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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

#371

Post by flagbait »

jimmy1 wrote: post #133
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…

> 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…

win10 really messed things up with the SAAS and telemetry, and integrated update rollups.

the thing is microsoft really painted themselves into a corner. ya see windows was made for all sorts of skullduggery to occur , this was supposed to be a boon for MS but they punched so many holes in W32 that it was secure as a sieve, I know this first hand as i have spent a major amount of time decompiling and snooping through the binaries. the file structures in a windows OS has big voids of zeros for padding, leaves lots of room to insert malcode and fix the file headers, Thread Local Storage is neat, a thread can move data packets through its kernel objects to other objects or static files on swap. And the alternate data paging that win executable files may have is just mindblowing. a file {any W32/W64 file} that every one expects to do one thing can be trojaned by the system as a feature using alternate data streams in a file! IT GOES ON AND ON this and win10 is why i left windows and gave linux a serious try and never looked back. Linux runs games and keeps getting better at it with no cat and mouse game of you modding system files so things work and having MS updates demodd them and then prevent you from making thing workable without major klugeing around.

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

#372

Post by Yuioup »

jorvi wrote: post #285
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…

Unreal Tournament 2004 was cross-platform Windows/Mac/Linux in 2004 . But like this post indicates, the tech support headache isn’t worth it, so these days you can only get the Windows version on Steam despite the cross-platform binaries existing somewhere in Epic’s (back then still Epic MegaGames) vault.

Can you still run UT2004 on the current version of, say, Ubuntu?

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

#373

Post by vetrom »

rkido wrote: post #365
smileybarry wrote: post #129

Earlier quoted context omitted.

He points out that a very large percentage of the crashes were graphics driver related, not dependency issues that would be solved by the Steam runtime.

I mention the Steam runtime because this affects the Linux version to this day: I am unable to launch the game (on a fully supported system and OS, mind you) without deleting some files from their install. > He points out that a very large percentage of the crashes were graphics driver related This was still largely related to the Coherent UI middleware and the strange way it was being used, as other posts have noted…

My gaming box is still Xenial while all my work machines are at least bionic. While btrfs and my personal system setup practices make it easy to test and also port setups from machine to machine, I'm not relishing the moment when I'll have to bite the bullet and upgrade.

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

#374

Post by pjmlp »

ajvs wrote: post #356
the_trapper wrote: post #341

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not sure that this does encourage native Linux game development. Why bother putting in the porting work for 0.1% of potential users when someone else might do the work for me via Wine/Proton.

Compatibility is a stepping stone to increasing the 0.8% (actual numbers) Linux population on Steam to higher numbers. If 2% or even 10% of users were Linux-based then developers would have second thoughts about choosing DirectX over Vulkan for example when it makes it more difficult for them to reach those customers. Also the "no tux no bucks" philosophy many Linux users take in avoiding paying for non-native games.

People keep forgetting that game consoles have their own 3D APIs.

Contrary to FOSS folks, professional game studios aren't religious about APIs, as long as there is money to be made.

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

#375

Post by orbifold »

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…

Linux Gaming might not suck anymore but all combinations of Linux the desktop operating system, that I tried certainly do. Both windows 10 and macOS are so much nicer, more stable and consistent that it is not even funny. Just the other day installing a pip package froze Firefox on Ubuntu for >30 seconds.

That is especially true if you are forced to use professionally maintained Linux without root access.

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

#376

Post by johnchristopher »

p0nce wrote: post #337
johnchristopher wrote: post #299

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not true. Invisible demand is a potential market and a bunch of prospects in waiting. However that niche is way too small to be worth it.

For all the prophets out there: no one stops you to build a business for that "invisible demand". Let's see how you can predict the market.

This happens all the time. Some endeavours fail, other succeed. Some are more likely to succeed or fail than other and some succeed or fail unexpectedly.

Nothing to do with prophecies though.

Not every demand can be fulfilled, no matter what.

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

#377

Post by bayindirh »

AnIdiotOnTheNet wrote: post #369
WAthrowaway wrote: post #199

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

Every time someone mentions not using Linux Desktop because they had a lot of issues, someone like you comes out of the woodwork and pretends that Linux doesn't have issues anymore. Maybe that's yet another reason people don't switch to Linux: the evangelists are annoying and untrustworthy.

> Every time someone mentions not using Linux Desktop because they had a lot of issues, someone like you comes out of the woodwork and pretends that Linux doesn't have issues anymore.

Did someone call me? Jokes aside, as a person using Linux (95% of the time, for ~15 years or so), I can honestly tell that Linux has its fair share of problems. However, for some time, the problems I experience are not more frequent than Macs that I have or the Windows PCs of my family members.

Is Linux perfect? No way. Did it improve over the years? Yes, tremendously. Also, I can say that advanced desktops like KDE can do very nice things for automation and productivity. I'm currently happy about the state of Linux, but it doesn't mean its perfect or the very very best.

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

#378

Post by pjmlp »

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

No, it is 2019 and my Linux Netbook still lacks hardware accelerated video decoding and OpenGL 4.0 support, although the card is a DirectX 11 compatible one.

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

#379

Post by lwhi »

simias wrote: post #128
rkido wrote: post #53

Linux is the perpetual scapegoat. They selected a middleware, Coherent UI, that didn't work properly on anything but Windows. They also didn't make proper use of the Steam runtime, a mistake that continues to cause issues. Most games don't make these mistakes, so this isn't really representative of the larger state of Linux gaming. It's worth pointing out that the devs did make a legitimately good attempt at making L…

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…

> Why should they change the way they develop games for 0.1% of their sales?

Your last paragraph provides the most important reason.

By changing the way they develop, they will increase their customer base.

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

#380

Post by mscasts »

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

Well yeah, it is of course much better today I believe. But I wouldn't be surprised if you still have to spend hours in trying to configure stuff if you have the wrong hardware.

Misunderstand me right, it's still mostly on laptops I have experienced issues. On a stationary computer you just get a performance drop, at least for most graphics cards.

I think it's great that it has improved so much and I hope it will continue to improve so that sometime in the future I can return to the promised land.

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