Why not just make Linux capable of playing games rather than the same old tired responses: “Buy a console”, “Linux isn’t for games”, or the ubiquitous “I can play WoW in Wine.”

You are preaching to the choir, but it was might well preached anyway.

For myself it is not just games but also the tools I use for my hobbies and work (Graphics Designer).

I made this point in another blog but… There are three things stopping OS from overtaking Windows. User Friendliness (You have to be honest, 99% of computer users DO NOT want to ever look at a command prompt, let alone learn anything about installing software/drivers beyond “Download this and keep clicking OK” or “Stick CD in drive and click ok on the boxes that pop up” if that technically advanced. I like Ubuntu because it’s pretty idiot-proof but it’s just still not as accessible as Windows.)
Compatibility (I know this is equally in part due to companies not offering Linux support to their products, but army of programmer/coders in the OS community)
and House-hold name. Being a free product this will be damn hard to do unless someone can convince Dell or some other large retailer to push it (That Wal-mart crap they tried will not cut it and only hurt))

But I’m probably preaching to the choir.

As an example,

I work in IT for a school district in California. Currently we have several thousand staff computers and we are considering pursuing a 1 to 1 initiative (every student gets a laptop) for 6th grade and up, which would add another 8 thousand or so boxes.

Due to the economic times we are in we are currently evaluating what it would take to move to linux as opposed to microsoft, and so far there is only a handful of machines that would still require microsoft, and the cost of transitioning (monetary only, not time/labor) is less than we pay for 1 year of microsoft licenses.

http://www.linux.org/info/linux_govt.html is a list of high profile government agencies that run linux.

I know that most gamers won’t switch because main stream games aren’t developed for linux (usually), and when somebody asks about linux the first question I ask is about games. If they like the latest and greatest mainstream games i always tell tehm to stick with windows. But in my experience, the hardcore gamers is a small minority.

The pain said he’s probably one of tens of thousands who will stay with windows due to games, but there are millions running windows currently. Even if every game ever made worked natively on linux it wouldn’t be key to linux’s adoption.

But basically, I make a case that the kind of people who are attracted to Linux and hardcore gamers are two separate groups, for the most part. But also I second Araneidae’s point above: Linux is becoming the de facto legacy gaming platform.

One area where Wine can win (though I think they’re dropping the ball on this at the moment) is playing *older* games which just drop dead on more recent versions of Windows — Microsoft have never taken backwards compatibility seriously. There’s a decade and a half (and more, I guess) of good games out there that we should be able to play.

One of the big appeals of computer gaming is the ability to modify the game (Mod it). Look at Valve, Unreal, and ID. When you “Plunk yourself down and play Team Fortress 2″ on the 360 you’re missing out on the… oh for myself about 60 custom made maps that are user-made. You can’t play Insurgency or Black Mesa (two large complete made from scratch mods for Half Life 2 Episode 2).

I myself mod. I have Maya and 3DS (Two programs that really… don’t work on Linux at all which are vital to mod making) as well as Photoshop (Gimp is not comparable…) Combine this with games and there is not a single chance I will go Open Source no matter how much more reliable or cost effective it is. I am also one of probably tens of thousands with the exact same reasoning for staying with Microsoft.

My god what the modding community could accomplish with such a massive influx of competent coders Linux/Unix would bring in…..