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?
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The phenomenon you're describing is not the tragedy of the commons. To the contrary, it's a purely market-driven problem. People imagine that "free markets" produce efficient outcomes and "clear" because of the relentless propaganda to that effect, but it isn't the case. All copyright-oriented industries at this point are suffering from serious market failure problems of one sort or another. In most of them the problems are aggravated by the ease and near-free nature of digital copying. At this point, it would probably be better for both artists and consumers if we scrapped the whole model of selling this kind of stuff, in favour of a public system of subsidies to creators combined with free access to all content via portals which tracked popularity. Subsidies ideally would be a declining function of popularity, so that an artist with at least modest popularity could make a modest living, and an extremely popular one would be pretty well off but not buying islands.
On the other hand, while the troubles of hypercompetition are noted, it's silly to talk about the "actual" worth of something that you put in a set amount of work to create in the first place, but derive a potentially endless stream of free revenue from. Since copyrighted material can be copied and sold effectively for free, the relationship between effort and reward is completely dependent on total sales. At a given price, sell too few and you're in penury; sell three times as many and you're upper middle class; sell twenty times as many and you're rolling in dough with a reward far beyond the effort you put in. And it all could depend on the right person making a tweet at the right time as much as on all the effort you put in making the game. What then was the "actual" worth, the proper price? Of course personally, I derive much of my entertainment from paper-and-pencil roleplaying games. Totting up money spent on rulebooks (much more than I needed to spend) divided by time gaming on those, I come up with about 12 cents an hour. Most of the people I play with, however, bought far fewer rulebooks than I; I doubt they've spent more than 5 cents an hour. Should I consider the "fair" price of computer games to be that much? Of course not, but it's as defensible as your "actual worth" notions.
On the other hand, while the troubles of hypercompetition are noted, it's silly to talk about the "actual" worth of something that you put in a set amount of work to create in the first place, but derive a potentially endless stream of free revenue from. Since copyrighted material can be copied and sold effectively for free, the relationship between effort and reward is completely dependent on total sales. At a given price, sell too few and you're in penury; sell three times as many and you're upper middle class; sell twenty times as many and you're rolling in dough with a reward far beyond the effort you put in. And it all could depend on the right person making a tweet at the right time as much as on all the effort you put in making the game. What then was the "actual" worth, the proper price? Of course personally, I derive much of my entertainment from paper-and-pencil roleplaying games. Totting up money spent on rulebooks (much more than I needed to spend) divided by time gaming on those, I come up with about 12 cents an hour. Most of the people I play with, however, bought far fewer rulebooks than I; I doubt they've spent more than 5 cents an hour. Should I consider the "fair" price of computer games to be that much? Of course not, but it's as defensible as your "actual worth" notions.
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http://cheesetalks.twolofbees.com/humble/weekly/?bundle=Puppy%20Games This has the weekly info on it. Looks about 15k-18k from Linux.
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Quoting: avarisclarihttp://cheesetalks.twolofbees.com/humble/weekly/?bundle=Puppy%20Games This has the weekly info on it. Looks about 15k-18k from Linux.
Actually they got about $3,897.86, I just spoke to Cheeseness to clarify that.
So, with Steam + their weekly sale they got what, around $15.8K from Linux in the last two years. That isn't a lot.
That's still not counting Desura which I believe was so low they never got a payout from, so they don't sell there any more.
Humble Store which is slow low they don't include it either.
The only two missing links are sales from the Humble Indie Bundle 2 which it was in wasn't it? I think it was also included in a later HIB 3 as an added game too, so are you counting them all?
Steam alone for you right now seems like an unfair way to gauge the market that probably had your games for a long time.
Also @puppygames didn't you do direct sales from your website for quite some time too? How do you count that?
Linux is a small market, and it is growing, but like others have plainly stated RotT for one has massive competition that it didn't have in the past, as the tower defence market has so many games now it's unreal.
There will be masses of Linux gamers who owned your games before Steam came to Linux, and I am one of them and again I'm sure it was from a HIB.
