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?

Comments

Paying monthly is horrible

[RancidLM]

Having some one pay monthly is the most horrible thing a company can do ...

i mean why Go out and spend 80$ on a game and pay an aditional cost on top of that.. i understand its to maintain servers but its stuppid..

Personaly i am waiting for the next version of Planeshift
www.planeshift.it
its totaly free Massive multiplay Online RPG.. 100% free
In another note i would rather pay +60$ more of the game price just for a unlimited subscirption for a massive multiplayer RPG game.. then have to pay monthly
But, As a linux user .. i relly have respect for almost any company that offers a linux version of thier software.. its really about time.. i think Nvidia and ID software are setting a good examples off releasing linux related version of their games/drivers

-"i come from a planet ruled by carots"

Re:15 vs 19

[Teppy]

Actually, there's plenty of sample size to do meaningful statistics. Here's the total:

Trial Accounts, Total: 34317
Trial Accounts, Linux: 1309
Paid Accounts, Total: 5407
Paid Accounts, Linus: 253

These are all since release. An account is considered a paid account if they have paid for at least one month of ATITD. Note that these are not current subscriber counts - we're arouond 1500 on that. The average length of time a player stays is a bit closer, but I'll try put those numbers together if there's interest.

So, the 15 vs 19 certainly seems meaningful - maybe there's a stats guy out there who can figure out the actual margin or error.

Also, yes - these are percentages of people who do the trial that go on to pay. We don't require any credit card info upfront, so there's no "aha, you forgot to say you DIDN'T want to continue!" factor. Also there's plenty of kids that don't have a way to pay in the first place, mixed in with those numbers. No idea what the numbers would look like if we did use a traditional GOTCHA! business model.

Re:A good number of reasons

[MrResistor]

And there are Linux users that actually care about copyrights and piracy.

Exactly.

I made a decision to live a more honest life, and part of that was giving up pirated software. Since I find Windows overpriced, I switched to Linux. The irony is, I spend far more on software now than I ever would have under Windows.