BYTEPATH, a retro arcade shooter with a skill-tree inspired by Path of Exile has now been out for a whole year, so the developer has shared some details on how it went.
BYTEPATH is a replayable arcade shooter with a focus on varied play styles with RPG elements. The game has a huge passive skill tree, classes and different ships through which you'll be able to try out lots of different builds to achieve ever increasing high scores and eventually beat the game.
Expect BYTEPATH to be a mix of Bit Blaster XL and Path of Exile, created with the intention of expanding Bit Blaster XL's relaxing and addictive gameplay with Path of Exile's build depth, build diversity and RPG elements.
If you've never seen it before, take a look at the trailer:
Direct Link
The developer has been regularly posting on GitHub, using it much like a blog to detail how everything went. I especially liked their developer tutorial series, giving a look at how it was all developed.
In one such post on that GitHub, the developer shared some sales shots like this:
Going by what that shows, it didn't exactly sell a huge amount across an entire year. It's a pretty niche game though, so this was to be expected. In a longer post on GitHub made earlier, the developer mentioned their original goal was simply to get the $100 fee back from Steam. To do this, they needed to sell at least 500 copies at $2 each to make $1000 to actually be eligible to get the $100 entry fee back. Obviously they exceeded that, hitting over 5,000 copies sold.
What the image tells us about Linux, is a similar story to Rise to Ruins, that Linux doesn't sell well in the Chinese market. Again here, Linux sold at a rate of around 6.84% which is well above the current Linux market share on Steam (0.82%). One thing I do find interesting, is that across that year Linux by itself nearly hit that 500 mark they wanted.
If you want to pick up a copy, you can do so on Steam.
Article taken from GamingOnLinux.com.
gradyvuckovic Feb 25, 2019
If you want to see Linux succeed and you're a gamer on Steam, buy buy buy! Grab all those native Linux games. Hopefully by being generous with our wallets we can make up for our smaller userbase and devs will recognise that we're worth selling games to even if we're a smaller number of users on Steam.
Quoting: gradyvuckovicIf you want to see Linux succeed and you're a gamer on Steam, buy buy buy! Grab all those native Linux games. Hopefully by being generous with our wallets we can make up for our smaller userbase and devs will recognise that we're worth selling games to even if we're a smaller number of users on Steam.I get the sentiment, but that would mean that each Linux gamer would have to spend multiple times more money than the average user on Steam. Even if we did, that would not be an accurate representation of the market. The only way to make it work is to grow our numbers instead.
When Steam for Linux just launched, I bought basically anything I could get my hands on, because I was so excited about it. But here I am 6 years later, and I have still not played many of those games from the first wave. In fact, I had to considerably cut down on the amount of games I purchase, not because I could not afford it, but because I started feeling stressed knowing that there is no way for me to actually play all of them.
Then I watched this review and immediately wishlisted it. :)
Quoting: pageroundIf the global average of Linux players is 0.8% and only half of the games sold support Linux, then you would expect sales for the half that supports Linux to be 2* 0.8 ~= 1.6%. Maybe a little less now due to steam play.
I think that we have probably already reached the point where offer largely exceeds demand (your point should be valid only if demand exceeds offer). :)
Perkeleen_Vittupää Feb 25, 2019
Quoting: liamdaweWhat the image tells us about Linux, is a similar story to Rise to Ruins, that Linux doesn't sell well in the Chinese market.
Quoting: pbI think we have enough proof now that the Linux percentage throughout Steam is held back by the rising Chinese market with their cheap OEM Windows on every device. :-(I think it's also interesting to note that in this case, the game sold noticeably more in Japan, with even fewer Linux copies there (who is that one guy indeed :P). Even though China is a more populated market, its influence is not as weighty for this particular game.
Quoting: SpykerI think we need the equivalent of GamingOnLinux in French, to spread the word about Linux gaming here in France (u_u)There was jeuxlinux.fr, but though it's still online it stopped updating around the time Steam for Linux came out, oddly. I don't know if it's just a coincidence or they couldn't keep up with the sudden influx and/or felt Linux gaming was now doing well enough that it didn't need extra coverage.
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