No business case for mainstream Linux gaming

Emulation rather than native ports the ideal technical direction forward for gaming on the platform

There is no business case to be made for officially supporting Linux with mainstream games as things currently stand, John Carmack has said.
Speaking on Reddit, the id Software founder said that while he would be tempted to port to Linux for technical reasons, such as using Valgrind, working on open source Linux OpenGL drivers and running experimental GPU features, the platform barely made it into his top ten priorities.

He also stated that while he was happy that id Software’s last release Rage ran in Wine, an emulator designed to allow the use of Windows programs on Linux, there was no special effort made to support it.
Carmack added his studio had previously tested whether the conventional wisdom that native Linux games was not a good market with the release of Quake Arena and Quake live, with these preconceptions proven right both times. He said that although arguments could be made that neither release was an optimal case, they were “honest tries” at breaking the market.
“If you fervently believe that there is an actual business case to be made for Linux ports, you can make a business offer to a publisher – offer a guarantee and be willing to do the work and support,” said Carmack.

http://www.develop-online.net/news/4...case-for-Linux