Linux users donating more to Humble Indie Bundle

[yanom]

You may have heard of the Humble Indie Bundle, a package of several indie games where you pay what you want, get the games and the donate the money to the game developers or to charity.

http://www.humblebundle.com/

The games are available for Windows, Mac and Linux. If you scroll down to the bottom of the page you'll see the current stats for donation. At the time of writing:

230,387 Purchases
$4.83 Average purchase
$3.85 Average Windows User
$6.67 Average Mac User
$11.66 Average Linux User

So, the average person buying the game for linux is donating three times as much as those buying it for Windows!

[szymon_g]

So, the average person buying the game for linux is donating three times as much as those buying it for Windows!

... and yet- windows' users pay more for those games

[TheNosh]

This means nothing, for a few reasons.

1) Linux gamers have something to prove. They want to seem more willing to pay in hopes that more games will be ported. Windows users have almost every game on their platform already.

I've even seen it mentioned here in previous bundles, that people were paying more in hopes of more Linux games.I've also heard of people buying it once for a reasonable price on Linux, and then a few more times for a dollar or less, listing their OS as Windows. I can't really see the Windows users as being likely to do the same, as they don't have nearly as much of an axe to grind with Linux as many FOSS supporters have with Microsoft.

2) Most people use Windows, and so far their larger market is still equalling more money then Linux users' higher pay. Now apply this to the gaming market in general, where prices are not set by the customer. Suddenly everyone pays the same amount, and the margin between profit off Windows users and profit off Linux users just grows.

If I were making any manner of pay software, my first priority would be Windows. It makes more economic sense. It's about more than whether people are willing to pay, it's about how many of those people there are.

[Ric_NYC]

Anyway... Linux users are more generous. :P

[yanom]

My theory is that the Linux users care more about where the donations are going. One of the charities available to donate to is the EFF (www.eff.org), an organization that advocates software freedom

[TheNosh]

Anyway... Linux users are more generous. :P

But do you think they would be if all games were released for Linux already?

[Thewhistlingwind]

If I were making any manner of pay software, my first priority would be Windows. It makes more economic sense. It's about more than whether people are willing to pay, it's about how many of those people there are.

This.

I think that a better solution for application software is to write your application on top of a platform like java python or ruby.

The problem with this for video games is that in many cases your code won't run fast enough if you write it in one of those languages, so your stuck with a middle of the road solution like C++ which requires more effort to ensure cross platform compatibility. In the end, that effort just isn't worth it to target 10% of the market.

[yanom]

I think that a better solution for application software is to write your application on top of a platform like java python or ruby.

The problem with this for video games is that in many cases your code won't run fast enough if you write it in one of those languages, so your stuck with a middle of the road solution like C++ which requires more effort to ensure cross platform compatibility. In the end, that effort just isn't worth it to target 10% of the market.


Python and Ruby aren't really viable game development platforms, but Java definitely is. Look at Minecraft.

Still, I'm impressed by how much Linux users are donating, whatever their motives.

[DangerOnTheRanger]

I think what this means is that Linux users aren't as cheap as we are often made out to be:)


Python and Ruby aren't really viable game development platforms, but Java definitely is. Look at Minecraft.


That is nothing but a myth.

Did you know EVE Online is made with Python?
Also, I can personally say Python rocks for game development - I use it for my own open-source game development kit. It's powered by the same Python game engine that Disney used for Toontown Online and Pirates of the Caribbean Online.

[CharlesA]

I donated more then the "average" yesterday and put myself down as Windows, since I redeemed the games on Steam, even tho I use both Windows and Linux.

Statistics can be made to say anything. ;)

[PC_load_letter]

...
If I were making any manner of pay software, my first priority would be Windows. It makes more economic sense. It's about more than whether people are willing to pay, it's about how many of those people there are.

Not necessarily. Writing the game only for Windows means that you will have a lot of competition, and if it's written with Direct3D instructions, it could be rather difficult to port it later to OSX or Linux, or even to the mobile platforms, iOS and Android. So, if I were a dev, writing a game, and thinking from a pure economics viewpoint, I'd still go for a cross platform, unless maybe if I'm working for EA.

Some (myself included) in the Linux user base care quite a lot about FOSS, and all this Stallman GNU crap, so I don't think it's a stretch that donations to EFF or similar institutions could be another explanation.

