You would hopefully have seen my previous articles talking to multiple developers about their Linux sales, so to begin a new year we are talking to a few more about their sales.
You can see part 1, part 2, and part 3 at those links, so if you haven’t read them or didn’t know about them take a look at them first.
We’ve had many different responses and feelings over the last year from developers, so we decided to take another look and see what developers can currently expect to achieve with Linux.
Maia
Simon Roth, MaiaCurrently Linux is just under 2% of our sales data in the last 3-4 months. With Mac at 4%. (Although we have been releasing special Mac builds to fix Yosemite and Mavericks so the game has had more sales-generating coverage in that area).
Linux sales are coming from all over the world. With the US at 2% Linux, and most of Europe sitting at 0.5-4%.
I asked Simon how he felt about the sales, and how he felt about supporting Linux now, and with future games:
Simon Roth, MaiaLinux support is pretty great. We have the flexibility to get things fixed when it doesn't work for users. Which is something we just don't have with Mac. Linux users, on the whole, are far better at seeking help and more useful when there are issues. The community have been quick to report system specific issues, which has allowed us to fix things promptly and reduced our testing workload.
The driver situation could certainly be better, but the game runs well on our test machines. Often 5-10% better than Mac and Windows due to lower CPU and GPU overheads.
Linux Mint has been going from strength to strength. It's been a solid development platform for me. I would like to see some more active development on Codeblocks, as it's starting to fall behind other IDE's feature-wise.
We'd certainly release on Linux in future. Even at our current 2% of sales, it would make solid financial sense and reach lots of players.
I've spoken to Simon a few times, and he's always great to speak to. Maia has come a long way in a short time, and it's only getting better with each release. It's a game I'm personally excited to see finished.
Rust
Rust has come a long way, and even in my smaller amounts of testing it seems to run pretty well, and that’s without getting into how beautiful it looks. It’s not my type of game, but I’ve heard a fair few people tell me how they’ve lost many hours to it.
It’s still sad to see such low numbers over an entire year for it. I thought we would be much closer to the Mac sales than we are for it.
For reference, the last time we spoke to the Rust developers in part 3, they had nearly 8K sales units from Linux, and in part 2 they had over 5K. We don’t know how long their reporting periods are though, so we don’t know if the most recent image they shared is over a shorter time (which would explain why it’s much lower, when it was previously growing).
When asking the Rust developers how they felt about supporting Linux, they simply said this:
@gamingonlinux Makes no money, but costs no money either.
— Rust (@playrust) March 5, 2015
This is of course thanks to Unity!
Soul Axiom
1% Linux
8% Mac
91% Windows
Ben Tester, Wales InteractiveOne thing we found with supporting Linux is that the Linux gamers tend to be more supportive towards the development of the game, especially when getting involved with games on Early Access. Soul Axiom is our first game on Early Access and the support we’ve had from the Linux community has been pretty good. Technically speaking, developing for Linux is getting easier over time and if it continues on that path then I would think more devs would support it.
Our Samsai actually did a GOL Cast on Soul Axiom, so take a look to see what he thought.
Crea
Windows: 5797 (88.3%)
OS X: 575 (8.76%)
Linux: 191 (2.91%)
Total: 6563
The developer Jasson had this to share:
QuoteSupporting Linux is both rewarding and demanding. It truly makes me happy to know that more people can enjoy Crea and many of Crea's most supportive fans are linux users which is fantastic. The one major downside to supporting multiple platforms during Early Access is that it slows down the process of iterating on the game which is what should be the focus while in Early Access. Sometimes instead of working on a new feature or adding more content I must fix platform specific bugs. Moving forward, I'll absolutely support Linux with my future games but likely hold off until official release.
I actually have access to Crea, and plan to take a proper look at it sometime, keep an eye out!
NEO Scavenger
Since NEO Scavenger's early access began (December 6, 2013), total revenue contributions are:
Linux 1.6%
Mac 7.6%
Since launch (December 15, 2014):
Linux 1.7%
Mac 8.5%
I asked Daniel how he felt about Linux, and he had these words to share:
QuoteI think my feelings about Linux support are similar to last time: if it isn't too much of a headache to support, I will gladly support it.
NEO Scavenger's platform of choice (Flash) made Linux harder to support than I hoped, due to Adobe dropping Linux support years ago. However, I was able to maintain parity by freezing all platforms at the last-supported Linux distro (Flash 11.2). This cost me some modern performance and feature support, but has soured me on Adobe more than Linux.
