Mantis Burn Racing needs more support if it is to come to Linux

This quite clearly demonstrates the pointlessness of these threads. They're always the same numbers and they'll never be enough to justify a port. In this case it is even weirder because the game itself is not selling at all. SteamDB estimates about 2200 copies sold. So if the "140" sales from the thread would be accurate, that'd be 6.3%, which would actually be a very good result. If the more generic 1% would be used, then it is a complete disaster. So this game has a much bigger problem than the potential sales on Linux.

This quite clearly demonstrates the pointlessness of these threads. They're always the same numbers and they'll never be enough to justify a port. In this case it is even weirder because the game itself is not selling at all. SteamDB estimates about 2200 copies sold. So if the "140" sales from the thread would be accurate, that'd be 6.3%, which would actually be a very good result. If the more generic 1% would be used, then it is a complete disaster. So this game has a much bigger problem than the potential sales on Linux.

Agreed on the problems the game has.

Would be nice from Valve to place a "port request button" on the Steam Store page of each game not already ported. This would be easier to count than comments on the forum.

I don't think we are going to play Mantis anytime soon.

I don't know why it is so expensive. 16 euro for stupid 2D racing game ? Maybe I'm blind but I can't see anything nice in it.
Why devs can't make any better game? There are not much good racing games for Linux, unfortunately.
If I knew how to make games, I would make the racing game of my own.

I still think showing developers there's a demand can be important, we've seen multiple titles come over to Linux as a result of showing a little demand. It won't always work of course, sometimes developers just won't do it. Even so, if there's a game I would personally like to play, spending a minute or two telling the developer that doesn't really cost me anything.

In this case, I think you're right that it seems the game as a whole is struggling, which doesn't help.

Just port it to Linux dammit... *waves hand*

I don't know why it is so expensive. 16 euro for stupid 2D racing game ? Maybe I'm blind but I can't see anything nice in it.
Why devs can't make any better game? There are not much good racing games for Linux, unfortunately.
If I knew how to make games, I would make the racing game of my own.

My initial thoughts too.. This is not exactly a DiRT Rally or F1 2017. Porting to Linux wouldn't be that much of an unbelievable effort these days?

Looks like a nice little passtime game though & more racers on Linux the better.

I love 2D racers, one of my favorite Atari Jaguar gamesis Power Drive Rally.

With the small amount of numbers sold, why wouldn't they just pot it? The amount of people to buy it short term would be more than zero, and longer term it might be a bigger number, assuming it is a good game and gets good reviews.

I will show my support for a Linux port. Depending on the engine they use, it could be a click of a button and they get free money.

It would be nice if there was a kind of escrow service on steam.
Something like kickstarter:
You can buy the game, the money stays at steam, until there is enough incentive for the developer to act on it. The developer then builds and delivers, and the money is now delivered to the developer.
Or better:
You have money in your steam wallet, with which you can pledge with a 2 or 3 fold over commit.
If the developer decides there is enough pledged, the pledges turn into a commit.
Which means the money in your wallet is reserved and not spendable.
If the developer after that time have a working version, they can pass on the money.
I hate all these fake promises.
But then again, that system will probably going to be abused somehow.

A bit of a let down. In particular since 10 pages of requests are actually more than I expected and I initially believed that they simply wanted something like 3-5 pages, just to show that: "Yes, there is genuine interest!".

After all, we are not talking "GTA V" here and there´s bound to be quite a number of people who are not making their voice heard but might still buy it once it´s released on linux.

I don´t know if I´m being unfair here but I can´t help feeling a bit like "being played for a sucker" with the wishy-washy promise of a port based on arbitrary and unspecific factors that might change from day-to-day decisions.


Last edited by Feist on 9 Nov 2017 at 1:09 pm UTC

There is a similar game from Milkstone Studios, it's 1/4 of the price and will probably give most of the satisfaction of Mantis burn.

http://store.steampowered.com/app/262690/Little_Racers_STREET/


Unfortunately it seems to be having an issue with the latest Nvidia drivers :|

It would be nice if there was a kind of escrow service on steam.
Something like kickstarter:
You can buy the game, the money stays at steam, until there is enough incentive for the developer to act on it. The developer then builds and delivers, and the money is now delivered to the developer.
Or better:
You have money in your steam wallet, with which you can pledge with a 2 or 3 fold over commit.
If the developer decides there is enough pledged, the pledges turn into a commit.
Which means the money in your wallet is reserved and not spendable.
If the developer after that time have a working version, they can pass on the money.
I hate all these fake promises.
But then again, that system will probably going to be abused somehow.

I so want something like this. I think it would make it easier for all parties.

Indie developer of overpriced top-down car game with small sale numbers is asking for "demand" to do his job and possible make some money?
What a twist...

I don't know why it is so expensive. 16 euro for stupid 2D racing game ? Maybe I'm blind but I can't see anything nice in it.
Why devs can't make any better game? There are not much good racing games for Linux, unfortunately.
If I knew how to make games, I would make the racing game of my own.

I still count 3 dimensions. And I don't know whether it is "stupid". And it sounds a bit... shall I say "odd"? when someone asks the devs for a "better game" and stats that he or she has no clue "how to make games".

There is a similar game from Milkstone Studios, it's 1/4 of the price and will probably give most of the satisfaction of Mantis burn.

http://store.steampowered.com/app/262690/Little_Racers_STREET/


Unfortunately it seems to be having an issue with the latest Nvidia drivers :|

Yes. Apart from the fact that it doesn't work and never has on my machine.

I bought Little Racers STREET at launch and had proper fun with it (worked fine back then, I haven't tested it recently). Mantis Burn Racing looks just as fun, but not at this price and not with that attitude.

Counting Steam thread numbers as a 1:1 indicator of demand is nonsense at best. It's well known that for every person to come forward with a request like that, there are many others who want the product but don't post there for whatever reason. Maybe they don't think it'll do any good. Maybe they don't read Steam forums at all. Maybe they're shy. Whatever, the majority of interested parties will never post in a "Linux port?" thread.

This just sounds like the dev looking for an excuse not to make a port without actually saying that.

Sorry but that game is not so desirable even for Windows users.

There is no need for Linux port of that , dev should add something to game for at least selling that on Windows.

There is a similar game from Milkstone Studios, it's 1/4 of the price and will probably give most of the satisfaction of Mantis burn.

http://store.steampowered.com/app/262690/Little_Racers_STREET/


Unfortunately it seems to be having an issue with the latest Nvidia drivers :|

Yes. Apart from the fact that it doesn't work and never has on my machine.

Still works fine for me on Mint with Nvidia 387. It only started working a few months back though.