[JDShu]

Did you know EVE Online is made with Python?
Also, I can personally say Python rocks for game development - I use it for my own open-source game development kit. It's powered by the same Python game engine that Disney used for Toontown Online and Pirates of the Caribbean Online.

Somebody had to say this. It's really annoying how people keep saying that C/C++ are the only viable languages because they are theoretically fast.

EDIT: It's even weirder to say that Java works and Python doesn't.

[Thewhistlingwind]

Somebody had to say this. It's really annoying how people keep saying that C/C++ are the only viable languages because they are theoretically fast.

EDIT: It's even weirder to say that Java works and Python doesn't.

In my defence, I had games like Halo or Call of Duty in mind when I said as such.

The hardware requirements to play such titles are already handled in large part by dedicated machines.

Making them higher would be very undesirable.

I think that you can implement plenty of games in a language like python or java.

[DangerOnTheRanger]

Not necessarily. Writing the game only for Windows means that you will have a lot of competition, and if it's written with Direct3D instructions, it could be rather difficult to port it later to OSX or Linux, or even to the mobile platforms, iOS and Android. So, if I were a dev, writing a game, and thinking from a pure economics viewpoint, I'd still go for a cross platform, unless maybe if I'm working for EA.

Some (myself included) in the Linux user base care quite a lot about FOSS, and all this Stallman GNU crap, so I don't think it's a stretch that donations to EFF or similar institutions could be another explanation.

+1. I wrote my game development kit with OpenGL instead of DirectX (using Python), and it already works with Linux, Windows, and OSX, and I'm about to port it to iOS and Android.

[JDShu]

In my defence, I had games like Halo or Call of Duty in mind when I said as such.

The hardware requirements to play such titles are already handled in large part by dedicated machines.

Making them higher would be very undesirable.

I think that you can implement plenty of games in a language like python or java.

My understanding is that even for AAA games, the majority of processing power goes into graphics rendering and physics logic which requires every bit of optimization. So it makes sense to implement that stuff in C/C++ (although even there, I think the trend now is to move on to shader languages - somebody will need to enlighten me there). Other stuff though, can be implemented more cheaply and more quickly in a high level language.

Of course, most indie game companies don't have the budget to make state of the art graphics anyway, so the point is moot. Your best bet would be to use Python/Java/Whatever and then use C to optimize what you need to optimize.

[forrestcupp]

... and yet- windows' users pay more for those games

Exactly what I was thinking. It's misleading. The average Linux user pays more, but they're making a lot more money from all the combined Windows users.

[DangerOnTheRanger]

In my defence, I had games like Halo or Call of Duty in mind when I said as such.

The hardware requirements to play such titles are already handled in large part by dedicated machines.

Making them higher would be very undesirable.

I think that you can implement plenty of games in a language like python or java.

Usage of Python wouldn't make your game's hardware requirements go up.


My understanding is that even for AAA games, the majority of processing power goes into graphics rendering and physics logic which requires every bit of optimization. So it makes sense to implement that stuff in C/C++ (although even there, I think the trend now is to move on to shader languages - somebody will need to enlighten me there). Other stuff though, can be implemented more cheaply and more quickly in a high level language.

Of course, most indie game companies don't have the budget to make state of the art graphics anyway, so the point is moot. Your best bet would be to use Python/Java/Whatever and then use C to optimize what you need to optimize.

This is correct. The underlying physics and graphics engine for my game development kit are partially written in C++ in the game engine I use, speeding up my GDK. However, 100% of the code that I write is Python, which really boosts my productivity. So I get the best of both worlds, plus, the C++ code was already written for me. :D

Also, there is a move to shader languages going on - in fact, some companies (Google "OpenCL") are trying to offload some, if not all, CPU-intensive tasks to the GPU, which is/would be even faster than straight C.

[Thewhistlingwind]

Of course, most indie game companies don't have the budget to make state of the art graphics anyway, so the point is moot. Your best bet would be to use Python/Java/Whatever and then use C to optimize what you need to optimize.

I already said you can make many (If not most) games in high level languages?

[Ric_NYC]

Previous Humble Bundle

Number of Donations

http://img585.imageshack.us/img585/7053/humblebundlebycount.png (http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/585/humblebundlebycount.png/)


Dollar Value of the Donations $$$$$$$$$$

http://img812.imageshack.us/img812/8165/humblebundlebydonation.png (http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/812/humblebundlebydonation.png/)

[Ric_NYC]

Happy now?:P