Moving forward, I intend to make games using Haxe, with OpenFL and HaxeFlixel libraries. Since OpenFL is based on Flash, and HaxeFlixel on Flixel, the code should be relatively easy to port. And Haxe is built to support all platform targets as seamlessly as possible, including Linux.
As such, my hope is that I can support all platforms equally and without any extra work. Like I've said in the past, I prefer to spend my time writing game code, not platform code. As long as I can focus on the former, I'm happy to support users of any platform I can!
Note: Adobe dropping support of Air on Linux happened back in 2012, and it has been an issue for multiple games. It’s another reason to not use something so closed up.
Minecraft
The developers of Minecraft also shared this chart with us, this isn't a sales chart, but the percentage of people per platform that login and play since the start of the year:
With how popular Minecraft is, I actually expected us to remain very low on their login charts. It's probably more popular than a lot of AAA games on PC for Windows gamers.
LISA
Windows: 91.52%
OSX: 7.05%
Linux: 1.43%
The developer had these encouraging words to say about it:
QuoteSo altogether OSX and Linux have been treating us rather well, amounting to 1/12 of the total sales when combined. Considering official OSX and Linux support didn't start until three weeks after the game's initial release that's a very encouraging result.
4089
It’s worth noting that the 4089 developer actually uses Linux for development, so that’s pretty awesome.
@gamingonlinux linux accounted for 3.5% of sales, Mac 5.8%, the rest is Windows!
— Real Phr00t (@phr00t_) March 9, 2015
Goscurry
Windows: 85%
Mac: 12%
Linux: 3%
Daniele GiardiniI have to admit that I hoped Linux would go better, also considering that Goscurry runs well even on pretty old machines :P
Looks like they could use some love!
Also an honourable mention to Aspyr Media, who responded to my requests for comments. I spoke to Michael Blair from Aspyr about how they feel right now:
Michael BlairThanks to the tremendous support of the amazing Linux community, our Linux sales have been tracking around 15% of Mac for The Pre-Sequel. This is actually quite good!
In short, our outlook on the future of Linux gaming is very optimistic (especially with Valve’s support on SteamOS and Steam Machines) and we are continuing to pitch Linux versions of every game we are to potentially publish.
Wrapping this up
So, it looks like for most developers they can realistically expect between 1-3% of their sales to come from Linux. Considering the Steam Hardware Survey puts Linux at around 1-2% of Steam’s user base, that sounds about right. Anything above 1% should be considered a win, since that’s above the general percentage of the user base.
I would like to thank everyone who replied, and hope Linux manages to grow significantly with Steam Machines, as let’s be honest, developers aren't going to make a living with Linux right now. I don’t mean to put a downer on it, but I’m being a realist here, we need to grow, and we need to keep buying those games. However, 3% extra actually shown as Linux sales are better than zero right? Especially as more recent engines like Unity and Unreal Engine 4 have made Linux support vastly easier. Not only that, but multiple developers have stated while sales have been low on Linux, the sales have exceeded what it costs to support us.
I am hopeful for the future of Linux gaming, more so than I ever have been before thanks to the great indie games we have, and porting houses like Aspyr Media and Feral Interactive bringing us some higher profile releases too. A deserved shout out to porters as well like Ethan Lee and Ryan Gordon.
I am still missing my favourite genre with games like Battlefield and Call of Duty, as their online modes are an absolute blast to play, but I hope we will get something closer to them in future. I mean, we are getting titles I never thought we would like Borderlands 2 and XCOM, so nothing is impossible.
I am sure I will have plenty more to be happy about when Feral Interactive unleash the collection of AAA games they've announced. I'm sure a lot of GOL readers are as excited as I am about our future.
Keep gaming on Linux (see what I did there?), and keep buying Linux games.
I know skepticism is healthy, but look at what we have achieved. We have proven Steam and devs Linux users *are* considerable force, even if they are not so many as Windows ones. We have proven them that we don't only do the talk, but we walk the walk actually. We buy those games. We play those games. We give them sweet, sweet feedback.
And Valve/Steam - putting my thoughts of Valve's shortcomings aside of managing Steam sometimes, I will just say this - I never expected to decide which good game to buy...on Linux. I never expected to buy Bioshock Infinite and play it, because I never entertained with idea to buy games as I use Linux desktop 99% of the time.
