Linux Gamers Command 90% Of Initial Unigine OilRush Sales

[phoronix]

Phoronix: 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...

http://www.phoronix.com/vr.php?view=OTE2Ng

[crazycheese]

They need oilrush reviews badly, by linux as well as windows magazines and online portals and cross fingers if they bring innovative or original things. They have to deal with Epic, Valve, EA, Microsoft slave studios that have already established reputation.

Good engine and lots of $ does not necessary bring profit, just compare RA2 and RA3. And the popularity may also come later - see Sirtech and JA2

[schmidtbag]

I think the main reason so many linux users bought it is because linux users are the only ones frequently reminded of the game's existence. Although I haven't really searched, I'm not aware of this game ever showing up in major gaming websites. Windows users don't have much of a reason to know why this game is here in the first place. I'm sure if this game is good enough to show up on the home page of a website like IGN or if its sold on Steam, then the Windows sales will heavily outnumber Linux, and maybe even Mac will too.

[dimko]

Give us a break, won't ya?

They need oilrush reviews badly, by linux as well as windows magazines and online portals and cross fingers if they bring innovative or original things. They have to deal with Epic, Valve, EA, Microsoft slave studios that have already established reputation.

Good engine and lots of $ does not necessary bring profit, just compare RA2 and RA3. And the popularity may also come later - see Sirtech and JA2

Come on guys!
You are naive if you think sales will sky rocket first day? It's not even over yet?(the day!)

First of all, who will buy preorder of game of not VERY known company(I agree, it is somewhat known fro tech demos)? Point one.

Point two. It is a preorder! People don't know that beta of the game is there.

Point three, a few will wait for release of the game. Some will wait till game coverage. Some will wait til beta is available.


Now, on the optimistic note, would liek to share soem experience. NOT everythingworked out of the box. Though game was playable.

First of all, sound did not work. After looking into config file - i found game was not using alsa. After messing one line of config file - it became apparent that alsa is not supported by game, at least not in beta. Fear not! Game was playable over openAL, but problems didnt finish there. After installing openAL - no change still no sound. But this time was getting error that libopenal.so.1 was not found. Checked /usr/lib and /usr/lib64 in both folders file was there. /usr/lib32 file was not there.

Well, checked "bin" fodler of the game, turned out game is x86 and not x86_64, implying that openal has to be 32 bit too... Installed emulation for 32 bit sdl(gentoo thing, your distribution may and probably calls it different name), and there you go, game with sound.

I have to admit, i was not so impressed with graphics for years of linux gaming. It was very quick. With max resolution 1680x1040, details high i was getting over 100(around 110-130 if not mistaking) FPS. Though i cheated a bit and had anisotropy and antialiasing low, I don't see much different on native screen resolution with those settings anyway. Game did not drop below 58 FPS, which is just around native resolution of screen. It did look really great.

One really sad part, can't complete first mission, get error, "Received signal SIGSEGV, invalid memory reference".

Hope error will get soon corrected. Will be more than happy to debug game to developer, if i knew how and where to.

One thing I was very curious to see, but didnt see - if SMP is used. However, game was very smooth on 3.1 ghz 4 core AMD64 processor with 2 gigs of 800mhz ddr2 ram and GTX 470(1280 MB, graphic clock 700mhz, 1674 mhz memory clock, 1400mhz processor clock). I am pretty sure it will run smooth on older machines(not that my machine is very new either).

I definitely don't feel sorry spending hard earned dolla$ on that game, or should i call it beta of the game...

[crazycheese]

Don't get me wrong, I see nothing bad in group of people supporting (as in buying, not only donating or coding) the software they want for the platform they want. I just want to point out, in order to get big money, they need big attraction, best of which is game quality itself. If they push unfinished shallow software and get only minor purchases, its not linux or its users fault. Its same everywhere. I hope they do it right and also not end like sirtech.

[DavidNielsen]

300 copies of a preorder in alpha/beta state on day one with the limited coverage this has had is very respectable. I'll tell my fellow editors over at Ubuntu Gamer to do a review, I can't in honesty do so myself till the ION performance is sufficient to provide smooth playback.

So in the Ben Zander way of looking at life. Instead of wondering if 300 is good or bad. Let's help push it higher. Submit the news to digg, slashdot and friends, buy a copy and give it away. Spread the good news and help unigine make their investment back.

[DavidNielsen]

300 copies of a preorder in alpha/beta state on day one with the limited coverage this has had is very respectable. I'll tell my fellow editors over at Ubuntu Gamer to do a review, I can't in honesty do so myself till the ION performance is sufficient to provide smooth playback.

So in the Ben Zander way of looking at life. Instead of wondering if 300 is good or bad. Let's help push it higher. Submit the news to digg, slashdot and friends, buy a copy and give it away. Spread the good news and help unigine make their investment back.

That makes it at least 301 sold copies:

http://www.omgubuntu.co.uk/2011/03/tell-a-joke-get-oilrush/

[binstream]

That makes it at least 301 sold copies:

http://www.omgubuntu.co.uk/2011/03/t...e-get-oilrush/

Thank you very much for your creative way of support!

[DavidNielsen]

Thank you very much for your creative way of support!

Bigger pie buddy now please go back to work making this game run on my machine, I can't wait to actually try it

[binstream]

Bigger pie buddy now please go back to work making this game run on my machine, I can't wait to actually try it

Current development version is more optimized than 0.59, but there is a lot of stuff still broken after major refactoring, so we don't share it yet.