According to Kodera Software, developer of the space sim ΔV: Rings of Saturn, quite a lot of bug reports come from Linux users considering the smaller share but that's not actually a bad thing. If you're interested be sure to check out our previous interview with the developer.
Speaking in a Reddit post, creator Mariusz Chwalba mentions how a "disproportionally" large amount of bug reports for their game were being made by Linux users. After actually investigating it, the outcome was a bit of a surprise and not what might be expected. Instead of it being a case of low sales and high support needs, it's somewhat the opposite.
For a game that's now sold over 12,000 units only 700 were from Linux so that's about 5.8% of sales. Out of 1,040 bug reports it seems that about 400 of those were made by Linux users. So on face value, that it's pretty high as Chwalba says "That’s one report per 11.5 users on average, and one report per 1.75 Linux players. That’s right, an average Linux player will get you 650% more bug reports".
So it is it a lot of extra work? Not even close.
Out of those 400 bugs reported, only 3 were actually platform-specific to Linux. As the heading in the Reddit post says "Bugs exist whenever you know about them, or not" and that's certainly true of anything. The rest of the bugs reported affected all players with the dev noting how "the Linux community is exceptionally well trained in reporting bugs" and that " This 5.8% of players found 38% of all the bugs that affected everyone".
Were the bug reports any good? It seems so. Bug reports from their Linux users often had "all the software/os versions, all the logs, you get core dumps and you get replication steps".
Is it worth it then? Seems so "Oh, yes - at least for me. Not for the extra sales - although it’s nice. It’s worth it to get the massive feedback boost and free, hundred-people strong QA team on your side. An invaluable asset for an independent game studio".
You can buy ΔV: Rings of Saturn on itch.io and Steam.
Article taken from GamingOnLinux.com.
rustybroomhandle 25 Oct, 2021
They do not realise that (aside from all the money spent on this by Valve) there has been a horde of Linux users on the Proton/vkd3d/dxvk github issues discussions providing logs, traces, reports, etc.
Quoting: damarrinThat's quite awesome, though really not sustainable. We need that market share people!
Perhaps the pure percentage sales don't seem that way, but better QA can't be ignored, and I've seen a lot of GNU/Linux releases actually increasing Windows sales too. So it's a little less cut & dry than you might think.
Though yes, more market share would still be nice from a game development perspective.
we are around 1% of steam users yet we are making 5,8% of purchases for this game
Quoting: Marlockwe are around 1% of steam users yet we are making 5,8% of purchases for this game
That either shows that Linuxers are even more interested in this type of games,
or
that there is a world outside steam. You can also buy ΔV on GOG.....
Quoting: tfkI really would like to know how the percentage of Linux users is determined. If I buy from my phone would the sale be counted as windows or Linux?We have info on our Steam Tracker.
Quoting: tfkI really would like to know how the percentage of Linux users is determined. If I buy from my phone would the sale be counted as windows or Linux?On Steam:
QuoteLinux sales are based on platform of purchase; or after 7 days, the platform with the most minutes playedSo... as long as you play after purchasing, you count.
Last edited by koder on 25 October 2021 at 12:02 pm UTC
Quoting: Liam DaweQuoting: tfkI really would like to know how the percentage of Linux users is determined. If I buy from my phone would the sale be counted as windows or Linux?We have info on our Steam Tracker.
Yes. So ios / android sales default to windows. I wager that happens a lot...
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