Steam goes Linux

Yes, they are only barely worth the money put into them

A major studio with a AAA title finding it's only barely worth it isn't going to be a big motivator for smaller companies to attempt the same. Expecting paper-thin margins at best doesn't get massive new undertakings approved.

Quoting kryo,

reply 1

Yes, they are only barely worth the money put into them
A major studio with a AAA title finding it's only barely worth it isn't going to be a big motivator for smaller companies to attempt the same. Expecting paper-thin margins at best doesn't get massive new undertakings approved.

Exactly, the problem is not so much a lack of users, the Linux desktop simply isn't a gold mine yet, so no one should expect a gold rush. What I do expect is that companies do reasoning like:

Option A:

Support just XP and Vista, excludes 20% of the market
Do not support on-board video cards, excludes 50% of the market
Require at least 1GB of memory, excludes 30% of market

Option B:

Support Win98, WinME, Win2000, XP, Vista, MacosX, Linux, excludes 2% of market
Invest in scaling down graphics to support most onboard video cards, excludes 5% of market
Optimize memory consumption to fit game in 512 MB, excludes 5% of market

Hmmm... To be succesfull option B may be necessary, but what is the additional cost?

As being discussed, the extra cost of the Mac+Linux part can both be very small as well as very high, mostly depending on the choice of API dependencies.

Actually I do expect smaller companies to move in quicker than big companies. Big ships turn slowly.

It's great to see a good, mature discussion about linux and pc gaming in general, and with the valuable comments of people from Stardock themselves. Hmm, most of the points they mention against linux support in games is uncertain returns of investment, and support problems. Arent these times times for breaking molds, and trying new ways ? Maybe the linux gaming market isnt as small, and it certainly is an untapped market, up for grabs right now. There are many good, quality opensourced/freesoftware games played by linux gamers, so the playerbase is there. In linux gaming community sites, the numbers speak for themselves. In all fairness, the linux gamers often say that honestly the level of support, and patch, bug fix, etc of these games (which include but not limited to: nexuiz, cube2, warzone2100, battle for wesnoth, etc) isnt the best, mostly because their dev teams work on their spare time. Another big complain is that there's a lack of good strategy games for them to play (see an opportunity here?) . And this notion that linux gamers wont pay for anything is wrong, and false. They would actually pay to support a commercially released quality game, specially if it's not the usual fast FPS game.

Maybe if stardock and it's affiliated game studios' development on their planned games has already began on DX, they could probably consider for their next releases, like their upcoming game Elemental: War of Magic, to start out with opengl instead? That way, they can achieve multiplatform support for their games easily.

3 days ago CCP announced that they won't support Eve Online on Linux anymore:

http://myeve.eve-online.com/devblog.asp?a=blog&bid=625

Probably Eve was one of the few MMORPGs working on Linux. I'm pretty sure CCP tried all they could to believe in the future of the Linux market, but in the end it wasn't profitable for them (and it didn't look like it was going to be profitable in the long term either).

Quoting Vicente,

reply 4

3 days ago CCP announced that they won't support Eve Online on Linux anymore:

http://myeve.eve-online.com/devblog.asp?a=blog&bid=625

Probably Eve was one of the few MMORPGs working on Linux. I'm pretty sure CCP tried all they could to believe in the future of the Linux market, but in the end it wasn't profitable for them (and it didn't look like it was going to be profitable in the long term either).

They didnt support linux at all in the first place. All they did was pay some 3rd party to improve WINE-support on their windows client, so they werent really committed to linux.

Quoting zndkwin,

reply 5

They didnt support linux at all in the first place. All they did was pay some 3rd party to improve WINE-support on their windows client, so they werent really committed to linux.

1) Better then, even without been really committed they weren't doing enough money. So imagine if they were committed...

2) You are disregarding too easily everything that goes tied to having your software in one platform: support, environment, people,... It's not, OpenGL and ta-da, magic.

Quoting Vicente,

reply 6

Quoting zndkwin,
reply 5

They didnt support linux at all in the first place. All they did was pay some 3rd party to improve WINE-support on their windows client, so they werent really committed to linux.

1) Better then, even without been really committed they weren't doing enough money. So imagine if they were committed...

