Linux Sales Are Higher Than Mac For Maia Developer

Quoting: Quote from adolsonI gave up on Linux gaming a decade ago and jumped to consoles, despite owning a big stack of Linux game discs. But now I'm curious; what *were* you playing in the years before Steam? (Not counting Wine, of course.)

Much of the same games I played before I was able to switch to Linux full-time. I grew up playing id Software titles, so that was a natural switch, and I started playing other native Linux shooters such as the Unreal Tournaments and Prey. I first started getting into indie games around 2008/2009; the first time it really hit home to me how promising these were was when I played Penumbra for the first time, as well as Lugaru. This was all before even the first Humble Indie Bundle had been released, you understand.

I also played many of the older Linux game ports, tracking down Shogo and Soldier of Fortune, and I really got into Postal 2 upon first playing it in early January 2010. And that was just the shareware; there were so many damn amusing ways to pick up some milk. I did not get my hands on the full version until December.

I did use WINE for some things, following my eight year rule that says that after eight years it really did not have any significance anymore and counted as supporting retro gaming rather than modern Windows, but I also used Dosbox quite heavily. There were also plenty of source ports I spent my time with, and of course last but not least the myriad of free software titles that I did also enjoy, but were not reliant upon as some have speculated.

Those were frontier times, and we have grown hugely since then, but things were happening even back then. For me the big change was with the Humble Indie Bundle, as that is when things really began to pick up for me. Everything that came to follow was just additional growth; there was no revolution here, just a gradual evolution. A lot of people seem to be losing sight of that.

Quoting: Quote from HamishThose were frontier times, and we have grown hugely since then, but things were happening even back then. For me the big change was with the Humble Indie Bundle, as that is when things really began to pick up for me. Everything that came to follow was just additional growth; there was no revolution here, just a gradual evolution. A lot of people seem to be losing sight of that.

Well, I think people following different genres have had different experiences in that respect. The Humble Bundle was indeed a big breakthrough, but for my favorite genres of RPG and adventure, the rise of crowdfunding has been an even BIGGER breakthrough for native Linux gaming.

At one time I used to play a fair amount of ID and then Unreal Tournament, including LAN parties with friends, but that level of tension and adrenaline rush was not ideal for most of us who happen to struggle with chronic injuries and illnesses of various types. So a big strength of native Linux gaming, stuff like xonotic, didn't really apply.

After the FPS phase, the focus of my local gaming group switched to one of my first loves in gaming, RPGs, and during the slow period we played NWN to death -- until we had finished every single user-created module in NWNvault that had any appeal to us. We tried the various MMORPG games supporting Linux and none of them held our interest.

Meanwhile for single-player gaming, I played HoMM III from Loki to death, and eventually stooped to playing HoMM V and expansions via wine, which was a pain, because I never could get into free alternatives like Wesnoth :(

I was pretty thrilled to pick up Jack Keene for Linux, which was a solid but not outstanding adventure game, because it was so rare for adventure games to natively support Linux. Niche within a niche and all that. 

Now fast forward a few years to the present... I'm excited about more crowd-funded releases coming up in ONE year than over the last 10 years!

RPG: Project Eternity, Arakion, Worlds of Magic, Pulsar, and Shroud of the Avatar! I'm hoping those last 2 will revive my local gaming group without any pressure for me to run wine :) Actually Worlds of Magic is more of a fantasy turn-based strategy than true RPG, but it should hit that HoMM spot quite nicely...

Adventure: Broken Sword is native on Linux! Broken Age is coming to Linux in a few days! Looking forward to Spaceventure, Moebius, Armikrog, Hero U, Homestuck, Jack Houston!! I might pick up Nelly Cootalot too, after it's released. And those are just the ones with themes that particularly appealed to me, with several others available for Linux users with different taste. All of these to be released for Linux in one year? Mindblowing.

Few, if any, of these would have happened with the old Indie self-funding model. Lots of the devs have said so. Crowd-funding + Indie devs seems to be a really hot combination for me.

True, I definitely do not want to downplay the importance of crowdfunding.

That begin said though, about the only game I ever purchased that was crowdfunded was FTL: Faster Than Light, and I have actually yet to play it, so it has not proven to be a huge part of my gaming life as of this moment. Maybe a few years down the line when more projects actually reach fruition.

But this is actually getting off topic now - not that this threads was ever really focused.

I think we can both agree that Linux gaming was never "dead" but some types of games were much better represented than others. It's not too surprising that a gamer pretty satisfied with the previously existing choices might not be all that personally impacted by crowd-funded games, since crowd-funding really shines at bringing together fans to fund under-represented genres, much more than it manages to improve open source games. Meanwhile, crowd-funding does feel like quite the gaming revolution for those who were pining away for, say, sci-fi-themed god games on Linux. Definitely a case of YMMV.