Time for the Linux port!

[CrystalRainbow]

Linux has been on the brink of breaking out into common use for 20 years. 2% of users base doesn't means anything. Get over it.

Also of that 2% of linux boxes out there I would personally guess less then 20% of them even use GUI. So NO NO NO GO away.




You need to make sure it works with all of these. to even get to the 2% users.

[Delsus]

Linux has been on the brink of breaking out into common use for 20 years. 2% of users base doesn't means anything. Get over it.

Also of that 2% of linux boxes out there I would personally guess less then 20% of them even use GUI. So NO NO NO GO away.




You need to make sure it works with all of these. to even get to the 2% users.

You say that "Less than 20% of linux users use a GUI, but I counted over 50% of users in the chart you provided run distros that come packaged with a GUI, load the GUI and start the Xserver on boot, so that's your theory out of the window. Now you might say that the chart is not a representative example due to the small sample size, which I could agree with but then the chart you provided is not relevant to the discussion.

I do agree that they have to look at the problem from a business point of view, but as both Linux and OSX are based on Unix, right at the bare bones of the system they are very similar, porting a Mac version to Linux would be simple, and wouldn't take much work at all. It's not thinking about how many customers they can get, it's is it profitable. If it costs much less to make than the Windows version then it could make sense to make it as it could still pull the same margin, and that's ultimately what business looks at, percentage profits (ie profit margin) than actual money because it shows an accurate example of how you are doing, and it can be compared much easier.

Just because Linux makes up only 2% of the market doesn't mean it should be discounted. Linux is unfortunately in a bad cycle, people that know of it use Windows because Windows has all the programs they use, and Linux might only have 20% of these programs, and the alternatives might not suit their needs, so they stick with Windows. The developers see Linux as an unprofitable market when they look at the market share, so they don't develop for it and for the most part up to now no one seems to have shifted.

[Kewitt]

You say that "Less than 20% of linux users use a GUI, but I counted over 50% of users in the chart you provided run distros that come packaged with a GUI, load the GUI and start the Xserver on boot, so that's your theory out of the window. Now you might say that the chart is not a representative example due to the small sample size, which I could agree with but then the chart you provided is not relevant to the discussion.

I do agree that they have to look at the problem from a business point of view, but as both Linux and OSX are based on Unix, right at the bare bones of the system they are very similar, porting a Mac version to Linux would be simple, and wouldn't take much work at all. It's not thinking about how many customers they can get, it's is it profitable. If it costs much less to make than the Windows version then it could make sense to make it as it could still pull the same margin, and that's ultimately what business looks at, percentage profits (ie profit margin) than actual money because it shows an accurate example of how you are doing, and it can be compared much easier.

Just because Linux makes up only 2% of the market doesn't mean it should be discounted. Linux is unfortunately in a bad cycle, people that know of it use Windows because Windows has all the programs they use, and Linux might only have 20% of these programs, and the alternatives might not suit their needs, so they stick with Windows. The developers see Linux as an unprofitable market when they look at the market share, so they don't develop for it and for the most part up to now no one seems to have shifted.

You can run ubuntu without the GUI.

[xNuggetJack3dx]

Linux has been on the brink of breaking out into common use for 20 years. 2% of users base doesn't means anything. Get over it.

Also of that 2% of linux boxes out there I would personally guess less then 20% of them even use GUI. So NO NO NO GO away.




You need to make sure it works with all of these. to even get to the 2% users.

^ this
/thread

[Amarande]

Far as I'm aware, Blizzard's "support" for Linux doesn't really extend any further than some effort to have Warden play nice with Wine so people can play and not get banned (and I'm not sure how much of the work is from each side ...).

I'm actually surprised it is not becoming more popular - with so much of the Western economy as it is, and so many computers not coming with Windows media in case of disaster (pretty much you either have to use the clunky recovery method provided by the manufacturer, which often requires stuff on the hard drive to be intact, which is often not the case during a disaster, or you have to just shell out the 120 USD for a normal copy of Win8.1); not to mention all the older computers still in use that will need upgrades (or should already have had them in the case of that chunk running XP!) for which Linux is likely much more suitable than 8.1 (then again, these computers probably won't run FFXIV well anyway ...).

[Psychojau]

Many people here forget an important rule : When a new market comes (here : SteamOS), the more people comes, the more it grows.
If important games like Final Fantasy games come here, not only they will sell copies because they are first, but this plateform will grow faster from its very beginning. Other companies and customers will come next.
Remember IOS, Android... or even Playstation or Xbox !

(sry maybe my english is not perfect)

[Tiggy]

This is a waste of development time for an extremely niche market with extremely poor hardware support. People who buy linux machines needs to face the reality that they don't have a gaming rig. Not a real one. You made your bed with your choice of OS knowing full well the gaming support it had. It is a waste of time to develop yet another client for a bunch of people just being stubborn about their OS. It's less than 2% of OS's out there. It isn't worth the time. Even if they did make it the graphics driver support is so poor on Linux that it's a minefield to even try getting into for support. It's just not financially worth it.

[Delsus]

This is a waste of development time for an extremely niche market with extremely poor hardware support. People who buy linux machines needs to face the reality that they don't have a gaming rig. Not a real one. You made your bed with your choice of OS knowing full well the gaming support it had. It is a waste of time to develop yet another client for a bunch of people just being stubborn about their OS. It's less than 2% of OS's out there. It isn't worth the time. Even if they did make it the graphics driver support is so poor on Linux that it's a minefield to even try getting into for support. It's just not financially worth it.

You do realise there are somewhere near 2 billion PCs in the world, therefore 2% of 2 billion is 40 million, if you think about who uses Linux, a possible amount of people into gaming on Linux you could still be looking at a potential market in the millions.

The only thing keeping me from full timing Linux is official software support.

[Tiggy]

You do realise there are somewhere near 2 billion PCs in the world, therefore 2% of 2 billion is 40 million, if you think about who uses Linux, a possible amount of people into gaming on Linux you could still be looking at a potential market in the millions.

You don't know how many of those Linux machines run up to date distros that even have a hope of running this game. Many of those machines are servers as well and not personal machines reducing the viable number even further. It may be 40 million machines but that doesn't really help us here. The true amount of those machines that can viably run a game like this is very small. This is an issue of time vs money for square. Is the dev time worth it for such a small player base. I don't think so for even a second.

The only thing keeping me from full timing Linux is official software support.

This is the main thing holding back the platform in general to be completely honest. If companies making hardware don't take it seriously then the companies that require that hardware won't either. I.E. The game makers require working 3d acceleration with properly supported drivers. Something they really don't have right now.

[Psychojau]

This is the main thing holding back the platform in general to be completely honest. If companies making hardware don't take it seriously then the companies that require that hardware won't either. I.E. The game makers require working 3d acceleration with properly supported drivers. Something they really don't have right now.

Okokok but wake up : now SteamOS is here ! I'm playing with my gaming computer (I5, GTX780, 16GB RAM, P8Z77-I DELUXE, Turtule Beach Earforce Seven, Steelseries Gaming Mouse, G11 old great keyboard ). I'm playing native games like borderland 2, Broken Sword, Dota2, Counter-strike : Go, Planetary Annihilation, Shroud of the Avatar, Tropico 5, Goat Simulator (THE HIT xD) etc... I'm using Ubuntu and trust me : there are NOT a SINGLE ONE compatibility or perfs problem !