Many people don't even know open source gaming exists. I have tried telling many of my hard playing PC gaming friends about Sourceforge and it's HUGE amount of games, not to mention modern full 3D front ends for older games many of us love still, (Descent, Descent 2 come to mind). Then there's the Wing Commander Privateer remake...Freeciv, and so many others. I'm impressed with the quality of their work, and their dedication to many of the older games that many of us are loathe to lose.
So...to me, I'd guess Open Source Gaming is pretty important. It'd help though if people started PUSHING the knowledge out to the general public somehow. Word of mouth can help a bit, but some serious writeups from some of the better tech and gamer sites (hint hint), along with full reviews, etc, would go a LONG way to getting open source gaming into the community mind.
Open source gaming has carried me through many dry days when all that was being released was crappy console ports, or 'Just another FPS game'.
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