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PayPalIt’s been a long time since I’ve done this, but here’s part 5 in the series of me talking to developers about how their games have been selling on Linux.
If you missed the previous articles: part 1, part 2, part 3, part 4.
Beamdog
For those who don’t recognise the name, Beamdog are the people behind revamps of classic RPG titles like Planescape: Torment: Enhanced Edition and Baldur's Gate: Enhanced Edition.
They gave some details about how Planescape: Torment: Enhanced Edition sold on Steam:
- 91.74% - Windows
- 6.22% - Mac
- 2.04% - Linux
Additionally, they also gave details about install numbers from their own Beamdog client:
- 91.13% - Windows
- 6.38% - Mac
- 2.49% - Linux
Here’s what Beamdog CTO, Scott Brooks had to say about Linux support:
QuoteWe really think the Infinity Engine games are something special and work hard to bring them to people that might not otherwise be able to play them. We've worked with professional and volunteer translators to help bring Baldur's Gate: Enhanced Edition to 14 languages, and we add things like Story Mode to help people who otherwise would have a hard time playing these great games. We've ported an engine that was originally built in the 16bit to 32bit transition to 64bit in order to let people continue enjoying these games. There are people on Linux that would love to play our games specifically on Linux, and we would love to let them.
Also, if you missed it I did an interview with Beamdog before, you can see that here.
MidBoss
MidBoss, the roguelike where you possess the bodies of your enemies released with Day-1 Linux support back in May. Here’s the figures their developer gave:
- 93.4 - Windows
- 4.7% - Mac
- 1.9% - Linux
Here’s what the developer of MidBoss had to say about supporting Linux now and in future:
QuoteI feel pretty good about supporting both platforms in MidBoss, particularly since Ethan Lee who made FNA did the ports and it wasn't too expensive. Without him they probably wouldn't have happened.
In the future I'll be using a new, completely custom framework that can create .NET executables as well as JavaScript/WebGL builds from a single C# codebase. We're planning to initially use the web builds with Electron to keep supporting Mac and Linux. This should perform just fine for smaller games such as Ultra Hat Dimension which is probably coming out on Steam in early 2018.
When we do wind up doing a bigger more demanding game again (MidBoss 2? Who knows!) I'll investigate getting the .NET versions working on Mac and Linux too. The .NET side uses OpenTK/OpenGL so it shouldn't be that difficult, hopefully, we just don't have the time/resources right now to go into it.
Milkstone Studios
To my surprise, Milkstone Studios were very open and sent over details about multiple titles!
White Noise 2
- 95.31% - Windows
- 4.06% - OSX
- 0.64% - Linux
Only Linux details given for these:
- Little Racers Street: 12.05%
- Pharaonic: 4.59%
- Ziggurat: 2.19%
- White Noise Online: 0.96%
It’s worth noting, that just before the release of Little Racers Street, I did an interview with Milkstone Studios about the title. That may have helped towards the rather high Linux percentage there.
Here’s what they said about continuing to support Linux:
Milkstone StudiosSeeing these numbers, look like Linux players are more used to single player experiences, so that might be the reason.
We support Linux on a pretty basic level (we're not Linux users ourselves, so we have limited experience with it). Linux support takes up lots of support time (I'd say around 20-25% of our support time is dedicated to addressing Linux issues), and it's hard to justify dedicating our time to this platform if sales for it are low. However, Unity allows for easy generation of Linux builds, and most of the work required for a proper port was done with Ziggurat, so for now we'll continue releasing games with Linux support, and trying to solve issues to the best of our knowledge.
While they weren’t able to give any specific details, I did speak to two of the bigger porters Feral Interactive and Aspyr Media.
Here’s what Feral Interactive had to say:
QuoteThe Linux market remains small in comparison to Mac, and tiny compared to Windows. Three years of bringing AAA games to Linux has taught us a lot about what works in sales terms, and what works less well. Although we had hoped that the Steam Machine would gain more traction, we have been pleasantly surprised by the Linux sales achieved on distros other than SteamOS, and continually encouraged by the passionate (and vocal!) audience of Linux gamers. However, we are disappointed by the promotion of piracy by some, which does disproportionate damage to the economics of bringing games to an already small platform.
Take a look at what Aspyr Media said:
QuoteOur Linux business continues to be an important part of our strategy going forward. We consider Linux a viable platform, and continue to make it a target goal of any deal we strike.
