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An editorial on this subject was requested by arnej who reminded me on GamingOnLinux's IRC channel that there is now another, perhaps even more important reason not to buy games in advance of their actual release on Linux.

arnejThe contracts of Feral and Aspyr will only get paid for purchases after a port happened. We now have another reason to only buy games when they are available for Linux: To support the porters.


Makes sense. With Feral and Aspyr having crossed over into the frontiers of Linux gaming with XCOM: Enemy Unknown and Civilization 5 respectively, plus all their downloadable content and both massive titles in terms of gameplay, brand, budget, and so on, it stands to reason that such endeavours should be rewarded, especially when both titles aren't brand new and thus pose more of a risk for the both of them.

Here's what Aspyr_Blair said on the matter:

Aspyr_BlairAspyr gets paid on new or future purchases of the Linux and Mac versions of Civ V. If you purchases the game on Windows say...5 months ago...then the PC publisher/developer was paid for that transaction (as they should be). Essentially, Steam knows what platform you are on through the client and processes payment to the developer accordingly.

Lots of fans are worried that if they purchase through a browser or a PC at work for example, that we wont get compensated. As long as you play the game on your Linux or Mac in the first week or so and stay on that platform for your play, the payment will then shift over to us as the Linux publisher/developer.


Source.

Aspyr_BlairDLC's are treated as separate transactions, so if you purchase BNW today on your Linux client, we will get the credit.


Source.

Aspyr_BlairWe are paid only for Mac/Linux purchases.

The key is the target system should be played on in the first week or two, otherwise the sale defaults to the primary platform (in this case, PC). Still...Valve has some metrics on handling weird cases like that and we do get compensated. Example: mobile browser purchased but not launched on Linux until 5 weeks later...etc.

If you want to be SURE, launch the game on the target system relatively quickly, even if you dont play it much, that launch should help the metric.


Source.

Aspyr_BlairAs long as you purchased the gift version through your Linux Steam client, we should be golden. Just also make sure that whomever you gift it to is playing on Linux or Mac ;)


Source.

Aspyr_BlairIf you purchase on the Linux client, Aspyr would get credit for the sale immediately BUT Steam is smart, so once your buddy plays on Windows the system knows that user is really a PC customer and gives the credit back over to the fine folks at 2K. Sometimes there is a grey area where we split the revenue up but that is pretty rare. Its really a pretty smart system.


Source.

icculus spoke about this subject as well in his usual, concise manner!

icculusInstall and play it on Linux for the first week after you buy it and they consider it a Linux sale.


Source.

Buying a game that does not yet have a Linux client doesn't make sense anyway since you cannot play the game. Apart from that, it is always wise to wait and see how good of a port it actually is. Don't spend your money blindly! Article taken from GamingOnLinux.com.
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Deformal Jun 24, 2014
I think, this post need some explanation. If those port made by third parties, in this case there is dividing of stream of money for developers and porters (Civ V was made by Firaxis and published on Win by 2K, but Civ V was ported and published on Mac OS and Linux by Aspyr). But if these ports were made by the same team, it doesn`t matter where you bought this game (Interstellar Marines was ported on Mac and Linux by the same developers, that made it for Windows - Zero Point Software). Sorry for bad english, I hope, You understood this.
pb Jun 24, 2014
This approach doesn't seem very fair - I often purchase games (and I mean Linux games) when they are on sale but sometimes don't play them until a few months later, so in this system it would mean that 90% of my purchases are counted as Windows just because I don't play the game right away. Given that one third of purchased games are never even installed, it might mean that easily over a half of Linux purchases are counted as Windows...
pb Jun 24, 2014
Quoting: IlyaI usually buy games in a sale as gifts and only activate them once the Linux port comes out (so that if they decide not to do one I can just give the game to someone else).

Can you buy the game as a gift but later still install it yourself ("redeem" the gift from your inventory)? If so, I'll probably start doing it from now on. But I'm afraid that such purchases are still counted as Windows, because Steam can't hold the money until you activate the product, they have to give it to someone, so they default to the owner of the original (Windows) version.

