Cheese Talks: Linux As A Stretch Goal

After a couple of months' silence (the upcoming Humble Visualisations rewrite has eating up a lot of my time), I'm pleased to present a new "Cheesetalks" article looking at why Linux as a stretch goal in crowdfunding campaigns undermines the very principles upon which crowdfunding is based.

Weighing in at somewhere near 3,000 words, this article grew out of a discussion I recently had with the organisers of The Realm's crowdfunding campaign, which in part (along with feedback from their Linux survey which we covered here on GOL late last month) led to their adopting Linux as a base deliverable.

For those who don't have time to dive in, here's a quick summary!

I begin by looking at why stretch goals themselves don't bring new audiences in, and how they can be most effective when they are giving existing supporters motivation to spread the word.

I talk about how crowdfunding campaigns can put developers in a better position to support Linux than other approaches to getting projects off the ground, and put forward the notion that to get the best coverage, platform support should be grouped by role rather than perceived market share due to the lack of comparative user overlap between, for example, PC-to-PC platforms and PC-to-mobile platforms. For this reason, I suggest that Linux should be considered a "parallel" platform alongside other PC operating systems rather than an "additional" platform which can be used to generate more excitement later in a campaign.

I also give some advice for prospective campaign runners who are considering supporting Linux which can be boiled down to:

• Choose to work with open and/or cross platform technologies.
• Communicate with Linux users and give them as much attention as users on other platforms.
• If you are targeting Linux with your project, aim to have simultaneous release on all PC platforms.
• If you feel that you need a particular amount of funding to be comfortable producing a Linux version, just announce Linux support once that threshold has been reached.
• If you are not interested in or excited by supporting Linux with your project, then don't.

As is often the case, this article is littered with quotes from crowdfunding campaign runners I've spoken to including Refract Studios (Distance), Double Fine (Double Fine Adventure/Broken Age), Hidden Path Entertainment (Defense Grid 2), Corey Cole (Hero-U) and the guys from Atomhawk and Lantern Interactive (The Realm), so even if you're not that excited by what I have to say, it's worth flicking through just for the quotes!

Enjoy! Article taken from GamingOnLinux.com.