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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Quoting: princecAfter 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 :)
That is an interesting connection. I've played with the LWJGL in a game engine of mine before.
Quoting: CheesenessI get a kick out of Ultratron and RoTT is a super cool game.
Nice to see someone else liked Ultratron. Many people seem to only mention Revenge of the Titans. RotT has excellent music and art, but, of the four, Ultratron is my favorite, at least gameplay-wise. Avenging humanity is pretty fun :).
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@cheeseness I didn't realise you gave me user numbers not revenue in my earlier comment.
In reality Puppy Games have made far more from Linux then in that case.
The $12K from Steam, plus the $14K from the Humble Weekly then. So, with Humble Weekly and Steam that puts our figure much closer to the point around $26,000 from Linux gamers.
That's not even counting the two Humble Indie Bundles.
In reality Puppy Games have made far more from Linux then in that case.
The $12K from Steam, plus the $14K from the Humble Weekly then. So, with Humble Weekly and Steam that puts our figure much closer to the point around $26,000 from Linux gamers.
That's not even counting the two Humble Indie Bundles.
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I think the net Linux share was $8k in the Weekly.
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Interesting. Plus looking into it your games have only been on Steam/Linux for a year not two years.
So with Steam + the weekly it's more like $20,000 then. not $12,000 and that's quite the difference in total.
That still isn't counting HIB2/3. Although they were some time ago now.
What sort of revenue were you expecting from Linux?
In future I do wish you would be a little more clear in tweets :)
So with Steam + the weekly it's more like $20,000 then. not $12,000 and that's quite the difference in total.
That still isn't counting HIB2/3. Although they were some time ago now.
What sort of revenue were you expecting from Linux?
In future I do wish you would be a little more clear in tweets :)
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Cheeseness Sep 11, 2014
Thing is, Caspian has stated that he's hoping for 10 times that. The difference between $12k and $20k is negligible in that context.
Even if you multiply the figure by two to make up for the missing year, it's still only halfway there.
Even if you multiply the figure by two to make up for the missing year, it's still only halfway there.
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Well as previously stated the Linux market is still small, so smaller earnings are to be expected of course.
Just a little odd to say that $12,000 figure was to date, but not taking into account quite a few other sources from Linux gamers that push it a fair bit higher than that.
Just a little odd to say that $12,000 figure was to date, but not taking into account quite a few other sources from Linux gamers that push it a fair bit higher than that.
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The trouble with tweets is they're only 140 characters and people like to read in all sorts of stuff that isn't there. The tweet was actually about Steam sales only, and it was a lighthearted dig at the Linux community (of whom I am a part, I may add!) which casts a wry look at the vociferous nature of some members of the community versus the actual rewards a developer might really see ;) Even the 10x figure was facetious! (Remember, Mac revenues are only twice what Linux has!) A doubling would be just great.
On a slightly more serious note... we're pretty lucky being in Humble Bundles. Well sort of lucky. I spent years and years networking with other indies and being poor learning to make games and so on and in that time I "met" a whole bunch of interesting people (eg. namedropping, but Markus Persson, Jeffrey Rosen, Cliffski, Jim Rossignol, Dan Marshall, etc) and made friends with them. I also managed to piss off quite a few of the most primadonna ones as well but that's just how I roll.
So anyway, I got to know Jeffrey Rosen and he just sort of liked me, and back when the Humble Bundle was a Brand New Thing he wanted to stick Droid Assault in HIB#2, and I said, no wait! We've got this new game, Revenge of the Titans, which is nearly done, how about we release it on the HIB#2? And so we did, and we've had a great relationship since then. However for the other 99% of developers it's all about begging and grovelling and spamming emails at Humble and hoping they take pity, and so Humble Bundles really aren't the way to make money in general. Indeed we're wondering about the sense in ever sticking a game in a Humble Bundle again, not because of the intense devaluation of the games that end up in the bundle, but because of its overall effect on the perceived value of games in the entire gaming ecosystem.
So there's that.