So, with that in mind and the weekly bundle why would you expect Steam sales to continue to grow for a small market that has had ample time to get your games outside of Steam?
That's not even taking into account steamplay where Linux gamers picked it up before they moved from Windows to Linux, but I imagine that's a small percentage, but still one to take into account regardless.
RotT is your only game that interested me and the others just don't look enticing to me personally, but that's not to say they are bad. They just aren't games I go for.
Like you said you have supported Linux for how many years? How many years of that was before Steam? A long time for a small market to already have your games one way or another.
> Edited a couple times to be clearer.
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We did pretty well out of HIB#2 but that was a looong time ago and Linux % shares have dwindled even for Humble Bundle since.
One thought I've had - perhaps Windows and Mac are actually growing at a faster rate than Linux adoption. I'd originally discounted this possibility because all I've read in the last 5 years is about saturation and maturation of the PC desktop markets. Perhaps it's not as stagnant as they're making out.
Thanks for your candid appraisal of our particular games - I do wish that when I expose these little tidbits of information the discussion didn't always descend into a "your games are shit and not worth a dollah" from loads of people we've only being trying to support for years. It ain't fun. If only the internet in general were polite enough to say, "Well done you, they look good, just not my kind of games, I only play CoD" etc.
Before Steam our Linux sales were so pitiful as to be almost unmeasurably small - I think we made a couple of hundred bucks a year from supporting Linux. But we still did it anyway :)
After all the whole reason we exist is because we made that crossplatform graphics library LWJGL so we could have Linux games. Y'know, the one we gave away and open sourced and that Minecraft is built on :)
One thought I've had - perhaps Windows and Mac are actually growing at a faster rate than Linux adoption. I'd originally discounted this possibility because all I've read in the last 5 years is about saturation and maturation of the PC desktop markets. Perhaps it's not as stagnant as they're making out.
Thanks for your candid appraisal of our particular games - I do wish that when I expose these little tidbits of information the discussion didn't always descend into a "your games are shit and not worth a dollah" from loads of people we've only being trying to support for years. It ain't fun. If only the internet in general were polite enough to say, "Well done you, they look good, just not my kind of games, I only play CoD" etc.
Before Steam our Linux sales were so pitiful as to be almost unmeasurably small - I think we made a couple of hundred bucks a year from supporting Linux. But we still did it anyway :)
After all the whole reason we exist is because we made that crossplatform graphics library LWJGL so we could have Linux games. Y'know, the one we gave away and open sourced and that Minecraft is built on :)
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The PC market isn't dying out, but people would have you believe that, and those people are usually certain PC sellers that aren't doing so well. Then the tabloids pick up on it and put their spin on it and suddenly omg the PC is dying. Not it's really not, and if you go by Steam alone it's growing all the time when they keep smashing their records.
Windows and Mac are both growing. I didn't even think to look at it that way either if I'm honest. That's actually an interesting point and another reason I wish Steam would track 100% of their user-base so that we could see.
The problem is no matter what community you engage with (Linux, Mac, Windows) you will always get replies of "your games suck" or the like.
Such is the way with the internet, and I haven't read all comment here, but I hope no one has said that. I try to keep it friendly here and I hope people report such pointless comments. Some people just tend to forget they are talking to a human at the end of the screen.
I will always support your work and got more hours out of RotT than I would care to admit (purchased it more than once too). Sadly your others games as I mentioned don't entice me, but I'm not saying they are good or bad due to not playing them.
Windows and Mac are both growing. I didn't even think to look at it that way either if I'm honest. That's actually an interesting point and another reason I wish Steam would track 100% of their user-base so that we could see.
The problem is no matter what community you engage with (Linux, Mac, Windows) you will always get replies of "your games suck" or the like.
Such is the way with the internet, and I haven't read all comment here, but I hope no one has said that. I try to keep it friendly here and I hope people report such pointless comments. Some people just tend to forget they are talking to a human at the end of the screen.
I will always support your work and got more hours out of RotT than I would care to admit (purchased it more than once too). Sadly your others games as I mentioned don't entice me, but I'm not saying they are good or bad due to not playing them.
