It seems Puppy Games the developers behind fun games like Revenge of the Titans have expressed their concern about Linux sales.
They took to twitter to say this:
LINUX GAMERS! To date we've made just **$12,000** from Linux games in total for all time for all four of our games! This will not do!
— Puppygames (@puppygames) September 8, 2014
Linux is a small, but growing market we know that, but some developers aren't in it for fun and only see the numbers. They said in another tweet that a factor of 10 would make it more attractive.
Personally I doubt any single developer has made a figure of $120,000 (factor of 10 on their lifetime Linux sales) from a Linux game alone yet, and hell the vast majority of indie games coming out probably won't make that in their entire lifetime.
They have four games and three employees to maintain, so I can understand where they are coming from, but with a market that's still small developers shouldn't expect too much from it yet.
UPDATE
@gamingonlinux just Steam over the last 2 years. We only otherwise sell through Humble these days but that's so little money it's irrelevant
— Puppygames (@puppygames) September 8, 2014
It seems they are only counting Steam, so their original tweet seems a little baiting to get a reaction and more sales. Not a bad thing to try to get more sales, but maybe they should actively engage with the Linux community like some other developers do?
Take it with a grain of salt too, as tweets are hard to get the message across and it's probably more friendly than it seems at first glance.
They aren't counting their own Humble Weekly Bundle which actually gave them revenue from Linux gamers at a mark around $14,000 (not counting charity) which is more than Steam, so they actually made a fair bit more from Linux than they have mentioned it seems.
They confirmed in a comment later it's around the $8,000 mark. That nearly doubled the figure in their original tweet.
They were in a Humble Bundle as well which they aren't counting, and to quote someone from reddit on the matter:
QuoteI'm curious what the breakdown by platforms was from them in the Humble Bundles. Based on this site HiB2 made $361214.76 from Linux users.
Assuming that all of them gave half to charity (leaving $180607.38) and split the non-charitable potion evenly 12 way between the 5 HiB2 games, the 6 HiB games that got pulled in and the tip for Wolfire, they should have gotten $15050.
I would also be interested to know how much they say they got from that Humble Bundle. I am pretty sure they used to do direct sales at one point too, so again a fair bit they don't seem to be counting.
Puppy Games have noted they aren't about to stop supporting Linux, but they see it as unprofitable:
@shadowrabbit64 @fdgonthier we've supported Linux for 11 years, not about to stop now. Just remarking that it is incredibly unprofitable
Puppygames (@puppygames) September 9, 2014
What do you make of all this? It's interesting to see.
If you want to support them consider buying their games on Steam. Looks like they could do with some more love from Linux gamers don't you think?
Metallinatus Sep 9, 2014
Also, only one of the four games was released after Steam for Linux, and that was only a month after, so I personally doubt that the game was released with Linux support on Steam from day one.
So we must wonder how much time it took for them to bring said support to at least three of the four games.... maybe to all the four.
Going to the point, all the four games were on Steam for Linux on probably much less than 19 months, so saying "the last two years" was definitely not fair with the real time frame.
But, just for the matter of precision.... do anyone know the exactly release dates on Steam for Linux?
The business is hard, and the notion that eventually your hard work will pay off is nonsense. It's not even about having the best game, really. It's 80% luck. And I don't mean that in that those that have (and will) fail, do so because they didn't work hard enough.
They worked hard, they paid their dues, they just weren't lucky enough.
Quoting: subTheir games are made with Java IIRC, right?They made much much more. It's because of the Linux versions that I gave them money through the bundles while otherwise I wouldn't.
In that case, the $12k are gained with (almost) no extra effort at least.
So this whining that gives the impression about poor overall Linux sales, is just a lie.
Also, I had a look at the games they list on Steam, and from what they've done so far I don't mind them dropping our platform althogether. As far as I am concerned they make games for tablets and mobile phones.
And good grief how many of those kind of "indie" devs it is out there now. Sorry but it has almost come to the point where I consider these kind of devs to be nothing but noise in my Steam client.
Quoting: MetallinatusI can't help but notice that he says "over the last two years" when Steam for Linux was released "only" 19 months ago....
He goes on to say "I'll add my breakdowns for the last 12 months: 2.3% Linux, 5% Mac, the rest Windows.", so that 1% he mentioned initially seems a bit misleading.
I guess it levelled out after a few more months, but they still get more than a lot of developers we spoke to.
Also they aren't about to stop supporting Linux, but they feel right now it's not profitable.
Quoting: liamdaweIt's odd as in January of this year they had 5% of Linux sales from Steam as they told us in http://www.gamingonlinux.com/articles/linux-game-sales-statistics-from-multiple-developers.2963
So to recap, they had 5% Linux sales then, 2.3% in the last 12 months, but yet they only had 1% in revenues from Linux sales on Steam overall. That must either mean that an improbably high percentage of their sales between September and December of last year were Linux sales or that Linux users paid a lot less per unit than Windows/Mac users. Maybe a combination of both factors could explain those numbers.
I personally am much less likely to buy a game full price if it's not available for Linux day one and I actually picked up their games in the 90% off Ultrabundle during the summer sale. They're mostly not my kind of games though, so it's likely that I won't play them anytime soon, if at all. It's much more likely that I put money into Battledroid though if I ever figure out what kind of game it is and if it's available for Linux day one.
And those blog posts are excellent. The only point I'd make, that Cas won't like to hear, is that I would have struggled to ever pay $20 for Revenge of the Titans and I would have struggled to pay even $3 for any of the rest. So his point about 90% coupons might right, but it's right for a reason - their games aren't worth full price.
Well, actually, RotT is excellent. It's deep, innovative, difficult, beautiful, smooth, varied and funny. At least, when it released (2010) it was beautiful and innovative - it's looking a bit jaded now, right enough and TD is dime a dozen.
But the rest? A Paradroid clone, a Robotron clone and a Space Invaders clone, all done in the RotT art style. You might throw them a dollar on Google Play, but the only reason I own them is because of Humble Bundle.
So, the truth cuts both ways, I think. Cas and Chaz are still trying to punt their games at $10! Ten dollars for a Space Invaders clone? It's just ridiculous.
Maybe if mac declined their game on the mac store just because and ms would do something similar, they would start looking into the whole thing of growing the linux market share from a different perspective... But before that happens, their lack of perspective is understandable
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