If they were committed somebody would actually have used their Linux client. Again: Eve dropping the Linux support is not an argument against Linux support. It is just an argument against releasing crappy software that nobody would ever want on any platform.

Quoting kryo,

reply 1

Yes, they are only barely worth the money put into them

A major studio with a AAA title finding it's only barely worth it isn't going to be a big motivator for smaller companies to attempt the same. Expecting paper-thin margins at best doesn't get massive new undertakings approved.

I think you missed my point:
Have you ever tried to buy the Linux version of Quake or Doom? There are special Linux game vendors and as a customer I have to go through some trouble to get my sale to be registered as "Linux sale". And these Linux sales barely produce the cash that justifies the development of the Linux client (to my knowledge, I am not working at id so I can only write what I did read, I would be very happy if anybody could confirm this).
So having the Linux client is basically "for free" for them. But it has several advantages:
- It boosts the sales of the Windows version. People just get the shelf (Windows) version of the game and download the Linux client. The sale doesn't get registered as Linux sale but still the motivation could very well have been the existance of the Linux client. I'd expect a few percent of the "normal" customers to have the Linux client in mind when purchasing the game.
- Word of mouth. When GC2 came out StarDock was all about word of mouth. When the DRM debate startet and StarDock introduced its awesome no-DRM-policy they were all about word of mouth, telling everybody how it boosts sales and how satisfying your customers is totally worth it. Having a portable game that the user can run on any platform of his choice is exactly the same.
- Less risk. Portable code gives independance to developers. Who wouldn't want that?

As I said: Those benefits come for free since the Linux client did (barely) pay for itself. It shouldn't be released with the intention to make lots and lots of cash on its own. It should be released to provide honest customers with additional options - and isn't that what StarDock stands for? Which by the way is totally awesome for marketing - directly as well as word of mouth as mentioned earlier.

About the "it's only worth for an AAA title":
As StarDock claimed numerous times in the past (especially after the GC2 release), word of mouth is extremely important for small developers. They just can't get magazine coverage like AAA titles so they completely depend on it. Except for the DRM policy there is probably no better way to get the word out then good Linux support. The Linux community is extremely vocal. I'd argue that a Linux client for small developers is far more important then for big ones.

Well, instead of ID Software, why don't we look at World of Goo, as the Linux version of World of Goo has now been released.

I'm quite confident it will be success, the users were asking for it, it is a proper port, supports 32 & 64 bit Linux, it as easy to buy the Linux version as the Windows version, and existing customers can get the Linux version. And of course I'm putting my money where my mouth is: I did just order a copy.

Quoting dmantione,

reply 8

Well, instead of ID Software, why don't we look at World of Goo, as the Linux version of World of Goo has now been released.

When I see 2Dboys post about how sales of world of goo went up 20% because of the linux version, I'll believe you when you claim it was worth it. I doubt he'll even see a 2% increase because of it.

If sales would go up 2% that would be a victory for Linux, because that would be hard proof that Linux users are more likely to buy a game than Windows users, after all, most reports about Linux market share show the most likely desktop market share is somewhere around 1%. Let's wait and see, I think there is a good chance that it'll go over 2%.

I've been playing it for a few hours now, and the quality seems good. It worked right out of the box (just unpack tarball and start game) Video and audio smoothness is perfect. Just as it should be.

Quoting MegaVolt,

reply 7

If they were committed somebody would actually have used their Linux client. Again: Eve dropping the Linux support is not an argument against Linux support. It is just an argument against releasing crappy software that nobody would ever want on any platform.

Then why do they see the grow of users in their Mac client? Probably it's as crappy as their Linux client (and btw, several people in my corp played using the Linux client and were pretty happy in general with it).

Even for small indie developers, Linux is not very interesting in general (Mac is a far more interesting platform, even more than Windows sometimes). Or the XBox Live Community Games. Or the iPhone.

