Quoting: ManyFaced@Kimyrielle (since I'm not gonna pull that quote wall): Not sure what you're missing here. You seem to be under the assumption that the port was 'paid for' in a way that didn't takea way from funding elsewhere. That's not true. They could have gotten that 200k with a different feature without going out to back Linux.

Perhaps they could have gotten the 200k for some other feature, sure. But again, this is totally and utterly IRRELEVANT. They asked for 200k to fund the ports and got it. Your statement is akin to saying "Yes, I asked my dad for $500 for college textbooks but I spent them all on booze, so my college books weren't funded!"

That's the problem here. Linux created a bunch of extra work, took a bunch of extra time, took up a large chunk of their budget... for what? Nothing.

No, OUR budget. Remember we gave them 200k to make the port?

Your quotes of 500k revenue is silly; there's more cuts than steam involved

You don't seem to understand the difference between revenue and profit. The $350k after Steam's cut went into their pockets (at least the largest part of it) and can be used to fund any Linux related costs OTHER than the port itself, which was already paid for. As long as only ONE DOLLAR is left after subtracting all direct costs caused by them supporting Linux (and it would be utterly incorrect to to count any but Linux-related direct costs) it was worth doing it.

Also, it's worth saying that while Linux has around a 1% market share (as in the percentage of the population with it) that does not mean the game needs to have a 1% Linux share. It's entirely possible for an under-delivered demographic to have a much higher market-share than usual if there's no other options. That didn't happen.

You don't seem to realize that 1.5% of sales caused by 1% of the customer base means a whopping 50% over-representation of Linux users. Math is really amazing, huh?

Seriously, I have no idea what their expectations were, if they are so disappointed. Did they REALLY think that 1% of the customer base could be responsible for 10% of the sales or so? In which mass market did that EVER happen?

Yes, I guess what happened is that they looked at the numbers and saw a tiny Linux figure next to a huge, huge sum representing their Windows sales. Big surprise there! I don't think they looked at it correctly, though. And the correct business perspective is checking if the Linux support in brought ONE DOLLAR more than it cost to make and maintain. If that's the case it's worth doing. That's really very basic business logic.

...and that said, if someone can afford a game for 40 bucks, they can afford to get a windows license and dual-boot.

I can afford a BMW and don't have one. Because I don't want one. Your point?

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Quoting: ManyFacedThis is not hot kickstarter or funding works. Stretch goals do not mean "Everything from the last stretch goal to this one is for THIS thing," no, not at all. Most of the money enriches the product as a whole with that stretchgoal feature being part of it. Even if you want to discount that (despite it being a necessity) they could've done a different stretchgoal and still gotten the 200k.

While it's indeed not clear if people added said $200k for -exactly- that stretchgoal, it's irrelevant as they asked for a budget of $200k to get the ports done and they got it. They -were- funded before work even started. If the core functions were underfunded and they would have actually needed the $200k for them, it means they didn't set up the KS right.

Also, I believe that $200k -should- be enough to cover the port, at least if the developed with cross-platform deploy in mind (and it would have been silly not to, as the ports were planned from the get-go). Icculus has ported games all by himself in as little as a few weeks if work, and I am not sure anyone would have paid him $100k for that.

Either way, no matter how you cut it, Linux support took money out of their overall budget for a feature that wasn't worth it.

If that's the truth I wonder what they have expected deploying on a platform having 1% of the market share. Actually with the 1.5% of sales we were -overrepresented- in sales figures.

And no, 200k doesn't justify a port on this level. What few seem to realize are the man-hours involved along with the possibility cost. Is it 'hard' to port a game? Not really, but it will take months of work from people costing the company 10k a month (conservatively, when you consider pay, benefits, and operating costs). All it would take to break 200k is two people regularly working on the port.

A port is -largely- a one-time affair.

Then you get into QA, additional fees, and then after-launch support. The latter most is a killer since Linux varies so much it's even more difficult to manage than Windows post launch.

