F1 2016 won't be coming to Linux, as sales of F1 2015 weren't strong enough

Real Shame :( Codemasters F1 games are awesome. Porting 2015 was a Bad choice though. It was missing soooo many features that we come to expect from the series. So a lot of people like me just skipped it. Even though it was ported to linux, there was no way I was ever going to buy it that year. I own all the others. The fact it was released so late made it even worse, as 2016 was just around the corner.

This is 1 series that keeps me and alot of my friends needing windows. Ofcoarse we hoped 2016 would be ported, but we already own it. Although we would of held off a little if it was announced to be on linux within a a short time after the windows release.

Please Port a worthy version of F1 either day 1 or very soon after and see what happens.

> 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.

I've looked at this before with Steam review data and found that Linux reviews were on average about 10-15% higher than Windows and about 5% (not sig.) higher than Macs. Note that was across all games.

Specific to simulation games, around 5% of Windows users rated above 90% while Linux users had over 12% of simulation games rated above 90%.

I have my theories on why this happens, both in general and simulation game specific, but would really like to hear what others think. These are not based on anything than 'gut feeling' and general observations regarding possible causes:

(1) One possibility is that Linux users are more inclined to fix any errors and then perhaps give a good rating later on, without thinking about the initial experience but rather the current experience.

(2) (I may be guilty of this as well) Linux users may have a lower "bar" for what they feel is a good game and are more likely to give a good rating even with the exact same glitches a Windows user might experience (and give it a negative review).

(3) My final theory on this is that we research and read reviews in more detail before purchase, and are more likely to be more selective therefore purchasing games that we would naturally rate higher (e.g. some people said they don't feel like they enjoy the 'F1' genre)

I actually just thought of one more as I was writing these down, but I won't bore you and suspect that someone may point it out what would be my #4 :)

I'm sure Steam has all this info and the answers :) as they can slice the data much more granular that is made in the API.

Your first two possible causes are coming from one , simple and hurtful truth.

We need games desperately (especially AAA titles) and when they released it we accept it regardless of bugs and performance. Those reviews are mostly positive (forgive me about that) because they think 'if we lick this developers or companies ass ; we can get sequel or more game from them. '

Just like lying to a woman or a man to get access in their pants. Cave man thoughts and behaves simply continues even if we don't realize.

People can't get it. Companies are like prostitutes ; if you have enough money they don't care about your opinions.

I hadn't thought about the perspective of, "we should be positive if we hope for future releases". That is a valid point. I also hadn't considered your comparison of companies to, err.. ladies of the night :)

I thought F1 was good.. until I got DiRT Rally. That really raised the bar for me. I grew up playing Forza on 360 and other games like that (can't remember the name of the PlayStation game atm) that were truly tough games. I think that's why DR really hit home for me and is among one of my favorites.

Thanks for the feedback, I appreciate it!

Real Shame :( Codemasters F1 games are awesome. Porting 2015 was a Bad choice though. It was missing soooo many features that we come to expect from the series. So a lot of people like me just skipped it. Even though it was ported to linux, there was no way I was ever going to buy it that year. I own all the others. The fact it was released so late made it even worse, as 2016 was just around the corner.

This is 1 series that keeps me and alot of my friends needing windows. Ofcoarse we hoped 2016 would be ported, but we already own it. Although we would of held off a little if it was announced to be on linux within a a short time after the windows release.

Please Port a worthy version of F1 either day 1 or very soon after and see what happens.

Edit: I didn't realize my unintentional pun (see below) ^_^

I wonder how much the engine (pun intended after I noticed it!) has actually changed? They invested so much in 2015 game that it seems like 2016 would be an instant green light, if nothing else to help recover costs from previous release, unless 2016 was truly going to be a massive effort.

I agree -- I don't think it was them, as the general reviews prior to them porting it were not fantastic to begin with. But, hindsight is 20/20 so it's easy to look back now and judge the decision. We have no idea what business motivations or incentives were involved to get the game on Linux.. maybe they were light on work and as was mentioned, forecasts were (always are) wrong. You use the information you have, make the decision, and learn.