I have no problems buying good games with good or even medicore ports on Linux - as long as devs listens to feedback and tries to fix issues.
Well yes, it's more than zero. But from an economical POV we should be aware
that less developers will release Linux versions if the share is not improving significantly.
Even if you get the Linux binary "for free" because your engine supports that target,
it doesn't mean you won't need to invest into additional support due to platform specific issues.
That's additional money probably not even covered by the Linux sales.
So for now it seems lots of developers are fine with 1-3 % as they might consider it
a test bed for SteamMachines and build up the required know how.
But if - for some reasons - SteamMachines/SteamOS fail, I bet most of those developers
won't still invest into Linux for 1-3 %.
TL;DR
1-3 % seems to be fine for now, as developers might have high hopes in SteamOS/SteamMachines.
If they fail, 1-3 % simply aren't enough to keep the Linux train going (at least for AAA games).
Quoting: subI'm afraid the argumentation that 1-3 % is better than zero is not quite to the point.The devs here mostly said that they get back the money spent on Linux support from the Linux sales so, while most certainly not really all that profitable, it's for the most part self-sustaining. The question is if SteamOS fails, will the devs accept these rather minimal profits when compared to other platforms.
Well yes, it's more than zero. But from an economical POV we should be aware
that less developers will release Linux versions if the share is not improving significantly.
Even if you get the Linux binary "for free" because your engine supports that target,
it doesn't mean you won't need to invest into additional support due to platform specific issues.
That's additional money probably not even covered by the Linux sales.
So for now it seems lots of developers are fine with 1-3 % as they might consider it
a test bed for SteamMachines and build up the required know how.
But if - for some reasons - SteamMachines/SteamOS fail, I bet most of those developers
won't still invest into Linux for 1-3 %.
TL;DR
1-3 % seems to be fine for now, as developers might have high hopes in SteamOS/SteamMachines.
If they fail, 1-3 % simply aren't enough to keep the Linux train going (at least for AAA games).
Quoting: SamsaiThe question is if SteamOS fails, will the devs accept these rather minimal profits when compared to other platforms.
Exactly.
But I dare to say: no, why should they?
I've read many times that - at least the smaller - developers
don't actually like Linux for different reasons*. They do it because
it is a new business opportunity (or a bet).
Don't think most of them are Linux-lovers like most of us are.
So don't think they do Linux releases for fun. No way!
(*) You know, Windows for work because of the share and Mac for the coolness...
Linux is too cluttered and inconsistent, blahblah. Some even outright said, they hate
the OS but *have* to do it.
MellowTigger Apr 19, 2015
Kimyrielle Apr 19, 2015
Quoting: subEven if you get the Linux binary "for free" because your engine supports that target,
it doesn't mean you won't need to invest into additional support due to platform specific issues.
That's additional money probably not even covered by the Linux sales.
So for now it seems lots of developers are fine with 1-3 % as they might consider it
a test bed for SteamMachines and build up the required know how.
But if - for some reasons - SteamMachines/SteamOS fail, I bet most of those developers
won't still invest into Linux for 1-3 %.
A lot of devs stayed away from Linux in the past because of the thought of having to support three dozen different distros scared the hell out of them. Rightfully so. Then they apparently realized that they don't have to do that at all and officially picking the largest distro for the "token official support" is good enough. Which it is. Because most of us don't exactly need help to install the newest graphics drivers on our systems. One of the commonly accepted facts about Linux users is that they are a LOT more tech savy than the average computer user. I'd be surprised if we'd make up more than our fair share of the 3% of revenue in terms of support costs. It's probably less.
Second - the point is that they don't have to invest anything if the engine they're using deploys on Linux with basically one mouse-click. To the devs it's not an investment in this case, it's deploying on another platform for basically free and earn a bit more money doing so.
The question is a completely different one when considering a port of a game that can't be deployed on Linux just like that. Porting costs money and you won't do that unless it's somehow profitable. But if multi-platform deployment and cross-platform APIs like Vulkan become the new norm anyway, the need for ports might be largely a thing of the past soon. At this point I might point out that the re-branded Linux that is Android is actually the market leader in the mobile devices segment, so the industry -will- have to support multiple platforms at least for any game supposed to run on mobile devices. The days where you could develop for Windows only and be done are already over for all practical purposes.
Quoting: liamdaweAs much as I would love to get stats from AAA titles and bigger titles, they generally don't respond (I've tried). A lot of it is down to publishers not wanting to share the information which is why these articles are always indie focused.
