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Linux Games Not Selling
Patrick McAllister was one of the folks who wrote to us about
a report talking with John Carmack [?] regarding id's sales of Linux games. Apparently, it's been pretty absymal - enough to cover costs, but "they wouldn't make a bean-counter blink". I wonder what Loki's experience has been.
Well, when Q3A was going to be released, I let my friends that work for Electronics Boutique that I wanted the first copy. For some reason I couldn't just preorder it like you could with the Windows version.
So on the release day they got one (1) copy in, and my friend snagged it for me. I came in and bought it. My brother wanted the next copy. 4-5 days later another copy came in and he got that one. Apparently some people had been asking for it, but because it wasn't in stock they didn't buy one. Eventually they sold a couple more but they never had more than one in stock at any time. I don't know what the EB purchaser was smoking because they could have sold many more. I was expecting at least 4 or 5 like they would get for even the crappiest windows release of a new game.
Also Amazon.com wouldn't let you preorder. THis is the way I obtain most of my cd's, dvd's, etc. I order them way in advance and usually get a decent discount. Then they just magically show up on my door. Works well. I talked to Amazon's customer support department and they just said they didn't know when they'd get it and that they wouldn't accept pre-orders. I don't know if they ever got it in. That hurt sales as Amazon has got to be the biggest software retailer.
THe funny thing is that I never play Q3 anymore... I have decided to stop playing games about 6 months before it came out, yet I put down my $40 to support commercial Linux releases. I've got a cool tin box if nothing else... the CD is still in the cellophane if memory serves. I guess I wish more of the other members of the community voted with their dollars.
-k
Tuzanor has a very good point. Linux is pretty much in its "early stages" of non-commercial use. It has, for a long time, been thought of for strictly business use because of it's scalability, multi-user and SMP capabilites. Only recently has it come into the light as a desktop OS. It will definitely take a lot of time for linux gaming to take off. Much of this needed time will have to go into the development of the OS itself so that it will be more presentable for use as a gaming OS. Maybe another reason linux gaming isn't taking off so quickly, is because it costs to buy many of the "brand name" games that are out there. After all, linux's (and unix based OS's) main strength is that it's FREE
They told me to install win95 or better, so I installed linux
If Linux games are not selling why have I been waiting for an order from Loki/Digital River for the last couple of months?
I've been waiting for an order since June 20 and when ever I ask Digital River about the status of my order I get a responce like this:
"The product you ordered is currently on backorder. Our warehouse has
not yet received this item, but we will be filling orders upon arrival.
We do not have an estimated date on the arrival, however. You will
receive an email notification when your order is actually shipped. Your
credit card has not been charged at this point. We apologize for any
inconvenience this delay has caused."
If there is no demand, I wouldn't have expected the games I ordered to have gone onto backorder in the first place.
Maybe it is only the ID games that are not selling.
I am a former Amiga zealot, from 1987-1991 the Amiga was the greatest computer in the world, at least in my world.
Amateur. You sold out in 1991? What on earth for when the platform didn't start dying until at least 3 years after that? Some zealot!
The Amiga was actually fairly popular as a game machine, and we had a number of titles available which were quite successful. Most of the Psygnosis stuff, a few crossover games from the Atari ST like DungeonMaster, etc.
It was IMMENSELY popular as a games machine. There were some HUGELY succesful games, the only one of which you mentioned was Dungeon Master. Do some research.
But I'd also say that the reality was the Amiga had the highest percentage of software piracy of any platform available at the time.
It came from a couple of basic issues:
#1. Most Amiga users were college students, without much money.
This may be the case, but that is NOT the reason. The reason piracy was so high was because 8bit games sold for 10 quid and Amiga games sold for 30 or more. Plus there were an INORDINATELY high number of users. A 10% piracy rate on a machine that sells say 5000 units is a LOT lower than 10% on a system that sells 50000. (And some Amiga games did.) So of course piracy is going to appear higher.
#2. Most Amiga users were afraid to commit a lot of money to their system because it was fringe.
