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Linux Users More Likely To Pay For Games?
Teppy writes "I noticed something unexpected the other day when reviewing the subscriber counts for our MMORPG, A Tale In The Desert. Of everyone who tries our game, Linux users are definitely more inclined to pay money to subscribe. In fact, overall, about 15.6% of Windows users who do the free trial will subscribe, while among Linux users the number is 19.3%. Furthermore, Linux users tend to remain subscribers for a longer time. Are we the only game company noticing this?" Is this down to loyalty, choice, or other mysterious factors?
Actually, this is related to the following reasons:
- A number of people would do so in order to encourage game companies to make games for linux.
- A number of Linux users do not have a large variety of games available. This makes them stick with what they got.
- The Linux community in general is supportive to companies that care enough to care about the community.
So it's loyalty, fewer varities, and paying back.
Is this down to loyalty, choice, or other mysterious factors?
Without any idea of the sample size, and where your hits are coming from, who knows? My guesses are that 1) anyone looking for Linux games is really into games and 2) the much smaller pool of Linux games means an identical game looks more attractive on Linux than on Windows.
I've never seen a game distributed as a 100 meg shell script before!
What I'm listening to now on Pandora...
I am a very casual gamer, and there are a few reasons why I subscribed to the game. When MMORPG started to get popular, I wanted to give them a go, but when I got to the store, I found out you had to pay 50 bucks, and then a monthly fee. In the past I have bought games, and then never ended up playing them, and every time I see the box sitting on my shelf, I think, man I wasted 50 bucks. So if I was to pay 50 bucks for the game, and then 10 bucks a month, only to play it for a week, I would have blew 60 bucks.
The fact that the game is made available without a fee, and that you could even play online for a demo period pretty much sealed the deal. I played it, thought it was cool, and then when the demo expired, I registered so I could continue to play.
Here's a breakdown of overhead costs. But that's not most of the $14.
We have a small company - 3 artists, 2 coders. We spend pretty much all of our time saying "ah, here's a cool new challenge to add to the game." My partner and I code it, the artists do their part, and we release a new skill, or new research, or a new event or Test. This happens at least a couple times each week.
I can't imagine being able to keep the game fresh and interesting working less than full time. There is *no way* we could pay the bills based only on an initial (box) fee.
Modern Egypt:
1>Get someone to give you a medium stone (they are cheap, often free)
2>Get some leather from a UWorship, or buy some (not cheap, but by no means expensive)
3>Walk 10 minutes in any direction and you'll trip over a public rock saw. Use it to make flystones.
4>A little oil, a few bricks, and bam. Pottery wheel.
Ancient Egypt:
1>Find a medium stone lying on the ground somewhere (long project, as most stones come from under the ground)
2>Gather flint. You need 70. You have a 5% chance of getting one piece of flint each time you gather clay. You must run to a water source each time you gather clay, as you only have one jug of water to soften the ground with. Use the flint to build a rock saw.
3>Get leather, which may or may not include inventing sheep ranching.
4>A little oil, a few bricks, &c.
Catching up is a lot simpler than many folk realize. All you need to do is make some friends. Most things are relatively deflationary, especially at a newbies tech level. Alternatively, you could join a guild and be instantly caught up.
It may not be just, but it is fair, and that is more important.