On a slightly more serious note... we're pretty lucky being in Humble Bundles. Well sort of lucky. I spent years and years networking with other indies and being poor learning to make games and so on and in that time I "met" a whole bunch of interesting people (eg. namedropping, but Markus Persson, Jeffrey Rosen, Cliffski, Jim Rossignol, Dan Marshall, etc) and made friends with them. I also managed to piss off quite a few of the most primadonna ones as well but that's just how I roll.
So anyway, I got to know Jeffrey Rosen and he just sort of liked me, and back when the Humble Bundle was a Brand New Thing he wanted to stick Droid Assault in HIB#2, and I said, no wait! We've got this new game, Revenge of the Titans, which is nearly done, how about we release it on the HIB#2? And so we did, and we've had a great relationship since then. However for the other 99% of developers it's all about begging and grovelling and spamming emails at Humble and hoping they take pity, and so Humble Bundles really aren't the way to make money in general. Indeed we're wondering about the sense in ever sticking a game in a Humble Bundle again, not because of the intense devaluation of the games that end up in the bundle, but because of its overall effect on the perceived value of games in the entire gaming ecosystem.
So there's that.
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Cheeseness Sep 11, 2014
Quoting: princecThe trouble with tweets is they're only 140 characters and people like to read in all sorts of stuff that isn't there.
Part of what wasn't there was the lightheartedness that you mentioned. You can't expect people to pick up on that if you're not providing indicators of it (and as I said earlier, Linux users are likely to take this stuff more personally than they should).
"lifetime" sales was there, but not detail on that being Steam only, and perhaps covering a longer period of time than Linux builds were available on Steam.
"incredibly unprofitable" was there, but I find it hard to believe that you've spent $20k on Linux support alone, which would mean that it had to have at least been a tiny bit profitable.
I'd be wary of suggesting that people have read stuff into your words when they're taking them at face value.
We're working hard to help developers understand that supporting Linux isn't a waste of money. Stuff like that makes it harder.
IMO, the best thing to do when you've stepped on a nerve unintentionally with facetiousness is to apologise (I hope we'll see that in the blog post you mentioned).
Quoting: princecSo there's that.
Well, it's a tradeoff. Userbase for profit margin. That's not necessarily a bad proposition, but it has to make sense within the bigger picture of where you are financially and where you want to be with regards to player count.
Devaluing of games is a super tricky issue, but I believe there are ways to participate in pay-what-you-want models without killing the mean perceived value of a game. it'd be great if promotion organisers like Humble put more effort into highlighting these events as opportunities to support developers rather than opportunities to get cheap games.
When you do a blog post, I'd love to hear details of how your per platform Steam sales figures compare to the platforms that Steam says people are playing on.
Dan's an absolute hoot <3
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Maybe it's a generational thing or a cultural thing but if you know Dan at all then you should probably know that "This will not do!" is clearly a joke... but then maybe only if you're English.
I always refuse to apologise when people simply don't understand though - as a matter of policy I explain rather than attempt to placate, which earns me a lot of hate but I find that it's best not to bow to bullying from mobs.
Unfortunately... $20k really is peanuts. We might not have spent $20k on actual email and forum support but you've got to remember all the other costs are still there too. There was the time spent building natives for Linux (had to work out how to do it from scratch - total beginner). There's the time spent figuring out bash scripts to run the games (again - total noob). The time spent working out the little foibles of Linux which need to be addressed in the game (Java doesn't do everything). The time spent making automated builds for Linux. The time spent testing on Linux. Then there's the ongoing repeated testing, building, uploading, verifying of the Linux builds - 8 of them - every time we make a patch to the core code to tweak something. It goes on and on. $20k is about 3 months' salary (60 days) here in the UK for someone who doesn't live in a cardboard box, and it's a very fine line between simply making a loss versus even just breaking even once you add in support. So that's the problem we're dealing with.
FWIW you don't get to talk to many developers privately about this stuff but I can tell you now, opinions are the same across the board, and most of them are pretty unhappy about it. We do it because it's pretty cheap for us because we've used Java; other devs with cross-plat engines like Unity similarly can manage it just about without making a loss. But still other developers who've written code to DirectX or Windows specifically have a much, much harder time of it, usually only amortised by a simultaneous but expensive port to OSX at the same time, and there the financial burden is genuinely a great risk to them: not only have they got all that other stuff but they've got (roughly) a $10-20k porting cost depending on the game complexity on top and then an ongoing maintenance budget.
