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The developers of Halfway recently celebrated a year of their game being released, and they threw up a nice little graphic showing information about what happened. Included in this are Linux sales statistics, and Linux support requests.
I hope they don't mind us uploading and linking to it, but I don't want us to strain their server:
Click it to make it bigger!
Source blog post
It's another case of Linux being obviously lower than Windows and Mac, but it's well in line with what other developers have been experiencing (2%).
I was most interested to see that Linux actually does have a rather high support request percentage, as opposed to other platforms.
How do you feel about these statistics?
I recommend giving Halfway a go, as it's quite a nice space strategy game, and reminds me of XCOM rather a lot. You can buy it from them directly, as it lists many stores. Article taken from GamingOnLinux.com.
I hope they don't mind us uploading and linking to it, but I don't want us to strain their server:
Click it to make it bigger!
Source blog post
It's another case of Linux being obviously lower than Windows and Mac, but it's well in line with what other developers have been experiencing (2%).
I was most interested to see that Linux actually does have a rather high support request percentage, as opposed to other platforms.
How do you feel about these statistics?
I recommend giving Halfway a go, as it's quite a nice space strategy game, and reminds me of XCOM rather a lot. You can buy it from them directly, as it lists many stores. Article taken from GamingOnLinux.com.
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I'd be interested to see how exactly they derived some of those stats, but even if they're off by a fair bit it's still a pretty poor report for developing on linux. That's far too few sales and waaaaay too many trouble tickets generated to make it worth while for a developer to consider linux as anything but a loss-leader (apparently Valve/steam gives some level of additional support for devs that support linux, but i've never seen any details on what exactly that means).
I'd also be interested to see a better breakdown of the trouble tickets generated. Are they all from one or two common causes and/or were trivial to address? Or were they the source of many additional hours of labor? Were there any lessons to be learned from the team's development process that might have mitigated these costs?
I'd also be interested to see a better breakdown of the trouble tickets generated. Are they all from one or two common causes and/or were trivial to address? Or were they the source of many additional hours of labor? Were there any lessons to be learned from the team's development process that might have mitigated these costs?
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If 2% of sales were matched with 2% of support requests, Linux gaming would be healthier. But everyone expects their particular distribution, drivers and what not to be supported - a fair request, but untenable for game developers; on other platforms this support cost is shared with (or competely delegated to, as is the case with consoles) the platform owners.
That's the whole point of SteamOS. Limit the extent to which users can customize the system, so developers can target it as a single platform and make games run "out of the box".
That's the whole point of SteamOS. Limit the extent to which users can customize the system, so developers can target it as a single platform and make games run "out of the box".
7 Likes, Who?
Quick calculations, then - they sold 520'sh Linux versions, which generated 262 support requests. As Fergle notes, a better breakdown of support requests would be good, but ultimately... 520 odd sales? That's pretty pathetic. Five grand to put up with 260 support calls? Terrible.
I wanted to love this game - anticipated it for over a year, soaked up every (scarce) blog post, then when it finally launched, I sank 5 hours into it... and stopped playing. I can't remember why, but I'm fairly sure that it was either XCom, or Borderlands that came along and I just lost interest. That and one of the characters, can't remember who, moves stupidly slowly (he has a heavy weapon, or something) and the fast dude is great... but can't hit jack and when he does, it's for a pittance and he's then blown away. You can mitigate this with various armour types, but the inventory is a bit tedious, and with restricted carrying slots, it sometimes just feels a bit like it's getting in the way of game play. It's hard to keep playing when there are similar, but more accessible games to play (XCom, most obviously).
Considering only 6% (about 1500) players ever finished it, I might not be alone.
