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- GOG launch their Preservation Program to make games live forever with a hundred classics being 're-released'
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I just wanted to highlight an article by Kyle Pittman.
http://www.gamasutra.com/blogs/KylePittman/20141112/229946/When_quotDoing_Everything_Rightquot_Goes_Wrong.php
Pittman is the developer of "You Have to Win the Game" and, recently, "Super Win the Game".
For the latter see the GOL article:
http://www.gamingonlinux.com/articles/super-win-the-game-releases-today-for-linux.4388
The article above is NOT focused on Linux (rather on that it has been a commercial failure) but carries some interesting views about his upfront Linux work.
Putting the fifty sold Linux copies into perspective - using the total number of sales he talks about in the article - this comes down to 5-6%.
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I can imagine it to be hard with these sort of retro games though. I would think the mobile space plays a huge role in this. It's hard to sell a retro game at $12 when the same-ish thing or even more known franchises have game titles for $2-6 on the play store for android and I'm guessing the same is true for iOS.
It is cool he has worked out most of the cross platform stuff in his engine so at least future games will be much simpler to bring to multiple platforms. I understand he spent more time creating the port than copies he sold, but if you go with the "glass half full" train of thought he possibly has 50 more fans to help spread the word on his next game than he would have had otherwise.
I'm also curious to know why he chose to make his own engine for what is arguably a "simple" games when there are already fairly cheap, cross platform engines available. I'm assuming Unity would have worked well for this.
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It's a though market for indie games, and this one simply couldn't compete at this price-point. But even at a much lower one, I doubt it would have done very well, as it simply doesn't look like a very fun game. Pricing it this high, probably made people think it's a bad joke.
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Not entirely true - there is of course the entire Southern Hemisphere.
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Although, in the case of SWtG the fraction of Linux sales is significantly higher than the fraction of Linux users we know from the Steam survey, the low amount of total sales doesn't make the Linux effort to pay off (apparently).
I do think this is a serious issue and not just an anecdotal "bad luck" one as it may seem in the first place. There are many developers out there which are not long-term Linux users or love the platform. Quite the contrary is encountered often (from my experience). And that's fine. You don't have to be a Linux-guy. Most of them are doing Linux ports because Valve encouraged them to do so (Ref. Steam Dev Days, etc.). It's a business decision for most of them (I remember Kyle Pittman saying that at release time). Interpreting it as passion for the platform is not just wrong, it would be stupid. But again, that's fine. However, the consequence is, since many developers are small indies (think of Greenlight) and not AAA developers (that can safely expect to sell many copies and reach ROI for a Linux port) they are easily disappointed and probably scared away for good.
As for "Super Win the Game": I love it. It's great. *I* had more fun with it than with several other AAA games.
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I guess "Super" might work better as a mobile game (as someone already said before).