Bearded Giant Games open their own store with a 'Linux First Initiative'

It's either going to be the developers maintaining multiple avenues of builds and communication or it's going to be the consumers. As the buyer, I now have to look for new patches and information from many sources. For example, I have a few itch.io games that I forget I even already own because I simply don't open the app every day.

Hopefully all these stores broadcast their important stuff on at least one of the mainstream media like Twitter so we can organize ourselves a bit while not being in the dark too long.

Just wondering, how such a small store will handle stuff like taxes in places (e.g. some EU countries) where it is up to a seller to pay them?

Nevertheless, I am glad to see "Linux First" in games and even own store. Sure, so far for only games from one studio (one dev?), but that could evolve. I wish them luck :).

Nice to see you do a report on this, glad you caught it I was about to get in touch about this with you on the Discord server. This will be interesting to see how it goes form them.

Well, normally I would say this isn't going to work. But then there's this:

QuoteI can lower my expectations and sales goals.

OK. If lowering sales is the objective, then sure, I think this will be a success! :D

Direct selling only works if the dev is responsible.
Steam is a third party that could control the dev in the case they goes rogue and it happens often.

Quoting: ZapaI just want to focus more on making my games rather than trying to please Steam's algorithm or having to spend too much money on marketing and driving traffic. The whole point is to grow slow and not depend on my games performing well. I could do the same on Steam and Itch however in the long run, by doing it on my own store front, I can actually grow my own stuff and not be dependent on someone else's platform.

Ogh and keep 98% of the revenue, learn more things about marketing and be directly in contact with my customers and fan base.

You have to please someone else algorithm always, you have to program your game according to the OS standards and requirements. you have to do your website according what browsers ask you, etc, that sensation of freedom is just too fake unless you develop your own environment from the ground and that is almost impossible by the time required.

Its funny because youll need to waste money to drive traffic to your website and once you get tired of seeing that attending customers is a 24/7 labor youll be looking for a way to simplify the customer service, being in contact with your player base could take you time from development.

Im a website developer and I did think like this once, that my customers who works on hosting doesnt need Airbnb, Expedia or any other directory and renting service, its cool to think that way but then somehow, somewhere, you'll be hitting a wall called reality.

I understand why people distrust to reserve directly from the website of the owner of the hotel/cabin, refund and reviewing are totally controlled by the owner of the site. In this case I dont think its any different, the owner of this site can control what I can say on his site and if I dont like one of his games Ill see this love relation between customer/developer going to a end.

As a customer I can understand why people prefer to use GOG/Steam/Origin to buy, I never use dev websites to buy anything, just to inform myself about the game.

Quoting: eldakingNow, this is a store that actually holds any interest for us Linux gamers. Unlike Epic's, which is Windows-only, full of exclusives that only run on Windows, but maybe might be considering Linux if we interpret a vague and non-commital reference to "other open platforms" as meaning Linux.

Unfortunately, the smaller scale of this kind of store has some disadvantages... for example, lack local pricing/local payment methods, which are a big thing to some of us. And it might be a minor inconvenience to not use the same platform, though I don't think it is a big deal. But still better than moving into bigger but inferior and annoying platforms like Origin or UPlay.

It's sad that EA don't embrace Linux as TitanFall 2 was written using Source, Origin is written in Qt and apparently DICE love Linux. It would be so easy for them to port their games over.

If I ever make a game of my own, I'll only actually distribute a launcher to each platform. That launcher will then take care of actually downloading/patching the game. Sure, it would mean having to maintain my own server(s), but I've been using Amazon S3 & AWS (and other providers) for quite a while now... it's not that difficult.

Seems to be the only way to prevent having to maintain different builds across the various platforms, each with their own uploading, etc.
Also has the added benefit of being able to serve as a built-in mod-manager.


Last edited by TheSHEEEP on 15 December 2018 at 8:36 am UTC

Quoting: devnull

Quoting: liamdawe

Quoting: MacabreHeartDirect selling worked for very few games which is why we have the distrubution platforms we have.

I will argue that point. We have what we have today all because of Steam, as they basically forced it requiring it for certain games and features and eventually expanded and it eventually became a standard. Not because direct selling didn't work.

Interesting idea except there are many games not on steam which do the same lockin crap. I doubt for example Valve told Epic to enable analytics in Unity. I don't think Steam collects anywhere near the crap other platforms do.

The fun fact about analytics is they are always shown in a positive light because there will always be software that sells, and yes, some of them will enable such things. Doesn't mean the analytics aided those sales in any way, you still need a product worth buying. Point is the marketing mindset to collect data about everything a user does, did NOT come from Steam nor Valve. If anything I'd blame Apple, Google, Microsoft, etc.

Not really sure what you're getting at here. Valve and Epic have nothing to do with Unity for starters. On top of that, what we're talking about here is an entirely different argument to analytics gathering.

Quoting: GuestAny loss in potential sale by not being on Steam is quite probably worth it to be honest - and indeed, might even be made up for by those people who will now buy it because DRM-free and don't buy through Steam on principle.

Honestly, that is a hopelessly idealistic view on things and has little to do with reality.
Sure, a few will prefer a game if it can be bought somewhere that isn't Steam, and some other few might find it on Steam and then buy it from the homepage as a means to support the dev better. But most gamers won't even bother to look for a game anywhere outside of Steam, and for those, if it isn't on Steam, it doesn't exist.

Almost everyone selling their game not only on Steam can tell you that their own homepage sales are but a minor fraction of overall sales.
The only exceptions are really big ones like Minecraft, etc.

Of course, being on Steam alone is worth nothing these days - not since they opened the store to everyone. Still, not being on Steam is simply a bad business move.

Quoting: TheSHEEEPIf I ever make a game of my own, I'll only actually distribute a launcher to each platform. That launcher will then take care of actually downloading/patching the game. Sure, it would mean having to maintain my own server(s), but I've been using Amazon S3 & AWS (and other providers) for quite a while now... it's not that difficult.

Seems to be the only way to prevent having to maintain different builds across the various platforms, each with their own uploading, etc.
Also has the added benefit of being able to serve as a built-in mod-manager.

Or perhaps why not create a cross-distribution build platform that can build and handle the distribution to steam, gog, itch.io and so on. Could potentially by worth some real money for game devs?!