Slashdot Mirror
Sierra Studios asking about Linux
eh writes "Sierra Studios, makers and distributors of such fine games as Kings Quest and more recently Half-Life, has a poll up on their main page asking where they should steer their attention. One of the options happens to be "Linux Games", which is sitting so very lonely at 11%. " I remember the sheer hours Rob whilled away at Leisure Suit Larry. Of course, I only got Outpost, which the first time around stunk.
Maybe perhaps it's time to vote again if you
1) Have actually installed Linux
2) Have actually gotten your sound card and video card properly configured in Linux
3) Actually intend on supporting Sierra in a Linux game development effort.
Its very very easy for a vendor to recover a poll from slashdot aberrations. The nice visible spike makes it easy to drop results for a given time period, and also to drop results via referrer tracking.
Don't forget there is also a work in progress free player for the old Sierra games too.
I for one would like to see Sierra steer thier
:)
aquisition Papyrus to release thier Nascar Racing
series to linux. Doubtful though, as Papyrus's
latest (Grand Prix Legends) and future releases
(Nascar 2000) seem to be deeply embedded in
DirectX 6.
If they could do this, it would remove my reasons
for booting to windows at all.
I could dream, cant I?
Funny you should ask. There's an interpreter available:
LAGII 0.1.5
Peace.
It's still statisticlly valid, it just has a different meaning. In this case it means "Of the group of people who visited this site and participated in the poll, who want's what?". That's usualy all that an internet poll can mean.
-- The act of censorship is always worse than whatever is being censored. Always.
but on that self-same note, if bluesnews.com, planetquake.com, planethalflife.com, stomped etc all posted 'Hey sierra has a poll that calls for a gamer's vote, go look' there would be a FLOOD of windows9x users saying, hey yeah, concentrate on MY games..
tchort
Self-selected polls are _never_ representative, on the Internet or elsewhere.
Sierra Studios: I'm happy to vote with my dollars for Linux games -- I've bought many games in the past, and wrote "support Linux!" on each product registration card.
I'd probably even buy some games that I wouldn't have otherwise if they were made available in Linux versions.
I preordered it, and its great :) Definately a good purchase.
If your local CompUSA and such don't have it, consider ordering it online. It costs about the same, and that way you know you're going to get it, as opposed to waiting until the stores decide to carry it.
-[Blaine]- "'Oh dear,' says God, 'I hadn't thought of that,' and promptly vanishes in a puff of logic."
I've watched the poll since early this morning. It appears that the poll has been reset at least twice. The first reset came when Linux had nearly 75% of the vote - and 2500 votes were cast away. Next, Linux and Mac were neck in neck, with Mac having the slight lead, in over 4000 votes - at which point after, it was reset. It's 2:30 Central (US) and the poll shows almost 2300 votes, with a Linux percentage of 63%.
I wonder if someone is resetting the data because they don't like the results, or if their poll data is saved to another file and then reset so visitors feel that their vote carries more weight.
Linux - Because Mommy taught me to Share.
So many turn into activists when doing so is simple.
What part of the logic chain am I missing?
1. PHB wishes to know if there is some intrest in a particular branch of development.
2. Poll is established and 6000 people vote for linux.
3. PHB says, "Hmm, that's interesting. Tell me more, lets get some numbers and ask a consulting firm or two..."
No company or business is going to base developer decisions on an online poll, whether they get 6 votes total or 100,000 for linux. They are gauging (sp?) an intrest level. So what if slashdot sends a very large number of linux zealots over? They are still each and every one a potential customer, and a company likes to find a new market with lots of customers.
If some mac evangelista site links the poll, they would have every chance to flood the poll too, and that might be listened to as well.
There is also a final possibility, one I know from personal experience: Maybe the PHB's Number One is a big time reader of slashdot and is trying to steer his boss into learning something about linux. In a seemingly innocuous poll they get a LARGE amount of linux intrest. Mission Accomplished.
Check my Go-related blog for beginners: DGD
I'd just like to note that Sierra(/Valve) does already do some Linux stuff. There is a Linux version of the Half-Life server out. No client yet, though...and frankly, I would love to see that. I'd pay the $50 all over again to be able to play it under Linux.
So I think that there is a pretty good chance of them listening to the fact that there have been so many Linux responses on the poll, even if they throw out the numbers themselves.
Now, if we just had some decent 3D drivers for TNT cards for Linux...
Editor Emeritus and Senior Writer, TeleRead.org
Come on, I've been reading comments from people worrying about skewed polls, businesses being misinformed, and so on...
;-)
I think we worry too much about it.
Someone else already commented that the results of such polls most probably will be used to see if there are markets to be researched.
Just looking at the pollresults they will be likely to realise they've gotten themselves into the middle of a Mac vs. Linux voting war.
Internet poll results are *always* biased!
First of all there still are people that do not have access to Internet.
Besides that, only people that know about the poll get to vote in it. There must be dozens of polls on subjects I think I have something to say about, but I just don't have the time (or interest) to visit all the sites that may carry those polls. Occasionaly I stumble on a poll (most of the time thanks to sites like slashdot...) and vote as my conscience tells me to
The fact Sierra seemed to have reset the scores is probably an indication about the importance of the poll. They have learned that they should investigate both Mac and Linux markets.