I wanted to love this game - anticipated it for over a year, soaked up every (scarce) blog post, then when it finally launched, I sank 5 hours into it... and stopped playing. I can't remember why, but I'm fairly sure that it was either XCom, or Borderlands that came along and I just lost interest. That and one of the characters, can't remember who, moves stupidly slowly (he has a heavy weapon, or something) and the fast dude is great... but can't hit jack and when he does, it's for a pittance and he's then blown away. You can mitigate this with various armour types, but the inventory is a bit tedious, and with restricted carrying slots, it sometimes just feels a bit like it's getting in the way of game play. It's hard to keep playing when there are similar, but more accessible games to play (XCom, most obviously).
Considering only 6% (about 1500) players ever finished it, I might not be alone.
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I bought the game some time ago but haven't gotten around to playing it.
How well did it run on Linux at launch? That many support requests are worrying, but it's hard to judge how meaningful that number is without also knowing how much effort the devs put into testing on each platform. If they developed and debugged on Windows as lead platform, and then just compiled a Linux version a few days before launch with minimal testing, it's not surprising the number of support request would be higher. Not quite this high, though.
But as I said, I didn't play the game at launch, so I don't want to accuse the devs of anything, just pointing out that it may not be all solely due to different Linux distros and setups.
How well did it run on Linux at launch? That many support requests are worrying, but it's hard to judge how meaningful that number is without also knowing how much effort the devs put into testing on each platform. If they developed and debugged on Windows as lead platform, and then just compiled a Linux version a few days before launch with minimal testing, it's not surprising the number of support request would be higher. Not quite this high, though.
But as I said, I didn't play the game at launch, so I don't want to accuse the devs of anything, just pointing out that it may not be all solely due to different Linux distros and setups.
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The game did launch in a fairly broken state with regards to window and fullscreen handling though - which is what I noticed most of the support requests being for - so it would've likely been the same percentage for any platform launching with such issues.
(note, I just noticed it on the Steam forum, I have no affiliation with the game or the company behind it)
(note, I just noticed it on the Steam forum, I have no affiliation with the game or the company behind it)
1 Likes, Who?
I bought it, and just like Cybolic said, it had some fullscreen window issues, but that got fixed fairly promptly.
High support requests from Linux users I believe stem from:
1. Broken/not adequately tested Linux releases
2. Linux users being used to submitting bug reports
As Croteam recently reported, Linux users are quick to report bugs and sometimes uncover bugs that affect ALL platforms!
High support requests from Linux users I believe stem from:
1. Broken/not adequately tested Linux releases
2. Linux users being used to submitting bug reports
As Croteam recently reported, Linux users are quick to report bugs and sometimes uncover bugs that affect ALL platforms!
4 Likes, Who?
Will you guys please stop panicking and think for a moment?
Those stats say nothing about the quality of sales or the tickets, only the numbers.
What if 2/3 of those reports are proper bug reports or even fixes? Because 2/3 of mine were. Are 10 core dumps worse than 1 "My game doesn't start", is that what you're saying?
How is the relation of Linux development cost vs. the revenue?
Let me put it this way. This is the 7th comment, so I'm responsible for 12.5% of text submits on this page but I get only 0% of the donations. Horrible, that doesn't match!
Last edited by Caldazar on 14 Aug 2015 at 11:18 pm UTC
Those stats say nothing about the quality of sales or the tickets, only the numbers.
What if 2/3 of those reports are proper bug reports or even fixes? Because 2/3 of mine were. Are 10 core dumps worse than 1 "My game doesn't start", is that what you're saying?
How is the relation of Linux development cost vs. the revenue?
Let me put it this way. This is the 7th comment, so I'm responsible for 12.5% of text submits on this page but I get only 0% of the donations. Horrible, that doesn't match!
Last edited by Caldazar on 14 Aug 2015 at 11:18 pm UTC
5 Likes, Who?
mulletdeath 14 Aug 2015
Considering Mac and Linux taken together had 80% of the support requests but only 6% of the sales, it does make me wonder how much they tested the game on a platform other than Windows. Still, like always, I'm grateful that devs still develop for us at all even though it clearly isn't worth the effort at the moment.
