Tuesday, December 21, 2010

Linux Gamers will Buy

"There is no money in making games of Linux"

They said.

"There is only a negligible market share for Linux"

They said.

"They" were wrong. Twice in fact they have been wrong. The folks who seven months ago brought us the first Humble Bundle have, just in time for the holiday, season brought us yet another chance to donate to some good causes and get some quality video games at the same time. For the next three days you can donate any amount you wish and receive each of the following DRM free, cross platform games:
  • Braid
  • Cortex Command
  • Machinarium
  • Osmos
  • Revenge of the Titans
The cost of buying each of these games separately would be around 85$.

What does all of this have to do with Linux Gamers being willing to purchase their video games? Well, lets look at the statistics this time around for who is donating what to the Humble Bundle:


Once again users donating for the Linux platform have surpassed both Windows and OSX users for the average donation amount. In addition to that, our "negligible" market share has made up nearly 25% of the total donations. To all my fellow Linux gamers out there - please help us continue proving all of "them" wrong. If you haven't already made a donation for the second Humble Bundle I encourage you to go do so now! Even the small sum of 15$ is enough to continue to raise the Linux average donation amount - an amount that is more than fair for these great games!

~Jeff Hoogland

12 comments:

  1. I've already bought it, along with the first Humble Bundle when it came out a while ago.
    Great games, great indie game companies.
    Merry Christmas from a gnu/linux user.

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  2. "They" were* wrong.

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  3. Thank you captain grammar - I always slip that one up :)

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  4. hmm if total payment by platform is ~2x bigger on linux, than on windows, this means that "total users by platform" graph would have ~2x smaller linux share.

    that's still way better than linux desktop share estimations.

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  5. erm, i meant that linux users paid ~2x more, individually.

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  6. total misrepresentation of stats. Windows gamers haves thousands of (better) titles to choose from.

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  7. >total misrepresentation of stats.
    >Windows gamers haves thousands of
    >(better) titles to choose from.
    Which means, for game-developers, Linux seems like quite a nice target. Much easier competition and pay-willing userbase.

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  8. total misrepresentation of stats. Windows gamers haves thousands of (better) titles to choose from.

    I shouldn't feed the Windows gaming troll, but... The stats aren't about the amount of available titles at all. The beauty of these figures lie in the fact that they are based on a set selection of 5 games on all three major platforms.

    Since the games selection itself is uniform, the (voluntary) donations are quite telling. It is interesting to see that there is a market for Linux and OS X games and that people using a non-windows OS are willing to spend more on gaming.

    If Windows game developers would pool resources to come up with a cross-platform framework akin to DirectX, they could expand their market and make a nice sum of extra money. Then again, that asumes that game developers can see past the "Windows is 98% of the market" dogma and it would rob gamers of their (feeble) justification for using Windows.

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  9. Worth noting, they just added on humblebundle.com that anyone who paid more than $7 for bundle 2 can also have all the titles from Bundle 1.

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  10. I have moved on and now game on the PS3.

    I remember playing Doom under linux and it was a great experience. Too bad more games weren't available for linux. At least I have my playstation for Battlefield 2

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  11. "total misrepresentation of stats. Windows gamers haves thousands of (better) titles to choose from."

    Indie games offer different ideas of gaming. Hence the quality "better" might be justified, only if you're talking about a game of your liking which isn't available for Linux. Personally I'm not a gamer, in the sense I'll spend several hours a week or day gaming, resulting in Indie games being much more interesting. The big industry of computer games seems more keen to spend money on variations of the same proven concept, a concept I don't find particularly interesting. Some like it, maybe most, but that doesn't mean there's a rule meaning that Linux users only pay for these games because they have no other choice.

    I'm more inclined to think there are niches of computer games with a potential to grow. Why Linux users are more interested in these Indie games doesn't matter, a market is still a market. It would be stupid to not recognise the opportunity.

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  12. >It is interesting to see that there is a market
    >for Linux and OS X games and that people using a
    >non-windows OS are willing to spend more on gaming.

    Without wishing to undermine the argument of the article, surely it is more likely that Linux users are better disposed, both philosophically and financially, to pay for the Humble Bundle games, since they are not paying for OS licenses, antivirus etc. The Windows users are almost certainly spending more on gaming, but elsewhere.

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