Zloth
I smell a... wumpus!?
I'm not so sure it will be Linux based. They would have to pay Microsoft for licensing but I'm sure they could cut a deal and it would save the game developers from having to work so hard to convert. The cost for all the servers and bandwidth should dwarf the MS licenses.
Regarding how hard the game is to run: it shouldn't matter that much. I'm sure you could go crazy with the graphics enough that you could make Google's servers fall victim to the China Syndrome but that's just a matter of getting enough hardware to handle demand. It's bandwidth that will be the killer. It's hard enough to get all those pixels on a screen - now you've got to push them over the net!
Regarding how hard the game is to run: it shouldn't matter that much. I'm sure you could go crazy with the graphics enough that you could make Google's servers fall victim to the China Syndrome but that's just a matter of getting enough hardware to handle demand. It's bandwidth that will be the killer. It's hard enough to get all those pixels on a screen - now you've got to push them over the net!