[edit] And of course, this won't work when you buy the game on a third-party site, such as Humble Store.
Milanium Jun 24, 2014
I think they should change the way people who port games are paid instead of trying to educate buyers. Just bought Gunpoint although it has just been announced that they recreated the engine which makes porting possible, nothing else.
Ilya Jun 24, 2014
Quoting: pb
Quoting: IlyaI usually buy games in a sale as gifts and only activate them once the Linux port comes out (so that if they decide not to do one I can just give the game to someone else).
Can you buy the game as a gift but later still install it yourself ("redeem" the gift from your inventory)? If so, I'll probably start doing it from now on. But I'm afraid that such purchases are still counted as Windows, because Steam can't hold the money until you activate the product...
That's what I'm afraid of.
Luckily I could still buy complete editions for my sister (who's also a Linux gamer) after the ports came out.
I activated Civ 5 a long time ago on my account to play through wine, ... so yeah: guilty.

If steam can see what platform you're using, why do they do the surveys? Why can't they just publish the actual numbers?
Metallinatus Jun 24, 2014
The one, first, original reason why I never bought a game on Steam before its official Linux release no matter the discount it had was because I'd rather help showing an "increase" on sales after the release than showing one more sale for Windows.... which, well, it is not much different from what this article is "revealing".... though I never really thought about how the porters are paid.
The part about the browser purchase is interesting too, because I ALWAYS bought the games from the Linux client to "guarantee" it would count as Linux purchase.
titi Jun 24, 2014
I sadly had to stop spending money on kickstarter and other crowdfunding projects because too many of them did not show a (promised) linux version.
But even when its released I often try to save money :-/. Rust for example was a lot cheaper on ebay for me ....

In general ist easy for me to not buy before a linux version is released. Simply because I have no Windows. Wine might be a option sometimes, but you never know if things really work and how long they will work, so I stopped using this too.
BillNyeTheBlackGuy Jun 24, 2014
From what I understand, this only affects third party porters. I know the guy who created Stanley Parable said that he can see Linux sales.

http://steamcommunity.com/app/221910/discussions/0/630799997727674721/#c540741859668535643
Ivancillo Jun 24, 2014
And, expanding a bit the titular :

-Don't buy hardware until the manufacturer release a Linux driver or a proper Linux driver is done by the community.

I still remember the Creative Labs promise of give a full featured hardware accelerated Linux driver of X-FI.
Full featured with hardware accelerated EAX 5 and OpenAL, 5.1, hardware mixing, hardware wavetable MIDI, and hardware MP3,AC3 encoding/decoding.

I gave credit to the words of Creative, so I bought an X-FI card.

Well, we know the rest of the history.
Segata Sanshiro Jun 24, 2014
I remember a while ago in the Steam forums a dev saying that a game which had not being ported to Linux yet had already received Linux sales. I think if you buy something and don't play it for a certain period of time, then it gets counted as a sale for the platform you bought it from (or possibly the one you use the most). I assume this is a measure taken by Valve, because otherwise there would be lots of money out there around "in limbo" not being assigned to anyone. So, I imagine that when I bought XCOM a few weeks before release and never played it until it came out, Feral got the money (I hope). Either way, this article is right, we should always wait before buying for numerous reasons.

I have been 100% Linux since 2009, so never have the temptation to play a game before release. There are also so many games on Linux that I wouldn't see the point in playing on Windows even if I did have a dual boot available. I only make 2 exceptions in the "don't buy before its ported" rule: the first is if the game is on sale (but I don't do that anymore because I've realized that games always go on sale if they're ported) and the second is a few games I play through wine because I'm 100% sure that they will never be ported:

Skyrim
Final Fantasy 7
SimCity 4
Deponia Trilogy

My question though is whether playing through Wine counts as a Windows or Linux sale? Obviously the Steam client is Windows, but the OS is still Linux (using IE6 through Wine shows up as Linux on Google Analytics, for example). I remember seeing that Valve can distinguish between "pure" Windows and Wine running on Linux/OSX, but that might just be speculation. Still, its pretty funny imagining a guy at EA smoking a cigar and going through sales figures to discover that 1% are from "something called Linucks???". Still, I would never play something on Wine which I know will get a Linux port soon, I just wait (like with Tropico 5, which I'll buy the day its released).
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