I guess they're saying they learned and it doesn't make sense. I also am impressed with the honesty, that means a lot to me as one of their customers. Many companies wouldn't have touched the question and let it just sit there forever without an answer.


Last edited by saildata on 4 April 2017 at 1:54 am UTC

F1 2015 wasn't ported to MacOS. The ways of the Codemasters are unfathomable. ;)

For Mac OS Feral has now a lot in queue: Hitman, TW:Warhammer, Deus Ex, DiRT Rally, F1 2016.

Did I forget something?

That's too bad. All the reviews point to F1 2016 being much better than F1 2015.

I see several of you guys discuss user ratings and the motive behind them. You should stop caring so much about the user ratings and read the professional reviews instead. There it is properly explained why they set the score that they do, furthermore they use a lot more fine-grained score system than a simple thumb up/down.

I see several of you guys discuss user ratings and the motive behind them. You should stop caring so much about the user ratings and read the professional reviews instead. There it is properly explained why they set the score that they do, furthermore they use a lot more fine-grained score system than a simple thumb up/down.

I don't think so. A game in a genre I like being liked by many people that are into the genre as well turned out to be a good indicator for being fun for me. I additionally read professional reviews (on paper). But I never got why a 100 step score would be any more than fake precise.

I played and enjoyed F1 2012? I believe.. But I haven't played the sequels. I heard 2015 was one of the worst of the series, so maybe not the best one to bring to Linux.

Actually I can't get behind a new F1 game for each season. They should charge for a base Formula 1 game then allow you to buy yearly updates/episodes that are cheaper than a full blown game for new car models and tracks.

I see several of you guys discuss user ratings and the motive behind them. You should stop caring so much about the user ratings and read the professional reviews instead. There it is properly explained why they set the score that they do, furthermore they use a lot more fine-grained score system than a simple thumb up/down.

Edit: Let me clarify, I agree with the value of professional reviews, not that anything was ignored.

I agree and have said many times that I value the community (and pro, thanks Liam!) reviews far more than Steam reviews. My interest was in the inflation, e.g. the words people were writing didn't match up with the review classification. After more digging I found out it all comes down to positive reviews/total reviews, which is neither an accepted way (outside of HS algebra) or an honest method of reporting. It's one of many things they need to change, but as long as the $$$ are rolling in they have no incentive to do so, especially if it would result in lower ratings.

So I wouldn't say I care more than the community reviews, but (1) they often cross over (e.g. dialog on GOL and then read that same person's review on Steam) and (2) if they're running Linux, they can't be ALL that bad :) Also, I try to take into account all the information I have available before making a decision. I can't just write off the information on Steam, but I can give it a lower weight, per se, in my decision for buy/no buy.

I hope that the impression wasn't given that the feedback here is anything less than a treasure for anyone gaming on a Linux OS.


Last edited by saildata on 4 April 2017 at 3:27 pm UTC

Today Feral streamed F1 2016 for Mac:

https://www.twitch.tv/videos/133615850

It feels a little bit sad but I don't see much difference between 2015 and 2016. Mac users haven't got 2015, so they are maybe a lot Mac user who will buy.

To be honest, I do not know if I would have bought it now. I just paid 50 Euros for DiRT Rally. F1 is reissued every year. There will be a version for Linux again next year or later.

I do not understand why 2015 has received such crushing criticism. The races are really fun. I see hardly any difference between 2015 and the actual version.

...

I do not understand why 2015 has received such crushing criticism. The races are really fun. I see hardly any difference between 2015 and the actual version.

This is the reason:

The previous game had bad AI, no proper career mode and other issues.

Last edited by LinuxGamesTV on 5 April 2017 at 8:01 pm UTC

Today Feral streamed F1 2016 for Mac:

https://www.twitch.tv/videos/133615850

It feels a little bit sad but I don't see much difference between 2015 and 2016. Mac users haven't got 2015, so they are maybe a lot Mac user who will buy.