Fringe? Are you on drugs? The Amiga was huge and never became "fringe" as you put it until the PC started kicking it's ass thanks to Doom. (HEY! On topic! Carmack made it, Carmack made it!) Plus there is the fact that upgrading the Amiga made little or no sense for gaming beyond taking it to 1 meg of ram. Games were written for the stock machine, so one computer would run it much the same as another. Case in point, F1GP. On the A1200 it wasn't any faster on low detail than the A500 due to the framerate being hardcoded, so to say about Amiga users being scared to commit a lot of money into a fringe system is the biggest load of shit I've ever heard.
That is, there was always this fear in the back of ones mind that next year you'd buy a new computer and it wouldn't use any of your current stuff.
What color is the sky in your world? That's TOTAL shit. The problem came around 92-93 when C= released the A600 (a castrated A500 effectively) and shipped Kickstart 2 with it, then shortly thereafter shipped Kickstart 3 on the A1200. (Still the best computer ever made.) Until the A600, no Amiga user had any fear of that. I knew a LOT of fellow Amiga users back then, and not one worried about that. C= claimed that if programmers had stuck to the guidelines, backward compatibility would have been 100%, but due to pushing the hardware there were significant incompatibilities with older software. Before this point, your alleged "fear" was non-existent, and since you say you left in 91, you were long sold out before the problems were even remotely worried about.
Anyway. I think these issues that hurt the Amiga still hold true today,
They're all in your head. You have no clue whatso-fucking-ever. You are an idiot.
Oh, one problem the Amiga also had. We went around telling all the software companies that if only they'd write software we would buy it. Of course they did write software, and instead we pirated it.
AH! So you were not a zealot, but a software pirate. Congratulations, you're an asshole. As for "we pirated it", fuck you. YOU may be a thief. Others are not. Don't paint them to be the asshole you are.
After a few years of this, a large number of companies simply stopped supporting the Amiga.
Wrong. While piracy was an issue for them leaving, the primary reason was the greener pastures of consoles and the PC. All the time, piracy problem or not, they could make more money developing for the Amiga than the PC. Then Carmack came along with his old dog doing a few new tricks, and they left. THAT was the problem. Piracy was just bandied around as the reason. Carmack could have supported the Amiga but chose not too, despite the fact that Doom has now been ported to the Amiga just fine.
Honestly, I have never seen such outright bullshit posted on Slashdot. I mean for crying out loud, you say you were a zealot, yet you left long before the Amiga became huge. Some zealot. Do you even know the meaning of the word? Perhaps if you'd stuck around until 95 and beyond like the TRUE fans did you wouldn't be so full of shit and may actually know what you're talking about.
I could pick apart your ridiculous statements some more, but frankly I'm bored. You're talking complete bollocks, and nothing I say is going to change that. Next time, try posting on a subject you actually have a clue about, like masturbation or something.
A REAL Amiga zealot.
Anybody remember the last category of software that used DOS as its main platform? That's right, games! It took a year or two until there was a sufficient installed base of computers, running a version of Windows that was even vaguely suitable for games, before Windows-specific games started to appear in numbers.
As Xfree 4.0 matures, and more and more people start using Linux as their only operating system, Linux games will start to appear in greater numbers.
Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from a rigged demo
--Andy Finkel (J. Klass?)
Even though i LOVE linux I still use windows for gaming for the main reason that, right now at least, it's the better platform for games. Look at recent benchmarks. Although most of the differences are hairthin Winhoes still has the advantage. When more support is added for linux and more people start using it as a desktop, it'll start to really take off.
Quake != all Linux games. I've bought just about
evey title Loki has published, but I didn't buy
Quake. I bought Unreal Tournament instead.
For one thing I could buy UT for $29 and download the Linux binaries. Q3 however was $60 and impossible to find locally. They were too similar to buy both, and my judgement was that UT was better-- and at half the price the decision was a no brainer.
The link is www.idsoftware.com not www.id.com
Can't people check their damn links before posting submissions?
