Comment by ballenf
6 years ago
So you’re almost his customer base?
The ones who buy these games are the people not turned off by the “style, color and lighting” deficiencies.
I looked at his games for the first time after the earlier post and am also not representative of his customer base.
I am also almost his customer base, along a different axis. I have very fond memories of Exile, and every time I am reminded I go to buy something new and remember that none of it is for Linux, and don't quite manage to check whether it works fine on wine.
This isn't a complaint, really - I have plenty to fill my time - just surfacing my experience. The art has never been an issue.
Releasing a Linux version is pretty much never economically viable. Planetary Annihilation made a Linux version and despite representing only <0.1% of sales Linux users accounted for >20% of bug reports[0]. That's pretty damning.
[0] https://mobile.twitter.com/bgolus/status/1080213166116597760
Whenever a point such as that is brought up, I think it is important to keep in mind that Linux users typically (a) know that bug reports are a thing, and (b) often have the technical skills to give a better description of bugs that "it does not work".
That said, I would not fault the makers of Planetary Annihilation for prioritizing bugs according to the size of their customer bases.
> Releasing a Linux version is pretty much never economically viable.
Maybe. And more to the point, even if it were often viable it might not be in a particular case, and the developers likely have a better sense of that then I do. Which is one part of why I'm not complaining.
> Planetary Annihilation made a Linux version and despite representing only <0.1% of sales Linux users accounted for >20% of bug reports[0]. That's pretty damning.
Damning of what?
Daming of the economics? Those numbers could hold despite it being tremendously profitable - it depends on how many bug reports there are relative to sales, how much you're spending per bug report, etc. It's fundamentally looking at the wrong thing. What portion of Linux users had issues? If it's high, maybe that's a big reason you didn't get more Linux sales.
Damning of the platform? Insofar as it's the fault of the platform. It's true that there's fragmentation. It's also true that less effort is often put into the Linux ports, and there are nonetheless plenty of games that I can play without problems.
Damning of Linux gamers? Submitting a bug report is a virtue, not a vice.
Damning of the developers? I don't think that's what you were saying.
All his new games play fine via Proton, FWIW. Haven't tried mainline Wine.
These days, though, I prefer the iPad versions when available.
Almost your customer base is where you look to expand sales.
It's not like he couldn't possibly have thought of that (in fact he goes in detail about this exact thing in the post, and even gives numbers).
You only expand sales if you have the money/time to invest in doing the things to expand your sales. And even then, it's a risk (they might not expand).
He'll need to not merely expand, but (almost) double sales just to earn back increased cost - and that is a business risk he's not willing to take. In a follow-up comment, he mentions the looming recession and how the last one destroyed his sales.
To get me on board would take minimal effort:
Go on one of the colour palette generators and create a colour palette to stick to for each level. Or use one of those photo to colour palette tools. He doesn’t have to learn about colours himself, he can rely on the tools to get him a palette.
Pick a position for the sun/light source and draw shadows on the opposite side of objects consistently.
His style is already consistent enough so those two would probably be all he needs to do.
Then again, if he’s happy with his sales figures and doesn’t need to expand into the almost-customers then fine, it’s his game and his call after all.
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Only based on his wildly inflated numbers that are around 6-7x too high.