Witchers, what about Linux?

[jerf.674]

Humble Bundle is irrelevant as an example considering the low amount of money they've made with overall sales and considering the low price point.

A game that costs close to 50 dollars is an entirely different thing and there is no AAA title on Linux.

Kickstarter showed that Linux users are willing to pay even much more than 50$.

Also, do you think Valve didn't study the market before moving to support Linux with Steam and Left 4 Dead 2 (and other games later)?

My point is that even with very modest sales on Linux (and I don't agree with your statement that Humble Bundle results are irrelevant, so I would expect more than modest results) CDPR still will be in profit if they offer a Linux version, since the effort required is minimal, if they have a Mac port.

 

[CostinRaz]

Kickstarter showed that Linux users are willing to pay even much more than 50$.

There is no kickstarter project that has ever exceeded 100.000 backers and out of those Linux users are a minority. You think that compares to the overall numbers of W1 and W2?

As for valve. Valve is a privately owned company who can afford throwing millions upon millions of dollars down a garbage bin then set it on fire. CDPR is a publicly owned company that has to answer to investors and stockholders and who doesn't have the money Valve does. That is quite important to note here.

In regards to Valve moving to Linux, I'll throw that right back at you and say the most likely reason they did it was because their monopoly on digital distribution was about to be challenged in a very significant way by the Window 8 app store, or do you think it's not related in any way to that? Well I'll just point to Gabe Newell's own statements.

Valve is not so much going to use an already existing Linux base of players as much as it's going to create one.

As for Humble Bundle. Witcher series has sold over 4 million copies in total with each game going over 2 million in sale numbers. The numbers for each witcher game exceeds the numbers for the total of every humble bundle put together, that put together with the fact that humble bundles can be purchased for even 1c does make it irrelevant.

 

[jerf.674]

There is no kickstarter project that has ever exceeded 100.000 backers and out of those Linux users are a minority. You think that compares to the overall numbers of W1 and W2?

As for valve. Valve is a privately owned company who can afford throwing millions upon millions of dollars down a garbage bin then set it on fire. CDPR is a publicly owned company that has to answer to investors and stockholders and who doesn't have the money Valve does. That is quite important to note here.

In regards to Valve moving to Linux, I'll throw that right back at you and say the most likely reason they did it was because their monopoly on digital distribution was about to be challenged in a very significant way by the Window 8 app store, or do you think it's not related in any way to that? Well I'll just point to Gabe Newell's own statements.

Valve is not so much going to use an already existing Linux base of players as much as it's going to create one.

As for Humble Bundle. Witcher series has sold over 4 million copies in total with each game going over 2 million in sale numbers. The numbers for each witcher game exceeds the numbers for the total of every humble bundle put together, that put together with the fact that humble bundles can be purchased for even 1c does make it irrelevant.

As I said, "My point is that even with very modest sales on Linux (and I don't agree with your statement that Humble Bundle results are irrelevant, so I would expect more than modest results) CDPR still will be in profit if they offer a Linux version, since the effort required is minimal, if they have a Mac port."

If you're not convinced by that, that's your right.

 

[SystemShock7]

And isn't Linux used mostly by people from "your line of work"? I mean, tech-savvy, aware, power-users? Which might be as well 0.58% of the whole gaming population?
Average price might have been higher, but if you broke down the numbers by quantity, I bet the Windows one would be the highest.
We'll see how this turns out and if it brings out any relevancy Linux might have in gaming.
I would call it a vocal minority, nothing else.

You are making a lot of assumptions there based on what you perceive, but are quick to dismiss other people's assumptions based on what they perceived.

The reality is, no one can say for certain how many people out there use Linux-based OSs on their personal computers on a daily basis today, because there aren't any effective ways to measure it. By the same token, you can't tell what would happen if consumers all of the sudden are given a choice in which OS to use for gaming, especially if that includes new game releases the likes of Witcher, or Call of Duty, or Assassins Creed, or Batman Gotham City, etc.

And given a choice of OSs to play games, maybe the people who have been using Windows for years won't change for whatever reason, but the younger people probably would, if you think of the advantages of using Linux-based OSs beyond gaming itself: cost, availability, configuration, features, etc etc etc. An example, think of the discussions about Steam between "the kids" and the "old folk". What's the first positive you hear about Steam? "I can re-download off the net my games any time I want to any computer I want, and I don't need a CD". Well, with Linux-based OSs, you can do the same thing with the OS itself. With Windows, not so much.