3 Likes, Who?
That's about 80 support requests total (39 on Mac, 24 on Linux).
I remember the KOTOR II launch and the bug with the restored content mod, a game breaking bug that generated enough activity to be [covered](https://www.gamingonlinux.com/articles/knights-of-the-old-republic-ii-hotfixed-for-linux-restored-content-mod-works-now.5718) [here](https://www.gamingonlinux.com/articles/star-wars-knights-of-the-old-republic-ii-released-for-linux-with-preview-port-report.5694) but it was a single problem (shared by Mac and Linux IIRC) and there was enough signal that it could get diagnosed and fixed really quickly (it was an issue with some kind of case mangled paths).
Last edited by Mambo on 15 Aug 2015 at 12:11 am UTC
I remember the KOTOR II launch and the bug with the restored content mod, a game breaking bug that generated enough activity to be [covered](https://www.gamingonlinux.com/articles/knights-of-the-old-republic-ii-hotfixed-for-linux-restored-content-mod-works-now.5718) [here](https://www.gamingonlinux.com/articles/star-wars-knights-of-the-old-republic-ii-released-for-linux-with-preview-port-report.5694) but it was a single problem (shared by Mac and Linux IIRC) and there was enough signal that it could get diagnosed and fixed really quickly (it was an issue with some kind of case mangled paths).
Last edited by Mambo on 15 Aug 2015 at 12:11 am UTC
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2. Linux users being used to submitting bug reportsThis! Linux users are used to report bugs, they are used to developers listening to them and try and fix every issue they encounter and they are even encourage to do so by most open source developers who want all bugs to be fixed so that the experience can be bug free for everybody.
Windows users on the other hand are used to the usual "it's your system, you should reformat and reinstall Windows" (almost every time I've search about an issue on Windows on forum the guy end up reinstalling Windows) so they won't open a support ticket and instead will write a bad review.
Mac users don't know how to use a computer, most of them probably didn't even manage to install it on Steam (just joking :-)
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Quick calculations, then - they sold 520'sh Linux versions, which generated 262 support requests.
No.
~524 Linux versions sold (26200 * 0.02)
~79 support requests for all platforms (26200 / 1000 * 3)
~24 support request for Linux (79 * 0.3)
So about every 20th Linux sale created a support request.
Last edited by Eike on 15 Aug 2015 at 6:31 am UTC
1 Likes, Who?
They published risk of rain :/ that's almost totally broken on Linux and windows.
You cannot look at this chart and make a sweeping comparison to all other Linux development studios, some of those games are bugged. They still made £160k $180k from this ( of course wages n shizzle ) its a bit dubious if you can just dump something out and forget about it, try doing that in any other career.. the steam refund policy will be very telling when SteamOS is out.
Last edited by on 15 Aug 2015 at 2:01 pm UTC
You cannot look at this chart and make a sweeping comparison to all other Linux development studios, some of those games are bugged. They still made £160k $180k from this ( of course wages n shizzle ) its a bit dubious if you can just dump something out and forget about it, try doing that in any other career.. the steam refund policy will be very telling when SteamOS is out.
Last edited by on 15 Aug 2015 at 2:01 pm UTC
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Erm, Risk of Rain is by a completely different developer.
http://blog.chucklefish.org/team/
risk of rain is on that published release list. Many grovels if im wrong, I went to the chucklefish website?
Last edited by on 15 Aug 2015 at 8:39 am UTC
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It's only me being horribly tired or does the "Support requests by platform" chart not match?
Linux is blue and has 30% of the requests and Windows has 20% and is red - but in the chart, red has the bigger piece O.o
Linux is blue and has 30% of the requests and Windows has 20% and is red - but in the chart, red has the bigger piece O.o
1 Likes, Who?
abelthorne 15 Aug 2015
Well, Linux support requests is high but on MacOS it's higher. I guess it mainly has to do with the game being developed in Java, as it can be a mess sometimes; and on MacOS, it is indeed a mess (Java updates/versions are entirely managed by Apple).