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If you're interested in what we're up to and other strange and weird funding ideas... take a look at our Patreon: http://www.patreon.com/puppygames
Basically we're looking for a small monthly donation so we can carry on making odd games that no-one else wants to make, and this one in particular is interesting because we want it to be free and supported only by fans.
Basically we're looking for a small monthly donation so we can carry on making odd games that no-one else wants to make, and this one in particular is interesting because we want it to be free and supported only by fans.
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It's actually an RTS. To date I don't think there's a single other game quite like it. This is one of the things about video games... there are usually so many real differences between one title and the next in any genre that it really is quite churlish of someone to describe them, say, as "clones".
Interesting tidbit: how many "Space Invaders" games are there on Steam? By my reckoning it's about 3 or 4. There is virtually no competition. Likewise our other three games... there's virtually no competition. You're spoiled for choice if you like shooting people in the face though :)
Interesting tidbit: how many "Space Invaders" games are there on Steam? By my reckoning it's about 3 or 4. There is virtually no competition. Likewise our other three games... there's virtually no competition. You're spoiled for choice if you like shooting people in the face though :)
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Quoting: GuestQuoting: liamdaweLinux is a small market, and it is growing, but like others have plainly stated RotT for one has massive competition that it didn't have in the past, as the tower defence market has so many games now it's unreal.As a TD fan I have to disagree :). For one thing, Revenge of the Titans is not really a tower defence game (because the enemies come from everywhere and don’t follow a path). And then there are not a lot of TD games for Linux ! Fieldrunners 1 & 2, Kingdom Rush… That’s about it? (I know about OTTTD and Sentinel but they aren’t proper TD games either.)
I'd argue your comments that "RotT isn't Tower Defence". You have a base to defend, and a budget to place towers. That's pretty much what it boils down to - the rest is detail. But fair enough. I see Cas himself calls it Strategy, but as he himself states, it's a bit churlish to put stuff in a box like that. I suppose the (infuriating and near-game breaking) "ghosts" in RotT breaks up the notion of "true" Tower Defence, because you have to click like mad when your regular towers ignore them. I hated that aspect personally and it stopped me playing in the end, but I can see how it breaks the mold.
So... whatever.
More importantly, you seem to be missing out on some serious Linux TD love. There's a few titles here and these are only the ones I know about on Steam.
You've already mentioned Fieldrunners, Sentinel and the excellent Kingdom Rush. There's also:
Classic
iBomber Defense
Defense Zone 1 & 2
War in a Box : Paper Tanks
PixelJunk Monsters
Infectionator (Early Access)
Cubemen 1 & 2
Strategy or RPG or "weird"
Rymdkapsel
Defender's Quest
Bad Hotel
Anomoly Defenders (or in reverse, the original Anomoly games)
CreeperWorld3
First Person
Sanctum 2
Dungeon Defenders (& Eternity)
McDroid
Heldric: Legend of the Shoemaker
So, plenty to choose from. I'd personally love to see Sentinel 3 come to Linux, but apparently it's not to be. Shame - I gave up playing it on Android when Origin8 confirmed via email that they had no plans to support Android Play for cloud saves. It meant that the 20 hours I'd poured into the game on my now defunct Transformer tablet was wasted and had to be reproduced on my new Nexus 7. Wasn't gonna happen, and the lack of cloud save on Android is pretty much the primary reason I don't play games on that platform any more.
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Heh, ghosts are easy to deal with - research Xrays :) Or just drop cheapass turrets in their way. And use decoys to lure them off elsewhere. Lots of options!
The reason we don't describe it as TD is because a defining characteristic of TD is that the enemies follow a set path to the goal and don't attack your defences. Because the enemies have no set path and use AI to try and get to you, constantly adapting to the danger they face, the strategy changes throughout each level and subtly over course of the game as new gidrahs appear and you have new tech to experiment with. In this respect it's got far more in common with RTS games than any TD game.
