Hi people. As many of you are aware, I've spent the last month or so slaving over hot research for a new article on Humble Bundle stuff.
With the recent non-cross-platform Humble Bundle promotions, now seemed like a good time to try to get a big picture view of cross-platform support across all promotions and see how everything fits together in context.
In this article, I look at platform debuts and existing cross platform titles, internal and external porting, non-cross-platform titles, and post-bundle availability.
If you've ever been interested in comparing the number of Humble Bundle Linux debuts against Mac debuts (58 vs 23), look no farther. If you've ever wanted to know who ported what, you can find that here (no surprises, icculus and urkle are responsible for porting 32 titles between them). If you've ever wanted to know how many Humble Bundle titles were ported internally (over half), that's there too.
http://cheesetalks.twolofbees.com/humbleStats3.php
Enjoy!
Note: This article is over 7,500 words long, so it's small by my standards :D
I try to steer clear of pushing my own opinions, but since almost everybody I've shown this to has asked me what I thought of the THQ bundle, there's also this. Article taken from GamingOnLinux.com.
With the recent non-cross-platform Humble Bundle promotions, now seemed like a good time to try to get a big picture view of cross-platform support across all promotions and see how everything fits together in context.
In this article, I look at platform debuts and existing cross platform titles, internal and external porting, non-cross-platform titles, and post-bundle availability.
If you've ever been interested in comparing the number of Humble Bundle Linux debuts against Mac debuts (58 vs 23), look no farther. If you've ever wanted to know who ported what, you can find that here (no surprises, icculus and urkle are responsible for porting 32 titles between them). If you've ever wanted to know how many Humble Bundle titles were ported internally (over half), that's there too.
http://cheesetalks.twolofbees.com/humbleStats3.php
Enjoy!
Note: This article is over 7,500 words long, so it's small by my standards :D
I try to steer clear of pushing my own opinions, but since almost everybody I've shown this to has asked me what I thought of the THQ bundle, there's also this. Article taken from GamingOnLinux.com.
0 Likes
Some you may have missed, popular articles from the last month:
The comments on this article are closed.
Oh god, I tried to help with translating Waveform but it's a google document and it was painful. Why can't they just provide nice potfiles? Bah, I never got a reply from them anyway...
Anyway, if Humble were to provide such an effort it would be indeed great, but only if they either made a new system for translation (ridiculous idea) or used something like the Launchpad module or that other thing that Virtaal is part of the project.
I think I'll start doing that stuff on PCG next week or so. But I'm still engrossed with the other project of theirs.
Anyway, if Humble were to provide such an effort it would be indeed great, but only if they either made a new system for translation (ridiculous idea) or used something like the Launchpad module or that other thing that Virtaal is part of the project.
I think I'll start doing that stuff on PCG next week or so. But I'm still engrossed with the other project of theirs.
0 Likes
Quoting: "Cheeseness, post: 7456, member: 122"The thing is though, the Humble Bundle guys are probably in a prime position to assemble a translation team (in house, external, community driven, etc. - whatever method used, the ongoing/regular nature would help bring responsibility/accountability that could ensure decent translations) that they could offer/contract out to bundle participants. It would be pretty neat to see them raise the bar for indie games a bit by encouraging/requiring participants to have a minimum set of translations.
Waveform's translations were crowdsourced and that turned out really well by all reports.
I'd like that to happen. I think they could reach more people in more countries and provide a valuable and reliable service to indies.
Back to the lack of support issue, they should be more strict about quality at launch time, specially when the port isn't done by the HB team. We can't live on promises that games will be fixed some time. I assume the HB team doesn't lie when they say they'll eventually fix their ports.
0 Likes
I'd rather not. I make no assumption as to what isn't in my hands. Just like I don't get my hopes up too fast after backing a project on Kickstarter or Indiegogo. Their having the means to fix it has nothing to do with their will, ability or time to fix it. Unfortunately.
0 Likes
Quoting: "Cheeseness, post: 7456, member: 122"The thing is though, the Humble Bundle guys are probably in a prime position to assemble a translation team (in house, external, community driven, etc. - whatever method used, the ongoing/regular nature would help bring responsibility/accountability that could ensure decent translations) that they could offer/contract out to bundle participants. It would be pretty neat to see them raise the bar for indie games a bit by encouraging/requiring participants to have a minimum set of translations.
Definitely a good idea. humblebundle.fr anyone? ;)
0 Likes
Still that would require some kind of deal with HB. And probably access to the sources for quite a bunch of games, which means some kind of deal with the devs too. And publishers where applicable. Can't say I don't like the sound of it though. xD
0 Likes
Cheeseness Jan 3, 2013
Quoting: "berarma, post: 7459, member: 131"Back to the lack of support issue, they should be more strict about quality at launch time, specially when the port isn't done by the HB team.
Since urkle only recently became an employee of Humble Bundle (as I understand it), then only the titles from the last bundle would fit that description.
I don't think it's wise to put responsibility on the porters. Ultimate responsibility has to lie with the developers - if they themselves aren't interested, updates won't happen. Post bundle, they're the ones calling the shots, handing out the money, and setting the general attitude. Contractors generally don't have a lot of control over what they do and don't do.
0 Likes
Quoting: "Cheeseness, post: 7468, member: 122"Since urkle only recently became an employee of Humble Bundle (as I understand it), then only the titles from the last bundle would fit that description.
I don't think it's wise to put responsibility on the porters. Ultimate responsibility has to lie with the developers - if they themselves aren't interested, updates won't happen. Post bundle, they're the ones calling the shots, handing out the money, and setting the general attitude. Contractors generally don't have a lot of control over what they do and don't do.
If that's how it works then there's more reasons to be more strict about quality and bugs being fixed in time, they (the developers) should be held accountable for that while possible.
My guess was that some ports could be somewhat licensed to the HB. I'd like to see that for titles sold in the bundle from devs not interested in our platform and keep selling them after the bundle. Maybe I'm going too far.
EDIT: Minor clarification.
0 Likes
Cheeseness Jan 3, 2013
Quoting: "berarma, post: 7471, member: 131"If that's how it works then there's more reasons to be more strict about quality and bugs being fixed in time, they should be held accountable for that while possible.
Not really. As I said before, I haven't seen a Humble contract, but I am certain that it's the developers who would be signing off on a finished port (so again that's their responsibility).
In case it's not clear, I'm saying it's inappropriate for us as customers to have expectations of porters. They still have obligations to do good work according to their contracts, but that's an internal thing between them and the developers, not us. If a developer's not happy with the work that's been done, they're always free to follow up whatever recourse there might be and get somebody else in to do the job properly, so (for us) the developers are still to blame even if a porter did a poor job.
0 Likes
Sorry, I was always referring to the developers. I only mentioned the HB team because I think they could take over the developers in the ports they do, but it's not that they are required to. I hope I haven't messed it up even more.
0 Likes
Cheeseness Jan 3, 2013
Quoting: "berarma, post: 7477, member: 131"Sorry, I was always referring to the developers. I only mentioned the HB team because I think they could take over the developers in the ports they do, but it's not that they are required to. I hope I haven't messed it up even more.
Ah, that makes more sense ^_^
It'll be interesting to see how things play out with urkle being onboard now.
0 Likes
Patreon
PayPal
Currently working on Winter's Wake, a first person text adventure thing and its engine Icicle. Also making a little bee themed base builder called Hive Time :)
I do more stuff than could ever fit into a bio.
See more from me