The Station is another game with a Linux version where the percentage of Linux gamers purchasing it is a lot higher than normal.
See Also: My thoughts on the game.
In a new Steam announcement posted two days ago, the developer announced that 20,000 copies have now been sold. In the comments of that post, they replied to a user asking about how many were Linux users. I will quote directly as you cannot link to comments on Steam announcements:
@Zyro, about 15% of our players so far have been Linux users on Steam!
It's worth noting that Steam only accounted for around 25% of that 20K figure:
@LiamD, no actually Steam was not a big platform for us - console has been 75% of our players.
So it seems it didn't really sell well at all on Steam. However, if they continue to sell more and the Linux share keeps up, it would be impressive. Even when games don't sell a lot, the Linux share is never usually as high as that.
I'm not surprised Linux was higher than normal though, as they got Linux support in early and reached out to us here at GamingOnLinux. We interviewed them (which was picked up by other sites) and we were able to test it before release as well, so they were quite committed to getting Linux support out on the same day as other versions.
I honestly hope they continue making games like this, would be happy to see more from them of this quality. Perhaps something a little bit longer next time would be good.
It's actually on sale right now on Steam with 40% off until July 23rd, well worth a look.
Thanks for the tip Eike. Update: 20/07/18 - Article text and title adjusted with new information to be accurate.
Article taken from GamingOnLinux.com.
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Quoting: g000hI'm sure it's good and worth the money, but.... When I observe my own gaming..... 150+ hours of Slay The Spire, 250+ hours of FTL, 300+ hours of 7 Days To Die, 200+ hours of Rust - I paid less than £10 ($12) for each of those games, and look at the number of hours of enjoyment I've had with them (Real value!)There's only 168 hours in 7 days, how could you have more than that in 7 Days to Die? Are you sure you weren't playing A Fortnight to Die? ;)
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hardpenguin Jul 19, 2018
Quoting: EikeDo you think? I guess 20.000 could be fine for such a game.
Quoting: liamdaweFor a still quite unknown indie game that only released a few months ago, the first game from this studio, seems like reasonable amount to me?
First of all, 20k copies isn't much with their price level. And the price can be even lower if you consider regional pricing. You have to subtract Valve's cut and taxes here. Then obviously you have to count the cost it took to make and maintain the game (salaries, contractors fees, office's rent - if they have one, etc) over the years. From their website we know that at least 5 people made the game, so that would be five salaries here, quite a burden.
Second of all, it's simple logic: for popular titles Linux percentage should be more like 1-2% or less (see Rust's numbers here on GOL. Because that's how Linux percentage on the market looks like (on Western market, excluding China that lowers the percentage). To put it shortly, high Linux percentage means they caught Linux users attention but failed to catch attention of mainstream. Not good.
It doesn't matter at all that is it their first release or that the title is rather niche. It's pure business. Games have to make money or the studio bankrupts or has to do contract work to stay afloat.
However, we have to keep in mind that the game also released on PS4 and Xbox One and is also planning to come to VR. That fragmentation should secure them alright-ish flow of money in a long run.
Tl;dr - making games costs a lot of money, go buy The Station to thank them for Linux support!
Last edited by hardpenguin on 19 July 2018 at 6:31 pm UTC
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Well, i'am disappointed i've just played few minutes since i can't remap keys binding for an AZETY keyboard :(
Last edited by haiku on 20 July 2018 at 7:21 pm UTC
Last edited by haiku on 20 July 2018 at 7:21 pm UTC
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Quoting: hardpenguinTotally get all that, but I still thank asking for hundreds of thousands of sales on your first title is a bit of a stretch. From all the stories I've seen, the majority of developers go through many games before really getting somewhere. Not that it's a good state of things, but anyone who has done a bit of research is likely aware of that.Quoting: EikeDo you think? I guess 20.000 could be fine for such a game.
Quoting: liamdaweFor a still quite unknown indie game that only released a few months ago, the first game from this studio, seems like reasonable amount to me?
First of all, 20k copies isn't much with their price level. And the price can be even lower if you consider regional pricing. You have to subtract Valve's cut and taxes here. Then obviously you have to count the cost it took to make and maintain the game (salaries, contractors fees, office's rent - if they have one, etc) over the years. From their website we know that at least 5 people made the game, so that would be five salaries here, quite a burden.
Second of all, it's simple logic: for popular titles Linux percentage should be more like 1-2% or less (see Rust's numbers here on GOL. Because that's how Linux percentage on the market looks like (on Western market, excluding China that lowers the percentage). To put it shortly, high Linux percentage means they caught Linux users attention but failed to catch attention of mainstream. Not good.
It doesn't matter at all that is it their first release or that the title is rather niche. It's pure business. Games have to make money or the studio bankrupts or has to do contract work to stay afloat.
However, we have to keep in mind that the game also released on PS4 and Xbox One and is also planning to come to VR. That fragmentation should secure them alright-ish flow of money in a long run.
Tl;dr - making games costs a lot of money, go buy The Station to thank them for Linux support!
For their first title, I still think they did okay even taking all of that into account. Not amazing of course, but not completely terrible either. Even on games that don't usually sell a lot, the Linux percentage is rarely this high.
They did also get $15K from a Kickstarter as well.
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Well, let's be honest. They did it right.
One thing makes me angry. It's when some people releases their game on Windows and 3 three years later port it to Linux and starts to complain about Linux sales being low.
One thing makes me angry. It's when some people releases their game on Windows and 3 three years later port it to Linux and starts to complain about Linux sales being low.
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Quoting: liamdaweThey did also get $15K from a Kickstarter as well.
Having backed it on Kickstarter, I was not at all disappointed. I thought it was a very nicely done game.
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I have this but only got a little time to try it out and did not play it properly.
I am glad so many people bought it on Linux :)
Hopefully other devs will notice.
I am glad so many people bought it on Linux :)
Hopefully other devs will notice.
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They responded further, with 75% of sales actually being on console.
So Linux is 15% of 25% of 20,000. So the Linux percentage was good, but that does mean it sold poorly on Steam. Will issue an update when i'm at my PC.
So Linux is 15% of 25% of 20,000. So the Linux percentage was good, but that does mean it sold poorly on Steam. Will issue an update when i'm at my PC.
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Quoting: haikuWell, i'am disappointed i've played few minutes since i can't remap keys binging for an AZETY keyboard :(
I don't know which distro you use but at least on Ubuntu (Unity) you have an icon on system tray that allow you to switch from a keyboard layout to another (I use an AZERTY keyboard but switch to QWERTY layout before launching some games without key rebinding such as SuperHot and some others). I suppose that something similar is available on most distro / desktop environment (not an ideal solution, but it works). :)
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Quoting: GuestAverage Steam sales numbers were about 32,000 in 2015. It should be noted that now it's probably even lower due to the massive boom in Steam releases caused by Steam Direct.A wholly unscientific steamspy.com crawl seems to indicate that "0 .. 20,000" is actually the most common amount of sales for an indie game, even for games released well before Steam Direct.
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