I did reach out to Virtual Programming, but they were extremely busy and didn't have time.
I would like to thank everyone who got back to me. Sadly some didn’t reply, but given how busy developers are actually making games, it’s all good!
Some you may have missed, popular articles from the last month:
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Just go to any reddit forum that mentions the words Bethesda and linux. They are not going to remove DRM if anything I forsee companies spending more and more on it.
Then they shouldn't complain about piracy, since they are shooting themselves in the foot.
Then you don't know much about large businesses. They see a problem in piracy the board of says we have to do everything we can to protect out IP and profit. Probably more than one board member says invest heavily in DRM so we make it more and more difficult because on even the legit purchases,what are the geeks going to do not buy our game yeah right.
I am of course paraphrasing but conversations like that do happen in most companies that sell pretty much anything, it is all about maximizing profit while spending the least amount to do so. However when it comes to protecting IP they will spend spend spend.
Last edited by Whitewolfe80 on 6 August 2017 at 11:10 am UTC
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Then you don't know much about large businesses. They see a problem in piracy the board of says we have to do everything we can to protect out IP and profit. Probably more than one board member says invest heavily in DRM so we make it more and more difficult because on even the legit purchases,what are the geeks going to do not buy our game yeah right.
I am of course paraphrasing but conversations like that do happen in most companies that sell pretty much anything, it is all about maximizing profit while spending the least amount to do so. However when it comes to protecting IP they will spend spend spend.
That's not news, I know that DRM proponents use completely invalid reasons for pushing DRM. In fact they usually have nothing to do with piracy.
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And with a quote from Adam Smith we might summarise the whole discussion about Apple: '...that I have fresh bread and rolls every morning is not because of the baker's goodwill, it's because of his greed' (or something to that effect, quoted from a failing memory).
I suggest we leave it at that and do not open this usual can of worms, it might turn too political and heated.
That's fine in a competitive market where there are many bakers, but should one baker have a monopoly on the supply of wheat... your bread will most probably be stale, and most --certainly-- a lot more expensive.
And aren't there companies competing with Apple on basically all fronts? Samsung? Microsoft? Google?
I know that Apple have been discussed somewhat in previous comments, but my statement wasn't specifically referring to them and their situation in the market right now, rather I was addressing the Adam Smith quote and the danger of monopoly formation. It's a mistake to say that good products exist because of greed, sure greed may play a part in providing an incentive but competition is essential. Greed without competition hurts the consumer. Companies such as Apple who engage in anti-competitive practice are right to be criticised, though I think the situation with Microsoft is far worse simply because it is very difficult to buy most laptops without Windows pre-installed, and on some cheaper laptops it is very difficult to remove Windows 10.
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slaapliedje Aug 7, 2017
I can't seem to find it now, but at one point in time I had seen that there was supposedly a law that Microsoft lobbied for that stated a computer could not be sold without an operating system installed. Some companies got around that by installing FreeDOS on the computers they sold.
Can anyone confirm that, it may have just been something I read that was anti-MS at the time, sounded like something they would do, like jacking up the OEM price if companies tried to sell computers with BeOS.
Can anyone confirm that, it may have just been something I read that was anti-MS at the time, sounded like something they would do, like jacking up the OEM price if companies tried to sell computers with BeOS.
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I can't seem to find it now, but at one point in time I had seen that there was supposedly a law that Microsoft lobbied for that stated a computer could not be sold without an operating system installed. Some companies got around that by installing FreeDOS on the computers they sold.
Can anyone confirm that, it may have just been something I read that was anti-MS at the time, sounded like something they would do, like jacking up the OEM price if companies tried to sell computers with BeOS.
Not a law, but they blackmailed OEMs, that they'll charge more for Windows, if they'll sell computers without an OS. Though I don't think it should have prevented them from selling computers with Linux, though who knows what other shady deals MS could make in secret. That's just one that became public.
See https://web.archive.org/web/20150714080353/http://www.justice.gov/atr/cases/f3800/msjudgex.htm#iiie
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Then you don't know much about large businesses. They see a problem in piracy the board of says we have to do everything we can to protect out IP and profit. Probably more than one board member says invest heavily in DRM so we make it more and more difficult because on even the legit purchases,what are the geeks going to do not buy our game yeah right.
I am of course paraphrasing but conversations like that do happen in most companies that sell pretty much anything, it is all about maximizing profit while spending the least amount to do so. However when it comes to protecting IP they will spend spend spend.