Interresting, people are blogging about this thread:

http://dbzer0.com/blog/heres-to-reaching-the-games-for-linux-tipping-point

Sometimes the only way for something to take off and become viable is for a big timer to take a risk, and make something for it. That is the situation Linux is in. Unless someone is willing to take a risk it is never going to take off as a gaming platform or even a common household OS. It is going to take a Valve, Epic, Bungie, or any studio/publisher that has a huge following to say to itself, "No matter what we are going to make tons of money off of this game, we should make a Linux version to test and expand the Linux market." That is the only way Linux will take off as a platform.

That's stated too strong. Linux is already a 10 digit $$ market, it doesn't need to take off, it did long ago. Linux is still hard to sell to "Joe User" that is looking for a new computer. That's the main problem, but it will happen. Joe User did not have problems with Linux based Eeepc and clones. Once the so called "network effects" of the Windows platform have been cleaned up, Linux will take off for Joe User as well.

Linux is already a 10 digit $$ market

Maybe so, but redhat and similar companies selling support services to large corporations (that being where all that money comes from) is very different from there being any significant amount of profitable consumer software.

I agree about the "consumer software"; this has a lot to do with Linux still being hard to sell to "Joe User" at the moment. But if you think the Linux market is all about Red Hat selling support, you are mistaken. If we look at desktop applications, we see the money in applications not for Joe User. Companies, like Ansys, Simulia, PTC, make a lot of money by selling specialized applications that are best run on Linux for technical reasons. If you've ever seen the car industry, media industry, weather forecasting, it's Linux all around.

Then, Linux, being preferred for servers, had made a huge market for server software. Oracle, DB2, and so on. And of course there are countless companies developing server side application software, from simple web site development to complex applications backends. Including the games market, since many popular massive muliplayer on-line games run on Linux based servers. Linux is a thriving, prospering branch of the software industry.

Quoting MegaVolt,

reply 23

Quoting Sarah Hayes,
reply 22
Keep in mind, the Linux community tends to be "all mouth and no trousers", we want the moon on a stick and when someone gives it to us we complain it's not quite the nicest stick around then put the boot in (see EVE:Online cancelling Linux support).

That's kind of a bad example. The Eve Online Linux client totally sucked. It was more a turd on a stick and surprisingly nobody liked it. The Windows client worked perfectly with Wine and Linux, the official Linux client didn't even support the premium content. So in the end on Linux people used the Windows client with Wine instead of the Linux one because their Linux client was really crappy.
A bad piece of software did not do well on Linux. Yes, that's the way it should be. But it says absolutely nothing about Linux as gaming platform.
This reminds me a little bit of the first PCs that were shipped with Linux. Vendors were not sure if it will sell well. So they put it on some crappy PC with crappy hardware that didn't even cost less then the Windows alternative and was in no way a good offer, no matter with what software it shipped. And obviously nobody bought that PC. And then they said: "Hey, look here, nobody is buying the Linux PC. Obviously nobody wants Linux on their PCs!".
Yes, nobody wanted the crappy Eve client. Not because nobody wants to play on Linux but simply because it was crappy.

Whilst I agree the Linux client did indeed suck more than my Dyson, the problem to my mind is that for several years people wanted Linux support. The old "if you make it, they will come" line of thinking, so a company decided to do just that. My line of thought was "Yes, this sucks. But I want to see more support for Linux appearing so I'll put up with it." It would have been much better to use the client and make it known you want feature compliance with Windows than the Death Star sized bitching that actually happened.

How these things are interpreted by other comapnies is important. If EVE:Linux had been worth the cost then we might of seen other MMO's start to do similar things, eventually, possibly native clients appearing. And where the MMO's go and show money being made you can bet your bottom dollar the likes of EA will follow. As it currently stands, CCP dipped a toe in the water and found it to be not profitable, the crapness of the client is irrelevant when you look at it that way.

Quoting MegaVolt,

reply 23

Look at id Software for example. They produce working Linux clients for their games. And they are successful! Yes, they are only barely worth the money put into them, but they manage to (barely) pull it off. Direct Linux-sales make the profit so the Linux client is worth it. Not included are the countless people who buy the "normal" shelf version and play it with the Linux client (which can be downloaded for free) and not included is the positive effect the existence of the Linux client has on marketing (word of mouth in the Linux community influencing Windows players to buy the game).

