Yacht Club Games have announced that Shovel Knight: Treasure Trove [Official Site] has officially sold 2 million copies, with Linux accounting for 1.1% of Steam sales. It's great to see another success story for an indie developer, as that's a pretty healthy amount of sales, especially considering the amount of competition when it comes to this type of game.
In their announcement, they actually left out Linux statistics completely (likely due to how small it is). So I reached out to the developer to ask about Steam sales with Linux being included and they allowed me to share this with you:
So that's Windows: 93.5%, Mac: 5.4% and Linux at 1.1%.
It is worth noting, that the Linux version was released several months after the Windows version, so it's possible a few sales would have been lost there. We know a timely release does affect Linux sales, with people running games in Wine or loading up a Windows install for some games (something I read about people doing quite often).
Also, when comparing PC (Windows/Mac/Linux) to other platforms, Windows itself only sold 24.4% of the copies with 3DS coming in hot at 23.9%.
Don't own it yet and want to boost their Linux sales a little or just fancy giving it a go? You can grab Shovel Knight on Humble Store, GOG and Steam. Note: Humble and GOG links are affiliate links.
Article taken from GamingOnLinux.com.
hardpenguin Apr 12, 2018
Quoting: ShmerlI'm surprised that macOS is still above Linux sales. With Apple planning to kill 32-bit support in the future, I suspect at least a portion of macOS gamers will migrate to Linux (otherwise they'll lose their 32-bit games for good).macOS has nearly 20% of market share in USA (according to StatCounter), which is the biggest regional market on Steam among paying customers (according to SteamSpy).
Sources:
http://gs.statcounter.com/os-market-share/desktop/united-states-of-america
https://galyonk.in/steam-in-2017-129c0e6be260
GustyGhost Apr 12, 2018
Quoting: ShmerlI'm surprised that macOS is still above Linux sales. With Apple planning to kill 32-bit support in the future, I suspect at least a portion of macOS gamers will migrate to Linux (otherwise they'll lose their 32-bit games for good).
Being a 2D game, SK has more appeal to those running mac hardware with integrated Intel graphics and the like. I am certain those sales figures already skew differently for graphically demanding games like Tomb Raider. Anybody got stats on these?
Quoting: omer666So how did they run their favourite games? They started to run the Windows versions... On Wine. I'd bet they'll keep doing this with 32bits-only games.
Except that Wine relies on 32-bit libraries (and kernel support) to run 32-bit games. So if Apple will bork it in macOS, Wine won't run any 32-bit games there either if I understand correctly. So it would be some incentive for them to switch to Linux. That already in some way happened, when Apple stopped updating OpenGL there.
Last edited by Shmerl on 12 April 2018 at 6:16 pm UTC
BlackBloodRum Apr 12, 2018
So yes, we're only 0.001% but we can still add that 1.1% (more or less depending on game) to a games sales. That's still extra money for the developers whichever way you spin it.
What would be interesting is to see statistics on a big game ported by Aspyr like DiRT Rally (epic game) and where we would stand on a game like that.
The numbers must be OK because codemasters have let them port a few games now.
Aspyr, care to help? :-D
Quoting: ShmerlQuoting: omer666So how did they run their favourite games? They started to run the Windows versions... On Wine. I'd bet they'll keep doing this with 32bits-only games.
Except that Wine relies on 32-bit libraries (and kernel support) to run 32-bit games. So if Apple will bork it in macOS, Wine won't run any 32-bit games there either if I understand correctly. So it would be some incentive for them to switch to Linux. That already in some way happened, when Apple stopped updating OpenGL there.
My mistake, you are completely right. Yet I still doubt Apple dropping 32bit would change a thing for them anyway. Soon they will be able to play the wonderful iPhone games they've been longing for, thanks to the unification of iOS and macOS apps.
Last edited by frakswe on 12 April 2018 at 8:17 pm UTC
Quoting: frakswebut i got it for free, as usually is the case with steamplay games,linux/wintel/mac in one go.is there a way on steam to choose only one system?You can choose which platforms to show on your store front page in your account preferences, and you can filter your games per platform in your library. Is either of those what you mean?
Quoting: frakswenah i just wonder what counts as a linux sale, in my case i bought the game when i was on wintel but got the linux version aswell in the same deal.that's what "steamplay" refers to.
The concept of "sale" is quite moot here. More important is the concept of download. I.e. you are buying all versions at once. But when you download, you usually are getting one for your OS. So I suppose if you downloaded the Linux version, it should count as Linux download. I wonder what happens if you download all versions.
Last edited by Shmerl on 12 April 2018 at 9:30 pm UTC
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