I think I got some small issues the first time I ran the game, like black window when switching fullscreen or such. They were pretty easy to fix (like tweaking a config file), so 30% requests might not be that big of a problem if they can be easily fixed by the support team.
I'm more annoyed that only 6% of the players finished the game as I abandoned it myself near the end because it is very unbalanced and difficult. That's a shame, it's a geat game apart from that.
I think I got some small issues the first time I ran the game, like black window when switching fullscreen or such. They were pretty easy to fix (like tweaking a config file), so 30% requests might not be that big of a problem if they can be easily fixed by the support team.
I'm more annoyed that only 6% of the players finished the game as I abandoned it myself near the end because it is very unbalanced and difficult. That's a shame, it's a geat game apart from that.
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Well, Linux support requests is high but on MacOS it's higher. I guess it mainly has to do with the game being developed in Java, as it can be a mess sometimes; and on MacOS, it is indeed a mess (Java updates/versions are entirely managed by Apple).
I think I got some small issues the first time I ran the game, like black window when switching fullscreen or such. They were pretty easy to fix (like tweaking a config file), so 30% requests might not be that big of a problem if they can be easily fixed by the support team.
I'm more annoyed that only 6% of the players finished the game as I abandoned it myself near the end because it is very unbalanced and difficult. That's a shame, it's a geat game apart from that.
some of those games are known to be unbalanced & difficult the request being higher due to bugs and game breaking glitches.
Last edited by on 15 Aug 2015 at 2:02 pm UTC
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Plintslîcho 15 Aug 2015
The statistics are only marginally interesting to me and I don't worry much about them; I don't have a clue what the criteria was and how those figures were compiled. And as LeonardK has already pointed out, there seem to be some glitches in the table as well.
I picked the game up at launch and still think it's a beautiful pixel art game. Also I really like the soundtrack of the game. I enjoyed it only for a short period of time though. The gameplay was too repetitive for my liking and too frustrating/unsatisfying.
I picked the game up at launch and still think it's a beautiful pixel art game. Also I really like the soundtrack of the game. I enjoyed it only for a short period of time though. The gameplay was too repetitive for my liking and too frustrating/unsatisfying.
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Erm, Risk of Rain is by a completely different developer.
http://blog.chucklefish.org/team/
risk of rain is on that published release list. Many grovels if im wrong, I went to the chucklefish website?
Chucklefish is the publisher. Reading your link, they developed games too : Starbound and Wayward Tide.
[Risk of Rain](http://riskofraingame.com/team/) has been developed by [Hopoo games](http://hopoogames.com/).
[Halfway](http://halfwaygame.com/) has been developed by [Robotality](http://robotality.com/blog/)
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Overall number of support requests is really a strange statistic. They don't tell anything about the target system/audience, unless they are unique.
On the other side, the number might just tell something about the quality of the release, as some here imply. Or not.
I don't think criticising them will solve anything. It would be way more important to plan something that we as a community can do.
How about setting up a Linux-Beta-Testers Steam Group, consisting of users with unique system configurations and developing a well organised dokumentation-/bug-report workflow.
Developers could invite the members to a (?closed?) beta and get back a report on which setups prove problematic. Then it's up to them to be open about the results on release or even decide to fix some issues upfront.
Last edited by const on 15 Aug 2015 at 10:50 am UTC
On the other side, the number might just tell something about the quality of the release, as some here imply. Or not.
I don't think criticising them will solve anything. It would be way more important to plan something that we as a community can do.
How about setting up a Linux-Beta-Testers Steam Group, consisting of users with unique system configurations and developing a well organised dokumentation-/bug-report workflow.
Developers could invite the members to a (?closed?) beta and get back a report on which setups prove problematic. Then it's up to them to be open about the results on release or even decide to fix some issues upfront.
Last edited by const on 15 Aug 2015 at 10:50 am UTC
2 Likes, Who?
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