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[Chris Koźmik]

I noticed that the big companies release games mostly for Windows only (no surprise), the biggest biggest release for Windows+Mac, not that many Windows+Mac+Linux. But I can't recall any instance of Windows+Linux (without Mac).

Why is it that these companies support Mac over Linux?

BTW, the same seems to be not true for indies, they more frequently support Windows+Linux, but I guess it's easy to explain, many indies can't afford/find finacially reasonable to buy Mac while everyone can have Linux for free.

[Irock]

Because OS X has a larger market share?

[airman4]

Linux can display games ?

I heard it was just for some works here and here

[TomHunt]

Because for a project to succeed with Linux, you really have to be able to grab the thing by the horns and run with it, because there's no one single business entity that you're dealing with. No one's butt on the line other than your own - and that very thing tends to make business types - the very people running professional game studios - nervous.

That aside, if the capability does exist to do a good job with a Linux release - making it work properly on all the popular distributions, maybe even releasing some or all of the source code under public license at some point, then sure, more power to you. I've really only ever seen that happen at companies where one of the founders still in possession of a large share of company ownership also happened to be a developer on the game and also happens to be a big fan of OSS / Linux.

The lack of the various marketing/PR/support infrastructure trappings is all less relevant to the indie community because 1) we're generally much less profit-motivated to begin with than "big" game companies, 2) many indies are in the above-mentioned camp of owning the company and being a fan of OSS / Linux, and 3) f*** you Microsoft/Apple, that's why.

[noah!]

Now, I might be completely off-the-mark here, but I think it might be because distributing for Linux is like takin' ferret teeth to the gonads.

See, here's the thing about Linux. Whereas OS X likes to keep applications in a little compact bundle, and Windows just lets 'em go all spread-eagle, Linux is very particular about how it wants its apps to touch. The binary has to go into one global folder, libraries into another, resources into yet another. As for the name of this folder, you really can't be sure, because different users set that up differently.

Oh that's right sister, when rollin' for Linux you can't assume much about your users. Yeah, if you just wanna target a certain distribution, then you can blast in with some expectations about what's gonna be on their machine. But for every 1000 Ubuntu brothers there's gonna be one Crunchbang that throws up the spanner di☆rect☆ly into your ROI.

Yeah, you can solve a ton of these problems by distributing source. Except then you're giving peeps your source code and you're a business. You wear the sport coat but they have the power. Occasionally the power chokes on some older/newer version of GCC, though, so the balance isn't as bad as you'd expect.

And then there's the whole issue of the libraries you're using not even having Linux ports to begin with. If that's the case, you're boned to the max jam.

Are these major issues? Not really. It takes a bit of effort, but there are ways to get around all these. But still, four paragraphs of pain balanced against 1% of the install base. That's like holdin' up the whole carnival for your little cousin Tyler.

[Uykered]

Well Steam is coming for Linux, probably be more popular when it comes out I guess.

[Nix]

It's really a distribution issue. It's not quite as varied as Noah suggests, but each distribution still handles things a little differently. So to realistically distribute for Linux, you have to put together packages for all the major distributions and then put together a tarball with a text-file dependency list for everyone else and rely on the user to have the know-how to make it work. Desura actually has Linux support, but people seem to have paid that little attention. Maybe Steam will be the final solution to the distribution issue. Another big problem is that it takes time and effort to port to Linux and the Linux userbase who wants to play games just isn't that big. It's not nothing, and it's growing, but it just isn't big enough for most publishers to justify the cost right now.

[Xienen]

I believe there's a large misconception about piracy on Linux, as well.  The concept of Open Source Software being the normal distribution scheme has often been cited as a problem for closed source projects, which the majority of games are.  Since Windows is the main development platform for AAA games, I think most developers at these large studios don't understand Linux very well.  Obviously there are a number of people at companies like Valve that have a firm grasp of Linux, but perhaps it's been a struggle even for them to change the popular misconceptions for the "higher ranking" personel...though that's perhaps more about the alleged distribution issues than piracy, as previously mentioned.

[Klaim]

I believe there's a large misconception about piracy on Linux, as well.  The concept of Open Source Software being the normal distribution scheme has often been cited as a problem for closed source projects, which the majority of games are.  Since Windows is the main development platform for AAA games, I think most developers at these large studios don't understand Linux very well.  Obviously there are a number of people at companies like Valve that have a firm grasp of Linux, but perhaps it's been a struggle even for them to change the popular misconceptions for the "higher ranking" personel...though that's perhaps more about the alleged distribution issues than piracy, as previously mentioned.

What you are saying here is quite insulting. Valve people or people in a lot of game companies does know enough about linux and open source world to use it, still you consider them not being able to make their game work closed source on linux?

Facts:

 1. until few years ago, there was no common or de-facto non-techie normal-user-centric linux distribution. So players were not there anyway.
 2. most linux distributions does encourage open sourcing software, it have been a community problem for a long time because people using linux just didn't want to use anything else than open source code.
 3. distribution is, as the main technical problem (once you passed cross-platform compatibility of the code) and that is still not easy if you target more than Ubuntu and even if you do it's really really really really not a good idea to think about games like if they were tools or libraries spread in the system: they are very closed system and that's A GOOD THING. Most linux developers don't understand this fact, while -as already mentioned- it's well embraced on MacOS and Windows didn't care for a long time.