I wonder WTH the rationale behind not being willing to divulge those #'s is? Maybe I'm missing something, but it doesn't make any sense to me. I'm curious if the percentages are higher for the "more popular" games. I know I'm not much of an "indie gamer" even though I've played and enjoyed some games that I would have never given the time of day before now that I actively TRY to help support those bringing us games and I'm probably not the only one. The "You have ## friends who play XXXXX" on steam is usually pretty loaded down on the AAA Linux titles and most of my friends on there are you guys/gals, with the exception of my brother, father and a couple of IRL friends. Most of my IRL friends who are gamers are console people.
My hope all is in the new engines that more developers will go for Linux too. We could see a lot of unity based games coming to Linux, and with other engines supporting it I see good chances of even more bigger titles supporting Linux. Not to mention the upcoming Vulkan API, which seems as it will hit all drivers within the end of the year, and engines already start to adapt to it over OpenGL.
It is what is happening: In future, the platform will not be the main issue any longer. One thing ewhy Microsoft strenghthens application and services business. The os wil play only a minor role in future. And as one dev put it: not a lot of money generated, but not a lot of costs either. No reason not to support something if you break even or generate a little revenue, and the user base seems high enough that you certainly can do that.
My problem is already that I have more titles on my watchlist than I like, since I have set myself a limit of 1-2 games/month, which is not even close enough to titles released which i want to play.
Quoting: scaineI avoid all Early Access games, which form the bulk of this article and I wonder how many other Linux gamers do so too
I used to do the same, but I did buy Besiege, because 1) they are adapting their price to what they've actually have to offer at the moment, which avoids paying for a promise of foreign people, and 2) I did take a look into the forums for severe Linux problems and didn't find those - and didn't meet such with my installation later either.
Quoting: KimyrielleA lot of devs stayed away from Linux in the past because of the thought of having to support three dozen different distros scared the hell out of them. Rightfully so. Then they apparently realized that they don't have to do that at all and officially picking the largest distro for the "token official support" is good enough. Which it is. Because most of us don't exactly need help to install the newest graphics drivers on our systems. One of the commonly accepted facts about Linux users is that they are a LOT more tech savy than the average computer user. I'd be surprised if we'd make up more than our fair share of the 3% of revenue in terms of support costs. It's probably less.
Second - the point is that they don't have to invest anything if the engine they're using deploys on Linux with basically one mouse-click. To the devs it's not an investment in this case, it's deploying on another platform for basically free and earn a bit more money doing so.
The question is a completely different one when considering a port of a game that can't be deployed on Linux just like that. Porting costs money and you won't do that unless it's somehow profitable. But if multi-platform deployment and cross-platform APIs like Vulkan become the new norm anyway, the need for ports might be largely a thing of the past soon. At this point I might point out that the re-branded Linux that is Android is actually the market leader in the mobile devices segment, so the industry -will- have to support multiple platforms at least for any game supposed to run on mobile devices. The days where you could develop for Windows only and be done are already over for all practical purposes.
So much this ^^
There's still lot of old thinking and skepticism around about Linux gaming. First of all, Valve coming out and defining system based on Debian has helped a great deal. Devs know what to expect, how to test against potential Linux platform. As Linux user base is very technical, they have no problems to adapt, and they provide great feedback. So this perception is slowly, but surely changing.
I agree that small and medium games have no issues to adapt due of platforms they are built upon. As engines are getting more and more automated, this clearly will ensure that some devs will keep releasing Linux ports.
As for games using home grown efforts there's lineup of solutions growing.
It seems people are bit afraid to believe in SteamOS, just not to get disappointed again. It's a risk Valve and even more Linux gamers take. However, long term investment doesn't detract me from playing games on Linux finally. I just can do it and it makes whole world of difference. While it remains to see how Steam Machines will work out, it seems to me that community as whole and Valve have done a lot to make it happen. Valve needs better marketing and lot of community ideas thrown around (like having SM grading system and matching them to games) has been interesting to say at least.
TLDR while it is healthy to remind skeptical, more or less this summary provides interesting positive feedback from devs how all this could work. Yes, some of the devs clearly do trials on Linux mostly due of SteamOS, but I would also go out and say that SteamOS/SM success/failure is something we will see over longer period of time. Judging by Valve comments, they are in for long haul. So why just not strap in and enjoy the ride.
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