To be honest, I do not know if I would have bought it now. I just paid 50 Euros for DiRT Rally. F1 is reissued every year. There will be a version for Linux again next year or later.

I do not understand why 2015 has received such crushing criticism. The races are really fun. I see hardly any difference between 2015 and the actual version.

This kind of seasonal games can sell good with one condition: first day releases every year.

That is how Football Manager and Fifa sells.

As somebody who is a major fan of these games, I'll give some insight as to why F1 2015 never sold well and why not bringing F1 2016 to Linux is a bad call from Feral.


F1 2015 never sold well on any platform. The game itself was lacking. Engine wise the step up from EGO (The engine used from DiRT 2 up until Grid Autosport) to EGO 2 (Used in F1 2015-2016 and DiRT Rally) was great. Getting high quality looks and better handling cars. However, because of this major engine change, getting the cars coded within 6 months (From the start of the 2015 season, when they get to know the "pecking order" of the grid) meant that there pretty much wasn't anything in the game. Career mode was gone, instead replaced with "championship season" where you played as one of the drivers from the grid in a full season of F1 in order to win the championship. Time trial was basic, there were no game modes (Hell, even 2014 had more content and that was just 2013 with new cars and no classic mode) specific to that game. Single race was pretty basic. The only saving grace was that because 2014 didn't come out on next gen, you got both the 2015 and 2014 seasons available. Because of this, sales after the first week or so were poor and the game wasn't very well received, with reviewers saying that it was basically a tech demo for EGO 2.

Bring on 2016, The best game in the series. As well as refining EGO 2 using what they had learned from DiRT Rally and F1 2015. They were able to deliver a large amounts of features. Career mode was back, and better than ever before. Being able to race across 10 seasons improving your car along the way. You also still had he championship season and the "pro" (All assists turned off and locked in cockpit cam) championship season available. As well as steam workshop support for setups on PC. The online wasn't broken either, which was a BIG problem in F1 2015 on all platforms. Sales of F1 2016 were much better. The game received both critical praise and praise among players as the best version of a Codemasters F1 game yet. Sales numbers are starting to reflect this

So it's nothing to do with Feral's porting, or the Linux community. It was all down to the game. Nobody was willing to part with $60 of their hard earned cash for what was essentially a tech demo. That's why it never sold well. I think that Feral should give F1 2016 a chance, a lot more people would buy it simply because there's more there.

It's a shame, as this is one of two games that makes me loose one of my hard drives to Windows.

As somebody who is a major fan of these games, I'll give some insight as to why F1 2015 never sold well and why not bringing F1 2016 to Linux is a bad call from Feral.

You make good points, though I wonder if cutting 2016 from Linux was a decision from Feral or Codemasters. Either way, I wish Feral would say something more about it so the community can know what to do to prevent this from happening in the future.

You have to be realistic about F1 games. They're a niche in itself. If you look at the sales numbers on Steam, you see that most are around the 150k mark. If Feral can only get 1% of that for a Linux port, then it's going to be really hard to justify the investment.

For anyone who catches this in the next 21 hours -- all the DLC for GRiD Autosport is 75% off at the Steam Store..

Maybe it's the kid in me who played hours of "street racing" games, but the Drag Pack for $1.25 was a steal! The comments are plagued with people complaining about a lack of burnout before the race, but hey, what can you get for $1.25 other than a McNasty from McD?? I didn't get all of them, but definitely used up about $4.00 of credit on some hand picked content.

The entire game+DLC is $17.50 for anyone who doesn't have it. It's by no means DiRT Rally, but there are a lot of us here with more than enough hours on this game to make it worth while!

Finally, there are also 2 free DLC, including a high resolution texture pack (dropped my 1070 to it's 20FPS knees on Ultra!) that you don't even have to download now, just click on the link in Steam and it "adds it to your library" (assuming it wouldn't drop off later, but we've seen worse..)

Let me know if anyone wants to get a round-robin GOL drag tournament going! :D