While I'm all for pushing gaming on Linux, I am somewhat unsure about what I am seeing there. It seems fairly evident that it will be a charge for product, though didn't see what the projected cost was. And while it is promoting itself as a Linux product there is text that makes it sound like it will be a fully cross platform engine, which isn't a new concept, and leaves any idea of "Linux exclusives" up to the same group of people that are already not making Linux exclusives.
When you start talking about having to pay for something that other people are doing then the question must be asked as to how this product will compete? Will it compete on value? If not then by what other advantage? This KS doesn't answer those questions, instead is trying to sell itself as something new/unique which it doesn't appear to be.
I'm also somewhat skeptical about some of the logic used as to why this is a good idea, among them using the famous Left4Dead2 framerate situation from a while ago to frame Linux as a performance leader. That was all well and fine, but the final difference was all of 12 frames out of 300, and it was information coming from a group interested in advertising that difference. It's valid information, but for a claim like that it would be nicer if we were talking about multiple instances which we just don't have.
The reality is it's more complicated than one instance, and it is going to be hard to say if this particular product will follow the same model. I would have preferred he said it has as good as or better performance, or equivalent performance instead. I may be harping on word choice, but I sense an air of reckless optimism in enough of the dialog that makes me think think this could end up as an over sell, under deliver situation.
If this thing ends up multi-platform it's really something other than what they are selling it as, and in the end I think the only way this is going to do what they want is to give it away for free (or close) for Linux deployment, and charge for Windows and Mac. And if its not Multi-Platform then it's going to have to be super cheap or free, because there isn't much of a market for that (though the Android support might change that.)
Will be happy to be proved wrong on this one.
Post edited June 30, 2013 by gooberking