 

[Gilrond-i-Virdan]

I agree. It's not easy to estimate it clearly, that's why I consider 2% number to be not reliably correct. The actual number is higher. I think CDPR have enough potential to produce good Linux port and even get profit from it. If some title like Witcher 3 for Linux would appear on Humble Indie Bundle - it'll go like hot cakes instantly, and would probably outbeat all previous sales there. But CDPR of course will judge that better since they know their resources and can estimate how much effort they need to invest into making such port.

 

[Licaon_Kter]

Humble Bundle is a far cry from a success.

Again, success or not, getting some $20mil or whatever for 'pay-what-you-what' looks ok to me, and then you consider that 25% of those sales are for Linux... I still fail to understand how that does not show there is a market out there.
Given that you could just yell at GoG right now, they just made the stupidest move ever by supporting Macs, since the Mac sales are on par with the Linux ones that is, right?
Then yell at Steam, then at Desura. Damn fools, why don't they just see the truth in your words only?
Not to mention that TW2 for Mac has just been announced, damn costs, they got DX9 and OpenGL rendering backends now and a Linux implementation means only subsystems adaptation and such (maybe middleware conversion too).
Imagine the risks involved with that, image some $100k for someone like Icculus porting the remaning bits from Mac to Linux... ohh the horror... that would even mean that future games based on REDengine, like Cyberpunk, would be multiplatform from the start, that future studios that use REDengine could support Linux on day one... ohh the poor fools selling games to more clients.

Also, you keep repeating 'not a success' but that's a straw-man dude.

And isn't Linux used mostly by people from "your line of work"? I mean, tech-savvy, aware, power-users? Which might be as well 0.58% of the whole gaming population?

Even if that would be true, and it's not, somehow I don't deserve the game or I'm less entitled than you are or what? presumptuous much?

Again, what's up with all the "my platform is better so you don't deserve to play the game on yours"?


Better yet, if you are not using Linux you are offtopic on this thread. And as a general rule, not only for forum on the internet, when you think you have an opinion you better have arguments too, fallacies don't work that great. Mmmkay?

 

[Gilrond-i-Virdan]

-- double [delete-me] --

 

[Gilrond-i-Virdan]

Not to mention that TW2 for Mac has just been announced, damn costs, they got DX9 and OpenGL rendering backends now and a Linux implementation means only subsystems adaptation and such (maybe middleware conversion too).

Can anyone who just got TW2 for Mac please check whether it's a native build or Wine wrapped one? If no one can, I might as well download it from GOG (it's possible since I own the Windows copy already, so it's nice to see that Mac one is not treated as a separate thing). But going through 20 GB download is not the most fun thing to do

 

[gregski]

Even if that would be true, and it's not, somehow I don't deserve the game or I'm less entitled than you are or what? presumptuous much?

Again, what's up with all the "my platform is better so you don't deserve to play the game on yours"?


Better yet, if you are not using Linux you are offtopic on this thread. And as a general rule, not only for forum on the internet, when you think you have an opinion you better have arguments too, fallacies don't work that great. Mmmkay?

Stop putting words in my mouth that I didn't use, mmmmkay?

where am I saying that you don't deserve the game?

Where did I say that "my platform is better so you don't deserve to play the game on yours"? Please point me to that sentence in my posts. I don't say anything about the platform I'm using.

Oh, and I have arguments to back up my opinions and I stated them clearly, but you just don't want to see them I guess. Probably because they are business ones and it's hard to talk business when it comes to Linux, I guess? And that's the problem with the platform. Maybe this will change over time, but so far we don't have too many examples of AAA game developers making money on Linux.

 

[jerf.674]

Stop putting words in my mouth that I didn't use, mmmmkay?

where am I saying that you don't deserve the game?

Where did I say that "my platform is better so you don't deserve to play the game on yours"? Please point me to that sentence in my posts. I don't say anything about the platform I'm using.

Oh, and I have arguments to back up my opinions and I stated them clearly, but you just don't want to see them I guess. Probably because they are business ones and it's hard to talk business when it comes to Linux, I guess? And that's the problem with the platform. Maybe this will change over time, but so far we don't have too many examples of AAA game developers making money on Linux.

He gave you some valid business-related arguments, which _you_ don't want to see.

 

[CostinRaz]

Given that you could just yell at GoG right now, they just made the stupidest move ever by supporting Macs, since the Mac sales are on par with the Linux ones that is, right?

I have serious doubts on whether or not it was worth it. As for steam I already touched on that subject.

