5 ms·

Linux and macOS game development in a nutshell - spend $200K to make $10K, get 10x angry "support requests"

pippy 7y ago
If you earn $10k out of a ~15% to 10% marketshare, you've only earned about $100k total. You're not going to get your money back.
- floo 7y ago
  More like 3% when you combine linux and mac. That can make it hard to justify the cost. Still bs for an existing game with platform support from unreal though. https://store.steampowered.com/hwsurvey/Steam-Hardware-Software-Survey-Welcome-to-Steam https://store.steampowered.com/hwsurvey/Steam-Hardware-Softw...
  - smallstepforman 7y ago
    However, the number of available titles on Linux/Mac is small, so you become a big fish in small pond and take all the users money. Piracy on OSX is smaller, and they are typically wealthier and starving for content.
    - vernie 7y ago
      They have PS4s.
      - egypturnash 7y ago
        Yeah. My Mac's for sitting at the desk or taking to the cafe and getting shit done. The PS4's for sitting on the sofa playing games.
    - Jasper_ 7y ago
      No, not really. There's a wealth of titles available on Linux thanks to Humble Bundle and Valve funding ports. Never has made any money.
mjevans 7y ago
Target cross-platform technologies from the start. Eliminate bugs, make releasing for PC and any console you want easy. Linux shouldn't really be a special support case, it only becomes one when silly assumptions are made.
- kjhweoiru0 7y ago
  > Target cross-platform technologies from the start. Like Vulkan? Doesn't run on macOS.
  - ahyattdev 7y ago
    Solutions exist to translate Vulkan to Metal. https://github.com/KhronosGroup/MoltenVK https://github.com/KhronosGroup/MoltenVK
    - pjmlp 7y ago
      Still need to make it run on PS4, XBox and every Android version lower than 10 (Vulkan was an optional API until 10).
      - RealStickman 7y ago
        These two consoles may be pretty close to EOL. If the next consoles have vulkan it would absolutely make sense to use vulkan more.
        pjmlp 7y ago
        Hint they won't, even on Switch it hardly gets used, Unity, Unreal and NVN based engines get the biggest piece of the pie.
- fragsworth 7y ago
  Have you actually tried to do this yourself? With anything? I feel like everyone in this thread is trying to back-seat drive without realizing the effort that is actually involved in supporting multiple platforms.
soraminazuki 7y ago
You're making it sound like non-Windows users are paying less, when in fact, they're paying the exact same amount as Windows users. There's really no need to demonize macOS or Linux users.
vunie 7y ago
Linux and macOS game development in a nutshell - spend $200K to make a buggy mess that doesn't work, get surprised when paying customers are upset"
- vernie 7y ago
  Yea, not worth it for all parties involved.
- Jasper_ 7y ago
  Yeah, macOS and Linux have never really done long-term healthy platform maintenance, so apps tend to decay quickly into buggy messes that don't work.
  - vunie 7y ago
    I don't know much about macOS development, but I am a linux developer by trade. Can you elaborate further on how linux doesn't do long-term healthy platform maintenance? I also don't understand how long-term maintenance can be a factor when games don't run correctly on launch day. I would appreciate an explanation for this as well.
oneplane 7y ago
Maybe flip that around: iOS and macOS sales (even if just via the 'store') seem to be plenty for developers and complete studios to build entire businesses on or at the very least invest and get a functional ROI for a business to run on. If that works, then what do those developers on the other 'stores' do that makes it so hard? Almost all games are effectively assets + scripts executed by a portable runtime. The only reason you might get in to trouble using that portable runtime effectively is when you start hacking on that level and reducing the portability to a point where it no longer works. That's a choice, not an inevitability. As a bonus (like posted earlier); in software engineering you get to discover a lot of issues by writing abstractions (to support portability) that you otherwise wouldn't be able to catch ahead of time. And no, day-1 patches are not the solution, they are the symptom of the problem.
29athrowaway 7y ago
That's quite the exaggeration considering that Unity, Unreal engine and other engines support Linux very well.
Snetry 7y ago
The Unreal engine supports Linux as much as MacOS and Windows I could only imagine a minor(or somewhat major) code change to rely less on platform specific things and and add support for other e.g. audio backends And he'll Id argue that Linux users are less likely to contact support duo to requiring some amount of knowledge of their system
songshuu 7y ago
This is one of the best tldr's I have seen on HN.