Right now, also, there are only three reasons developers are supporting Linux for gaming. The first one is sheer stubborn bloodymindedness (the camp that we fall in to). The second is a fairly cynical marketing ploy (I know developers who literally despise Linux but who port to Linux simply because it'll make them look cooler in the eyes of geeks). The third is access to Unexpectedly Massive Platforms: that's the Humble Bundle for some, but for almost all of the rest, they're banking on SteamBoxes being the Next Big Thing.
So honestly... there's not really any more evangelising needs to be done at this point. I think SteamBoxes are the singularity everyone's waiting for.
ps. not sure if I can get actual useful figures for steam sales versus systems played from my dashboard
I always refuse to apologise when people simply don't understand though - as a matter of policy I explain rather than attempt to placate, which earns me a lot of hate but I find that it's best not to bow to bullying from mobs.
Unfortunately... $20k really is peanuts. We might not have spent $20k on actual email and forum support but you've got to remember all the other costs are still there too. There was the time spent building natives for Linux (had to work out how to do it from scratch - total beginner). There's the time spent figuring out bash scripts to run the games (again - total noob). The time spent working out the little foibles of Linux which need to be addressed in the game (Java doesn't do everything). The time spent making automated builds for Linux. The time spent testing on Linux. Then there's the ongoing repeated testing, building, uploading, verifying of the Linux builds - 8 of them - every time we make a patch to the core code to tweak something. It goes on and on. $20k is about 3 months' salary (60 days) here in the UK for someone who doesn't live in a cardboard box, and it's a very fine line between simply making a loss versus even just breaking even once you add in support. So that's the problem we're dealing with.
FWIW you don't get to talk to many developers privately about this stuff but I can tell you now, opinions are the same across the board, and most of them are pretty unhappy about it. We do it because it's pretty cheap for us because we've used Java; other devs with cross-plat engines like Unity similarly can manage it just about without making a loss. But still other developers who've written code to DirectX or Windows specifically have a much, much harder time of it, usually only amortised by a simultaneous but expensive port to OSX at the same time, and there the financial burden is genuinely a great risk to them: not only have they got all that other stuff but they've got (roughly) a $10-20k porting cost depending on the game complexity on top and then an ongoing maintenance budget.
Right now, also, there are only three reasons developers are supporting Linux for gaming. The first one is sheer stubborn bloodymindedness (the camp that we fall in to). The second is a fairly cynical marketing ploy (I know developers who literally despise Linux but who port to Linux simply because it'll make them look cooler in the eyes of geeks). The third is access to Unexpectedly Massive Platforms: that's the Humble Bundle for some, but for almost all of the rest, they're banking on SteamBoxes being the Next Big Thing.
So honestly... there's not really any more evangelising needs to be done at this point. I think SteamBoxes are the singularity everyone's waiting for.
ps. not sure if I can get actual useful figures for steam sales versus systems played from my dashboard
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Cheeseness Sep 11, 2014
Quoting: princecMaybe it's a generational thing or a cultural thing but if you know Dan at all then you should probably know that "This will not do!" is clearly a joke... but then maybe only if you're English.
Yeah, might be a cultural thing. I'm pulling a general vibe across all of the stuff I've read though, not just that first tweet.
Super sad to see apologising being viewed as bowing to bullying. Real apologies definitely aren't that.
Quoting: princecit's a very fine line between simply making a loss versus even just breaking even once you add in support. So that's the problem we're dealing with.For sure, but that's still a very different picture to "immensely unprofitable".
Quoting: princecFWIW you don't get to talk to many developers privately about this stuff but I can tell you now, opinions are the same across the board, and most of them are pretty unhappy about it.Thankfully I do get to talk to developers about it, and the majority of those I've come into contact with (ignoring those using stuff like Unity or other cross platform engines) feel that whilst Linux hasn't given them outstanding revenue, it's more than paid for its porting costs and has resulted in a net gain. I've even spoken to some who've had unpleasant experiences (which is super disappointing) but aren't willing to consider dropping Linux because of the revenue loss they'd suffer.
