Hemisphere Games Reveals Osmos Linux Sales Numbers

An anonymous reader writes "Hemisphere Games analyzes the sales numbers for their Linux port of Osmos and ask themselves, 'Is it worth porting games to Linux?' The short, simple answer is 'yes.' Breakdown and details in the post." A few other interesting details: the port took them about two man-months of work, the day they released for Linux was their single best sales day ever, and they got a surprising amount of interest from Russia and Eastern Europe. Their data only reflects sales through their website, and they make the point that "the lack of a strong Linux portal makes it a much less 'competitive' OS for commercial development." Hopefully someday the rumored Steam Linux client will help to solve that.

Comments

Valve hasn't said a word.

[Beelzebud]

Until Valve says anything about a Linux client, it's just rumor and speculation.

And contrary to what Phoronix has reported for a couple of years now, Valve has not said one word about a Linux port.

Re:Valve hasn't said a word.

[Beelzebud]

No they have in no way confirmed a Linux client. Not at all. Show me one quote from someone at Valve confirming it. You can't because no such confirmation exists.

Don't get me wrong, I would LOVE to see a Linux client, but Valve hasn't said anything about it. The fact that people from Phoronix hacked together an alpha quality client is meaningless.

One game?

[bonch]

One puzzle game proves that it's worth it to port to Linux?

If it took two months to port a puzzle game, imagine how much time and expenses it would take to port a big-name game with much higher technical demands and support requirements.

Interesting

[immakiku]

Gaming is one of the last things keeping people from switching to Linux entirely. Once the Linux gaming scene picks up steam (pun intended), "those in the know" will have no reason to retain an installation of Windows. The increase in user base will spur further development in the areas of Linux that are inferior to Windows at the moment.

Re:Duh?

[Beelzebud]

I've read many tales about how he also spent most of their money on vanity items, and drove the business into the ground. Not to mention that 10 years ago Linux was a pain in the ass for a lot of people to set up and use. With distros like Ubuntu and Mint it's much more accessible now for people who simply want to play games, and not spend all their free time setting the system up.

Re:Remember DOS extenders?

[icebraining]

Imagine if games came in a live Linux CD-ROM. MS-Windows users could play those games with all the benefits of Linux

What benefits? I only see drawbacks:
- terrible loading times (wasting the hard drive advantage)
- having to reboot
- having to configure the network to play online games. Since it's a LiveCD, having to store those configurations in a USB disk or losing them
- wasting the integration of systems like Steam

In general, that would be like playing on a PS2 with better graphics. No thank you.