Dev of crowdfunded WW1 survival-horror game CONSCRIPT cancels Linux and macOS versions

If you were an original Kickstarter backer who was expecting a Mac or Linux version, feel free to reach out to me via Kickstarter DM and I can organize a refund for you out of pocket.

we have to respect this one.

I can organize a refund for you out of pocket.

Out of pocket? I had to check the definition of this to make sure it meant what I thought it meant, and it does - "having lost money in a transaction"

They aren't losing money in this transaction, they are just returning it to the person who gave it to them in return for a Linux version.

the issue is that, probably they already spend some money trying to port to linux, then gave up when they come to the conclusion it would be more expensive than they thought, and now they are refunding it, so all the money they spent on it was for nothing.

A lot of people say they don't like Linux because they can't play their games. Then devs do this stuff and nobody complains. Game development is hard work and I sympathize with any dev who needs to make a full experience from the ground up. But come on. You make a promise to get money and then break it because you will lose money is just pure wrong. Also, developers have been making cross-platform software for decades, if you're making a promise like this keep cross-platform practices in mind and maybe you won't have to worry so much about "market share".

they probably cant do that because nowadays developers dont control the full software stack, they rely on game engines to do the job for then, and more often than not those are proprietary and dont have proper linux support.

you dont need to be an good programer to be a good game designer, who knows maybe they are great game designers but suck at code, at least with modern engines they can do something.

This is one of the several reasons why I despise Kickstarter projects like this because they try to promise something but cancel it at the last minute due to reasons. In the case of this project, the developer should've known that macOS and Linux don't have larger player bases like Windows and shouldn't have offered those versions if they've never done it before.

the whole point of kickstarter supose to be "do something you never done before"
if an company made games in the past, then they can use the money from the same to do another game.
i know we had some star projects like might n9 (cough cough) , blood stained and yooka layle, but those were the exception, the rule should be give power to the indies to do their first game...

There, another crook to blacklist.


Last edited by rea987 on 31 May 2024 at 6:49 am UTC

Kickstarter backing always sounded like one of those first-world people things, a concept a couple steps away from something like donating to twitch streamers; a total waste of money.

Woke up on the wrong side of the bed or something?

Giving money to people whose content you enjoy (for whatever reason, you do you) is not a waste of money.
It's no different from going to a bar and *gasp* paying for your drink or paying for a movie or a game because you enjoy those things.

i know we had some star projects like might n9 (cough cough) ,

I was one of the idiots who backed this one... Luckily I only threw in a fiver, but yikes, what an embarrassing mess that whole thing turned out to be! At least people came out of it wiser about Keiji Inafune being a credit-stealing glory-hound (the claims of him having created something he didn't were basically how he duped fans of the sorts of games he was aiming to create a spiritual-successor to).

Lesson learned right there.


Last edited by Pengling on 31 May 2024 at 12:32 pm UTC

I thought it was ROSETTA, but that's not the name Apple uses in its announcement.

Rosetta was the tool used when Apple moved from PowerPC to x86 in 2006. It was invisible to the user, and from what little I understand was fairly similar in principle to what we know on Linux with Proton today, but it wasn't gaming-specific.

It is also what they call the newer one that's x86_64 to ARM, which is why they dropped 32bit x86 stuff. It doesn't translate 32bit software over.

I have this feeling that there has been a shift over the years when it comes to this stuff. Some time ago, when someone cancelled their promise of a version of the game for an OS, they would just cancel the Linux version but they'd usually still do the Mac version. These days, they cancel Linux and MacOS if they're going to cancel at all. I'm not sure that's good, misery loves company maybe? but it's different.

I have a growing theory that a lot of these are actually being canceled by publishers who want deals with Microsoft or Sony... The amusing thing is that Linux users/developers have worked their way around such exclusivity with Wine based solutions. Apple on the other hand... basically depend on those same Wine-devs even to the point to incorporate Crossover into their Game Porting Tool (or whatever that thing is called).

I recently was having the conversation about Valheim, which is apparently developed on a Linux system (which explains why it supports OpenGL or Vulkan) and there is no Mac version. After Apple dropped all 32bit support and more or less killed support for vast swaths of games with that move, I can't imagine anyone else really trusts Apple to do good for gamers in general. So, it's no surprise that publishers/devs are dropping Mac support. They also figure 'Proton will let Linux users play the game' which is why some believe Proton is dangerous to the Linux ecosystem. I think Proton serves it's purpose (as older games for sure would never be ported) but I still maintain most newer games should be cross-platform.

The name of the "game porting toolkit" is literally "game porting toolkit" I thought it was ROSETTA, but that's not the name Apple uses in its announcement.
They also have a Direct3d to metal converter, a shader recompiler and a wayy to slick video trilogy.
It's actually quite funny.
They treat the developers as they would treat their users, little real information, slick interfaces, great marketing and acceptable underlying products.
Also they're a status symbol, so your game is in the marketing consistently a "high-end" game.

Ha, yeah, they call it the 'Game porting toolkit' and I put that in quotes because it's not really porting the game, but is more like how Wine works... literally being based on Crossover/Wine. Though I'm assuming it mixes Rosetta in there for some of the CPU translation layer. I'm not sure how much of that is the open source stuff from Wine, or how much is just Apple code though...

I have this feeling that there has been a shift over the years when it comes to this stuff. Some time ago, when someone cancelled their promise of a version of the game for an OS, they would just cancel the Linux version but they'd usually still do the Mac version. These days, they cancel Linux and MacOS if they're going to cancel at all. I'm not sure that's good, misery loves company maybe? but it's different.