The reason we don't describe it as TD is because a defining characteristic of TD is that the enemies follow a set path to the goal and don't attack your defences. Because the enemies have no set path and use AI to try and get to you, constantly adapting to the danger they face, the strategy changes throughout each level and subtly over course of the game as new gidrahs appear and you have new tech to experiment with. In this respect it's got far more in common with RTS games than any TD game.
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Cheeseness Sep 11, 2014
Quoting: princecOne thought I've had - perhaps Windows and Mac are actually growing at a faster rate than Linux adoption. I'd originally discounted this possibility because all I've read in the last 5 years is about saturation and maturation of the PC desktop markets. Perhaps it's not as stagnant as they're making out.
I think it's a fairly complex situation which has many intertwined threads that must play a role in what you're seeing. There are also a few things which could mask market size/growth.
Awareness of games seems to spread differently on Linux (news travels faster in a smaller community) compared to other platforms. It's possible that significant increases over time in Windows and Mac market penetration could give a false impression that the Linux market is stagnating (although this would point to a smaller Linux market than first assumed).
Some portion of Linux market growth (I'd speculate the majority of it) has to come from people switching operating systems. They're going to bring their existing game libraries across with them and won't provide visible Linux sales for titles that were released before they switched.
I'd highlight the player base vs revenue exchange that participating in pay-what-you-want bundles brings, but ~30,000 potential Linux users (3.9k from the weekly sale and 24.3k from the HIB2, assuming that the HIB3 Linux puchasers who received RoTT mapped 1:1 to HIB2 Linux purchasers) is, I suspect, a fairly insignificant number compared to the growth that you're looking for.
I should also note that the figures I gave Liam were actually the user count, and the data I've scraped from Humble suggests that the Humble Weekly Sale grossed $14,007.88 from Linux users. I don't recall what the charity distribution defaults were for that one, but it's still nice to see that that Linux users could pull together more money in a week for that than across the year and a half that Steam has been out of beta for Linux (although a cursory glance at SteamDB suggests that RoTT has only had Linux depots on Steam for 8 months).
Humble's Linux figures dropping are no surprise. It seems like they've been progressively alienating those who came onboard to champion the early bundles' ideals, and enthusiasm from Linux users has been a casualty of that (even though the number of Linux debuts that Humble are in part responsible for has tended upwards, the dominant sentiment in the communities I'm involved with is that having cross-platform support shift from something that could be taken for granted to something that's sporadic means that we're not being "looked after" as much anymore).
Quoting: princecI do wish that when I expose these little tidbits of information the discussion didn't always descend into a "your games are shit and not worth a dollah" from loads of people we've only being trying to support for years. It ain't fun. If only the internet in general were polite enough to say, "Well done you, they look good, just not my kind of games, I only play CoD" etc.
I don't believe that you've warranted any of the hate that you've received, but I can see the viewpoint of Linux users who might feel attacked by some of your statements.
Until recently, Linux has been more or less ignored by the industry following the crash around 2005 when Loki, LGP, Epic and id all seemed to wind down a bit. We've been the subject of ridicule and dismissiveness. When you're used to that sort of treatment, it can sometimes be easy to see it when it's not there :(
There's a lot of passion tied up in the Linux community, and some of that leads to people taking things personally that they probably shouldn't. That includes feeling like a developer who regularly supports Linux has their backs, you know. If somebody does have that kind of sentiment, it's easy to feel slighted.
Some of the comments I've seen from you have seemed a little abrasive (most likely unintentionally), and whilst I don't advocate treating Linux users like delicate flowers and hiding these sorts of numbers, I do think that there's stuff you've said that doesn't help the situation.
It's totally OK to feel disappointed by Linux sales figures. There's definitely worthwhile discussion to be had about Linux market sizes and how to maximise profitability.
Quoting: princecBefore Steam our Linux sales were so pitiful as to be almost unmeasurably small - I think we made a couple of hundred bucks a year from supporting Linux. But we still did it anyway :)
I, for one am glad you did. I get a kick out of Ultratron and RoTT is a super cool game.
Do you feel that those numbers vary significantly from the sorts of pre-Steam figures that Frictional have talked about?
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