Game Developer Who Ported To Linux: "I Don't Think It Was Worthwhile"

[johnc]

Part of whether it was "worth it" to port the game to Linux comes from the value of the time they could have instead put towards another game they've been working on for Windows. If the developer could have put out a product for Windows that exceeded this theoretical $186,000 gained from the Linux port, then the port was in fact not worth the developers time.

That's why they should outsource that kind of work to people like me. This way they won't bog down their dev staff.

[ElectricPrism]

Part of whether it was "worth it" to port the game to Linux comes from the value of the time they could have instead put towards another game they've been working on for Windows. If the developer could have put out a product for Windows that exceeded this theoretical $186,000 gained from the Linux port, then the port was in fact not worth the developers time.

If the developers idolize EA Games and gaming is essentially a "business" devoid of passion, creativity and pride then yeah the gains from Linux/Android/OSX Trio are not going to put that golden toilet next to their swimming pool & sauna.

Now on the other hand, if they value their company's reputation, and are creating a cult following that will support & love them to the bitter end - then yeah supporting Linux/SteamOS is absolutely the right choice.

[ElectricPrism]

Part of whether it was "worth it" to port the game to Linux comes from the value of the time they could have instead put towards another game they've been working on for Windows. If the developer could have put out a product for Windows that exceeded this theoretical $186,000 gained from the Linux port, then the port was in fact not worth the developers time.

If game design is 100% about revenue and not about crafting a quality, timless product then they will never develop the cult following and diehard fans that other companies have crafted from well made products - Blizzard was born in Diablo 2, StarCraft and WarCraft 1 & 2. Nintendo was and will always be carried because of their cult classics like Mario & Zelda. My point is this - they can idolize EA Games if they like but at the end of the month caring about their bank statement more than tri-platform launching (Android/Linux/Mac) will eventually lead to their demize during a recession and then poof their company will evaporate.

To truely fortify their company they would be wise to build their playerbase and not only their bank accounts.

[humbug]

I understand their frustration.

It seems to me that if Valve is serious about Steam as a target, Valve should be investing more of its own money in aiding these Linux ports of games. To be fair, it's possible Valve is already doing this and I'm not aware of it. But otherwise, we're dealing with the same chicken-and-egg problem that has plagued Linux gaming since the 1990s

hmm whatever Valve is doing seems to be working. Since they started pushing steam on Linux and canvassing devs we are getting more games than ever before. And certainly we are getting disproportionately more than what our current market share would logically dictate. They seem to be more interested in pushing the ecosystem forward with developer tools and API innovations etc rather than financially helping other devs.
Personally the biggest change I want to see is an improvement in the quality of work from devs. We have an expectation and a reputation now of lower quality than on windows. That must change.

AMD has pretty much crushed the chance of ever having serious Linux gaming.

And probably intentionally so, too.

OpenGL games on AMD GPUs has been a major stumbling block yes, but why would they sabotage it on purpose?

[Pecisk]

Two things to take away:

1) We are 1.5%? Holy cow! That's amazing!
2) That's 'very small' and not worth the effort? Talk about arrogance

I was interested to check out this game. Now, I feel less enthusiastic. See how does it work?

As for Valve - they do all right things, pushing gaming ecosystem on Linux forward. Paying for ports wouldn't be so smart in long term imho.

[dungeon]

I was interested to check out this game. Now, I feel less enthusiastic. See how does it work?

This will be a bit sarcastic comment, but game is slowmo most of the time... because developer is from country where green dollars does not worth that much and where probably all people at least have Titan/Fury Xes on average

But to no avail if you like isometric RPGs, it is fine really

[finalzone]

Adding Linux support now is also an investment for the future. If Valve's push for Linux gaming gains steam (ha ha), then this developer's game will already be on the market and available for purchase. The revenue might come later, and "for free" considering that the porting work has already been done.

Case to the point, SCS Software with their Euro Truck Simulators 2 providing the source for modding and supporting SteamOS. Colossal Order Cities Skylinesm considering the spiritual successor of Sim City enjoying their revenue.

[tomtomme]

Lets examine this for 2 seconds.

According to SteamDB there are 486,281 owners of Pillars of Eternity. At $45 each that means they made roughly $21,882,645.00 in sales (21.8 Million Dollars).

If Linux Users are 0.85% of Steam Users and there are 125,000,000 Steam Users (February 2015) then that means there are 1,062,500 Steam Linux Users.

A = $21,882,645.00 Total Sales
B = Percent of Steam Users eg: 0.85%
C = Profits from Linux Sales

$21,882,645.00 * 0.0085 = $186,002.4825

I seriously doubt that it cost more than 186 thousand dollars to port to Linux especially since Mac shares so much in common with Linux.

Also, this doesn't include the SEO Page Rank building as a direct result from Linux Blogs & News sites posting backlinks to Pillars of Eternity Website, Kickstarter Campaign, and Steam Store Page.

I find their statement technically flawed and downright autistic.

http://www.vg247.com/2015/02/24/stea...ncurrent-peak/
http://store.steampowered.com/hwsurvey

You forgot that often a game is sold for far less in steam-sales and bundles. There are people that never buy a game at its full price.

[Guest]

According to their forum this game runs much better on Linux than os x - less bugs and crashes.

[mao_dze_dun]

Reading a lot of these comments makes me lose faith in humanity. I'm truly shocked how detached from reality a lot of people can be. Go ahead - call me a troll. Doesn't mean I'm not right.