 

[Gilrond-i-Virdan]

Valve also introduced Mac OSX support first, and only recently got interested in Linux. May be CDPR are using them as a model, rather than Humble Indie Bundle. But I don't think Valve example is the only way. Humble Indie Bundle is enough of a proof in itself.

 

[gregski]

He gave you some valid business-related arguments, which _you_ don't want to see.

You're gonna be speaking for someone else?

Also, you're right, arguments like

"Even if that would be true, and it's not, somehow I don't deserve the game or I'm less entitled than you are or what? presumptuous much?"

or

"Again, what's up with all the "my platform is better so you don't deserve to play the game on yours"?

are very business related. Like Windows is related to open source.

 

[Gilrond-i-Virdan]

There is no point to pretend than all business is about closed source, and open source is not related to business. It has nothing to do with reality. The growth of open source happened in big part because it helped businesses which invested in it. So no point to repeat MS mantras about that if software isn't proprietary - it can't be sustainable (see early letter from Bill Gates). It's total bunk.

 

[jerf.674]

You're gonna be speaking for someone else?

Also, you're right, arguments like

or



are very business related. Like Windows is related to open source.

Obviously, I was talking about other parts of his post.

 

[SystemShock7]

Probably because they are business [arguments]ones and it's hard to talk business when it comes to Linux, I guess? And that's the problem with the platform. Maybe this will change over time, but so far we don't have too many examples of AAA game developers making money on Linux.

There you go again

First, that we don't have many examples of AAA developers making money on Linux, well, I don't think we have ANY examples of AAA developers even developing games for anything Linux-based to begin with. However, within your "business arguments", you are totally dismissing one of the biggest aspects of the business world, entrepreneurship.

And this is what Valve is doing with Steam. They are taking an entrepreneurial stance, and moving Steam to Linux. Obviously time will tell how successful they are going to be, but they already did something similar when they launched Steam, and look where they are now.

 

[Licaon_Kter]

I have serious doubts on whether or not it was worth it. As for steam I already touched on that subject.

That remains to be seen of course, but this is something we nobodies won't see since Valve keeps quiet and such regarding business.

Stop putting words in my mouth that I didn't use, mmmmkay?

I'm not responsable for what I understand, only for what I write.

where am I saying that you don't deserve the game?

"only people like you, techies, use linux"

Oh, and I have arguments to back up my opinions and I stated them clearly, but you just don't want to see them I guess.

Business is not a one-man-opinion one, if others don't share your view that makes them what? The market thing is a vicious cycle: Don't make Linux games 'cause there is no market, while having no games means no one can buy anything so yeah, there is no market. There is no market because they don't release games to be bought. That's what we knew and that's what HumbleBundle _proved_: build it and they will come!

?
Where did I say that "my platform is better so you don't deserve to play the game on yours"? Please point me to that sentence in my posts. I don't say anything about the platform I'm using.

The vibe, not verbatim. Sorry if you use Linux and you, strangely, don't want game devs to make Linux games. If you don't use Linux then my point stays, stop emitting opinions about a platform you don't use or care about. And this bothers me the most, on every forum, most vocal individuals about the need or not of Linux games are NOT using Linux. This is what Linux users face in a discussion: not % enough, if so not $ enough, if so no hardware, if so RMS/communist/fanboy/zealot/troll.

 

[hitaisin]

I will be happy to see witcher 3 on ubuntu

 

[freakie1one]

I'm also hoping to see CDPR realize that there is a significant amount of users out there who would appreciate and buy their games for Linux Linux is growing in popularity now that there are many distros that focus on a user-friendly GUI and easy installation/setup. I'm judging this based upon number of downloads and recent polls asking what OS people are using.

As people have pointed out earlier, gaming is becoming a more viable option on Linux (Steam support will be a huge step in this direction). Once people see that Windows is no longer the only option for a gaming OS I'm betting we'll start to see people migrate to Linux. I doubt Linux will stop Microsoft's monopoly as the OS of choice (Microsoft has its claws too deeply imbedded for that to happen any time soon), but having gaming actually be a hassle-free, viable option on Linux will make it a much more popular OS than it currently is.

Also, many people realize that Microsoft has some shady practices, such as when they stop supporting previous versions of Windows and only support new versions of DirectX on their current version of Windows in order to force people to upgrade. And releasing broken/buggy beta versions of their OS (WindowsME and Vista anyone?) at full retail price. Why do people keep using Windows? Because they feel they have no other option if they want to be able to play games. I don't know why so many people defend Microsoft's monopoly and are against supporting an OS that is free, intrinsically more powerful and stable, offers better support, etc.