It’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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To be clear, Aspyr has not left Linux at all. I don't get why people say that, they did only recently put out Civ VI (a pretty major title). They are also publishing games coming to Linux.
3 Likes, Who?
Sure, but then disqualify PC altogether, because best AAA games are on consoles these days. PC market is big, sure, but console market just guarantees that sweet sweet revenue. There's good reason why Arkham Knight was canned for PC altogether.
Sorry but I strongly disagree with that statement.
We have overall more exclusives on PC than there are on consoles and way better backwards compatibility.
What is "best" AAA games ?
Are you going by scores ? Sales ? What ?
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Sorry for being so negative, but apart from Vulkan's great improvements I don't see a realistic chance for AAA Linux gaming in the foreseeable future.
Yes porters need money for the work they do, that's completely obvious. But i don't think the solution is to rebuy games but to boycot games not on Linux. Rebuying means your money still go to one Windows/Mac sales, wheras boycoting reduce the Win/Mac share. We now have lots of games on Linux, if you want to buy a Wind/Mac title, just look if there is a similar title available on Linux.
I don't think Aspyr left Linux, there recent titles are on Linux. They just release less games.
Mafia 3 might have not been an excellent game, but Aspyr released it for macOS only, no Linux support. The same for Jade Empire Special Edition. It's on Mac and iOS -- no Linux version.
Bloober Team's A/AA horror titles and other Aspyr published indie projects are a different story.
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What I find interesting is, that except White Noise 2 all percentages are higher than in any Steam Hardware survey.
Of course not each gamer is buying all games, and Linux gamers are more willingly to buy Linux games, but nevertheless... this shows that devs and publishers claiming they are not supporting Linux due to an expected sales ratio lower than 1%... this seems not to be true.
I'm still wondering how those sales are counted. Is the platform important you buy this title on, or is it counted by the platform you download it or is the platform you play a title on counted?
And how are these informations gathered? Does Valve provide them (e.g. from the platform the steam client runs on)? Is the browser string evaluated?
Are those informations known to the public?
Of course not each gamer is buying all games, and Linux gamers are more willingly to buy Linux games, but nevertheless... this shows that devs and publishers claiming they are not supporting Linux due to an expected sales ratio lower than 1%... this seems not to be true.
I'm still wondering how those sales are counted. Is the platform important you buy this title on, or is it counted by the platform you download it or is the platform you play a title on counted?
And how are these informations gathered? Does Valve provide them (e.g. from the platform the steam client runs on)? Is the browser string evaluated?
Are those informations known to the public?
2 Likes, Who?
Frankly, the biggest problem for Linux as a platform appears to be the support problem. Of course this has two sides. Linux builds sometimes have problems that are not present in Windows builds. But the bigger problem still seems to be the dependency compatibility problem between all the different distros and installations. Even though most technically only support Ubuntu and/or SteamOS, there are still a lot of people that will dump distro specific problems in the support forums and reviews. If this problem isn't solved in some way, it could be a real danger for continued support by developers.
3 Likes, Who?
Sure, but then disqualify PC altogether, because best AAA games are on consoles these days. PC market is big, sure, but console market just guarantees that sweet sweet revenue. There's good reason why Arkham Knight was canned for PC altogether.
Sorry but I strongly disagree with that statement.
We have overall more exclusives on PC than there are on consoles and way better backwards compatibility.
What is "best" AAA games ?
Are you going by scores ? Sales ? What ?
There is not even one title on PC with production values comparable to Uncharted 4, Horizon: Zero Dawn or The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild. 60+ $ console games and/or free to play with tons of IAP titles make the big money nowadays.
Steam sales and the "won't buy unless it's under 20 bucks" attitude could not sustain the multi-million budget AAA productions of the big publishers.
2 Likes, Who?
[quote=Jan]
Maybe they are just very good at marketing research because I highly doubt I would buy Mafia III after all let's play videos I have seen for it.
Aspyr has always been *very* selective about their ports to Linux. However, all their ports have been quite popular and I remember CivV being very good seller for them. I don't that has changed or there's any difference with their approach. I think they know their market rather well.
Mafia 3 might have not been an excellent game, but Aspyr released it for macOS only, no Linux support. The same for Jade Empire Special Edition. It's on Mac and iOS -- no Linux version.
