Nightdive Studios aren't sure when the Linux version of the System Shock remake will be available

It appears they aren't even sure about which engine they will use! There is a comment about looking into using Unreal engine near the earlier linked comment about a Linux demo.

Quoting: rustybroomhandle

Quoting: Tuxee

Quoting: dmantioneWell, it's a process... many developers know Unity allows near-free Linux ports.

Then why would you need an extra USD200,000? Can't be attributed to pure QA.

Best guess is they are planning to outsource the work to someone else.

Well $200,000 extra in pledges is not $200,000 extra to spend on development, you have to subtract Kickstater fees, credits card fees, declined payments/chargebacks, manufacturing of physical rewards, shipping of physical rewards, etc

Nobody says that the entire net amount after that will go to the stretch goal. They might use part of that for other things/expanding the game or something. But even still an expensive Linux port might well eat up the money that is left over after all those various fees and expenses.

Quoting: KristianIt appears they aren't even sure about which engine they will use! There is a comment about looking into using Unreal engine near the earlier linked comment about a Linux demo.

Quoting: rustybroomhandle

Quoting: Tuxee

Quoting: dmantioneWell, it's a process... many developers know Unity allows near-free Linux ports.

Then why would you need an extra USD200,000? Can't be attributed to pure QA.

Best guess is they are planning to outsource the work to someone else.

Well $200,000 extra in pledges is not $200,000 extra to spend on development, you have to subtract Kickstater fees, credits card fees, declined payments/chargebacks, manufacturing of physical rewards, shipping of physical rewards, etc

Compared to the funding goal of 900,000 (which again contain all your mentioned costs) these 200,000 sound quite "substantial".

QuoteNobody says that the entire net amount after that will go to the stretch goal. They might use part of that for other things/expanding the game or something. But even still an expensive Linux port might well eat up the money that is left over after all those various fees and expenses.

How can they estimate any costs whatsoever, when they apparently are entirely clueless how much effort it's gonna be?

"Compared to the funding goal of 900,000 (which again contain all your mentioned costs) these 200,000 sound quite "substantial"."

Well both the Kickstarter fees and the credit card fees are %-based. The physical reward fees are also proportional to the amount of backers and the contribution amounts per backer. It depends on which reward level people are at. Declined payments and the like probably also has a certain proportionality. 400 pledges at the $25 level amount to $10000. So does a single $10000 pledge.

But the latter has many, many, many, many, many times as high costs associated with it. But in general, the more pledges, the more money they have to spent on manufacturing physical "stuff" and shipping that same "stuff" to their backers.

I was a (happy) backer on Broken Age. I am very fuzzy on the details, but almost immediately after the campaign ended, they shared a breakdown of the campaigns various costs and stuff on their backer forum. I think something like 40% of their receipts went to various fees, expenses, backer rewards, overhead of running the campaign itself, etc. I don't think Double Fine, having no prior Kickstarter experience, expected it to be so much.

I believe that between them Kickstarter and the credit card companies take away about 10% of the pledges. So if you pledge $50, that is approximately $5 in the pocket of Kickstarter and the credit card companies. If you pledge $100, it is about $10, etc.

My point is simply this: We shouldn't infer a $200,000 budget for the Linux port just because that is the distance between the base goal and the Linux stretch goal.

I am not claiming that it is a small amount or trying to justify it as such or anything. Just explaining that there are other factors/costs involved than just making(and testing etc) the actual Linux port. In addition to the things I listed earlier, there is also the matter of having a buffer for unexpected expenditures.

"How can they estimate any costs whatsoever, when they apparently are entirely clueless how much effort it's gonna be?"

A very good question. Cost estimation is always to a certain extent a mixture of art and science. But it would seem in this it is in the best case scenario a rather rough guesstimate of sorts. I suppose often you would tend to set up what you believe to be a sort of worst case scenario of what you think it would take in terms of manpower.


Last edited by Kristian on 30 June 2016 at 1:26 pm UTC

Nightdive in the past have released 1 (maybe 2) games that were released on Linux where they rewrote the game engine from scratch and then open sourced it.

So they do deserve some praise.

Not true in at least one of those instances (Strife used the existing Chocolate Strife engine, and they contracted the original game creator(s) to fill in its gaps).


Last edited by Sslaxx on 30 June 2016 at 2:23 pm UTC

Quoting: thelimeydragonNightdive in the past have released 1 (maybe 2) games that were released on Linux where they rewrote the game engine from scratch and then open sourced it.

So they do deserve some praise.

This is why I find their earlier comment about no one in their dev team doing Linux, how did they do their previous Linux testing?

And they better avoid mistakes of Obsidian like missing capes, because they used some Uninty plugins that don't work on Linux.

Quoting: liamdawe

Quoting: thelimeydragonNightdive in the past have released 1 (maybe 2) games that were released on Linux where they rewrote the game engine from scratch and then open sourced it.

So they do deserve some praise.

This is why I find their earlier comment about no one in their dev team doing Linux, how did they do their previous Linux testing?

AFAIK Night Dive isn't developing the game themselves in this case. So that may play a role.

This says to me that they're not planning Linux support from the start, which will only mean problems later on when they try and port it. In other words, the developer is basically admitting that they won't make good on their promise if the stretch-goal is reached.


Last edited by Mountain Man on 30 June 2016 at 5:30 pm UTC

For some reason, System Shock has never appealed to me. While I do find the story interesting I was never interested in the game (I watched a friend of mine playing it back in the day). Maybe I found the controls awkward already back in 1994.

Anyway, I might have given an updated and modernized version of the game a try (albeit I do find the graphics of the remake a little too colourful for my taste). But without a confirmed Linux version I’m not interested.

I might check again after the game has been released- if it is released for Linux as well, that is.