Details on how Slay the Spire sold on Linux plus some thoughts

Quoting: toojaysWhy were they surprised? What were they expecting, and why? These numbers are very close to the Steam hardware survey. Surely a very popular cross-platform game with low system requirements should more-or-less mirror the state of the market?

As the article notes, many other developers of similar games (well, indie games, I mean) tend to report much, much higher percentages, usually in the 3-10% region. For example: https://www.gamingonlinux.com/articles/the-developer-of-rise-to-ruins-has-shared-some-linux-sales-and-players-data.11300, which also links to other examples.

Could just be that when an Indie game becomes truly popular, it's because the Windows AAA crowd has picked it up, so we get squashed back down to the 1% mark. Maia has sold around 100K copies, but that's only a tenth of Slay's sales. Which makes sense when you consider that 4.4% of Maia's 100K would be around 5000 sales, roughly in line with Slay's 0.5% of 1M sales (i.e. 5K), or 2.6% of Rise to Ruins 250K sales (i.e. 6.5K).

[Edit: fix link]


Last edited by scaine on 4 February 2019 at 11:35 am UTC

Basically the numbers say that Slay the Spire only attracted 0.3% of the Linux people on Steam. Which, considering the high quality of this game, seems like a rather low number indeed. This is roughly confirmed by the lower than average ownership in my Steam friends list.

So it seems that this game doesn't appeal to Linux users as much as others do. I can't quite put my finger on the "why" though.

I have not bought the game because it is priced above my “I'm willing to buy a Steam version” price point which is about 8 €.

If the game was released on Itch or GOG I would buy it ASAP, although I'm still not convinced that I would enjoy it more than Dicey Dungeons which is somewhat similar and seems to offer a little more control for the player.

Quoting: Guest

Quoting: theghostA lot of Linux people are used Wine anyway before Proton to play their Windows games on Linux via Steam.
Also a lot of people requested and wished a Wine friendly integration into Linux Steam.

That's another thing. Most people here care more about gaming than about linux. I.e., they rather use windows/wine/proton than not playing a game. So such a step from Valve is sort-of logical.
I just note that this is not going to increase the linux count (unless Steam has a mechanism to count games played via proton as 'linux' and/or pushes developers to make sure their game runs fine with it, and give the support for that). And it won't increase the number of native Linux titles either - on the contrary, as has already been shown by titles revoking the native port in favor of proton.

QuoteEven if this doesn't increase user base, it benefits Linux users, which is good thing.

Well, some Linux users. I personally benefit neither from steam nor from proton....

It was confirmed from the first day by Valve to me, that Steam Play sales count as Linux. See the bottom update here.

And to be clear, the number of titles removing native support in favour of Proton you can count on one hand and that's over the course of five months.


Last edited by Liam Dawe on 4 February 2019 at 11:55 am UTC

Quoting: GuestWell, some Linux users. I personally benefit neither from steam nor from proton....

But you might use Wine or the SDL as well?
Maybe your using RADV/ANV, Mesa or Vulkan?
If so, you also benefit from Valve's work for Proton.

Quoting: EhvisBasically the numbers say that Slay the Spire only attracted 0.3% of the Linux people on Steam. Which, considering the high quality of this game, seems like a rather low number indeed. This is roughly confirmed by the lower than average ownership in my Steam friends list.

So it seems that this game doesn't appeal to Linux users as much as others do. I can't quite put my finger on the "why" though.

The game looks good, but there is no way I'm paying $25 for it. Also, computer card games might be a niche that just happens to be sparsely populated by Linux players due to the fact that we don't have many of these available natively.


Last edited by pb on 4 February 2019 at 12:20 pm UTC

Quoting: please_use_plain_text

QuoteAlso, this is only on Steam and so it's not counting Humble Store where it's also sold.

That makes me wonder how a Steam key activation is counted

Unfortunately, they are not. I asked a developer friend (just yesterday I finally got an answer) and Steamworks shows very little information about keys. Apparently, just total activation and geographic spread of those activations.

I think in the past, publishers probably got a disproportionate sales boost from a Linux version. It still might not have been huge, but it would be more than our overall market share might suggest because, with so few games available to us, a larger proportion of us would buy it than Windows or Mac users. But I expect that's not the case any more, especially since Proton. It shouldn't really be a surprise to see sales falling back.

And let's not forget that because we're still a very small market, it's fair to assume that, as a group, we have different tastes to the mainstream. Some games will sell better on Linux than others, relative to other platforms.

Quoting: EhvisSo it seems that this game doesn't appeal to Linux users as much as others do. I can't quite put my finger on the "why" though.

Precisely my point. I'd actually have expected it to be a fairly “Linux-ey” game. But that's just because it seems quite geeky. Maybe it's actually the opposite, and we Linux types like to escape from nerd-dom in our gaming. :)

I'm pretty shocked by this revelation. My money would be on 2% of sales or higher.

Regarding the price, many of the purchasers of Slay The Spire bought it whilst it was in Early Access, myself included. It has only just recently reached full release status (approx 3 weeks ago).

Some of my reasoning:
- It is the sort of game which would appeal to Linux gamers.
- It was available as a Linux native version practically during Day One of Early Access (and has been ever since).
- The price wasn't as high as it is now, during the Early Access period. ( I picked it up for approx $10 )
- It has been reported as working on Linux, and given great reviews on this very Linux-centric gaming website.
- It isn't really a game which is going to be bought by the Chinese market (primarily Windows users).
- We've had reports of other native Linux games doing far better than Steam's hardware statistics.
- It'll run on a potato, which is good for the not-so-gaming-oriented Linux crowd.

Even the Mac sales seems a bit "off" to me. The fact that it is able to run on a potato means it is good for all those Macbooks with low-spec graphics.

Thanks for asking Mega Crit, the developers about this. Don't suppose they shared any hours of gaming per platform data (or equivalent)?

Quoting: KlaasI have not bought the game because it is priced above my “I'm willing to buy a Steam version” price point which is about 8 €.

If the game was released on Itch or GOG I would buy it ASAP, although I'm still not convinced that I would enjoy it more than Dicey Dungeons which is somewhat similar and seems to offer a little more control for the player.

Welcome to GOL! If you liked Dicey Dungeons, you'll absolutely love Slay the Spire. I can tell you that while I played all the characters in Dicey once (and once only) in about 5 or 6 hours (being generous, it was probably less), I'm still playing Slay the Spire after nearly 100 hours.

I paid $7.50, plus $2 tip, plus $2 VAT for Dicey. That's roughly £8.50 in UK money. Meanwhile, I played £12 for Slay the Spire in November last year. It's since gone up to £19.50. Dicey will also go up in price when it releases, although I admit that Slay's jump was quite large.

So, I suppose that even at the more expensive price point, I'm getting way more than twice the value for Slay than I got from Dicey.

I'll go back to Dicey eventually, it's awesome. But it doesn't (yet) have the staying power that Slay's demonstrated.