Idea #3244: Distribution of commercial games through an Ubuntu Gaming Portal

This idea is a duplicate of idea #1899: Partner with big name game developers.

138

Written by jannone the 5 Mar 08 at 02:10. Category: Gaming.
Related to: Nothing/Others. Status: New

Description

Canonical could provide sort of an "Ubuntu Gaming Portal" on the web, similar to what Valve has done with Steam, but directed to distribution, shopping and previews.

This would allow Ubuntu users to get to know the newest Linux games by watching trailers, downloading demos and directly buying a copy.

Of course, it would only work through a partnership with at least one big gaming company, which could be a somewhat attractive proposition in the way the portal would work as a product "spotlight".

There are some recent Linux native games that could serve as starting point for the actual distribution.

This is a long-term project, requiring careful negotiation and execution.

Edit: I see some people have mixed feelings towards the idea. The main point here is showing to the gaming companies that Linux could be a profitable platform for development, thus bringing more "AAA" grade games to Linux. This has nothing to do with Free Software games, as the free ones could have their own portal, or their own section inside this portal.

Tags: (none)

Attachments

No attachments.

Duplicates

[Report a duplicate and merge its votes to this idea]

Comments

andrewfenn wrote on the 9 Mar 08 at 20:16

Thanks, but I'd rather Canonical focused on creating open source stuff rather then portals to sell closed sourced stuff.

People are jumping up and down because they haven't completely open sourced launchpad, there's no way they'd do something like this.

Why can't you do this yourself, independently? You'd be rich!

dougsnell wrote on the 11 Mar 08 at 18:00

I think the idea has promise ... but I don't think the right connections are in place.

A 3-way partnership between Steam, someone like WINE, and Canonical could get the job done. Between the 3 of them - Steam expands their userbase and sells games (not everyone is averse to paying for games), WINE (or whomever) benefits (be it through support or actual money), and Canonical gets to advertise the whole deal.

But the pieces exist ... they just need to connect together.

Ansible wrote on the 11 Mar 08 at 19:50

I'd like this best if it could be in a nonprofit role, not locked to a specific vendor, like steam. Of course, having steam on linux would be better than not having it. But I'd like to have this be a more open style where you don't need approval from a 3rd party like valve to put your stuff online.

Post your comment