Icculus Ports Prey Game Client To Linux

[deanjo]

That is a refreshing change indeed.

Tell that to Epic... oh wait, they are still busy trying to sell the company. *snicker* j/k

Heh, I hear they are trying to sign Use Boll to a long term contract first who brought us great movies like Postal, Blood Rayne, In The Name of The King : A Dungeon Siege Tale. *snicker*

[RobbieAB]

But to do so you would have to "strike while the iron is hot". Not 2 years post release of the original version.

How do you measure the "Linux Effect" at that point?

At least now, any jump in sales CAN be attributed to the release of a Linux client.

There are 5 groups of customers:
(Note: I'm ignoring Mac for simplicity here)

1) People who play on windows and want windows versions.

2) People who would like linux copies, but will try windows copies on wine, or just run windows for the games.

3) People who won't buy without a Linux version available.

4) People who buy a copy to play with a Linux using friend. (The "Friend Effect", probably very small.)

5) People who won't buy at all.

1 and 5 are totally irrelevant as far as any port is concerned, obviously.

You seem to think 2 is relevant, as far as I can tell from your post. If this is the case you are wrong, the publisher already has 2's money, so doesn't care. Pandering to 2's wishes generates no extra sales.

This leaves 3 and 4. And yes, it may be a two year old game, but as 3 and 4 haven't yet paid for copies, that is not such a major issue. And if you are looking to measure the numbers 3 and 4 represent, a 2 year old game where you can safely assume you know your sales figures for groups 1 and 2 looks to be the obvious choice, especially if you have the Linux client sitting around so there is no major outlay.

The problem with "strike while the iron is hot" is how do you know which of the 4 groups your sales belong to? Especially for a blockbuster title which is going to sell a million windows units?

[deanjo]

The problem with "strike while the iron is hot" is how do you know which of the 4 groups your sales belong to? Especially for a blockbuster title which is going to sell a million windows units?

Linux box
Windows box
Mac Box

The same way they can count console sales.

[Svartalf]

Linux box
Windows box
Mac Box

The same way they can count console sales.

Heh... The big problem is making SKU units and a venue to sell them in.

Until there's a perceived critical mass, deanjo, you're not going to get anyone in places like Best Buy to put anything other than the Windows SKUs on the shelves. They're only just now putting MacOS SKUs on the shelves in limited amounts because they SELL Macs now. Miracle of miracles, though, they're now selling eeePC's with Linux storefront in them and they seem to have takers over the XP ones. Who knows, might end up with the story that you're talking about- just not right now, you won't.

[RobbieAB]

Problems:

1) Retailers won't bother carrying the Linux box, meaning it won't sell.

2) Group 2 buys the windows box, and now can't use the Linux version. Some people actually like the cross-platform nature of the buy windows, download the Linux software.

3) You can't distinguish between "friend effect" sales generated by providing a Linux client and normal windows sales.

If you want to test the waters as to how much sales a Linux client will generate, an old game where you already KNOW what your windows sales are going to be is actually the best bet.

For example, let's say that Prey is currently selling 500 copies a month. That is not going to climb much under normal circumstances, so they can say 3k sales over the next 6 months. If they release a Linux client, and than see 5k sales, they can attribute 2k to Linux, not enough to care about. However, if they see 15k sales, that's 12k due to providing a Linux client, and now you are talking...

It doesn't matter what platform those people choose to play on, it is still 2k/12k sales that can be attributed to providing a Linux client. The fact that 50k people with windows versions choose to switch to playing on Linux is irrelevant as far as the publisher is concerned because those people have already paid.

[deanjo]

Problems:

1) Retailers won't bother carrying the Linux box, meaning it won't sell.

2) Group 2 buys the windows box, and now can't use the Linux version. Some people actually like the cross-platform nature of the buy windows, download the Linux software.

3) You can't distinguish between "friend effect" sales generated by providing a Linux client and normal windows sales.

If you want to test the waters as to how much sales a Linux client will generate, an old game where you already KNOW what your windows sales are going to be is actually the best bet.

For example, let's say that Prey is currently selling 500 copies a month. That is not going to climb much under normal circumstances, so they can say 3k sales over the next 6 months. If they release a Linux client, and than see 5k sales, they can attribute 2k to Linux, not enough to care about. However, if they see 15k sales, that's 12k due to providing a Linux client, and now you are talking...

It doesn't matter what platform those people choose to play on, it is still 2k/12k sales that can be attributed to providing a Linux client. The fact that 50k people with windows versions choose to switch to playing on Linux is irrelevant as far as the publisher is concerned because those people have already paid.

Even with a binary blob for download released at the same time of release of the windows version, if you watch the number of linux installer downloads during it's "hype" you can assume that those people bought the game because of linux support. Also games such as your "NHL 2006/2007/2008" have a rather steady yearly purchase history. A increase of total sales on those can account for increased sales to somewhat of a degree when new supported platforms are introduced.

The "old game" factor far outweighs the "supported platform" factor any day of the week.

[Michael]

Me: Loading a timed-demo seems to fail. After recording a timedemo and then exiting the game and going back and running timedemo <name>.demo just like all of the other id Tech games, it fails with "couldn't open demos/demoname.demo" though the demo file is indeed within the ~/.prey-demo/base/demos/

Ryan: This is a demo thing (it restricts files that it will open). Retail game will run them fine.

No benchmarking fun with the demo

[Svartalf]

No benchmarking fun with the demo

Heh... Patience then...

[Svartalf]

Even with a binary blob for download released at the same time of release of the windows version, if you watch the number of linux installer downloads during it's "hype" you can assume that those people bought the game because of linux support. Also games such as your "NHL 2006/2007/2008" have a rather steady yearly purchase history. A increase of total sales on those can account for increased sales to somewhat of a degree when new supported platforms are introduced.

Counting downloads doesn't make for a good metric of interest on a platform- since you can't restrict how many times someone downloads it, you can't honestly get a proper feel for how many would have bought just a Linux version or a combined Windows/Linux version at rollout.

iD has metrics for this and they look good on paper- but they still don't provide a commercial version just for Linux or always provide one in the Linux install. Why? Because your premise isn't sound and iD knows this.

[deanjo]

Counting downloads doesn't make for a good metric of interest on a platform- since you can't restrict how many times someone downloads it, you can't honestly get a proper feel for how many would have bought just a Linux version or a combined Windows/Linux version at rollout.

iD has metrics for this and they look good on paper- but they still don't provide a commercial version just for Linux or always provide one in the Linux install. Why? Because your premise isn't sound and iD knows this.

Yes there will always be a certain degree of error. You would have to measure it within a reasonable timeframe (ie a month). Your best results would be to have a game that was digitally distributed where the downloads could be counted if the client was released while the game was in the hype. Another way one could measure is with a game such as WoW where clients being used can be easily tracked.

This is all that much easier to track when DRM is in play. Might as well make it serve a useful purpose.