How are these votes any less valid because they all happened in a short time? Let the MAC, Win and console players post the link on their fan sites and go vote.
:-)
This isn't like the hank-the-angry-drunken-dwarf farce from people magazine's poll. There people were making a point that web popularity polls for 'beautiful people' was subject to ridicule by the large majority of net users.
Here we have a legit poll on the potential audience for games developed for specific platforms. I hope they recognize that linux users are a valuable segment, regardless of the time interval in which we cast our votes.
If nothing else, they must recognize the capability we have to somewhat organize ourselves and make our collective presence known. This in itself can be valuable market research data which they can incorporate into whatever strategy develops from this poll.
The demographics of linux users is largely males from 18-35. This same niche buys the most computer games. Indeed, the businesses using linux in the closet as a server won't be buying games, but that really isn't the largest demographic (it's a growing one, of course.)
I talked with some guys from Loki at the linux expo and fired by the success of their Civ CTP port, they have begun work on MythII and Railroad Tycoon for linux. Look, if the code is written it can be ported to linux, especially if it uses openGL or something besides DriectX (like Half-Life.) It's not going to be a huge ante to "...BET ON LINUX." Even if it works out, it won't be as expensive as creating and marketing a single flop game. (And remember how games were all for dos, then for windows? That's recent history, don't forget. Platforms change.)
Windows isn't a bad gaming platform with DirectX, but eventually people are going to realize that it's silly to support a seperate OS just for games. I have windows95, but I have no plans to upgrade it just to play games. When games begin to require 98 or NT or 2000, I will not be able to play them. I do all my work on Linux and Solaris and it's insane to buy a gaming OS for $200. I'd rather spend $150 on a console system.
Peace.
Gee, this is sorta like war, huh? They will probably disregard the results anyway but this is entertaining. Gee, I wonder who would win?
--
How many people bought Civilization now it came out for linux? i am wondering if as many people bought it as they claimed they would. any one have any mnumbers?
Good Im not alone. While the "Slashdot Effect" allows us all to feel part of "Powerful Group", we quite possibly could be shooting ourselves in the foot.
I do disagree with you on your statement "Internet polls are of no statistical value". I am working with a company that does radio research for several Radio Stations, online. The polls that are taken, are taken by listeners of the radio station, with there own login/password. This type of "Internet Poll", can be powerful, and yet still be statistically acurate.
But I would agree with you if it were "Open For Public Internet Polls are of no statistical value".
-= Xafloc =-
alinuxbox.com
N
Hey Sierra, your old games are still worth playing. Port 'em to Linux. The DOS versions should port pretty easily, since they don't
require an awful lot of the machine.
-russ
Don't piss off The Angry Economist
The poll is up to 69% for linux games. Let's all hope that they take the poll seriously and concentrate on expanding their efforts to linux.
Excuse me, but I didn't see Hemos tell anyone to go vote. He merely said that it's there. The feeling seems to be strong, and doubtless for the same reason many/most of those voting will rush out and buy the first few Linux games to show support.
If 300 thousand /.ers head over to Sierra's page and say they want more Linux games, Sierra will know they have at least 300 thousand people who are into Linux and at least vaguely interested in seeing Sierra games ported to the platform. That's an fairly considerable market.
So, there's nothing to get suspicious of; let the slashdot effect do its work. The worst that can happen is that they'll decide there's not enough interest to port their games.
----
Every year during my review, I just pray the words "slashdot.org" aren't mentioned.
What's more, by my watch, it was up from 11% to 60% within 6 minutes of being posted.
Of course, this makes you wonder just how useful such a poll would be--stuffing the ballot and all. In fact, if Sierra puts two and two together (i.e., poll posted on slashdot, sudden increase in votes for linux games) they might forget about the poll altogether. Oh well, it's worth a shot, no?
Newsflash: Slashdot effect moves from sinking websites to sinking gaming companies by swaying their online marketing studies.
It wasn't "representive" before, even ignoring the "self-selection" part of it. The people who visit Sierra's home page are most likely to be people using Sierra's current products. People using platforms not supported by Sierra are obviously underrepresented in that group.
/.'ers, go to the poll and vote.
The only way the poll will get any value whatsoever, is if the _absolute_ numbers becomes sufficiently impressing. So, game-loving
The point of the poll is to get an idea on what areas of game development have the largest need. If I was a decision maker at Sierra, and I saw how one single post on a web site can spawn thousands to jump to their site for a poll, I would not view the poll as tainted. I would see a market of computer users that WANT games, the type/style/manufacturer may not be the top concern to them, but they want quality games. With developers like Activision (C:CTP) and ID (Q3) jumping on the Linux bandwagon, they also will see that it is not uncharted waters and may start looking seriously at it.
At the worst case, this can't hurt so if want good games for Linux, vote.
--- Linux... a college project gone horribly right
The polls have no statistical value, but can still have commercial value. A poll like this will make people aware of their interest in making something for linux.