I'm totally happy to take what you're saying onboard, but I'm not comfortable taking your word for more than your own experiences, not when it contradicts what I'm hearing from multiple other sources.
It definitely is a much larger unknown and bigger risk for developers who aren't familiar with Linux and there's a lot of learning involved.
Quoting: princecRight now, also, there are only three reasons developers are supporting Linux for gaming. The first one is sheer stubborn bloodymindedness (the camp that we fall in to).<3
Quoting: princecThe second is a fairly cynical marketing ploy (I know developers who literally despise Linux but who port to Linux simply because it'll make them look cooler in the eyes of geeks).I've come across these as well. I wish they'd go away. Nobody needs support from people who aren't supportive.
Quoting: princecThe third is access to Unexpectedly Massive Platforms: that's the Humble Bundle for some, but for almost all of the rest, they're banking on SteamBoxes being the Next Big Thing.You're definitely missing the fourth category of people who feel that they get something worthwhile beyond geek cred (financial return, community growth, more portable/versatile tech) out of supporting Linux.
Quoting: princecSo honestly... there's not really any more evangelising needs to be done at this point.I don't agree. Given the positive experiences that others have had, there's value in helping to demystify and uncloud the investment and return associated with supporting Linux so that developers curious about supporting Linux can make informed decisions, have appropriate expectations and above all else, positive experiences.
Quoting: princecps. not sure if I can get actual useful figures for steam sales versus systems played from my dashboardI've spoken to other developers with stuff on Steam who say that that's visible to them. I wish I had something published on Steam so that I could get a clearer picture of what is and isn't available (and help point people in the right direction when they might have missed something).
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I'll have a dig in the steam dash and see what I can see...
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:( It just says "An unexpected error occurred" when trying to look at the Linux and Mac data. Bah.
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Cheeseness Sep 11, 2014
Ha ha, it's always the way isn't it? Thanks Valve! >_<
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The Steamworks admin stuff breaks all the time.
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Cheeseness Sep 11, 2014
Yeah. It's bad enough with Steamcommunity downtime, but when you're actually trying to administer your product, it must be super inconvenient.
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Java is multi-platform, maybe you need to adjust some launcher script and make an installer, these are simple things. Something might break in a system that doesn't break in another, but Mac and GNU/Linux are very alike, and these problems need to be solved just once for all games.
Client support for GNU/Linux isn't special or difficult, most distributions already have Java and installing it independently is no different than Windows or Mac. Training the support staff shouldn't that difficult.
If that's not profitable, no problem, stop porting(???) your games, that would be more wise than blaming us.
Client support for GNU/Linux isn't special or difficult, most distributions already have Java and installing it independently is no different than Windows or Mac. Training the support staff shouldn't that difficult.
If that's not profitable, no problem, stop porting(???) your games, that would be more wise than blaming us.
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Cheeseness Sep 12, 2014
Quoting: berarmaJava is multi-platform, maybe you need to adjust some launcher script and make an installer, these are simple things. Something might break in a system that doesn't break in another, but Mac and GNU/Linux are very alike, and these problems need to be solved just once for all games.
Actually, Java on Mac OS is a nightmare. It's a very different situation to Linux. It's very likely that there's some LWJGL development included in what's been discussed as well, which has some native platform specific stuff.
Quoting: berarmaIf that's not profitable, no problem, stop porting(???) your games, that would be more wise than blaming us.
Hey now, the point that Cas is trying to make here is that he's not blaming us. He's trying to understand/comment on the shape and size of the market.
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I would like to say that I appreciate @princec coming by and sharing and trying to clear some things up. I understand his personality a bit better now and understand why he wrote the things he did. Do I agree with the way he has said thing? No. For anyone on the outside looking in it looks really bad and if I were a developer and read such things it would be a -1 for the thought of linux support. Linux doesn't need any help "looking bad" to people who might want to bring us games. But I do "get" him a bit better now.
