What Can You Do For Linux Gaming?

There's been some bad news about Linux games lately like Super Win the Game which sold only fifty copies for Linux and hasn't been worth the cost, "financially and emotionally", to support the platform.

Then we had news that Legend Of Grimrock 2 won't get a port, so we can guess the first one was not worth the cost.

Frozen Synapse Prime doesn't seem to be getting a port either. The company says that they had only 1% of Linux sales for a previous title and that a port, including "GPU driver performance issues, all the nuances full screen and controllers and all of the standard system stuff, [...] a full test" and QA would cost £30,000.

So, what could we do about it? Of course, sit and complain, talk about the games not being good, or wait for SteamOS. I guess it won't help much, but what else could you you do?

Of course buying games for Linux directly will help. Buy them using Linux and play them on Linux. Do not buy games that don't have a nice smiling penguin icon. In my humble opinion, this prohibits pre-ordering as well. We should be sure that a purchase is counted for Linux!

Consider not waiting for a sale. We are used to extremely cheap games. You can easily buy 100 hours of fun with a game made last year for 5 bucks, but if you think a game is worth its full price, consider paying that instead of waiting for the 66% account. But if you can't afford, of course buying cheap is better than not buying at all.

This is all known, I guess, so now to the main reason for this article: Keep the price for Linux ports low. Of course, you cannot change the price of porting itself, but if it is emotionally draining to port to Linux and if supporting all those Linux set-ups is that expensive, you should try to lower that cost; Be a low profile customer.

The best customer is the one who delivers his money, writes a review, adds to a big "Thank you!" thread and is never to be heard of again. I'm not saying that you do not deserve customer support, but try the very best to a) avoid needing it and b) try to give support to fellow Linux gamers, so they do not need it from the company. We keep seeing developers state support and Q&A as being expensive for Linux.

If you're using anything but a very standard installation, consider a second partition with, say, Ubuntu (What Steam officially supports!). Most of us are used to dual booting. If it needs to be done, dual boot between your Linux distributions. Try a closed source driver, even if you don't like closed source to make sure it's not a driver issue. Some adventure games don't work with high polling-rate shooter mice, so go and use an old mouse or adjust the rate yourself. Try to solve problems on your own or by doing a little searching.

And if you find a solution, share it. Others will be able to solve their problems with your hints, and hopefully developers will see less Linux support topics on the same issues, and it will cost them less time.

Always remain polite. When helping others, when saying thank you, and, if need be, when asking about bugs or support. Remember you are talking to actual living people. Humans like being treated nice. We have already seen developers slow ports down due to Linux users' attitudes.

Again, I'm not asking you to give up your customer rights. I'm asking you to do what Linux gamers are expected to do well; be tech-savy, friendly people who help each other. Article taken from GamingOnLinux.com.