--
Soma: because a gramme is better than a damn.
The quote you see was taken from a post by John Carmack to Slashdot a couple of days ago. So, Slashdot is essentially reporting on its own user comments and it doesn't even realize it. :)
I don't know what's up with the Win2000Mag link. Anyone figured that out?
------
Considering the fairly sorry state of 3D acceleration right at this moment, it's not all that surprising. Sure we have XFree86 4.0, but it's been plagued with problems, incompatibilities, etc.
I used up all my sick days, so I'm calling in dead.
One Linux system company has had such an abysmal time selling workstations that they've quietly canned several open source projects that they were previously funding. Can't say the name but let's put it this way: when was the last time you saw an Enlightenment release?
I think that their were several reasons for low sales. In my mind the top reasons and the reasons that I did not purchase the linux version are:
1.The windows version was released signifigantly later than the linux version. I am a huge fan of Id's games and bought the game the first day it was available.
2. It is difficult to setp up 3-d for linux - things are getting better, but at the time that quake3 was released I would not have been able to use my nvidia tnt2 with quake3. The drivers simply were not sufficient. Now drivers are available for many cards. However, it is still a signifigant chore to set up Xfree86 4.0 under redhat 6.2 and get the nvidia drivers working. Presumably Redhat 7.0 will fix this.
3. If you buy the windows version you will eventually be able to get the linux binaries. I am willing to dual boot to play quake for a while as long as I will later be able to switch over to linux.
4. Not many retailers carry the linux version.
Aaron Bryden
Aaron Bryden
abrydenREMOVETHIS@gmail.com
1. The Windows version was available first and you could just download the Linux binaries later.
2. The Linux version wasn't as widely distributed as the Windows version (bn.com didn't have it nor did most online "etailers", local software places here didn't have it, etc)
3. Linux 3D video card support *at the time* wasn't very good, it has improved with the NVidia drivers, XF86 4, DRI, etc. Gamers would buy the Windows version as their hardware would work there, then once it worked in Linux download the Linux binaries.
-- iCEBaLM
no apps comparable to windows? how wrong are you? name a windows app without a linux counterpart? name a windows counterpart that has the features of procmail, leafnode, cron, anacron and x? i use all of these things in my day to day work, and last i checked i couldn't accomplish any of those w/o serious scripting in apps that have no published roadmap, i have no access to their development teams plans and generally shift from release to release.
i think people who use windows desktops are shortsighted and using/learning skills that microsoft bases its business plan on making obsolete every few years. all the unix tools i used in college bar one have followed me to linux 10 years on (i can't get rn to build). i also chose to stop using xv because eog is faster (and licensing is better).
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This isn't rocket science.. these articles are stupid because they paint linux in a bad light without really looking at the underlying issues, that people like Carmack, Redhat, et al. should be working on instead of useless installers that don't really do anything new.
Linux has a long way to come in the multimedia/gaming/video arena, and I don't see anyone offering any real leadership. I'm still pissed that RedHat can't use that billion dollar market cap to grab NVidia and the other 3D manufacturers by the balls and get drivers released. Oh well.
..don't panic
Here is where common sense asserts itself. Linux is by no means an easy-to-use (or configure) OS. HelixCode has the right idea, but a loooong way to go before the Average Person can simply run Linux and then run the game of their choice. Video card support under Linux is fairly dissapointing, and we all know that without proper hardware/software accelleration, Linux gaming (or any gaming, for that matter) will go nowhere fast. Perhaps it's just me, but I figure that if programmers would stop cloning other people's projects (how many damn versions of ICQ for Linux does it take to screw in a lightbulb?) and start redirecting their efforts to more necessary projects like, say... drivers? Putting X out of its misery? Getting rid of the archaic commands and replacing them with something usable for everyone? ... Linux just might become a viable platform. Until then, Linux will stay as a utility OS, and Microsoft will have the gaming market cornered.
