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Game dev: Linux users were only 0.1% of sales but 20% of crashes and tickets

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Re: Game dev: Linux users were only 0.1% of sales but 20% of crashes and tickets

#211

Post by hannasanarion »

zanny wrote: post #165
ShakataGaNai wrote: post #13

While I love Linux, I think this is a totally fair "state of the union". At the end of the day, gaming or kickstarters or similar... are a business. You need to figure out your ROI (Return On Investment). It doesn't many any logical sense to spend a huge amount of time on a platform that nets you tiny amounts of sales (and gains you a huge amount of support costs). This is why gaming on the Mac is only now starting t…

Is it really fragmented? You support Ubuntu (in either its flatpak runtime or the Steam runtime) and you let everyone else figure it out on their own. Distros like Arch have been very good about providing the Steam Native Runtime and Ubuntu flatpak runtime in its own package system for just that reason. The support burden for developers is proportional to the operating systems you officially say you support. If you s…

> You support Ubuntu (in either its flatpak runtime or the Steam runtime) and you let everyone else figure it out on their own.

And isn't that already how it is? Pretty sure Steam only supports Ubuntu LTS, steam on every other OS else is an unsupported hack.

Re: Game dev: Linux users were only 0.1% of sales but 20% of crashes and tickets

#212

Post by zamalek »

pfranz wrote: post #188
gnufied wrote: post #141

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can a installer prompt user to download missing libraries if needed? For example - Dota2 on Windows downloads bunch of C++ runtime libraries on first launch. Sharpkeys and bunch of other software do that (certain version of .net runtime). libcurl may or may not be a good example but surely all software has dependencies that isn't shipped with OS. In Linux case the special pain is, library that is shipped with OS migh…

On Windows, I often get prompted to install C++ runtime dependencies when installing. One big thing Steam did was manage multiple installs of DirectX for each game. It's just a matter of Linux being cost/benefit to overcome these things, like they have on Windows.

Which is probably way at the back of the developer's minds: the main audience of Linux is happy to compile from source (either themselves or via a downloaded package).

Re: Game dev: Linux users were only 0.1% of sales but 20% of crashes and tickets

#213

Post by jandrese »

astrodust wrote: post #164
jimmy1 wrote: post #133

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Why should they change the way they develop games for 0.1% of their sales? Have you seen how tight the gaming market has become? You need a niche to get any attention. Coming out with a truly cross platform game that has Linux as a first class citizen would buy tremendous free publicity. It would be on the front page here a lone, a site with an enormous audience at minimum once a quarter. It would appear in countle…

Literally nobody cares about Linux gaming. It's not even press-worthy because of SteamOS. Anyone who games on Linux does it for the adventure of the process, not because it's convenient. If you ported your game to the Atari ST or the Amiga you'd get more press and probably more sales.

I used to reboot into Windows to run games. Thanks to Proton I don't bother anymore. In fact I dread booting into Windows now because I know it's going to spend 30 minutes patching itself and then reboot on me.

Re: Game dev: Linux users were only 0.1% of sales but 20% of crashes and tickets

#214

Post by jcastro »

madez wrote: post #198
jcastro wrote: post #180

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What was your expectation? That they would find a bug and submit/fix it to Debian and then walk through the contribution process so it makes it into the next stable Debian release?

No. I expected them to compile their game for the system and try to run it. If it didn't, it would be immediately obvious because the issues were so obvious. The next step would be to upgrade the system to Debian testing, and then check again. If it still doesn't work, upgrade to Debian Sid, and then check again. If it worked on any of those, report that and everybody knows in what version the issues will be fixed. I…

Nobody's going to do that, they'll just say "Use ubuntu" and close your ticket.

Re: Game dev: Linux users were only 0.1% of sales but 20% of crashes and tickets

#215

Post by gmueckl »

wtracy wrote: post #148
bryanlarsen wrote: post #45

Part of the problem in 2019 is that the vendor with the best drivers on Windows is the vendor with the worst drivers on Linux. (aka Nvidia).

Care to elaborate? Nvidia used to be the only discrete GPU manufacturer that had Linux support worth mentioning. I know that AMD/ATi has made a lot of progress, but is Nvidia really the worst at this point?