That's not news, I know that DRM proponents use completely invalid reasons for pushing DRM. In fact they usually have nothing to do with piracy.
Exactly which is why is it's never going away as much as it may get some more customers in personally I have sold out to valve ages ago i own some games through gog but have just pretty much accepted Steams dominance.
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Exactly which is why is it's never going away as much as it may get some more customers in personally I have sold out to valve ages ago i own some games through gog but have just pretty much accepted Steams dominance.
DRM only drives customers away, not the other way around.
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Exactly which is why is it's never going away as much as it may get some more customers in personally I have sold out to valve ages ago i own some games through gog but have just pretty much accepted Steams dominance.
DRM only drives customers away, not the other way around.
Doesnt matter if does or does not its not going anywhere. The only way would be if say COD came out and nobody bought a single copy because of DRM. it would not happen as the majority of people give no shits especially console players as they have zero choice anyway.
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Doesnt matter if does or does not its not going anywhere.
DRM highlights the conflict of their interest for power vs money. No DRM means more profit, but having DRM means they have a feeling of control and ability to dictate others what to do (even if it's fake). Some simply run after power, no matter the cost. Some are more rational.
Last edited by Shmerl on 7 August 2017 at 3:11 pm UTC
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Read between the lines of Feral's statement: They are very selective about which titles they will bring to Linux. I guess it will be mainly "PC-like" RTS -- Dawn of War III or XCOM --, and less third-person action/adventure titles.
None of Feral's family friendly Mac games like the LEGO or Sonic games come to Linux.
Exactly. One should also note that there is only a limited monetary volume in the Linux market. Lets say that the average linux gamer is willing to spend 150 Euros/Dollars per year on games. Multiply that with the number of gamers and you know what the volume is that can be earned by publishers and porting studio's. Nowadays there is still the sentiment "I'll will buy this game because I want to support Linux", but this behavior with vanish once there are more titles. I would even dare to say that more titles per month at the moment would hurt gaming on Linux because the revenue per title or per studio will be less. Its a long road where both the number of linux titles and the available money in our (very specific) market needs to grow slowly side by side.
Last edited by jens on 11 August 2017 at 3:59 pm UTC
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Read between the lines of Feral's statement: They are very selective about which titles they will bring to Linux. I guess it will be mainly "PC-like" RTS -- Dawn of War III or XCOM --, and less third-person action/adventure titles.
None of Feral's family friendly Mac games like the LEGO or Sonic games come to Linux.
Exactly. One should also note that there is only a limited monetary volume in the Linux market. Lets say that the average linux gamer is willing to spend 150 Euros/Dollars per year on games. Multiply that with the number of gamers and you know what the volume is that can be earned by publishers and porting studio's. Nowadays there is still the sentiment "I'll will buy this game because I want to support Linux", but this behavior with vanish once there are more titles. I would even dare to say that more titles per month at the moment would hurt gaming on Linux because the revenue per title or per studio will be less. Its a long road where both the number of linux titles and the available money in our (very specific) market needs to grow slowly side by side.
Also on the family friendly note it once again goes back to the stereotype of a linux user hardcore geek. So no typically the hardcore geek does not have children or partners in the eyes of corporate business men. So why would they waste money authorising a port when they know people will buy anything that involves guns and blowing random shite up.
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lucifertdark Aug 12, 2017
Also on the family friendly note it once again goes back to the stereotype of a linux user hardcore geek. So no typically the hardcore geek does not have children or partners in the eyes of corporate business men. So why would they waste money authorising a port when they know people will buy anything that involves guns and blowing random shite up.That's a good one, it was actually one of my Sons that originally convinced me that Linux was a viable OS.
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Also on the family friendly note it once again goes back to the stereotype of a linux user hardcore geek. So no typically the hardcore geek does not have children or partners in the eyes of corporate business men. So why would they waste money authorising a port when they know people will buy anything that involves guns and blowing random shite up.That's a good one, it was actually one of my Sons that originally convinced me that Linux was a viable OS.
As i said I know its the stereo type as I have previously worked in companies admittedly in the PR department that very much feel this way about linux
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lucifertdark Aug 12, 2017
As i said I know its the stereo type as I have previously worked in companies admittedly in the PR department that very much feel this way about linuxIt's probably the loud Linux front men like Richard Stallman who give them the impression that everyone using Linux is a beardy D&D obsessed boffin with no lovelife, I was laughing when I typed my previous reply.
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