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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?
Some you may have missed, popular articles from the last month:
The comments on this article are closed.
> Reviews: Mostly negative.
I wonder why sales were poor…
F1 2016 has "very positive" rating though.
I wonder why sales were poor…
F1 2016 has "very positive" rating though.
4 Likes, Who?
We don't get good games because bad games don't sell well. That seems amazingly fair and even-handed.
5 Likes, Who?
Quoting: tmtvlWe 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
0 Likes
leillo1975 Apr 3, 2017
Quoting: ageres> 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.
0 Likes
Quoting: leillo1975Quoting: ageres> 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
1 Likes, Who?
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).
0 Likes
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.
the bad thing ofc is that 2017 season just started and the games are too much behind with the schedule.
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Not that surprising F1 games are niche as hell added to Linux not being the dominate os and yup not surprised sales sucked.
0 Likes
Quoting: LeopardProbably 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!
Quoting: LeopardThey'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.
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