I don't know quite why, exactly. I have theories; I know a little bit about programming, and the first thing I think of in this regard is 3D support. I am not a kernel expert, but I understand that OpenGL must go through many more software layers to talk to the video card in Linux than in Windows. This leads me to my next thought, in that maybe there needs to be some kind of DirectX-ish standard in Linux, not only for faster video when doing 3D accelleration, but for stuff like DirectInput, which is (I believe) a standard API that a programmer can use which is driver-independent. From my humble understanding, if you want to use a device other than keyboard and mouse to play a game in Linux, the support for that specific device needs to be coded into the game.

This brings up a question in my mind: Does the open source community have the ability to create standard API's fast enough to make Linux a player in the Game Market? Or will lack of standards be Linux's downfall like the Microsoft people say?

Nowadays, video game production is a multi-million dollar affair. If the video game company were staying within the general "philosophy" of Linux, they would be expected to make the game open source.

Now why, might I ask, would a company like Squaresoft spend $10 million to produce Final Fantasy XI for Linux, then promptly be asked to open source it, thus making the game avaliable anywhere?

There's no money in it!

Video games are just as much about making money as they are about entertainment... just like movies. Remember that!

Linux will be a Good Gaming Platform the moment you can put in a CD and click install (or run a file), give it permissions to write to your hard disk (by either saying "yes" or putting in the root password), wait a few minutes, then click Play. And the game loads. No fuss, no mess. No odd kernel module or shared library requirement.

Update : If games for Linux can be made as easy to install as Helix Gnome Desktop is, then it should be fairly trivial to port more games to Linux, and sell a few too. Also, either cloning DirectX or encouraging people to use OpenGL would help.