

Linux users contribute twice as much as Windows users - fserb
http://blog.wolfire.com/2010/05/Linux-users-contribute-twice-as-much-as-Windows-users

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dman
Hope someone in the game industry sees this and realises that linux gamers are
a viable demographic. Not many companies apart from id have released AAA linux
titles offlate. Initial efforts to create linux gaming companies (like Loki
games) shut down and I am afraid the wrong lessons were learned - that linux
gamers wont pay for games. Hope this post changes some of that, at least for
indie developers.

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ryanelkins
I don't know, what I see is that you can make over twice as much on a Windows
platform. Even if the users won't pay as much, there are still so many that it
more than makes up for it. Distribution costs are low if you distribute online
so the total revenue is the main factor (as opposed to per unit price). I
imagine the development costs to port a title to Linux are fairly substantial
as well, not to mention the additional support costs.

Besides, I doubt Linux users would be happy about paying $100+ for a game if
translated to normal game prices ($50-$60 or so).

~~~
sjs
What I see is you ignoring a significant chunk of the market, and entering a
market with more competition, and more fierce competition to boot, from bigger
dev houses. If anything it makes more sense to go for Mac + Linux instead of
Windows (for indie devs anyway), and in that case since you've written things
in a cross-platform manner you can ship for Windows anyway and win even
bigger.

> I imagine the development costs to port a title to Linux are fairly
> substantial as well

If you target OpenGL instead of a proprietary MS platform then there is no
porting (or little porting). Existing games don't have the luxury of choice,
but new ones do.

(I have ignored things like differing sound APIs, but not a huge upfront cost
if you simply intend to be cross-platform from day #1)

> Besides, I doubt Linux users would be happy about paying $100+ for a game if
> translated to normal game prices ($50-$60 or so).

Well yeah, if you just jack up the price on the Linux game and leave the rest
at $50-60 of course they won't be happy. The point is that people say Linux
users won't pay for software, and that's clearly false.

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daeken
If you look at the top contributors in the stats area
(<http://www.wolfire.com/humble#statistics>), there's a guy that contributed
$FF under the name 'unsigned char'. Brilliant.

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awa
Why windows user might be paying less: 1\. They have loads of choices for
cheap games compared to the other platforms and hence are used to paying less
for most games but big titles (Oblivion, street fighter) 2\. They have gotten
ripped off often with people promising the best software/game in the world and
ended up buying a dud.

Interesting thoughts: 1\. Age distributions: My guess would be that a linux
demographic would have a much different age distribution than the windows
user. If a 10yo is trying to dl the package he might be susceptible to paying
less. 2\. Gender distribution etc.

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sbov
It probably depends on the revenue model. If you charge the same amount for
your game on Linux as Windows, then the fact that Linux users donate more cash
is meaningless to you.

On top of this, I would bet that they have so many Linux contributors
precisely because no-one releases AAA games to Linux, so their sample size is
disproportionately represented by Linux users.

~~~
ido

       On top of this, I would bet that they have so many Linux
       contributors precisely because no-one releases AAA games
       to Linux, so their sample size is disproportionately
       represented by Linux users.
    

That's the point tho - if you're an indie developer it might be worth your
time to develop a cross platform game even tho not that many people use linux
& mac compared to windows (since you care about people who buy your game not
people who run that particular OS).

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arghnoname
My guess on this is Linux users are more grateful when games are made for
their platform and want to send market signals to encourage more of this.

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jmillikin
Interesting to note that since posting donation averages on the front page,
each average has increased by 10 to 20 cents. There's probably a dozen
psychological studies on this sort of thing.

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shadowsun7
There's the possibility that the average Linux user is a supporter of donating
(to open source software, and the like) and so is more likely to contribute to
packages such as these.

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rmundo
Having written code myself makes me more appreciative of the amount of effort
that goes into building good software. Compared to Windows users, more Linux
users probably interact with code in one form or another.

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KC8ZKF
My guess is that it is simply regression to the mean. There are more Windows
contributors than Linux contributors, so their average contribution is likely
to be smaller.

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sliverstorm
I paid $5. Why did I pay? Because I approve of their marketing style. Why
didn't I pay more, am I a cheapskate bastard? No; I probably won't ever play a
one of those games.

Point: There are so many things going on here, it's hard to draw clear
conclusions from the numbers we're getting.

