I see a lot of game developers on kickstarter and other crowd sourcing platforms state that if they reach a certain amount of money they will support Linux desktop. I see this generates publicity on some of the smaller tech forums I go on. My question to the season gamedevers is did you find it important to support Linux? Some games I see that are built with cross platform tools go with Windows and Mac, but not always Linux like some unity games.

I know that there was a lot of posts on really big game news sites a while back about steam for Linux , but looking at the steam hardware survey http://store.steampowered.com/hwsurvey it appears that windows is around 90 percent of all of its users, if not more.
And Linux use over the last couple months fell slightly every month.

So did you find it valuable to support Linux?

Thanks

I'm no professional but let's put it like this: I make sure my code also works on Linux so I can code both on my desktop (Windows) and netbook (Linux) :P

Me, coming to game development from software development (as opposed to coming from art or the like), am accustomed to UNIX (or GNU+Linux, the free alternative) as a programming (and recently media) environment. I like Linux, and since I am making games as a hobby on the side, I can make my games for Linux if I want to. I think that contrary to what people think about the future consumer IT market, it won't be dominated by open things like Linux OR be dominated by proprietary things like Windows or Mac. I think that the current trend is to stay the same, and no one is jumping lines from proprietary to libre, or vice-versa.

As far as directly answering your question goes, I think that you just need to find the right niche. I am working on a game myself (as I assume most folks are on this site) and I intend to support Linux. I'm even unsure about Windows support, and OS X is out of the question. I wouldn't take Linux gaming stats from Steam, though. Steam was built around Microsoft's gaming crowd, and around there it will stay. I'm writing an article on Gamedev about free software and games, so I hope you will be able to see it once it is finished, as it is very relevant. If I am not mistaken, the audience on Linux for games is quite a bit more technically inclined and a bit more mature (usually). They are also less inclined to pay for DRM-rich proprietary software.

I haven't released any commercial games yet, and I don't use Linux myself, but when my RPG project is finished, you can bet I'll support Linux.

Reasons:

1) If you're supporting Mac anyways, it probably means your game structure must be flexible enough to have OS-specific portions. A third platform is less work than the second (It's still work though).

2) Mac and Linux, at an underlying level, supposedly work alot alike. Certainly more alike than Mac and Windows. Mac and Linux also share a few of the same standards among APIs.

3) Linux users, because of the lack of games, are more willing to show support for the games that do make it to them. I personally feel like piracy rates are less on Linux, despite the greater technical know-how. Linux users have very consistently made a point of paying more per user (sometimes averaging double or triple) than Mac and Windows users on the Humble Bundle. Here you have a group of people saying, "We want great games! Here's us spending extra money just to prove it to you developers!", and then you have developers going, "Meh! I'd rather get paid $1 on iOS by people who'll play my game for 5 minutes then forget about it, and who'll never be a repeat customer."

4) The Linux market is less crowded, so you'll stand out more. Linux news sites eager for news will get likely you more coverage than Windows news sites that are flooded with feature requests.

5) A sale is a sale. As an indie, I'll need every sale I can get. If I can port to Linux in less than 90 days, and get at least 600 sales, that would be about breaking even. Anything more than 600 would be on-going profit while I work on my next game (along with any ongoing Mac, Windows, iOS, XBLA, or whatever sales).

6) Once the Linux support code is in your code-base, it'll be easier to port your future games to Linux, meaning it'll take less time, and easier to break even (less sales needed to break even), and quicker to turn a profit for the next Linux port.

Thanks for the replies.

I am looking forwards to your article MrJoshL.

And those are some very good points Servant of the Lord. I guess its not only how big the pie is but how big your slice of the pie is. If you have a huge pie but a tiny slice that might not be as good as a smaller pie and a big slice.

If anyone has anything else to add that would be great.

For me it is Windows only at least for now, not just for games either. I feel I would have to actually need a reason to use Linux / Apple first. Right now it seems all my solutions, libraries, products and software are MS related (this wasn't the case at all at one point) and despite working with alternatives (flash, Lamp, Xcode, Php, MySQL etc) I always feel more comfortable with MS that's not to say alternatives are bad I just have a much better experience with MS.

I feel making things cross platform would just be adding extra work all simply and purely for extra £££, sure from a business point of view it makes sense to make more money whenever possible but from a personal point of view, that extra money will just gather e-dust and right now both Apple / Linux and all related stuff to them doesn't affect me enough to concern myself with them.

Think of it like a game, you got PvE, PvP and RP, I get all my fun from PvP, so why would I want to PvE / RP? I give this example because I don't want to come across close minded or 'in bed with Microsoft' I just as a developer don't enjoy PvE / RP simply because I get no enjoyment out of it and until PvE / RP become attractive to me I will stick to PvP, sure I will make less sticking to PvP only but my enjoyment comes from PvP and making money isn't something I care about. Besides if I developed something on Linux anyway it would likely be free and opensource just to follow the tradition, where as on Apple it will be 7x the cost as Windows :D

I feel making things cross platform would just be adding extra work all simply and purely for extra £££, sure from a business point of view it makes sense to make more money whenever possible but from a personal point of view, that extra money will just gather e-dust and right now both Apple / Linux and all related stuff to them doesn't affect me enough to concern myself with them.

Actually, that's the reason most companies don't make a Linux-port - it doesn't pay enough for them to recoup their costs of the port.

I know at least in my experience 99% of the work moving to a new platform is easy, but that extra 1% can be the biggest pain in the ass in the world. That 1% is almost entirely platform specific blackhole type bugs that don't make a lot of sense, and they do take a lot of time. They are rarely refactoring to use the proper APIs, and much more frequently trying to find out why your game is structurally incompatible with the new API.

If you don't plan for a platform at the start, it's a lot of work.

The good news is if you plan for it from the start, it really doesn't add THAT much time other than just needing to be familiar with the new platform.

I develop on Linux and hence am adhering to open standards. If you work on Windows etc. you might easily run into a one way, os specific street sooner or later.

Any yes supporting Linux is also recommended, because the upcoming Steam Box will be running Linux.

Any yes supporting Linux is also recommended, because the upcoming Steam Box will be running Linux.

This assumes that a) it ever in fact appears and b) that it captures significant market share to be worth while.