He doesn't argue that porting the game is too difficult - in fact he implies that porting games to linux is pretty straightforward. He's really arguing that supporting the game after release is too expensive.
You have patches, and compatibility issues, and a thousand video cards with potential incompatibilities; customer service questions, system updates, and that one dude in Kansas running a custom version of linux that cant quite get your game to work, so he keeps calling and bugging you and taking up support time.
Edit: Found a relevant quote:
This may sound ridiculous – “Who would turn away $20,000?”
but the reality is that many of the same legal, financial,
executive, and support resources need to be brought to
bear on every single deal, regardless of size, and taking
time away from something that is in the tens of millions of
dollars range is often not justifiable.
A have a colleague who has worked a few times selling games ported to Linux, and it leads to all sorts of hate mail when things don't exactly right. And people who use Linux tend to think you never have to pay money for software so your market is that much smaller.
> And people who use Linux tend to think you never have to pay money for software so your market is that much smaller.
I'm not sure that is fair. Linux users, when faced with the choice of a free open source tool or a paid proprietary one usually tend to go for the free one. But things like the Humble Bundle show that there are plenty of Linux users who are willing to pay for content. It's just that there aren't that many Linux users compared with Windows.
I get so tired of hearing people trot out the humble bundle example. Linux has historically been mostly ignored by game devs. Of course linux users are going to (initially) earnestly support developers in the hope that more games/devs will start coming their way.
Lets say the humble bundle worked as a means to encourage a non-trivial amount of indie devs and publishers to build for or port to linux. Lets say this trend remains significant for more than a year or two. I don't for a second believe you'd see anything close to the same level of support. Right now games on linux are a commodity.
I defy someone to find another software category... hell, an individuel piece of software that has enjoyed any real, monetary support from the linux community. You don't get to argue enterprise support for distro X or open source framework Y from Z corp. Show me end users purchasing software for linux.
Don't get me wrong, I used linux as a desktop for years and still use it every day on the server. I'm a fan but the desktop community? As a developer, I wouldn't waste a second of my time building something for linux unless it was purely an open source passion project. Linux desktop users seem overwhelmingly more than happy to eschew a paid product for a free one even when the free one is absolute crap by comparison. <Insert snide comment about linux desktop users not valuing their time as evident by their use of linux as a desktop in the first place.> I hate to use the term freetard but as someone who makes money from building things, that's how I largely see the linux desktop community. To put it bluntly, there isn't much evidence that they are worth the time.
> linux desktop users not valuing their time as evident by thier use of linux as a desktop in the first place.
You lost me here. I dual boot Windows and Linux - Windows is currently the best platform for games, Office, and a few legacy and specific apps; Linux is the best platform for programming (unless its for Windows or Apple specific programs)
This was mostly a joking jab and honestly not as true today as it used to be. I spent a lot of years fighting just to get a gfx or network card working with any distro but that was honestly a long time ago. Linux has come a long way.
I'll agree that linux is a fine development platform. I might well switch back if the direction OSX/Apple goes continues to be questionable.
Well ... first - games are different type of code than Photoshop. If you want to see whether Linux people like to pay for content - you better check their video rental and music histories.
Second - there is good portion of linux users that are not die hard Stallman followers. They are just not the vocal ones. Some people know that you sometimes just have to ship the binary for various reasons.
The fact that Sublime Text has version for linux that is supported, means that it is profitable enough to do so.
People don't mind paying for good software. They mind being ripped off and feeling powerless. And there is sizable group of people for which the games are the only major dealbreaker of switching to Linux.
Specificially, they consistently paid the most, out of all three operating systems, sometimes double the amount of the amounts payed by windows users (and we are talking average prices here!)
> And people who use Linux tend to think you never have to pay money for software so your market is that much smaller.
As an avid Linux/OSS fan who has spent a fair amount of money for applications that I use in Linux and Windows (ST2/ST3/IDEA-J, others), as well as hundreds (if not more) on games that I'm enjoying Linux native ports of... I'm so damn tired of hearing this stereotype.
At best there can be an argument made for wanting to support OSS software over paid alternatives, and that IS true. There are times that I will use a slightly inferior application because it is OSS. It's almost never a price thing. Even now that I've paid for ST2, I still find myself wishing that I liked Vim/Emacs more because they fit more with my OSS-love and the advantages that come with it (WinRT/ARM port, Linux/ARM port for the Exynos Chromebook, etc)... but please stop acting like that means I expect to get everything for free. It's really insulting.
edit (Ironically, games are probably one of the more obvious places that "you get what you pay for". I'm not the biggest hardcore PC gamer, but I really don't care to play any of the OSS games available for Linux. On the other hand, even though I'm terrible at them, TF2/CS/CS:S/HL/etc are fun even for me, and I'm very happy to pay for that entertainment, especially when Steam makes it so easy to buy/redownload/etc)
You have patches, and compatibility issues, and a thousand video cards with potential incompatibilities; customer service questions, system updates, and that one dude in Kansas running a custom version of linux that cant quite get your game to work, so he keeps calling and bugging you and taking up support time.
Edit: Found a relevant quote: