Why Game Developers Should Support OS X and Linux

kevind23 writes "Although Mac OS X and Linux have a small (but growing) market share, Jeff from Wolfire Games argues that supporting non-Windows platforms can lead to a huge increase in game sales. Using their popular game Lugaru as an example, he shows how less-popular platforms, or more specifically, their userbase can be a powerful advertising force. This can lead to a dramatic increase in popularity and exposure, which usually means a large boost in overall sales. The short article is an interesting read, especially for those working in game development and sales."

Comments

Mac users spend more money

[Senes]

I remember it being drilled into my head over and over... develop for new hardware instead of old hardware, do everything for the expensive crowd because people who don't spend money on their hardware are less likely to spend money on software. This might be an outdated school of thought, but I'd say it goes double for Mac users. They're really expensive, and especially nowadays they're taking on this image as a trendy status symbol instead of a tool to do work with. Another things Mac devs have going for them, there is a lot less competition. If you would say that Macs don't have enough games out for them, then that translates into a niche to fill for aspiring businessmen.

Re:Mac users spend more money

[Anonymous Coward]

Another things Mac devs have going for them, there is a lot less competition. If you would say that Macs don't have enough games out for them, then that translates into a niche to fill for aspiring businessmen.

You clearly have no idea about game marketing. The people who hold the money in gaming are all about avoiding risk by stampeding to the same place as everyone else. Most of the last 15 years, I've been working on games that were just like whatever was popular the year before.

It's like a nature documentary I saw last week that showed zebras crossing a river in Africa. They all mill around for ages, until one finally crosses alone. If that one doesn't get eaten by the crocodiles, they all pour across in exactly the same place.

Re:Mac users spend more money

[SanityInAnarchy]

The problem here is, it also translates into a culture of shareware. Things which are freeware on Windows, and open source everywhere else, are shareware on a Mac.

Maybe it's just me, but that's what I've seen. You could argue that it's because the Mac version is so different, unique, and so much better than the free alternatives that it deserves to be paid for. I think it's because of exactly what you've said -- someone who just paid $1k for a dev machine is unlikely to gripe about $50 for TextMate.

(I'm lazy, so those numbers are almost certainly wrong, but they're close to right.)

As a user, that is one thing I really hate about the Mac. It's not that I don't believe in paying for software, just that I don't think every little file management tool or MP3 player needs to ask $20. Put up a donation page and be grateful someone hasn't replaced you already.

But hey, if you're going for that angle, target Mac users because they spend more money and are grateful for any decent games, and target Linux users because they might buy one just to up the Linux stats.

Re:Mac users spend more money

[SanityInAnarchy]

The people who hold the money in gaming are all about avoiding risk by stampeding to the same place as everyone else.

Except in 2008, apparently. We got Mirror's Edge, Spore, and Dead Space, all from EA.

And don't forget, Portal came from Valve. Shows how if you really want to test an idea without too much risk, build a smaller game and use digital distribution.

Re:Mac users spend more money

[rm999]

Mirror's Edge was a big monetary loss for EA, and Spore was received far less enthusiastically than expected. The game that made EA the most money last year? Madden - one of the least innovative series in the industry. And Portal may have helped sell Orange Box, but it never would have stood on its own as a serious revenue generator for Valve.

Sadly, game companies don't always feel the need to innovate because people are finicky and games cost millions to make. After all, they are businesses, usually with stock holders to answer to.

Re:Mac users spend more money

[Fulg]

[...] I have to wade through 90 clones all which have GUI bugs and or just look like crap in general. (Some gung-ho developer tried to reinvent Windows widgets). [Emphasis mine]

I get what you're saying, but a big pet peeve of mine on OSX is that I see the exact opposite. Sure, almost all of Mac software looks great, but many don't follow consistent usability guidelines and many program options are hidden away. The fact that most dialog boxes cannot be controlled by the keyboard on OSX (by default anyway) is another big issue for me.

For example, it took me months to find the "Play Song Preview" in iTMS/iTunes because it's not in any app menu or even the right-click context menu; you just have to know to doubleclick the song. In every other Windows app that's not a problem, the bold menu entry is what will happen when you doubleclick; I don't know why this "standard" doesn't apply to OSX.

Another example, I needed a tool to just crop an image on OSX (splitting a desktop wallpaper in two for spaning multiple monitors). I found ImageWell, which worked fine but has a weird workflow and a non-resizeable interface that forces you to work in a very small preview version of your image!

Now don't get me wrong, I totally accept that I'm not used to OSX so any difference from W32 annoys me, but I think the point stands anyway.

Anyway, getting back on topic, developers target the platforms they use. Less marketshare means less developers means less variety. I only use OSX occasionally, so I don't bother developing much for it (I only use the Mac for iPhone development now).

Re:Mac users spend more money

[Creepy]

First off, I believe FIFA 08 made EA more money than Madden, but maybe you mean in the US.

Innovation is a high risk, high reward can bring profits - look at the Wii console - the least technically complex, the worst graphics of the major consoles, and the last to market - not to mention it isn't even the cheapest anymore (the XBox 360 cheapest model is under $200), but it dominates the sales charts. Meanwhile, Sony is bleeding money and laying off (and Microsoft is laying off to protect their bottom line).

However, innovation only sells some of the time - Assassin's Creed was one of the top sellers on PS3 and XBox 360 and had a fair degree of innovation and a fair degree of evolution. Call of Duty 4 was also a top seller on those platforms and was mostly evolution. Why does CoD4 sell? First off, as far as shooters go, it is fairly simple to learn and play. Second, people are familiar with the game and controls from the previous games and there is less learning curve. Finally, the plot/fun factor of the game has been good enough that players don't have burnout (like the Tomb Raider franchise). Sports games benefit from having a head start, which is why they sell well - the buyers are nearly always fans that know the rules from watching sports. FIFA 08 isn't as popular as Madden in the US because the US is much more rabid fans of Football than Soccer, while the world audience is just the opposite. NHL games are probably very popular in Canada and the US, but I bet you could sell more copies of Kangaroo Hunter (yes, I made that up) in Australia than NHL games, even if KH used a 6 year old engine and played like crap).

What do many Wii games and Portal have in common? They are deceptively simple - easy to learn, but difficult to master. Wii's dumbing down of the controller to 2 buttons means non-hardcore gamers have a basic learning curve of minutes, not hours or days. And they're mostly fun, or at least the few I've played were. Most of the time I'm fighting with the controls with games on the XBox 360 and PS3 and play against people that have used them for years and it tends to be more an exercise in frustration.

Fill in the numbers:

[krischik]

Targeting a 5 .. 10% larger audience lead to ~122% more sales.

Now, I would still have guessed (including the leverage) it but that does not go for everybody.

Blizzard

[incripshin]

Why, this is the perfect place to advertise the Linux Installers for Blizzard Products Petition! I believe that if Blizzard supported Linux for its upcoming titles, it would change Linux gaming forever.

Re:Blizzard

[Kalriath]

Why? No one takes online petitions seriously, it's just a waste of time. Besides, it aint "only fair" that Linux be supported - what's that shit about?

For now, the games work fine under WINE (which is more than can be said for anything EA), isn't that enough for now? If you want to see game companies developing natively for *nix, get more people using it. The developers will follow, seriously.

Why game developers should support standards

[Thanshin]

The alternative of simply programming over a common standard environment is still there.

Part of all that power currently spent on better and better graphics could be spent on passing through a common interface.

As an extra bonus, it would allow the creation of computer-like machines that would only run that standard gaming environment, without all the other functions of a computer.

Unless someone translated the rest of the usual computer functions to that common gaming environent.

Re:Summary of TFA

[Hecatonchires]

Your reasoned commentary singles you out from the herd. Stupid zebra, you're crocodile bait now.

Maybe there's more to it

[sleeponthemic]

But I thought that article trivialised the whole affair and offered very little evidence for the point, bar a spectacularly presented pie chart. One publisher made money from a game. Not quite the smoking gun.

One thing that is true is that there is a lot of respect and word of mouth thrown the way of a good game with native linux client. That would of course diminish if there weren't so few quality games supporting it, of course.

I also find myself wondering whether this game Lugaru is an opengl game, keeping migration costs down.

Re:Maybe there's more to it

[Yvanhoe]

The article is its own proof : Because of its linux port, it got an article on Slashdot frontpage for a game that would otherwise go totally unnoticed !

Re:OGL vs DirectX

[kazade84]

DirectX forms a very small part of any well designed game. Everything would be abstracted for portability, you think the PS3 supports DX?

Let's just go through the thought process of porting a game that supports Windows to Linux MacOSX, starting from a DX only codebase.

It would be trivial to support OpenGL as a 2nd renderer as well as D3D because, as I said, games are designed for portability, but as you pointed out that's more maintenance.

But then why keep D3D? OpenGL is portable and runs on Linux, Windows and OSX so the logical decision would be to ONLY support OpenGL, suddenly the game becomes more portable.

Then there are the other things that DirectX does that need to be duplicated for other platforms, for example input, sound etc. The logical choice would be to use, I dunno, some libraries that already took care of the work, like SDL (windowing, input and events) and OpenAL (sound).

But wait. If you use SDL + OpenAL then suddenly the game runs on all platforms... then what's the point of a DX version?

The point I'm getting at is if a game developer wanted to support the 3 main PC platforms they could do with the same amount of development work. The reasons they don't are:

1. They already have a whole DX tool chain built on Windows and with the blessing of Microsoft. It is a risk for them to change their whole process, what if it doesn't pay off?

2. There WILL be more testing required. Chances are things would work the same as all platforms but they'd still have to test that.

There are of course some advantages to writing for more platforms:

1. Compiling your code with more than one compiler is good practice because it flags up bad code that your original compiler allowed erroneously

2. Parts of the code that aren't abstract enough will be flagged up pretty quickly.

Anyway I'm waffling. The point is, the studios won't change until the increase in market share makes up for the change in their development processes.

TINSTAAFL

[Serious Callers Only]

As a user, that is one thing I really hate about the Mac. It's not that I don't believe in paying for software, just that I don't think every little file management tool or MP3 player needs to ask $20. Put up a donation page and be grateful someone hasn't replaced you already.

As a user, that's one thing I hate about other computer users - they expect people to do lots of work for them for free, and feel entitled to it somehow. You should be grateful many people are producing software for you, not coming out with bullshit like 'and be grateful someone hasn't replaced you already'.

Your attitude leads directly to plentiful releases of low-quality, just-good-enough software, many with bundled advertising and malware, much like the Windows software scene in fact. TINSTAAFL.

There is plenty of free open-source software on OS X if that's what you're looking for, it isn't magically turned into shareware - there's tons of Unix software available for free via macports for example, there's also GUI apps like Cyberduck, Audacity, Handbreak, GIMP, etc etc. Then OS X itself bundles tons of open-source software (apache, gcc, etc).

There is also some quality software (like TextMate, or BBEdit) which should continue to charge for development, because development takes time, effort and money.

Re:TINSTAAFL

[Just Some Guy]

There is plenty of free open-source software on OS X if that's what you're looking for, it isn't magically turned into shareware

Actually, it is. Take Memtest86+, the de facto standard RAM tester. Now Google for "memtest os x" and you'll find this jerk who sells a compiled version but doesn't make the source available to it. To rub salt in the wound, he's too lazy to make his own website graphics and uses the default "Joomla! ...because open source matters".

Sure, you can get Memtest for free if you know how. It's just irksome that the source-deprived shareware version is the one most Mac users will know about. So one program isn't the end of the world, but it seems par for the course for OS X.

OT: How to lay out a CD for Linux, Mac vs Win?

[daniel23]

strange question, shouldnt I know the answer myself since I've been using all three OSen for ages myself? (Typing this on an Ubuntu desktop)

But it's been quite some years now that I last mastered a win/mac CD (it still had OS9) and I never did one for Linux before.
On the other hand my own computer usage has so much shifted to a net focus that I hardly ever install and run a CD myself anymore. And if I do this at all, it's always on win.

So, win is easy, there will be an autorun.inf with a link to an icon and a link to some autorun.exe or whatever.

On Mac, I'd expect the CD to appear with a large friendly icon, a window opening on double click with more large friendly icons that make it very clear what to do (i.e. drag the application onto the application folder alias). No autorun here.

On Linux? I have no idea. From my own usage pattern I don't expect the stuff to be on a CDrom in the first place, it's either in the repositories of my distribution or in a .deb/.rpm dnl'ed from some url or I got a tarball and have to do the ./configure / make / make install - dance. I don't think I ever opened a "commercial" CD intended to be used from Linux (with the exception of install discs). Autorun? - Gott bewahre! Rather a README, may be an install.pl ...

Now there should be sites discussing that question, design guides, style guides, best practices. No way that I'm the first one pondering about how to make a CD look just right on all three OSen - but google drowns me in a bazillion of unrelated pages. Which is why I turn up here with my question, hoping that some of you keep a link or two in their bookmarks to help me find my way.

Network effects, especially.

[seebs]

When my spouse and I wanted to take up an MMO, we had an obvious requirement: It had to run on a Mac, because my spouse is a Mac user. So, we got WoW. (There weren't many competitors at the time who did Mac; even now, the most obvious is Eve which is of anti-value to me because I don't, ever, under any circumstances, want PvP.)

So far, that's two copies sold. But wait. My brother-in-law now plays with us. My sister-in-law now plays with us, because her husband plays with us. A friend of mine from some message boards who'd given up got back into the game because I was playing it. So I can name five people (and more than five monthly subscriptions) that came from that sale. Only one of whom plays primarily on Mac.

For games that are played with other people, the effect isn't just the actual sales to Mac users; it's the sales to people who want to play with Mac users, and the moment anyone provides an option for the Mac market, a lot of other users will end up being drawn to that product by preference.