I have perfectly working nVidia binary drivers that allow me to subject OpenGL to novel and creative abuses without problems. The rate at which I discover driver bugs has gone done a lot.

Mesa, in contrast, had floating point texture formats blocked because of suspected patent issues until a few weeks ago. These are ste mandated formats in the OpenGL standard so Mesa was never technically compatible. And these formats do matter a lot in practice.

Re: Game dev: Linux users were only 0.1% of sales but 20% of crashes and tickets

#216

Post by jandrese »

bryanlarsen wrote: post #45

Part of the problem in 2019 is that the vendor with the best drivers on Windows is the vendor with the worst drivers on Linux. (aka Nvidia).

Huh? The nVidia binary blob drivers work perfectly on Linux. Noeaveu is garbage and it's a shame that it's the default on popular distros.

Re: Game dev: Linux users were only 0.1% of sales but 20% of crashes and tickets

#217

Post by fb03 »

halbritt wrote: post #178
fb03 wrote: post #117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I keep a dualboot system because of the current situation. Linux for "real work" Windows for gaming (no-frills setup) and music production (much easier and less clunky low latency setup, way more availability of free synths etc) I absolutely adore Linux for everything it has done to my career but I cannot drop my Windows system yet.

I likewise run and prefer a Linux desktop and boot into Windows for the occasional gaming foray. Also, to run stuff like Fusion 360. I have to say that even on Windows, driver stability leaves much to be desired (for Nvidia in my case).

> I have to say that even on Windows, driver stability leaves much to be desired (for Nvidia in my case).

I agree. That is why I tend to leave my Windows box really bare. It has Steam with some 4-5 games on it and my Music Production Software. Every other endeavor is tackled in Linux.

Re: Game dev: Linux users were only 0.1% of sales but 20% of crashes and tickets

#218

Post by selectodude »

ajvs wrote: post #182
simias wrote: post #128

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Technically speaking I'm sure you're right. In practice it doesn't really matter though, if they did it that way it's either because it was easier or because that's the way they were used to doing it. The fact that "technically" it's not Linux's fault doesn't really matter, unless you're more interested in the moral concept of guilt rather that the practicalities of making a Linux port of a game. Why should they chan…

Have you not seen Steam Play these last few months? Because of Proton the majority of the top 250 highest rated games now run fine on Linux. I've been playing Skyrim, Witcher 3, Dark Souls 3, Castle Crashers, Overwatch, Heroes of the Storm, etc all of which are Windows-only but now WINE is so good it runs like it's native. Linux gaming doesn't suck anymore and it's coming to eat Windows lunch. Check out ProtonDB to s…

Why should I get excited about decent compatibility when I can stick with perfect compatibility? Linux gaming doesn't suck compared to linux gaming 5 years ago. It's still crap compared to Windows.

Re: Game dev: Linux users were only 0.1% of sales but 20% of crashes and tickets

#219

Post by taway_1212 »

WAthrowaway wrote: post #199
mscasts wrote: post #152

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have seen this claim many times, but wonder about it's validity. It's easy to think that a truly cross platform game that has Linux as a first class citizen would make a lot of stir. But I used to play Heroes of Newerth years ago when Linux support were way worse than today. I also read HN then. I never saw any special treatment for that even tho I loved the game and it worked really, really good on linux. Searchin…

>daily struggle that is desktop Linux lol what year is this? 1999? but I agree with the rest of your points

Tried installing Linux on MBP last month. Ran away screaming after 30+ hours of dealing with drivers issues. I do this every couple of years, hoping that finally THIS time I can get off Windows. Next attempt will be circa about 2021 probably.

Re: Game dev: Linux users were only 0.1% of sales but 20% of crashes and tickets

#220

Post by tokai »

As I recall the development of Planetary Annihilation was a clusterfunk of bugs and really bad performance. I kickstarted it, and remember getting it to work on linux. Put even though it ran, it did so 15 frames a second, even on a powerful machine. I actually just gave up on the game as the developers released it, even though it was still unplayable for me - and going by steam reviews - numerous others (mostly windows users I would guess).

I guess it makes sense now that they 1.0'ed a barely working game, with such an animosity towards users reporting issues.

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