So if it works for id Software, if they are able to get the cash needed for the Linux client from additional sales and then are able to get the other benefits (marketing etc) for free, why shouldn't it work for everybody else? All it takes is OGL/SDL support right from the start.

Whilst id is good in the Linux client for their games I have to wonder if they do it more to showcase the capabilities of their graphics engine then actual money making. After all it was built to have a modular output API so swap DLL and it speaks OGL/SDL/DX in effect. They were quite honest that Doom 3 and such were more to sell the engine to other companies than actually provide a game.

Quoting mickeko,

reply 9

When I see 2Dboys post about how sales of world of goo went up 20% because of the linux version, I'll believe you when you claim it was worth it. I doubt he'll even see a 2% increase because of it.

Did I hear anyone say 40%

Quoting db0,

reply 18

Did I hear anyone say 40%

Here a little more detail, from the 2dboy website:

Update 4: It’s only been 2 days since the release of the Linux version and it already accounts for 4.6% of the full downloads from our website. Our thanks to everyone who’s playing the game on Linux and spreading the word. Here are a couple of nifty stats:

About 12% of Linux downloads are of the .rpm package, 30% are of the .tar.gz package, and 57% are of the .deb package.
More copies of the game were sold via our website on the day the Linux version released than any other day. This day beat the previous record by 40%. There is a market for Linux games after all

Does it get any more awesome then this? A whoppin 40% increase in sales and the Linux client also made 4.6% of total sales within only 2 days. To any StarDock official who has posted in this topic: Is that proof enough?

That's fantastic news, I'm happy to have been proven wrong! It's a VERY reasonably priced game though, which can't be said about all games... Future will tell.

Just to be clear: The 40% is not only a "normal" increase in sales. The day of the Linux release, more stuff was sold then any other day. It was not simply an increase in sales of 40%, the previous record of maximum sales per day was beaten by 40%.

This means that at the day of the Linux release at least 40% more copies were sold then on the day of the Windows release! Despite the fact that the Windows release was a lot earlier, which usually means more sales.

It basically doesn't get more awesome then this. 1% market share? In your face!

Now the only question to be asked is: Will other game developers learn this lesson? Will they take a slice of this obviously giant pie or will they be afraid of new markets? The general problem in economics is that new markets / opportunities are risky and therefor considered to be dangerous. Especially the big companies want things to stay as they are, no change means easy profit. The RIAA is one of the prime examples how this "we want to force everything to stay like it is because we don't want to adept our business model" can fail. So will PC game developers change and embrace new opportunities? Or will they try to force the "old ways" and ultimately have a hard and painful downfall like the RIAA is currently experiencing?

I've noticed that World of Goo is available through Impulse. The game is known to have a proper linux version. I would buy World of Goo through Impulse if your distribution system worked on Linux. I live in a country discriminated by PayPal and can't purchase World of Goo.

Sins of the Solar Empire has 'gold' rating on wine appdb, meaning it works very well when emulated. Another reason for making Linux version of Impulse available.

http://appdb.winehq.org/objectManager.php?sClass=version&iId=12495

I understand that declaring official support for another operating system like Linux is a commitment and responsibility you may not want until it's apparent that investing in linux games pay off. But you could employ a 'stealthy' approach, like Blizzard allegedly does. Blizzard games, most notably WOW, Warcraft3, Starcraft, Diablo all work very well in wine (gold rating). Blizzard allegedly had (has?) an internal linux version of Warcraft3, which is used to make sure the game is compatible with wine. As stated by someone else, linux users are used to helping themselves and spread tips on how to get these games running, even though there's no official support. The end result is that Blizzard doesn't have to commit to any official support, and more technically-minded and determined players are able to get Blizzard games running on Linux. This means extra customers.

I would be happy with official release of Steam for Linux - because any new Linux games are good. But I would be even happier if it was Impulse, not Steam. I'm allergic to DRM.

---------------------

To Stardock employees:

I must say I'm pleasantly surprised by your activity in this thread, your rational stance and providing straightforward responses and explainations. Many game developers simply ignore 'Linux threads' and don't even deign to repply. This gives me hope that eventually you will support Linux as well - once it reaches critical mass, as we all know it will. It's good to know you're not against Linux on principle.

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