I have been developing games for quite a while and recently made the switch to using Ubuntu as my primary operating system. I was pleasantly surprised that it was easier than expected to be able to write games natively for Linux using the Ubuntu desktop distribution. I am getting better performance than Win10 doing the exact same thing. Cpu, Gpu, I/O, and so forth have been much faster, and sometimes double the speed in certain cases. Ubuntu seems to be absolutely great for gaming from my initial impressions.
Now, most of the other game developers that I speak to were aware of this fact many years ago. Ubuntu seems to have everything going for it and most game developers know that. But the adoption seems to be slow from the gaming community, and this is what is keeping game developers away as well. And so, I would like to throw some suggestions out there.
First, while small changes and driver fixes are great, it won’t do much to move the gaming market over to Ubuntu anytime soon. There needs to be a huge push from Canonical towards gaming. And with the competition making more mistakes than ever, now would be a great time to capture that opportunity.
There needs to be a desktop distribution of Ubuntu that has Steam preinstalled, working, and pinned to the hot bar. Nvidia App and AMD Adrenaline need to be pre-installed and updating to the latest game ready driver each month. Working with all the peripheral vendors such as Logitech to port their G Hub type tools needs to happen as well.
I get phone calls from Nvidia to make sure I am not having any issues getting their latest ray tracing or DLSS tech working in my games. I don’t ask them to call me, I don’t pay them, they just do it to ensure their product stays on top. I think Canonical needs to do the same kind of outreach to get all the vendors on board with Ubuntu.
Secondly you need to work with the major publishers and indies to offer assistance in getting their games written native for Ubuntu. The majority of games released recently may not need a native port, but I can tell you the biggest games are barely making 60fps as is, and they can’t afford the overhead of Unity or Unreal. Most of us are already porting our games to as many platforms as possible, adding Ubuntu to that list is something most of us would consider if there was a straight forward way of doing so.
Third, there needs to be a desktop consumer friendly webpage. Arriving at a webpage that talks about modern enterprise open source makes people think they clicked on the wrong link. Have a page for Ubuntu business, and a page for Ubuntu home users. Make it simple. The Ubuntu desktop page should show mom and dad doing their spreadsheets and word processing, while the kid is playing games on the Ubuntu desktop platform.
Fourth, get involved with gaming laptop and desktop vendors and sell those products right on your front page. Have Ubuntu branded laptops with a big Ubuntu logo on them. Make sure those products are rock solid and get them out to the influencers.
Thanks.
