Linux Gamers Command 90% Of Initial Unigine OilRush Sales

Less than twenty-four hours ago Unigine opened up pre-ordering for their first game, OilRush, which is an impressive real-time strategy game that offers very impressive graphics from their advanced, multi-platform engine. While pre-orders have just got started -- and with beta access for those who pay the $20 USD / 15 EUR cost for the game -- here's some very early statistics.

The interesting news: In the first day of OilRush pre-orders, Linux sales have accounted for approximately 90% of the orders thus far. Denis Shergin, the CEO of Unigine Corp, had just shared these statistics with me in an instant message. Ninety percent of the sales thus far is quite impressive for the Linux gaming community considering the overall Linux desktop/gaming market-share is incredibly small in relation to the Microsoft Windows gamers. In comparison, Linux didn't even account for half of the sales volume for the second Humble Indie Bundle.

Why is the Linux numbers so high? Well, the Linux gaming community hasn't seen a major, shiny, tier-one native game release in quite a while (say Heroes of Newerth; or if talking about a really big release, Enemy Territory: Quake Wars). With OilRush, Unigine has been very friendly towards Linux gamers with running a game development competition to give away engine licenses, releasing impressive Linux OpenGL tech demos, and all of the information you find about Unigine on Phoronix. Thus the major coverage for Unigine's OilRush pre-ordering so far has only been on Phoronix, plus their Facebook fan page and a few other obscure areas. Only later today is Unigine beginning to call out the Windows users and those other web-sites.

Next week I will hopefully have some new statistics to see where the Linux sales percentage is at more realistically compared to Windows.

There is also some bad news, but it's really not too disappointing based upon what's said above in terms of the limited, initial coverage. But with the 90% of Linux sales thus far, in terms of total sales during the first day of pre-orders, Unigine has said "total numbers aren't impressive" at just around 300 copies being bought. That's a little shy of $6,000 USD that Unigine Corp has brought in during the first day. Unigine also mentioned that thus far their OilRush costs have been "several hundreds of thousands dollars already spent on the production."

Obviously though the numbers next week or once the OilRush pre-orders have received more mainstream coverage should tell how the game is actually fairing. At that time how the Linux sales breakdown in relation to Windows will also be interesting.

Those interested in pre-ordering OilRush, which grants beta access to this oil-themed game up until its official release in June, it can be bought directly from the Unigine Store for a bit less than $20 USD / 15 EUR.