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According to Feral Interactive on Twitter in reply to my question, it seems Linux gamers will not be getting F1 2016, due to low sales of the previous title.

The just announced a release date for the Mac version of F1 2016, so I had to ask the obvious question:

@gamingonlinux F1 2016 isn't coming to Linux. Sales of F1 2015 weren't strong enough to support a port of 2016. Penguin racers do have DiRT Rally though!

— Feral Interactive (@feralgames) April 3, 2017


It's a shame, but the F1 games on PC don't seem all that popular. Going by Steam, F1 2015 has less than one thousand reviews and F1 2014 has even less again. Even the latest title has less than two thousand reviews. Comparatively, DiRT Rally, which we do have, has thousands more reviews and going by SteamSpy, vastly more sales too.

F1 2016 has so far seen a much nicer reception with users and critics, so it's a real shame we won't see it due to lower sales from a, quite frankly, inferior game. The previous game had bad AI, no proper career mode and other issues.

What do you think to this news?

Article taken from GamingOnLinux.com.
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76 comments
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Beamboom Apr 3, 2017
Ugh - that stung a little. I'll admit that.
ageres Apr 3, 2017
> Reviews: Mostly negative.
I wonder why sales were poor…

F1 2016 has "very positive" rating though.
tmtvl Apr 3, 2017
We don't get good games because bad games don't sell well. That seems amazingly fair and even-handed.
Leopard Apr 3, 2017
We don't get good games because bad games don't sell well. That seems amazingly fair and even-handed.

Probably cutting deal with Codemasters for F1 2015 was cheaper than porting already good seller game.They simply tried to get maximum earning for porting that to Linux,because licence price would differ to targeted platforms. That was an experiment which failed; nothing more.They knew at the start that game won't sell good enough but yet they give it a shot.

They're porting F1 2016 to only Mac because game has good reviews and with a game generally satisfies people you can sell more and Mac user base is bigger than Linux.

Edit:Yep,you can see that is proving my point.

https://twitter.com/feralgames/status/848881198696996869

Tweet says that : Thanks to Metal, F1 2016 uses the CPU and GPU more efficiently than was previously possible, so it can run on a wide range of Macs.

Wide range of Macs. Big user base targeted and not only that but also they targeted wide range of devices.


Last edited by Leopard on 3 April 2017 at 1:13 pm UTC
leillo1975 Apr 3, 2017
> Reviews: Mostly negative.
I wonder why sales were poor…

F1 2016 has "very positive" rating though.

I don't understand why the reviews are negative. The game is not excellent, but it is not so bad either. Maybe people had too high expectations.
torrit Apr 3, 2017
> Reviews: Mostly negative.
I wonder why sales were poor…

F1 2016 has "very positive" rating though.

I don't understand why the reviews are negative. The game is not excellent, but it is not so bad either. Maybe people had too high expectations.

The game is pretty good if you haven't played any of the previous in the series.
I've put in 30 or 40 hours in it and I enjoyed it very much but I've also played F1 2010 and 2011 and to me 2015 feels like demo version. It's lacking some of the content of its predecessors (career mode for example).
Thus I can understand where negative reviews come from.

Still I think it's great that any of F1 games has been ported to Linux. It's sad that we won't be getting F1 2016 but I hope we will see some newer installment ported in the future.


Last edited by torrit on 3 April 2017 at 1:41 pm UTC
bradgy Apr 3, 2017
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Can only speak for one person, but I prioritized buying other feral games ahead of F1 2015 (and still haven't picked it up yet) because a) I haven't 'finished' all the racing games I currently own and b) the dismal reviews on the steam page (for the game in general, not the linux port itself).
Xpander Apr 3, 2017
Really sad news :( quite enjoyed 2015 and i hear 2016 is way better.
the bad thing ofc is that 2017 season just started and the games are too much behind with the schedule.
Whitewolfe80 Apr 3, 2017
Not that surprising F1 games are niche as hell added to Linux not being the dominate os and yup not surprised sales sucked.
Alm888 Apr 3, 2017
Probably cutting deal with Codemasters for F1 2015 was cheaper than porting already good seller game.They simply tried to get maximum earning for porting that to Linux,because licence price would differ to targeted platforms. That was an experiment which failed; nothing more.They knew at the start that game won't sell good enough but yet they give it a shot.

LOLwut?! So, in other words, they picked the weak product to port (and not the strong one) because they hoped to feed it to Linux gamers based on the assumption we are experiencing deficiency of car simulators and ignorant about the superior product, thus will "eat what has been served" no matter the quality?

VERY! SHREWD! MOVE!

They're porting F1 2016 to only Mac because game has good reviews and with a game generally satisfies people you can sell more and Mac user base is bigger than Linux.

