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I have a game on Steam, developed primarily on Linux, and providing a Linux build (in addition to Windows and Mac). Linux makes up approximately 0.5% of my sal
by mewse 6y ago
I have a game on Steam, developed primarily on Linux, and providing a Linux build (in addition to Windows and Mac).
Linux makes up approximately 0.5% of my sales. (Mac is about 2%, and Windows is the other ~97%) And from conversations with other developers, these are pretty standard percentages. I make and offer a native Linux build because I wanted to do it, but the financials really aren’t there to justify it from a hard business perspective.
Proton really isn’t the thing that makes game developers choose not to make and support Linux builds of their games; it’s the lack of an audience (and often developers not knowing enough Linux to be able to provide support for it). My hope is that Proton can build up the audience, so that it starts making more financial sense for studios to serve that audience.
- cf 6y agoBasic question, if someone buys a game to run it through Proton do they look like a Windows or Linux user on your end? How would you feel about games being made available for free to Linux users if it uses Proton. If the game contributes basically nothing to your bottom line and you don't plan to support them anyways, why not? It will only grow the audience more quickly.
- galgalesh 6y agoUsers running a game in proton show up as Linux users, not windows users. Because of this, many games already show a bunch of Linux players even though the game doesn't have a native port.
- t0astbread 6y agoCouldn't Windows users boot into Linux then to get games for free? Like, it would probably increase the share of Linux users but Windows users would decrease. And when you start charging for the Linux port, a large amount of those users would flock back to Windows.
- cf 6y agodual booting is a kinda a lot of work just for some free games. You also could charge a dollar since you are often offering a strictly worse product for Linux users. That's what happens in many other markets when you are trying to expand a userbase. There is clearly a dollar value to providing support. Why shouldn't the price reflect that?
- simooooo 6y agoWhy on earth would they give away their game for free?
- macNchz 6y agoExactly... I keep reading these concerns that Proton will cause developers to ignore Linux, when really there's effectively zero incentive for developers to pay attention to Linux in the first place, given how few people use the platform to play games. In my view any system that makes it realistic for people who buy games to use Linux full time can only increase the chances a developer will be able to justify supporting a Linux version of their game. I use desktop Linux primarily (complemented by a Windows partition and a Mac laptop) and would love to see more support from game developers, but the idea of such a small niche of users turning their noses up at "ports" and demanding native builds with support is borderline absurd.