Maybe they are just very good at marketing research because I highly doubt I would buy Mafia III after all let's play videos I have seen for it.
Aspyr has always been *very* selective about their ports to Linux. However, all their ports have been quite popular and I remember CivV being very good seller for them. I don't that has changed or there's any difference with their approach. I think they know their market rather well.
0 Likes
Frankly, the biggest problem for Linux as a platform appears to be the support problem. Of course this has two sides. Linux builds sometimes have problems that are not present in Windows builds. But the bigger problem still seems to be the dependency compatibility problem between all the different distros and installations. Even though most technically only support Ubuntu and/or SteamOS, there are still a lot of people that will dump distro specific problems in the support forums and reviews. If this problem isn't solved in some way, it could be a real danger for continued support by developers.
There's very interesting feedback about Linux as being problematic. Biggest problem is tiny size of market share of course. However, putting that aside, there are some some issues that are not exactly solveable by gamers. For example, lot of middleware is just plainly broken on Linux. It is either old port, buggy port, or just bugs due of not maintanance of specific piece of software. And game development lives and dies by support from middleware and engine vendors. Most successful ports and happy Linux devs come from stable, well working libraries.
Of course there's part Linux developers can contribute as well - unifying APIs, well working drivers, etc. Thankfully, situation there is improving thanks to Valve, RedHat, AMD, Intel and other contributors.
I think what should be understood that a) Linux support is not that complex or hard as years ago b) there's solid vendors behind this willing to support game development on Linux and c) it is constantly improving and growing.
1 Likes, Who?
Sure, but then disqualify PC altogether, because best AAA games are on consoles these days. PC market is big, sure, but console market just guarantees that sweet sweet revenue. There's good reason why Arkham Knight was canned for PC altogether.
Sorry but I strongly disagree with that statement.
We have overall more exclusives on PC than there are on consoles and way better backwards compatibility.
What is "best" AAA games ?
Are you going by scores ? Sales ? What ?
There is not even one title on PC with production values comparable to Uncharted 4, Horizon: Zero Dawn or The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild. 60+ $ console games and/or free to play with tons of IAP titles make the big money nowadays.
Steam sales and the "won't buy unless it's under 20 bucks" attitude could not sustain the multi-million budget AAA productions of the big publishers.
Yes , too bad we are worth more than 5 times more :
4 Likes, Who?
Sure, but then disqualify PC altogether, because best AAA games are on consoles these days. PC market is big, sure, but console market just guarantees that sweet sweet revenue. There's good reason why Arkham Knight was canned for PC altogether.
Sorry but I strongly disagree with that statement.
We have overall more exclusives on PC than there are on consoles and way better backwards compatibility.
What is "best" AAA games ?
Are you going by scores ? Sales ? What ?
There is not even one title on PC with production values comparable to Uncharted 4, Horizon: Zero Dawn or The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild. 60+ $ console games and/or free to play with tons of IAP titles make the big money nowadays.
Steam sales and the "won't buy unless it's under 20 bucks" attitude could not sustain the multi-million budget AAA productions of the big publishers.
Yes , too bad we are worth more than 5 times more :
Break those numbers down by title, genre, etc. Subtract subscription based or free to play/IAP driven MMOs, visual novels and stuff like Hearthstone or LoL and then compare the numbers again.
Huge AAA open world titles and immersive experiences like Uncharted, Zelda or Assassin's Creed could not exist without the console market. And those titles are what "hardcore" gamers consider AAA and big teams and studios are built for.
What about the big annual sports titles like FIFA (or Madden in the US)? No chance without PlayStation or Xbox!
Don't be fooled by total numbers. The big franchises make much more money on consoles than on all PC platforms combined, that's why they are being build with the PS4 as their lead platform (Xbox 360 in the last generation).
Last edited by Jan on 2 August 2017 at 1:59 pm UTC
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Yeah PC gaming includes huge casual gaming behemoths like MMOs, F2P titles, etc. I am ready to bet titles like War Thunder, WoW, etc. takes a 10B a year in total. Ironically enough, both titles work on Linux without big problems.
This also shows a bit of shallowness of "AAA gaming doesn't come to Linux, we are kaput" argument. AAA gaming is high stakes development, if someone ports something it is a miracle, because even if we had 1/10 of Windows market it still wouldn't be enough to justify majority of AAA games being ported. I mean, name Linux gamers interested in FIFA 2020 or whatever next title will be.