Regards,
Shikimo
I wouldn't have expected a Linux game to even break even. Linux is doing amazingly well in the Internet server market, but I didn't think the Linux desktop market really existed yet.
If it's true that the port paid for itself then game manufacturers can now afford to support Linux without losing their shirts. Seeing more games available will encourage users to switch to Linux. Seeing more users will encourage more game producers. Once the positive feedback loop is established things will snowball.
Getting to that break-even point is the hard part. If we've really reached it then this is a significant event.
It is tempting, if the only tool you have is a hammer, to treat everything as if it were a nail. - Abraham Maslow
I love Linux. I've been using it professionally for years. I also play a lot of games. But I am the exception, not the rule. The rule in video games is the console market. 13 years old with a little higher than avg. disposable income, and no patience for a command line.
Linux may already be owning the server business on many fronts, and will certainly progress on all, but the "Linux game market" today is a curiousity dreamed up by wishful thinkers and zealots.
Linux makes sense for games when it's a platform for development (a surprising number of popular games were developed under Linux and then ported to Win32 for release) - after all, not having to reboot every time your code tries to spew on the memory or the GUI subsystem is a pretty big dev. advantage.
It may also make sense as a game platform generally, given a proper gaming interface... that is, none at all. If you took out shells, /etc, X, and login, and replaced them all with shiny opaque surfaces, you could have quite a nice, extensible foundation upon which to base, say, an X-Box killer... oops, no DirectX, no large developer base... too bad.
But is it anyone's loss if the gaming industry doesn't make money on Linux even in this decade... or perhaps, at all? As long as Linux is raising the bar on operating systems, whatever would-be monopolist that happens to be current will at least find themselves motivated enough to try (i.e. Win2k). In the meantime, video games will forever trend towards mass market, as an outlet eventually comparable to Hollywood in stature as well as in profits... and part of that is the future of the console: cheap, hot special purpose hardware subsidized by software royalties.
We're on the road to Tycho.
For everyone bitching about the link, try this: http://www.wininformant.com/display.asp?ID=2867 I supplied the article cut and pasted, probably inadvertendly sent the wrong link, my apologies for everyone's trauma.
I am a former Amiga zealot, from 1987-1991 the Amiga was the greatest computer in the world, at least in my world.
:)
The Amiga was actually fairly popular as a game machine, and we had a number of titles available which were quite successful. Most of the Psygnosis stuff, a few crossover games from the Atari ST like DungeonMaster, etc.
But I'd also say that the reality was the Amiga had the highest percentage of software piracy of any platform available at the time.
It came from a couple of basic issues:
#1. Most Amiga users were college students, without much money.
#2. Most Amiga users were afraid to commit a lot of money to their system because it was fringe. That is, there was always this fear in the back of ones mind that next year you'd buy a new computer and it wouldn't use any of your current stuff.
Reason #2 also held true in later years when I turned to OS/2. I never once purchased an OS/2 specific version of software, in fact I knew few people who did. We'd rely strickly upon the Win-OS/2 and DOS compatibility.
What's worse with OS/2 was that reason #1 on the Amiga never even held. Corporations who had money also didn't buy OS/2 software.
Anyway. I think these issues that hurt the Amiga still hold true today, except that college students seem to have more money than we did back then. Working $10/hour jobs instead of $3/hour has an impact on the beer budget.
But on top of that Linux users in general have also taken on this attitude that not being able to afford software isn't the problem, it's those EVIL GREEDY corporations actually putting a price tag on software. Software should be free, and as such it is immoral for one to buy software.
It's a very strange paradox, and one which will never really put Linux in a position of encouraging development from commercial software companies.
Oh, one problem the Amiga also had. We went around telling all the software companies that if only they'd write software we would buy it. Of course they did write software, and instead we pirated it. After a few years of this, a large number of companies simply stopped supporting the Amiga.
Of course we said that was because their software was crap. Of course the fact that we pirated it and used it meant it was not realy crap, we were just hypocritical.
Basic lesson there is, don't tell companies there is a market for something unless there actually is a market.