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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The comments on this article are closed.
Quoting: scaineQuick 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 August 2015 at 6:31 am UTC
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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 August 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 August 2015 at 2:01 pm UTC
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Quoting: liamdaweErm, 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 August 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
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abelthorne Aug 15, 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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Quoting: abelthorneWell, 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 August 2015 at 2:02 pm UTC
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Plintslîcho Aug 15, 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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Quoting: mr-eggQuoting: liamdaweErm, 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 has been developed by Hopoo games.
Halfway has been developed by Robotality
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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 August 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 August 2015 at 10:50 am UTC
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