Last edited by Pecisk on 2 August 2017 at 2:05 pm UTC
This also shows a bit of shallowness of "AAA gaming doesn't come to Linux, we are kaput" argument. AAA gaming is high stakes development, if someone ports something it is a miracle, because even if we had 1/10 of Windows market it still wouldn't be enough to justify majority of AAA games being ported. I mean, name Linux gamers interested in FIFA 2020 or whatever next title will be.
Last edited by Pecisk on 2 August 2017 at 2:05 pm UTC
0 Likes
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.
But the Games are protected by Valves DRM. Is this less effective on Linux?
I hope Feral continues its very good work. It would be a loss that could not be replaced.
I wonder if it would not be possible for Feral to fund some titles via crowdfunding. This is also always quite good advertising.
Piracy its a absolute shame. There are so many sales. If I have to have the game necessarily at the show, then I pay the full price.
0 Likes
Break those numbers down by title, genre, etc. Subtract subscription based or free to play/IAP driven MMOs, visual novels and stuff like Hearthstone or LoL and then compare the numbers again.
So remove all the huge PC exclusives from the word go.
So far so fair , right ?
Huge AAA open world titles and immersive experiences like Uncharted, Zelda or Assassin's Creed could not exist without the console market. And those titles are what "hardcore" gamers consider AAA and big teams and studios are built for.
And all the games from before you wanted excluded are made by an indie team in a garage ?
Also what is a "hardcore" gamer nowadays ? Pro players ? People who invest time and money into gaming ?
EDIT:
Misread your comment. On a personal note do not care about sports - so no knowledge in that field.
Don't be fooled by total numbers. The big franchises make much more money on consoles than on all PC platforms combined, that's why they are being build with the PS4 as their lead platform (Xbox 360 in the last generation).
I try not to be. I could be in the wrong.
But if by big franchises you mean the console exclusives which are by design anti consumer since they are locked down to one platform and one publisher then yes , those by deign will be made for ONE and ONLY one platform in mind. ( Until the publisher wants more money and port it to PC that is )
Last edited by razing32 on 2 August 2017 at 2:11 pm UTC
1 Likes, Who?
Yeah PC gaming includes huge casual gaming behemoths like MMOs, F2P titles, etc. I am ready to bet titles like War Thunder, WoW, etc. takes a 10B a year in total. Ironically enough, both titles work on Linux without big problems.
This also shows a bit of shallowness of "AAA gaming doesn't come to Linux, we are kaput" argument. AAA gaming is high stakes development, if someone ports something it is a miracle, because even if we had 1/10 of Windows market it still wouldn't be enough to justify majority of AAA games being ported. I mean, name Linux gamers interested in FIFA 2020 or whatever next title will be.
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.
1 Likes, Who?
Break those numbers down by title, genre, etc. Subtract subscription based or free to play/IAP driven MMOs, visual novels and stuff like Hearthstone or LoL and then compare the numbers again.
So remove all the huge PC exclusives from the word go.
So far so fair , right ?
Huge AAA open world titles and immersive experiences like Uncharted, Zelda or Assassin's Creed could not exist without the console market. And those titles are what "hardcore" gamers consider AAA and big teams and studios are built for.
And all the games from before you wanted excluded are made by an indie team in a garage ?
Also what is a "hardcore" gamer nowadays ? Pro players ? People who invest time and money into gaming ?
EDIT:
Misread your comment. On a personal note do not care about sports - so no knowledge in that field.
Don't be fooled by total numbers. The big franchises make much more money on consoles than on all PC platforms combined, that's why they are being build with the PS4 as their lead platform (Xbox 360 in the last generation).
I try not to be. I could be in the wrong.
But if by big franchises you mean the console exclusives which are by design anti consumer since they are locked down to one platform and one publisher then yes , those by deign will be made for ONE and ONLY one platform in mind. ( Until the publisher wants more money and port it to PC that is )
Of course, games like World of Warcraft or League of Legends are build by large teams with big budgets.