So:

The Linux world didn't want games for a long time. Assuming they have the code that can run on Linux, game devs were, for a long time, just not welcome on Linux distributions because the Linux world thought a lot in a way that was hardly compatible. Now that things get more pragmatic and that they embrace real users, it's easier to consider.

Deal with it.

[Radix]

final solution

This way to the showers, whiny linux nerds.

[Chris Koźmik]

Because OS X has a larger market share?

I don't think that's the main reason. Once you did dual platform version (Windows + Mac) the cost of a 3rd conversion should be pretty low (since you already got rid of all the system specific code). Even if Linux would be 10% of Mac market share (and I believe it's more around 50%) it should still be profitable to make a conversion. Still, for some reason it is not true...
I guess it must be the conversion problems related to various Linux distributions as several people above mentioned... Still, for these problems to be that much higher than on Mac it is kind of surprise to me.

[Oddball]

I'm certainly going to think twice about releasing for Linux in the future. Whilst the sales are ok, and Linux users on the whole seem very appreciative, supporting Linux can be an absolute nightmare. I have to keep multiple versions of Linux on all my machines in order to test the myriad of crazy issues that crop up. Even if you do this you can still be thwarted by a user point blank refusing to install a lib that is needed to run the game, and that is somehow my fault. And don't get me started on Linux audio. I'll die a happy man if I don't ever have to touch another piece of Linux audio code.

[ஒழுக்கின்மை (Paul Eres)]

i think the main reason is that big companies could easily release it for linux, but *supporting* it for linux (customer support, helping people with problems) would be a nightmare

[Fallsburg]

The more I read his posts, the more I love Noah!. 

Also, repeating what everyone else said, way too inconsistent, way too hard to provide support.

[Nix]

final solution

This way to the showers, whiny linux nerds.

Hah. I like manually installing dependencies.

[ubik]

The overwhelming reason is obviously market share.  The marketshare for linux on the desktop is still something like 1%.  That means that it is unquestionably NOT worth the support and development headache for any sort of large title, especially when you consider the fact that the vast majority of the market is on DirectX, which means, again, a huge development effort required to support numerous cards and their idiosyncrasies under OpenGL. 

Then you have support. Different distros, often with weird driver issues (even still).  Then you have to consider that a lot of updates released by these people often totally bash various subsystems.  Even established groups like Canonical seem bent on making bizarre and poorly thought out changes to their architecture seemingly unilaterally, diverging them even further from mainstream operating systems as well as from other branches of linux.

As an indie developer I am unquestionably going to release on Linux boxes.  But I have a porting infrastructure that allows me to do this easily.  I am unquestionably NOT going to devote much effort to supporting those releases.  I will publish to a certain Ubuntu version, possibly check them on Fedora.  Then I will document what distro and version the game worked on, and leave it at that.

A number of companies have gone belly up trying to do porting or support services of various sorts.  Loki was one.  Cedega is another.  Various gaming distros have been tried and I can't think of any of them that are still around.

In an increasingly cutthroat market, can you blame companies for not wanting to drop $5 million in an effort to try to cater to 1% of the market?  As techies we have to realize that we are extremely isolated in terms of what the rest of the world is running and what they want.

[Radix]

1-5% is already pretty bad but the effective market share is even lower, if you consider it from the perspective that Linux users in general and those users which don't already have a gaming solution (booting into Windows or whatever) in particular are basically a self-selected group of people who just aren't prioritising games.

[Xienen]

Long, seemingly angry post.

I hope you simply misread my post or you were just having a bad day, because I don't believe I even insinuated the core "insult" you spoke of.  I said "Obviously there are a number of people at companies like Valve that have a firm grasp of Linux, but perhaps it's been a struggle even for them to change the popular misconceptions for the "higher ranking" personel" which was intended to mean that those who like/use Linux are not likely to be those at the top of the "structure" at Valve.  I certainly didn't imply "Valve people or people in a lot of game companies does know enough about linux and open source world to use it, still you consider them not being able to make their game work closed source on linux?".  I was simply saying that the people in key positions at large companies are probably not Linux advocates with a few notable exceptions like id due to Carmack.

[Chris Koźmik]

I'm certainly going to think twice about releasing for Linux in the future. Whilst the sales are ok, [...]

If that's not a secret, could you give an estimate what percentage of the sales was from Linux users? I assume you are talking about "Hack, Slash, Loot", which was release on Steam (no Linux option there) and Desura (much smaller portal than Steam); you saying these sales were still OK would mean you sold surprisingly much to Linux users...

I was simply saying that the people in key positions at large companies are probably not Linux advocates with a few notable exceptions like id due to Carmack.

Are you implying that there is no market value in releasing on Linux and that the only reason to do it is to help Linux not your company (being advocate of the system instead of maximizing profit)? Shouldn't personal preference be irrelevant (for a big company at least) when making such decisions?

[Oddball]

If that's not a secret, could you give an estimate what percentage of the sales was from Linux users? I assume you are talking about "Hack, Slash, Loot", which was release on Steam (no Linux option there) and Desura (much smaller portal than Steam); you saying these sales were still OK would mean you sold surprisingly much to Linux users...

It's hard to get exact figures due to the way some of the portals report sales, and as you say Steam skews the stats heavily in Windows favour, but if we ignore Steam sales then Linux accounts for about 2% of HSL sales and Mac about 7%. It's a sizeable chunk of dough, but was it worth all the extra hassle? I'm not so sure, hence why I'll have to think long and hard about supporting Linux in the future.