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Linux Users More Likely To Pay For Games?

Posted by simoniker on from the freedom-to-spend-freely dept.

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?

3 of 106 comments (clear)

  1. A good number of reasons by Youssef+Adnan · · Score: 5, Informative

    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.

  2. Why I Subscribed by skreuzer · · Score: 3, Informative

    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.

  3. Where the money goes by Teppy · · Score: 5, Informative

    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.