In a word, marketing. You gotta let people know about your game and convince them to buy it. It's one of the fundamental rules of business.

Quoting: CleanWaterHi everyone,

I'm a indie developer. I currently develops games for Linux, but there are not so many users are from this system playing my games right now.

You as Linux gamers, do you have tips or advice for raising a certain game popularity on the Linux community?

Hey, I'm glad that you are considering linux as well, probably the biggest reason is that people are getting a lot of AAA titles on Linux and since AAA titles are relatively new to the linux market people are playing them a lot, they didn't have any for literally bunch of years :D. Second reason is probably that it's hard to find games with so many indie games coming out on Steam every day so you should definitely try to promote it and embrace the fact that it is availible on all of the platforms :) You can also let our community know about your games here, probably a lot of people would be glad to check your games :)

Quoting: Mountain ManIn a word, marketing. You gotta let people know about your game and convince them to buy it. It's one of the fundamental rules of business.

Sure it is! But all my marketing efforts results in more and more Windows users buying the games. I wonder if there isn't any place where I could make a more effective marketing targeting the Linux users.

Quoting: MaCroX95Hey, I'm glad that you are considering linux as well, probably the biggest reason is that people are getting a lot of AAA titles on Linux and since AAA titles are relatively new to the linux market people are playing them a lot, they didn't have any for literally bunch of years :D. Second reason is probably that it's hard to find games with so many indie games coming out on Steam every day so you should definitely try to promote it and embrace the fact that it is availible on all of the platforms :) You can also let our community know about your games here, probably a lot of people would be glad to check your games :)

It's a great point. The big companies are finally realizing the potential market they are losing in the Linux community. Of course, hardly an indie can compete toe-to-toe against AAA titles. Also, the recent games' flood makes things hard for gamers to learn about new not-well-known games.

By the way, you can check all my games on this link below.
http://store.steampowered.com/search/?publisher=CleanWaterSoft

My company goal is to create games for everyone. So, they are developed in a way that they can run in almost any hardware (even some outdated). The best way to afford it was to go towards the retro style. I hope you enjoy it. :D

Quoting: CleanWaterSure it is! But all my marketing efforts results in more and more Windows users buying the games. I wonder if there isn't any place where I could make a more effective marketing targeting the Linux users.

Truthfully, Linux is still a tiny segment of the gaming market, so any kind of broad marketing will naturally net your more Windows users than Linux users. If you want more Linux users playing your games then you need to take a more targeted approach and put your advertising where Linux users are most likely to see it.

Quoting: Mountain ManTruthfully, Linux is still a tiny segment of the gaming market, so any kind of broad marketing will naturally net your more Windows users than Linux users. If you want more Linux users playing your games then you need to take a more targeted approach and put your advertising where Linux users are most likely to see it.

That's the point! Where? ^_^'
There's also another big point too. It's not only about targeting the game to Linux users, but to Linux users who likes retro gaming and that will be found of the parodic style of my games.

Quoting: CleanWaterHi everyone,

I'm a indie developer. I currently develops games for Linux, but there are not so many users are from this system playing my games right now.

You as Linux gamers, do you have tips or advice for raising a certain game popularity on the Linux community?

I'm not sure about this, so you should talk to Liam, the site owner. Apparently, in this link you can send a key so that your game is reviewed. After that, when the article is published people will probably start buying the game if they find it interesting enough. Consider that a lot of Linux users visit GOL daily, so I would go down this route if I were you.

I hope my advice is useful.

Thanks for supporting Linux!

Yep. Liam said on twitter that GoL broke 200k unique visitors last month, which is pretty good. Steam is pretty big as well with over a million Linux gamers, but reaching the right people may be tricky. It's a bit of a niche within a niche.

Quoting: SangreDeReptilI'm not sure about this, so you should talk to Liam, the site owner. Apparently, in this link you can send a key so that your game is reviewed. After that, when the article is published people will probably start buying the game if they find it interesting enough. Consider that a lot of Linux users visit GOL daily, so I would go down this route if I were you.

I hope my advice is useful.

Thanks for supporting Linux!

Many thanks for the tip. I just sent one key of each game and also disclosed of the third sequel on Steam Greenlight (which also will support Linux right away in the release). I hope he gets interested on it.

Quoting: Ehvis[...]but reaching the right people may be tricky. It's a bit of a niche within a niche.

