Venetica’s GNU/Linux and MacOS Ports

Maxim Bardin — Sun, 31 Jan 2010 09:07:14 +0000

Several months ago I’ve posted about the cRPG in developments called Venetica.
The company behind this game – Deck13, made many games which where ported to GNU/Linux and MacOS (by Runesoft) and I wrongly assumed that Venetica will have the same fate.
Despite using the FOSS cross platform Ogre3D engine like they did with their older games, they managed to make the port to GNU/Linux and MacOS very costly.
Apart from Ogre3D they used DirectX (to make the Xbox port) ,FMOD, PathEngine and Scaleform.
While DirectX could be replaced by OpenGL (for the sake of the other ports) the price to license the other middleware (FMOD, PathEngine and Scaleform) is very high, specifically – each tool needs to be re-licensed for each platform separately (those tools do support GNU/Linux, MacOS and other platforms).
So in other words a MacOS port won’t dramatically reduce the cost of the GNU/Linux port.

RuneSoft – the MacOS porters of Deck’s13 older games refused to port Venetica to MacOS due to the high licensing costs of the middleware.
Deck13 said that in order to justify a GNU/Linux port, they need at least 15k GNU/Linux units sold – which makes the port highly unlikely.

We can make a petition for it, or try the preorders method that worked with their older games like Jack Keane – but I still doubt that we’ll reach 15k.

Nonetheless Deck13 are still discussing with their publishers about porting Venetica to GNU/Linux and MacOS.
Although the chances are slim, it’s still possible.

Linux Gaming News » Deck13

Venetica’s GNU/Linux and MacOS Ports