But be honest: Think about PC gaming without Blizzard, LoL and the gazillions of Asian F2P shenanigans. What's left? Besides AA houses like Paradox and maybe 20 million active Steam users with a diverse gaming library (even though Valve claims they have more than 150 million accounts, but not daily users)?
The PC market is huge and healthy, but it's not the driver of the gaming industry.
GTA V. Call of Duty. Forza. FIFA. Madden. Metroid. Mario. Zelda. Pokemon etc.
Without PS4, 3DS, Xbox and now the Nintendo Switch those titles could not exist. Platform holders need exclusives and a diverse library to sell units. That's the main reason why SteamOS was never going to be a 'huge' success: Valve never planned to put any exclusive title on it. Half-Life 3 only on SteamOS? Millions of gamers would dual-boot to Linux in a heartbeat -- but that won't happen.
You might not like those business antics, but that's how you make money (and create some excellent titles).
By the way: I forgot to mention one PC game on par with the highest quality console titles: The Witcher 3 (if you study the history of CD Project RED that's another anomaly).
0 Likes
They do not plan a Linux version.To be clear, Aspyr has not left Linux at all. I don't get why people say that, they did only recently put out Civ VI (a pretty major title). They are also publishing games coming to Linux.
Aspyr released a Mac port of Mafia III last May 2017. Up to now, there is no news about the Linux port.
Can you ask them if they plan to do a Linux port?
This doesn't mean they are leaving Linux, other porters also do non-Linux games, that doesn't mean a porter is suddenly leaving Linux behind.
0 Likes
Nice. As you can see, it's way higher than so called Steam survey, which only highlights, that the later is pretty useless. It all depends on the game, and I'd say on developers and their engagement with Linux community. I'd be also interested in some numbers from inXile and Obsidian, who like Beamdog release cross platform from day one.
Also, I'm somewhat surprised that MacOS sales stay high, despite bitrot of the system, and Apple basically abandoning their own desktop.
Last edited by Shmerl on 2 August 2017 at 2:48 pm UTC
Also, I'm somewhat surprised that MacOS sales stay high, despite bitrot of the system, and Apple basically abandoning their own desktop.
Last edited by Shmerl on 2 August 2017 at 2:48 pm UTC
1 Likes, Who?
Sure, but then disqualify PC altogether, because best AAA games are on consoles these days. PC market is big, sure, but console market just guarantees that sweet sweet revenue. There's good reason why Arkham Knight was canned for PC altogether.
What am I missing? Arkham Knight is available for PC. http://store.steampowered.com/app/208650/Batman_Arkham_Knight/
0 Likes
Nice. As you can see, it's way higher than so called Steam survey, which only highlights, that the later is pretty useless. It all depends on the game, and I'd say on developers and their engagement with Linux community. I'd be also interested in some numbers from inXile and Obsidian, who like Beamdog release cross platform from day one.
Also, I'm somewhat surprised that MacOS sales stay high, despite bitrot of the system, and Apple basically abandoning their own desktop.
Apple is not abandoning the Mac at all.
They have just announced the iMac Pro with Xeon CPUs, external GPU support, Metal 2 and a new high-end Mac Pro coming in 2018/2019 along with new Cinema 5K Displays.
Performance of the latest Metal-optimised games on macOS is on par with Windows (according to Brad Oliver from Feral) and the API is finally in a mature enough state. Apple is also investing heavily in AR and VR (Steam VR support was shown during the WWDC keynote).
It would be awesome if Linux gaming was comparable to the Mac market regarding sales numbers.
0 Likes
Nice. As you can see, it's way higher than so called Steam survey, which only highlights, that the later is pretty useless. It all depends on the game, and I'd say on developers and their engagement with Linux community. I'd be also interested in some numbers from inXile and Obsidian, who like Beamdog release cross platform from day one.
Also, I'm somewhat surprised that MacOS sales stay high, despite bitrot of the system, and Apple basically abandoning their own desktop.
MacOS sales are staying high because most of the people are thinking having an Apple branded system is a privelege. So suddenly MacOS being a status sign for them and that is keeping them on the ecosystem : Ego.
Also note that , Apple ecosystem makes people much more binded to their platform. Purchase history made them tied with Apple Market.
On the other hand , Linux is replaceable and there is nothing to lose if you abandon Linux.
If you abandon Windows , you will lose games. If you abandon MacOS you will lose that feeling of being special.
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