Sure it is! I remember in one of my previous marketing efforts, a lot of persons complained about the graphics. "They are so outdated, it looks like a NES game." - Most of them said. I believe they didn't realized it was intentional... ^-^'

Quoting: CleanWaterSure it is! I remember in one of my previous marketing efforts, a lot of persons complained about the graphics. "They are so outdated, it looks like a NES game." - Most of them said. I believe they didn't realized it was intentional... ^-^'

It's a completely different game genre, some people prefer old games in style but love to see new stories, characters, mechanics in such games so this genre falls into its' own category. People who comment that graphics is outdated probably don't even have clue about what the gaming today is all about.

I've seen some retro games have great stories and are fun to play and some new ones are dull and don't have any life or uniqeness to them...

This is probably the point of gaming especially on Steam being so open market so all developers can bring their ideas to the market and the users then decide which ones they like and which they don't. Trends seem to be chaning over time too so what is considered good today might not be tomorrow that's why it is so awesome that steam also keeps the old games around.

It's definitely great to see that Valve, Epic games, Unity are pushing gaming towards openness and cross platform and developer friendly support so both all of the users and developers can benefit from that, I also like to see when you guys (devs) embrace cross-platform and I will definitely check out your games in the future when I have some more time for gaming in general :)

Demos always help (consumers that is). Also do what you're doing right now. Interacti with Linux gamers on forums. Submit articles about your games to sites like this.

Open-sourcing your game (at least the engine and game script) will also get you some free PR while not really impacting your sales if you keep the art assets closed. It might also give you a few free bugfixes and new features if you release the code of github or such.

However if your game is based on a 3rd party close source engine and you can only release the game code, or you release it under some sort of non OSI approved shared-source license, most people will consider it as bad PR at best.

Quoting: JuliusOpen-sourcing your game (at least the engine and game script) will also get you some free PR while not really impacting your sales if you keep the art assets closed. It might also give you a few free bugfixes and new features if you release the code of github or such.

However if your game is based on a 3rd party close source engine and you can only release the game code, or you release it under some sort of non OSI approved shared-source license, most people will consider it as bad PR at best.

You have a very interesting point. Unfortunately, I do use third party engines to ease the development (I work alone and do everything, from programming to graphics, music, etc). However, truth be said, using third party engines is a real pain sometimes.

Quoting: CleanWaterHi everyone,

I'm a indie developer. I currently develops games for Linux, but there are not so many users are from this system playing my games right now.

You as Linux gamers, do you have tips or advice for raising a certain game popularity on the Linux community?

To attract your audience to Linux I think the best thing you can do is exploit what Linux offers and other operating systems don't. It in the broad sense has better performance, allows a minimalistic approach and gives validity to the command line. Just the mere act of allowing the users to fill the gaps that you leave intentionally or unintentionally is going to benefit them more if they use Linux. Linux is also better suited for arcade-type scenarios than the consumer grade alternatives that are being offered (Windows Embedded is a different beast) so that is also something to think of.

To attract the Linux audience to your games, always tricky. I think just the mere act of allowing them to test the game before purchase and the ability to spend more money would significantly boost the effectiveness of Linux sales. Noone wants to do a blind purchase and thus if noone goes, they will never go. Giving free weekends on steam on a regular basis allowing people to test the game and making sure that the game is designed to live well beyond those periods is key to success in my opinion. Other than that I can only recommend you make a good game with a good tutorial.

I should probably add that concerning yourself with how many Linux sales you get shouldn't be that much of the priority. Just that your practices need to be profitable. The most common reason for a person to switch away from windows is because they get fed up with the platform's antics. And this is literally the story of most people here: at some point they went "FUCK THIS SHIT!", they found Linux as an alternative, they look through their games list to see what will still run and then they go like "Alright, I can keep playing most of my games. LETS DO IT!".

So even if they don't buy your games with Linux in mind, you will make their lives so much more comfortable in the long run; up to the point where they may switch to Linux. And while this doesn't necessarily seem beneficial to you, having support for free and open platforms prevents you from getting vendorlocked. You will always have an escape when Microsoft commits its gazillionth fuck up, Sony tells you how to make your games or Nintendo gives you shit hardware to develop on. And because you've kept the door open, your own user base will be able to migrate more easily as well.