Postal III On Linux Is Kaput For Now

[lexa2]

Alternatively they could just release the damn port.

I wish they would do it. Unfortunately they didn't.

The long and the short of it is Epic just does not care about us and UT3 has basically been forgotten about anyway. On all platforms. Let's move on and look to the future, and support the developers that are still supporting us or wish to support us.

Agreed on this. For example I had ordered OilRush game at the first day they had launched pre-ordering.

[lexa2]

Take a look at what the average price was per game and you would see why companies are not quick to support a port. The revenue generated would hardly even cover one junior programmers salary for a year.

Let's count. Average salary of the average programmer here in Moscow ranges from 1500 to 3000 USD per month, depending the company he works for (Banks, Oil and Gas companies pay around 3k-2k, other companies tries their best to pay less than 1.5k). It sums up to 36k USD per year most. You're trying to say that bundle that had collected around 2000k USD would not cover that? Ok, rough calculation: it would be around 1500k after taxes and other general expenses, let's cut one third of it for charity, HiB cap, e.t.c. It leaves us with 1000k USD divided per ~5 gamedevs, i.e. around 200k per dev. This calculations are rough but I think you've got an idea. I bet that icculus would agree to port UTx to linux in case he would be paid 150k-200k for that :-).

[deanjo]

Your idea does have merit in that the HIB model is a good way of demonstrating that their is a Linux games market

I don't think there is a question if there is a "linux game market" it's more of a case of "is there a profitable linux games market that makes it worth the effort" from a pure financial POV. Humble Bundle does not indicate that at all. HB's show that if you offer something really cheap anybody will take a risk at a purchase and displays how much people are willing to throw away in a worst case scenario. Most of those HB games have been offered for quite some time as stand alone higher priced games (usually still at around 1/3rd the price of your typical AAA title) where they never did great at sales.

[Hamish Wilson]

Alternatively they could just release the damn port.

Though if we take your idea into account, I think they should really do their own pay what you want sale. Your idea does have merit in that the HIB model is a good way of demonstrating that their is a Linux games market, but I do not see what it has to do with this much, and it is simply not what the bundle is about.

The long and the short of it is Epic just does not care about us and UT3 has basically been forgotten about anyway. On all platforms. Let's move on and look to the future, and support the developers that are still supporting us or wish to support us.

[deanjo]

... and also you can simply throw out Linux support and be happy with it, you know.

Read it simple: HiB shown that Linux gamers exist and that they are ready to pay more than Windows folks for the games that run natively on the OS of their choice. There was a statement in this thread that icculus hadn't finish his work on UT3 for linux due to EPIC refused to pay for linux support. So I just had put those two things together and thought about an interesting thing that might content everyone out there. LInux gamers would get what they want; HiB would gain extra publicity and earn some more money to support charity and indie developers; EPIC would get additional sales and +1 to reputation from linux gamers. I know that HiB is supposed to be only about indie scene, e.t.c., e.t.c., but that's another and separate discussion I don't want to flame about.

Take a look at what the average price was per game and you would see why companies are not quick to support a port. The revenue generated would hardly even cover one junior programmers salary for a year.

[lexa2]

Why would the Humble Indie Bundle allow only engine code from Epic when it is supposed showcasing the best of the Indie scene?

You can release games successfully on Linux without being part of the Humble Indie Bundle you know...

... and also you can simply throw out Linux support and be happy with it, you know.

Read it simple: HiB shown that Linux gamers exist and that they are ready to pay more than Windows folks for the games that run natively on the OS of their choice. There was a statement in this thread that icculus hadn't finish his work on UT3 for linux due to EPIC refused to pay for linux support. So I just had put those two things together and thought about an interesting thing that might content everyone out there. LInux gamers would get what they want; HiB would gain extra publicity and earn some more money to support charity and indie developers; EPIC would get additional sales and +1 to reputation from linux gamers. I know that HiB is supposed to be only about indie scene, e.t.c., e.t.c., but that's another and separate discussion I don't want to flame about.

[Hamish Wilson]

Why would the Humble Indie Bundle allow only engine code from Epic when it is supposed showcasing the best of the Indie scene?

You can release games successfully on Linux without being part of the Humble Indie Bundle you know...

[lexa2]

The UT3 engine is already ported to Mac. It appeared in the Sept UDK release.

Well I guess that's good for Mac users but it doesn't invalidate that it would be interesting to see an amount of sales in case such kind of HiB would be held.

[deanjo]

2All
General thought: what if EPIC would hire icculus to port UT-3 to the Linux/Mac OS X and then sell this ported engine as a part of HiB? I.e., people still would have to buy UT-3 on Steam or at their favorite retail store, but would be able to play UT-3 on Mac and Linux using game client bought from HiB. Sure, that bundle shouldn't contain only linux/Mac versions of UT-3 client, it should also contain something to be interesting for Windows users (thus to make revenue bigger), and it would be possible for people to split their payment between "UT-3 linux/mac client" and "rest of games". It'd be extremely interesting to conduct such HiB and took a look into the resulting sales numbers.

The UT3 engine is already ported to Mac. It appeared in the Sept UDK release.

[lexa2]

... we used to have "OMG 3D desktop!", then "WTF virtualisation!", then "WOW KDE4", then "AMMAGAWD Gallium!"....

Well, I can understand that "innocent Windows user" might be charmed by Compiz and KDE4, but not Gallium. What is it worth for user that hadn't ever been dealing with "OSS GPU drivers" vs. "vendor-supplied binary blobs" on his or her platform? Standard experience with GPU drivers for typical Windows user is "install right after installing the OS and forget about the driver until some app comes out that require freshen one and/or new GPU". Gallium vs. DRI1 DDX vs. binary-blobs is a struggle and a curse of a Linux desktop. There's nothing like "AMMAGAWD" in Gallium.

2All
General thought: what if EPIC would hire icculus to port UT-3 to the Linux/Mac OS X and then sell this ported engine as a part of HiB? I.e., people still would have to buy UT-3 on Steam or at their favorite retail store, but would be able to play UT-3 on Mac and Linux using game client bought from HiB. Sure, that bundle shouldn't contain only linux/Mac versions of UT-3 client, it should also contain something to be interesting for Windows users (thus to make revenue bigger), and it would be possible for people to split their payment between "UT-3 linux/mac client" and "rest of games". It'd be extremely interesting to conduct such HiB and took a look into the resulting sales numbers.