I did just go back and reread my posts to see if (in anger) I said anything I wanted to apologize for. There isn't, I stand by what I've said. I never attacked any of their games because I have never played them, only saying what I had extrapolated from my (short) research into puppy games and the claims of the initial tweet. As for @princec, sorry bud, even if I "get" you a bit better now, I still think you either need not be "the voice" of puppy games or at least try to think a bit more of the weight of the words you use and how they will appear to those on the outside looking in(ie. The ones like myself and obviously others who just don't/didn't understand your "style" ). I like a lot of the comments coming from @Cheeseness and @liamdawe (and others too), we all seem to be mostly on the same page though they may be a little more tactful than myself.
You called yourself a linux user, and obviously you love games. If that is true, you are in the same boat as the rest of us when it comes to wanting to use our OS of choice to play the games we want to play, even if you don't get to "play" as much because you are creating. Things are getting better for us all, even if it is moving really slowly. Please be a voice FOR it and try not to paint such a bleak picture of it.
I did just go back and reread my posts to see if (in anger) I said anything I wanted to apologize for. There isn't, I stand by what I've said. I never attacked any of their games because I have never played them, only saying what I had extrapolated from my (short) research into puppy games and the claims of the initial tweet. As for @princec, sorry bud, even if I "get" you a bit better now, I still think you either need not be "the voice" of puppy games or at least try to think a bit more of the weight of the words you use and how they will appear to those on the outside looking in(ie. The ones like myself and obviously others who just don't/didn't understand your "style" ). I like a lot of the comments coming from @Cheeseness and @liamdawe (and others too), we all seem to be mostly on the same page though they may be a little more tactful than myself.
You called yourself a linux user, and obviously you love games. If that is true, you are in the same boat as the rest of us when it comes to wanting to use our OS of choice to play the games we want to play, even if you don't get to "play" as much because you are creating. Things are getting better for us all, even if it is moving really slowly. Please be a voice FOR it and try not to paint such a bleak picture of it.
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Java on OSX is a massive pain, much more annoying than Linux thanks to the completely broken transition period from 10.6->10.7. We just gave up on 10.6 in the end - it can be made to work but it's more hassle than it's worth explaining it to users. 10.5 is a dead loss.
@berarma - you maybe don't make commercial B2C software for a living... nothing is ever as simple as it looks on the outside. Especially if you've never done it before. I expect you've been hacking away on Linux for a long time.
We never did it for the profit or we'd never have even started. Remember LWJGL. The sentiment is less relevant to us than it is the other few hundred game devs who support Linux. Without the profits a good % of them will probably have to give up... however I reckon Steambox is the great saviour. It's certainly taking its time appearing though.
@berarma - you maybe don't make commercial B2C software for a living... nothing is ever as simple as it looks on the outside. Especially if you've never done it before. I expect you've been hacking away on Linux for a long time.
We never did it for the profit or we'd never have even started. Remember LWJGL. The sentiment is less relevant to us than it is the other few hundred game devs who support Linux. Without the profits a good % of them will probably have to give up... however I reckon Steambox is the great saviour. It's certainly taking its time appearing though.
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Cheeseness Sep 12, 2014
Quoting: EKRboiPlease be a voice FOR it and try not to paint such a bleak picture of it.
There's definitely danger in portraying an unrealistic situation though. If some developer has been told that everything is wonderful and they'll be rich in minutes by supporting Linux, they're going to be disappointed. False expectations aren't good for anybody (users or developers).
There's good discussion to be had about the realities involved, though I don't personally believe that the situation in general is quite as bad as Cas' experiences have lead him to believe.
I don't believe that Steam Machines will really change the shape of the market for the majority of games. People who would be using them for desktop-like games are already doing that with their own computers. The really interesting impact IMO will be in bringing console-like games to the desktop. That's exciting :D
SteamOS itself might improve things and encourage better vendor support/drivers, which will make for better user experiences all round, but I don't think it'll dramatically impact on the growth we're already seeing.
It's titles more than platforms that will be making people feel comfortable shifting (the number of people who hassle me a week telling me that they'll switch to Linux when CS:GO arrives, for example, is enough to feel like it gets in the way of my productivity). Steam Machines may definitely help bring some notable titles to Linux, and we're already seeing developers disappointingly decide to hold off, completely oblivious to the opportunity they have to iron out Linux/SteamOS kinks before Steam Machines hit the market place.
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