Open Source - Enabling Gaming Talent

The other point to make is regarding PC gaming. If you wanted to break into the games industry, starting with console or PC, it is about as easy as breaking into film production. The resources required just make it highly unlikely that you can fund a project and get it into distribution with any success unless you have deep pockets, or have it on one of those once-in-a-lifetime big ideas.

Now, if the Open Source movement sees its installed base of desktop users reach a critical mass, it can enable a new generation of game designers, who will be shut out of the existing game industry because there is nothing else for them there.

The lack of opportunity for someone to break into gaming as a garage start-up, or through shareware, like in the early days of the PC industry, makes it imperative that any driving force behind PC hardware accomodates the dreams of some software undergraduates.

Conclusion

Drama arises out of confrontation, and we all need drama to get the juices flowing. The lack of drama in the enthusiast community has resulted in a situation where excitement has to be manufactured by perceived conspiracies between vendors, between sellers and buyers, and between enthusiasts.

We can't rely on Microsoft to dramatically change its strategy, or tell us what bandwagon to jump on next. Admit it, that's what they have been doing for the last decade, and that's helped to drive hardware innovations. It's much easier to take risks if you think the payoff will be big.

If the Open Source community - if Linux- (I can't seem to tell where one starts and the other stops) - can't push hardware, chooses not to demand more of hardware, if you will, then what are our options?

Does PC enthusiasm become a quaint echo of a different industrial age?

May your barbecues flame brightly this 4th of July, and may your steak be marbled.