If you earn $10k out of a ~15% to 10% marketshare, you've only earned about $100k total. You're not going to get your money back.

floo 7y ago
More like 3% when you combine linux and mac. That can make it hard to justify the cost. Still bs for an existing game with platform support from unreal though. https://store.steampowered.com/hwsurvey/Steam-Hardware-Software-Survey-Welcome-to-Steam https://store.steampowered.com/hwsurvey/Steam-Hardware-Softw...
- smallstepforman 7y ago
  However, the number of available titles on Linux/Mac is small, so you become a big fish in small pond and take all the users money. Piracy on OSX is smaller, and they are typically wealthier and starving for content.
  - vernie 7y ago
    They have PS4s.
    - egypturnash 7y ago
      Yeah. My Mac's for sitting at the desk or taking to the cafe and getting shit done. The PS4's for sitting on the sofa playing games.
  - Jasper_ 7y ago
    No, not really. There's a wealth of titles available on Linux thanks to Humble Bundle and Valve funding ports. Never has made any money.

mjevans 7y ago

Target cross-platform technologies from the start. Eliminate bugs, make releasing for PC and any console you want easy. Linux shouldn't really be a special support case, it only becomes one when silly assumptions are made.

kjhweoiru0 7y ago
> Target cross-platform technologies from the start. Like Vulkan? Doesn't run on macOS.
- ahyattdev 7y ago
  Solutions exist to translate Vulkan to Metal. https://github.com/KhronosGroup/MoltenVK https://github.com/KhronosGroup/MoltenVK
  - pjmlp 7y ago
    Still need to make it run on PS4, XBox and every Android version lower than 10 (Vulkan was an optional API until 10).
    - RealStickman 7y ago
      These two consoles may be pretty close to EOL. If the next consoles have vulkan it would absolutely make sense to use vulkan more.
      - pjmlp 7y ago
        Hint they won't, even on Switch it hardly gets used, Unity, Unreal and NVN based engines get the biggest piece of the pie.
fragsworth 7y ago
Have you actually tried to do this yourself? With anything? I feel like everyone in this thread is trying to back-seat drive without realizing the effort that is actually involved in supporting multiple platforms.

soraminazuki 7y ago

You're making it sound like non-Windows users are paying less, when in fact, they're paying the exact same amount as Windows users. There's really no need to demonize macOS or Linux users.

vunie 7y ago

Linux and macOS game development in a nutshell - spend $200K to make a buggy mess that doesn't work, get surprised when paying customers are upset"

vernie 7y ago
Yea, not worth it for all parties involved.
Jasper_ 7y ago
Yeah, macOS and Linux have never really done long-term healthy platform maintenance, so apps tend to decay quickly into buggy messes that don't work.
- vunie 7y ago
  I don't know much about macOS development, but I am a linux developer by trade. Can you elaborate further on how linux doesn't do long-term healthy platform maintenance? I also don't understand how long-term maintenance can be a factor when games don't run correctly on launch day. I would appreciate an explanation for this as well.

oneplane 7y ago

Maybe flip that around: iOS and macOS sales (even if just via the 'store') seem to be plenty for developers and complete studios to build entire businesses on or at the very least invest and get a functional ROI for a business to run on. If that works, then what do those developers on the other 'stores' do that makes it so hard? Almost all games are effectively assets + scripts executed by a portable runtime. The only reason you might get in to trouble using that portable runtime effectively is when you start hacking on that level and reducing the portability to a point where it no longer works. That's a choice, not an inevitability. As a bonus (like posted earlier); in software engineering you get to discover a lot of issues by writing abstractions (to support portability) that you otherwise wouldn't be able to catch ahead of time. And no, day-1 patches are not the solution, they are the symptom of the problem.

29athrowaway 7y ago

That's quite the exaggeration considering that Unity, Unreal engine and other engines support Linux very well.

Snetry 7y ago

The Unreal engine supports Linux as much as MacOS and Windows I could only imagine a minor(or somewhat major) code change to rely less on platform specific things and and add support for other e.g. audio backends And he'll Id argue that Linux users are less likely to contact support duo to requiring some amount of knowledge of their system

songshuu 7y ago

This is one of the best tldr's I have seen on HN.