That's the only of your points actually having some merit, but really, that's why pretty much all publishers limit official support to one distro (Ubuntu). In which case it's around the same complexity as Windows. Yes, it's true that Linux creates a disproportional amount of support tickets, but they started with a paid port and got around $500k in additional revenue from Linux sales. Assuming that the usual 30% go to Steam etc, that's still a LOT of revenue and I highly doubt that the 5000 Linux users created $350k worth of support tickets and Linux related bug fixes.

Obsidian is a very small studio in the scheme of things. Not only are they always tight on money (the kickstarter budget did not cover the full game, to be sure) but they don't have a 100+ people to throw at anything like EA. Every hour a good worker spends time on Linux he's not furthering other areas, areas that will improve the game for 99% of consumers and possibly give them a new feature to market.

Again, that's why they asked for a $200k budget for that. The port was paid for. If they didn't have enough in-house capacity, they could/should have taken said $200k to hire additional devs.

All in all, it was a very costly choice. There was no profit just from man-hours alone, this is before you even get into the cost of the tools they used to make it. Obsidian promised to support the product through all of its expansions at the least, which deserves to be commended and the hatred they're getting is in bad taste.

I don't think anyone is spitting hatred on them. We just don't agree with their assessment.

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So the Linux users will get to collect the dead after everyone else died?

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Sounds great. I am not yet too far into the main game (don't ask, so many great games to play!), but I will sure get the expansion as this is one of the better RPGs we have on Linux so far.

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Sounds like an awesome addition to a game I already love. I will sooo get it! :)

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Awesome to see this progressing! :)

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Quoting: ricki42

Quoting: KimyrielleI will always, as in always, prefer being able to roll a character of my own choosing instead of a premade one, and I like to believe there is almost never a compelling reason to go with a premade one at all. I think that a good writer can always adapt a given story to a custom character and make it fit regardless of whether the player picks a white guy or a black female.

I disagree. This only works for stories where the main character is essentially a blank slate and the story is about the world and the people around them. Strong compelling stories often rely on a compelling main character, and you completely miss out on those.

A little thought experiment: Get your copy of Lord of the Rings, search for "Frodo" and replace with "Frida". Change all gender pronouns accordingly. Then tell me what impact that change had on the story.

You're right: None.

And we are talking about one of the most compelling stories ever written, not about a computer game where the main focus isn't telling a story but bashing monsters with a big hammer.

I concede that -some- stories need a fixed character. For instance I complete understand that the Witcher has to be a fixed character because he is an established figure in Polish mythology. But 99% work the exact same way with a protagonist of the opposite gender. Or with a different skin colour. What's often needed for a protagonist to work in a story is setting his or her personality traits and abilities (e.g. Victor Vran needs to be a skilled fighter). Other than a few exceptions such as the ones you listed in your post, gender or skin colour almost never matters.

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Quoting: ricki42I don't think every game must have the option to choose your gender, sometimes the writers want to tell a specific story. The problem is not any one single game, it's the general under-representation of female protagonists. Luckily, there are more and more games out there with a female lead, so things are getting better.

I guess in the end that might be the core of the issue for me. I will always, as in always, prefer being able to roll a character of my own choosing instead of a premade one, and I like to believe there is almost never a compelling reason to go with a premade one at all. I think that a good writer can always adapt a given story to a custom character and make it fit regardless of whether the player picks a white guy or a black female.
What is so off-putting to me is that when devs decide to go with a premade character, 99% of the time it will be a male one. Because apparently even in 2015, women gamers do not exist. At least not in the heads of the devs and publishers, who in this time and age are still reluctant to publish a game featuring a female lead at all. I think I would mind premade characters considerably less if at least the third of them would be females, which would represent our share of the gamer customer base. We're a far cry off that.

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Quoting: liamdaweJust had a 40 minute blast on it, man it gets intense at times!

Quoting: BeamboomCan u create your character in this game, and is gender amongst the options?

No, you are Victor Vran. The game is about him.

And that's the only thing that keeps me from buying this game. It looks great otherwise. :S

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Looks beautiful and interesting. I will absolutely buy it if there is a Linux version.

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