LINUXGAMES

David Anderson wrote it to point out a thread on the official Rune site. As well as discussing the possibility of a sequel to the game, the thread provides some interesting sales figures.

To date, Rune has sold over 270,000 copies world wide (about half and half in US and Europe, with additional copies selling in Australia, Japan, Korea, Hong Kong, Brazil, Mexico and Russia as well). Mac sales were around 5,000 of these while Linux sales were less than 1,000. The PS2 version sold over 150,000 units, with 100,000 being sold in the US and the rest sold in Europe (not bad for what is essentially a port).

While the lackluster sales of the Linux version are certainly disappointing, it may be important to note that Rune was one of Loki’s later titles. Some of the earlier Loki titles sold much better, but it’s clear that we still have a long way to go before we can compete with larger markets.

DesktopLinux.com has posted an interview titledTransGaming gives Linuxgame. They interview Gavriel State, CEO and founder of TransGaming. The interview covers the birth of TG,their subscription service, and Gavriel’s opinions of Linux on the desktop and its future.

News Source: LT

O’Reilly Network has posted two articles onFreeSCI. The first, FreeSCI:Rebuilding Sierra’s Classic Quests was posted roughly a month ago (how did we miss it?)and it is a good overview/review of FreeSCI. The second is Christoph Reichenbachand Lars Skovlund on FreeSCI, an interview with two of the FreeSCi developers.

News source: LT

At the GDC this week, the Khronos group (remember them?), in partnership with PDA and cell phone manufacturers, will unveil OpenGL ES, a small-footprint subset of the OpenGL API intended for use in various embedded applications. The original press release:

OpenGL for mobile devices to preview at GDC

OpenGL ES <http://www.khronos.org> is a set of small-footprint profiles that are subsets of OpenGL and are designed to bring full 3D and 2D capabilities to a wide variety of embedded systems including cell phones & PDAs. For ISVs and developers it offers the opportunity to create authoring tools and games for content-hungry markets with millions of new users. Using OpenGL ES, ISV’s can ship a conformant software 3D engine today, that lets applications and tools seamlessly transition over to using OpenGL ES hardware-acceleration in soon-to-be-released mobile devices. Game developers will be able to immediately create content using the familiar and well-documented code structure of OpenGL.

Independent game developers are encouraged to attend the OpenGL ES Workshop at the Game Developer Conference 2003:OpenGL ES: Bringing 3D Gaming to Cell Phones <https://www.cmpevents.com/GDx/a.asp?option=C&V=11&SessID=871>

Place: Room C2, San Jose Convention Center in San Jose CA
Date: Thursday March 6th
Time: 11:30AM to 12:30PM

…And are encouraged to visit the Khronos Booth #547 to see OpenGL ES demos in action, and to sign up to be notified when the OpenGL specification and/or SDK is released. If you can’t attend GDC, but still want to sign up as an OpenGL ES game developer, please visit http://www.khronos.org/members/gamedevelopers.html

Version 4.3.0 of the open-source X Window System implementation XFree86 has been released; changes include:

• 3D support added for the Radeon 8500, 9000, 9100, and M9 including hardware TCL
• Support added to the i810 driver for various chipsets
• Support added for the NVIDIA nForce2 integrated graphics, GeForce 4, and GeForce FX
• bugfixes

XFree86 4.3.0 downloads: ftp.xfree86.org/pub/XFree86/4.3.0 (mirrors)

Dark< >Lord was the first to point out thatBioware has set up a forumfor discussing the Linux version of Neverwinter Nights.The most amusing thread title so far: “The Great Linux Thread v23.0 – We wanted a client but got a forum!”

First off, a few miscellaneous news tidbits:

• GMC-jimmy wrote in to point out that the head developer forVentrilo, a VOIP client,posteda comment in their forums that hinted that there may be a Linux port of the client.
• The Path to Victory

(UT mod) team wrote in toannounce that they have released five newscreenshots andthat they’re looking for a mapperand a weapon modeler.

Secondly, here’s another round of new version releases:

• ALSA 0.9.0rc8, the Advanced Linux SoundArchitecture:download
• Adventure Game Studio 2.54.498, :screenshot,download
• Crystal Space 0.96r003, an Open Source 3D Engine:changelog,screenshots,download
• DirectFB 0.9.17 & 1.0-rc4, a thin graphics library:changelog,screenshot,download
• Emilia Pinball 0.1.3, a pinball simulator:screenshots,download
• FreeCraft 1.18pre1, a RTS game engine:changelog,screenshots,download
• GAV 0.7.2, an Arcade Volleyball remake:screenshots,download