Edit:Yep,you can see that is proving my point.

https://twitter.com/feralgames/status/848881198696996869

Actually, not. It does not prove the point. It is known problem that a lot of Macs are quite weak hardware-wise and Feral bets heavily on Metal in hopes it will help them widen the reach on Apple products. This does not relate directly with "good reviews" and general satisfaction. But, I say this again, this is a gamble on Feral's part: even on the twitter some ask what about older Macs without Metal support.
Leopard Apr 3, 2017
Probably cutting deal with Codemasters for F1 2015 was cheaper than porting already good seller game.They simply tried to get maximum earning for porting that to Linux,because licence price would differ to targeted platforms. That was an experiment which failed; nothing more.They knew at the start that game won't sell good enough but yet they give it a shot.

LOLwut?! So, in other words, they picked the weak product to port (and not the strong one) because they hoped to feed it to Linux gamers based on the assumption we are experiencing deficiency of car simulators and ignorant about the superior product, thus will "eat what has been served" no matter the quality?

VERY! SHREWD! MOVE!

They're porting F1 2016 to only Mac because game has good reviews and with a game generally satisfies people you can sell more and Mac user base is bigger than Linux.

Edit:Yep,you can see that is proving my point.

https://twitter.com/feralgames/status/848881198696996869

Actually, not. It does not prove the point. It is known problem that a lot of Macs are quite weak hardware-wise and Feral bets heavily on Metal in hopes it will help them widen the reach on Apple products. This does not relate directly with "good reviews" and general satisfaction. But, I say this again, this is a gamble on Feral's part: even on the twitter some ask what about older Macs without Metal support.

I think that way;F1 2016 has bigger chance to sell due to it is good reviews,a bigger user base and (thanks to Metal) increased number of capable Macs to handle this game

When it comes to Linux,our market is desperate and begging for some genres and this leads people to just buy this games for support even they didn't like the game.

Mac users are much more selective about it and i think licence pay of a game differs from if is it for Linux or Mac. Simply Mac port deals will cost them much more because of bigger sale potential.
STiAT Apr 3, 2017
Never bothered even looking up that title. We got cooler racing games out compared to F1. F1 overall (the franchise) got less and less interesting the past years.
Pinguino Apr 3, 2017
Dang, I wish I knew that beforehand so I could try to help by buying some copies of F1 2015 to gift to some fellow penguins, perhaps even starting a task force.

I really enjoyed F1 2015 (still am, actually) even if it's the most feature-poor game in the franchise. The post-patch version we got on Linux had none of the bugs that plagued the Windows version upon release, and its more strategy-packed approach to racing was a good break from GRID Autosport, which is just about running as fast as you can. So no F1 2016 for me, unfortunately, but at least I can have DiRT Rally to look for after I am done neglecting my family for Motorsport Manager.


Last edited by Pinguino on 3 April 2017 at 2:55 pm UTC
Kimyrielle Apr 3, 2017
That was one of the very few Feral ports I did -not- buy. I didn't even know that it was a lackluster game, but I have less than zero interest in the F1, both in real life and in games.

And I suppose even if you liked the genre, would you really buy yearly updates for a sports game, EA-style? I guess sitting out the 2016 version and waiting for the 2017 bringing some more significant improvements would do just nicely. Maybe Vulkan will have gained more momentum by then, so the porting costs will decrease.
rcaridade145 Apr 3, 2017
I am huge F1 fan so its the game i have played longer on Linux. Kinda sad i won't be playing F1 2016, but hopefully they can bring F1 2017 :)
Pinguino Apr 3, 2017
I wonder what the chances are of us getting F1 2017 would be. What would make Codemasters/Feral reconsider porting the franchise to Linux?
Leopard Apr 3, 2017
I wonder what the chances are of us getting F1 2017 would be. What would make Codemasters/Feral reconsider porting the franchise to Linux?

These games are seasonal games ; as you can see it from the title. There is no meaning to port if you don't provide day 1 release like Sega doing with their Football Manager series.
Schattenspiegel Apr 3, 2017
OK guys, time to stop theorizing. Everyone get up and switch one other person to Linux this week. We obviously need a audience for games.
madbad Apr 3, 2017
Great racing and linux enthusiast here.
It's a shame, really!
I've bought F12015, even knowing about the bad reviews and not having the time to play it, just to support the platform and hoping for the better brother F12016.
The only thing I boot windows for is rFactor2.
We still miss a proper racing simulator on linux.
Give me an rFactor, an Assetto Corsa or a future GTR3 for linux and I would insta buy it!
(I refuse to talk about pCars... because it make me angry)
themixturemedia Apr 3, 2017
It does suck a lot but there is so many games out there how do you support them all and time for them all. My biggest issue at the moment is support for my video card RX480. I have noticed that games that have worked with my 960 do not work right anymore for RX480. Moving forward I will have to keep an eye on what games I can use if it does not support my RX480.

I really hope moving forward that video game companies support both Nvidia and Amd because it does limit the users that can play there games. I am not saying this is the main issue but it does limit your user base.


Last edited by themixturemedia on 3 April 2017 at 4:43 pm UTC
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