What better way to get free advertisement space on slashdot than putting up a poll on the web site about a possible port?
Hans
I've heard it said that some companies, governments, etc. have a formula they apply to protest mail, poll results, and so forth.
/. polls. If only, say, ten thousand of those vote for Linux in Sierra's poll, that means they can assume there's a hundred thousand people out there who would buy Linux games from them.
For every one person who cared enough to write in, they figure, there might be, say, nine more who hold the same opinion but didn't care quite enough to take the time and effort to get around to writing, or didn't know where to send the letter, or whatever.
The figure might well be higher for Sierra's purposes, who knows...but even if it's only 10x, same as for those write-in polls...I've regularly seen twenty to thirty thousand people vote on
Which represents about 10% of the number of copies Half-Life has sold so far--or about four to five million dollars' worth of business, at box prices.
Something to think about.
Editor Emeritus and Senior Writer, TeleRead.org
Most Linux users _dont_ buy games, because most games/software are free. Granted there are those of us who would buy games for Linux, were they available, there is still a rather large group of Linux users who like Linux because almost everything is free.
Sierra has to determine whether or not investing their design time, can show profit, or just give them good Linux PR. I vote for the second.
-= Xafloc =-
alinuxbox.com
N
The problem is linux only owns around 6 to 7% of the total pc market sales of os's and most of those copies are just sitting under someones desk. They are used as an evaluation tool or someone takes a course in unix in college and needs it but I bet over half of the linux buyers switch back to windows because only windows does ms vb and ms vc or ms office. Its a very sad world in the pc market today. My other point is even if 100% of all those buyers of linux actually ran it, how many of them would buy games. Most college students and server administrators dont buy games or dont have the time. I am a student and hobbyist but I quite games over a year ago so I can work. I might play half-life this summer if it is ever ported to linux but were are all very tiny in the pc market thanks to monopolies. My last point and most important one is that the current poll at 75% is not accurate thanks to the /. effect. If 100% off all 6 to 7% of linux users who actual use it and on top of that have time for games and on top of that dont use corporate servers so they can play games buy all these linux games, then it would be a flop. Think about how much it would cost to switch a directx 6 game to linux. The whole gaqme would have to be rewritten. Only Id software had the balls to go agaisnt the microsoft game marketing department which actually punishes game companies for not developing with directx. Its true. Go to www.maximumpc.com and there is a guy named Alex st. john who was a former ms employee. He even admitted playing hardball with Carmack for opengl and he would actually follow them to game showes and make up fud like "glquake=glide quake. Opengl couldn't handle games,,,,". He also mentioned directx was designed from the ground up to thorw apple out of the game and multimedia market by making directx as proprietary and hard to port as possible. It would cost millions and years of rewriting code in opengl for it to be ported to linux for what..? only 300,000 users or around 2% of the market. It doesnt make any econimic sense and ms has them right where they want them. They would lose money left and right. I bet about 1 or 2% should be more acurate for there poll since 85% of all windows users do not want to leave. If sierra ported all there games to linux, they would lose so much money that all the other game companies would use serria as an example on why they shouldn't write for linux. CIV had only minimal if any directx code but half-life has hell of alot more. There is a huge, huge difference.
Before you guys start hopping mad and flame me and send my score down I have this to say. I do not intend to sound like a troll and I am not a troll. I am just trying to protect the overall success of linux becuase a story like "..BIG GAME COMPANY LOSES BET WITH LINUX" would be distarous. Remember that microsoft has a team of ten people looking for news like this to help spread fud around. We should all be emailing the doj and talking about directx with Ralph Naders pro comp or voluntering for messa or opengl for unix instead of hyping polls that dont give a accurate view on the overall market.
I wish ms would just shrivel up and die so we can have linux, be, os/2 and mac osx instead of this windows everwhere trash.
M$ consperacy...I don't think so. Netscape was the ones that first came up with the concept of frames, not M$. In fact, Netscape started most of the newer HTML additions, Microsux just copied off of them, as with all of their "innovative" software.
M$ look and feel -- Mac
M$ Money -- Quicken
M$ IE -- Mosaic
M$ DOS -- Unix CLI
and the list goes on and on
With the exception of polls where bad results are a good thing (i.e. should encryption be exportable), Malda stop doing polls quite a while ago. It's not right to skew the results to these companies, the long term results can be bad for the companies and the linux community (as horor stories of failed attempts to join the linux movement surface). You can't tell slashdotters not to fill out the poll only if you mean it, so lets stop giving these kind of polls to slashdotters.
By the time I've typed this, it'll be over 70%, probably over 90% in an hour, so they'll probably discount the results, the way ``Hank'' got mostly discarded as a joke for the personality of the year vote.
The question is, does this sort of thing frighten the pointy haired types at the companies that get hit by the slashdot effect ?
If the PHB says ``set up a poll'' and the results come back so radically screwed that there is clearly no statistical value in them (rather than being bogus, but looking all right, which would be the case sans slashdot
Perhaps Hemos should send an appology for screwing thier poll up, pointing out that Internet polls are of no statistical value, whatever the result.
--
Debian: GNU/Linux done the Linux way