It's not really good, no. In the old days, avoiding platform-specific lock-in and having an OpenGL render path got you Linux and Mac. Ditching Linux but keeping Mac was a specific "we love those turtle necks, but fuck those weirdy-beardy Linux folks." Now, Mac work doesn't help Linux work at all - if you can avoid single-platform stuff and use Vulkan for both Windows and Linux you still need an entirely separate render path for Mac. And Mac has a smaller share than Linux. Making a Mac build but not a Linux build (which people still do) is quite misguided. So we get "fuck those weirdy-beardy Linux folks, and fuck those turtle necks: we're perfectly comfortable with Microsoft having a monopoly on the platform we can be bothered with" instead. Macs using Vulkan and not destroying their share of the gaming market would have been much better for us.

Tack onto that the move to ARM for Macs... so not only have they isolated themselves by not supporting Vulkan/OpenGL anymore, but currently supporting two architectures... Plus their ditching of 32bit kind of lends itself to believing that Apple will just drop some other support (like X86_64) some point soon, and you have developers just not wanting to support it.

At this point, supporting a Mac is probably similar to trying to support your game on the Switch, or PS5, etc. But at least the PS5/Xbox is still the same architecture as most computers.

Nah, with switch support you're quite certain the current config will stay supported.
With Mac support you can only speculate what will be dropped next.
I predict the next one will be the current screen proportions.
Also here is an example of something everyone(including consoles) supports except Apple: direct syscalls.
It's explicitly unsupported(you're supposed to use Apple libraries instead) and as such they often include or deprecate syscalls.

The reason I said it's similar to support the Switch and Apple is they are both ARM architecture, so you'd have to port any CPU specific code over. Sure, the shaders, and 3d stuff would all be similar to all the other platforms using opengl / vulkan.

It is also what they call the newer one that's x86_64 to ARM, which is why they dropped 32bit x86 stuff. It doesn't translate 32bit software over.

I did not know that! Thanks for the info. I haven't been a Mac user for a loooooong time now, so I haven't kept up; When I last was, the original Rosetta was still current!


Last edited by Pengling on 31 May 2024 at 3:56 pm UTC

Ha, yeah, they call it the 'Game porting toolkit' and I put that in quotes because it's not really porting the game, but is more like how Wine works... literally being based on Crossover/Wine. Though I'm assuming it mixes Rosetta in there for some of the CPU translation layer. I'm not sure how much of that is the open source stuff from Wine, or how much is just Apple code though...

It also can't be used for any actual released games; it's for internal demonstration purposes only.

i know we had some star projects like might n9 (cough cough) ,

I was one of the idiots who backed this one... Luckily I only threw in a fiver, but yikes, what an embarrassing mess that whole thing turned out to be! At least people came out of it wiser about Keiji Inafune being a credit-stealing glory-hound (the claims of him having created something he didn't were basically how he duped fans of the sorts of games he was aiming to create a spiritual-successor to).

Lesson learned right there.

never blame the victim.
you werent an idiot, and didnt had any good reason to suspect anything.

never blame the victim.
you werent an idiot, and didnt had any good reason to suspect anything.

I take responsibility for my mistakes, though, and due to previous industry knowledge I should've known better. Really, I can laugh at myself for this - and I think most people who backed it can, since they gave us the choice to not attach our real names to it and most of us chose that!

And one more time, don't pre-order anything. The warnings are there for anyone to see.

hear hear

For what it's worth, the developer elaborated a bit more on the process behind the decision in this comment on Kickstarter.

So in that comment/update, dev claims the game has 100,000 wishlists on Steam and a mere 500 are from Linux and Mac combined. I don't know man... that doesn't sound right.

I wonder if the operating-system count for Steam wishlists that the developer cites is accurate? I tend to wishlist games from my browser, and buy them through the actual Steam client. Hence, my Linux usage is counted in purchases, but is it counted when I just wishlist a game?

I've been a happy backer of many Kickstarter campaigns for books, comics, tabletop games, film, music, and live theater. But I categorically refuse to pay for crowdfunding or early access video games, because it seems way too risky. I also don't go through video games very quickly and have a massive backlog, so having fewer games to choose from is not a problem for me.

Not so strange that only 0.6% of Linux and macOS users wishlisted the game when it's listed as Windows only on Steam though?

Not so strange that only 0.6% of Linux and macOS users wishlisted the game when it's listed as Windows only on Steam though?

Self-fulfilling prophecy, or convenient get-out?

And this is exactly why

Not so strange that only 0.6% of Linux and macOS users wishlisted the game when it's listed as Windows only on Steam though?

Self-fulfilling prophecy, or convenient get-out?

Kinda both, but I don't think it really matters.

It just proves what I always say: Platform support as a KS stretch goal just makes no sense whatsoever, as it is not a flat amount of money to be paid and then it's done, but it is a constant maintenance, which WILL add up to more than the meager amount almost always asked in these goals.

Porting costs would exceed 20k easily. Then you have QA costs that inflate the budget even more.

Because this has been a 7 year development and I’m a solo developer on my first game, the priorities had to change and I hope that’s understandable. Once console ports started becoming a possibility, the priorities shifted towards those 5 extra platforms instead of 2 platforms that will generate $2k between them if I’m lucky.

Exactly that. He might be wrong about the low income from Mac/Linux if there were ports, but it's fairly clear it wouldn't cover the initial porting + additional maintenance & QA cost.

This is definitely a failure of mine, I own it and I’ll take it on the chin. I should have organized the initial campaign with a little more foresight into the market and how things were trending.

And he's right with this, as well.
He made a mistake and owns it. Fair enough, really.

That's my big issue with a lot of KS, though - devs who clearly did not do any research other than "how to have my KS page look and make a video".


Last edited by TheSHEEEP on 2 June 2024 at 7:00 am UTC