Andreas says:

    I love the games (have three of them right here) and admire Michael Simm’s and LGP’s efforts. Kudos to you all!

    I wish the Linux gaming community would put more efforts in reaching out and work proactively with gamers, developers and companies on the outside instead of engaging in inflammatory FUD.

    PS. Michael, go on vacation for at least four consecutive weeks this year. You will be a better game publisher if you do 🙂

  7. Vanir says:

    I bought (and play) X2 and X3 from LGP even though I have the Windows versions. Why? To support Linux games development and Linux games developers. Not a big contribution I know.
    Michael Simms: thanks for the gutsy response to your ‘detractors’; and thank you for you and your developers’ tortuous efforts at LGP.

    Unemployed software engineer.

  8. Apopas says:

    I’m playing Sacred Gold right now and love it. The port is of high quality, everything works flawlessly. Before that I played Robin Hood from Runesoft which was a masterpiece as well.
    I have to thank deeply Michael, his team and the other guys for the great efforts to bring such great games to Linux and I wish the folk of Linux to understand that we need sometimes to make some sacrifices if we want some day to see native Linux titles on the shelves and webpages next to the windows ones.

  9. Hamish Wilson says:

    All right, I know this an old post, but I just have to clap at Micheal Simms response.

    As for PR, I have spent hundreds of hours documenting your games and others on Wikipedia and other such sites. I can only hope it helps you regain some of the money you have invested Micheal.

    And to the detractors, sometimes “When it is done” mean when it is #$%# done!

  10. Liam Dawe says:

    I being one of the nay-sayers on this matter have had a lot of time to think on this and honestly….

    I love LGP i have to say it, Sacred Gold saved me a lot of boredom when i didn’t have the net.

    My relationship with LGP is currently blooming and i apologise if that reply really was from the CEO for my attitude before.

  11. Maxim Bardin says:

    It’s a good thing that I didn’t approve your comment back then, I hope you understand now why.