Loki Offers 50%-off Discounts to LUGs

Robotech_Master writes "Looks like Loki is going to be offering substantial discounts to Linux User Groups wanting to make mass purchases of 10 or more copies of their titles. 50% off, and they cover shipping." Quite the deal for lugheads. Get your copy of Tribes 2. Loki continues to do really good things. I know things are tough, but hopefully they can make it. Good luck guys.

Our LUG is doing this.

Our LUG solug.org [solug.org] is doing this. We don't really have enough members for 10 copies (or rather we do, but not all members are gamers) So there are 5 of us who want the game, and of those 5 we were going to buy the game anyways, so it looks like we will end up with 2 copies each. I can live with that, so can they.

And it boosts sales of the linux version too.

/. Buy-In

So, who is going to organize a /. buy-in? We can get a hell of a discount on 10,000 copies!

Jethro

Re:Not very impressed AT ALL

We received an email from Michael last night and will be responding to him directly. Still, we would like to address a few points here.

The LUG program is intended to support the efforts of non-profit groups who are evangelizing Linux. Our program allows LUGs to purchase Loki products at a discount for promotional purposes (e.g. give aways and contest prizes) and to generate financial support for their efforts via resale to their members.

There are strict qualification guidelines--you actually have to be a LUG, LUGs cannot sell or distribute products to anyone except their own members, and sales and give aways of products must be done at LUG meetings and events.

Tuxgames.com is an online webstore which sells Linux products to end users. They buy the product at a discount and sell at a profit. The more they buy, the bigger the discount. There are a number of such sites in countries all over the world. A list of stores (both online and brick and mortar) that resell Loki's products can be found at http://www.lokigames.com/orders/resellers.php3 [lokigames.com]. We value our resellers and have worked hard to build relationships with them. We use Tuxgames, for example, to offer product discounts to our beta testers and, when we had problems with our own webstore recently, we emailed customers and suggested they use the Tuxgames site instead to avoid delays.

Loki is proud of its record supporting the community of users and developers involved with open source software. We believe that our game products play an important role increasing the appeal of Linux to new users, and are excited about reaching new users by sponsoring LUGs with this new program.

Kayt Sorhaindo
Queen Bee
Loki Software, Inc.

Linux gaming: why bother?

I guess I don't understand why there's such squawking over the need for games under Linux. I have a Linux box at home for my network server needs, and I have a Windows box for my gaming.

What's wrong with using the right OS for the job?
--

Time to pay your dues

This means you can get Tribes2 for less than the Windows version. For once, Linux users have a leg up on the Win32 guys.

Note that I'm not taking into account the limited time special prices you can get from local stores from week to week. The price for Tribes 2 on ebgames.com [ebgames.com] is currently $45. The price for Tribes2 Linux is $50, so you can get it for $25 or less with this LUG deal.

Ok, Linux supporters...time to put up or shut up. If you truly want to help, lay out the money now.

FWIW, I put down over $100 in games from TuxGames [tuxgames.com] to get my Tribes2, SMAC, and other Linux games earlier this week. Reviews forthcoming here [linuxgames.com].

Not very impressed AT ALL

<rant-mode> As CEO of a company that has just shelled out MANY thousands of dollars on copies of Tribes 2 and Alpha Centauri, I was less than impressed to see Loki was selling to every LUG at a price LOWER than they are selling to their resellers. I can tell yuo for a FACT that Tux Games [tuxgames.com] dos NOT get discounts like this, and we have been ordering Tribes 2 and Alpha by the hundred, not by the ten.
Loki has of yet not responded to my demand for an explaination, but I think this is NOT the way to win loyalty in resellers. If they charge LUGs less money than they charge resellers, the resellers may as well just pack up shop and go home.

Suffice to say, we arent best pleased at this news. All well and good to give discounts to LUGs, but please, lower than the resellers?? Thats a great way to kill your reseller channel stone dead! </rant-mode>

Porting house isn't the best business...

The problem with porting Windows code to Linux, espically games, is that the code wasn't designed with cross platform compatiblity in mind. So you get things like Railroad Tycoon II not able to do multiplayer with Windows. (Works fine with Mac as they ported the Mac version, not the Windows version.)

Quake 3 is thankfully a different kettle of fish and a slightly better plan. It's at least designed to be cross platform. Until Loki came along, id was fine with the one box mutiple platforms. id never officially supported their games on linux though. (You couldn't call tech support and expect help with getting things working on Linux.) With Quake3, Loki took that job and put out a special Linux edition. The special Linux edition isn't all that special. You get a tin box, and the cd has the linux biniaries instead of the windows biniaries. The CD still works on any platform once you download the point release. I got the Linux version, but played under windows for some time before I got 3D working under Linux.

BioWare has the right idea with Neverwinter Nights. Design the game for cross platform from the ground up. With that design, there is minimal effort in getting the game running on four platforms. Should keep the patch levels unified across platforms as well. The ability to move between platforms will be nice. I'm sure BioWare will include support for EAX, and I've found that those audio extentions add something special to the game, and are just darn cool. I don't expect they work on Linux anytime soon however, so maybe I'll want to boot into windows from time to time.

Another hurdle with the port the windows code that recently came to light is voice communication. From what I know (and I could be wrong) Tribes 2 has intigrated voice communication, but the Windows version and Linux version are incompatible. (Should be fixed in a later patch.) Big bummer. I use Roger-Wilco all the time with Counter-Strike. Linux needs something similar that is compatible.

Sometimes it's the little things that make or break a title/company/etc. Loki definitly has the big things taken care of, but some of those small details get overlooked all too often...