"There are vibrant communities of gamers using other operating systems besides the dominant ones, and a company like THQ should not overlook them."
- THQ president Jason Rubin is weighing up the pros and cons of releasing games for Linux.
Following the success of the THQ Humble Bundle, Rubin says he has been inundated with requests for Linux versions of THQ games, and that the company is now considering Linux ports in the future.
While the Humble Bundles usually offer Linux versions of the supplied games, the Humble THQ Bundle did away with this rule, and only provided Windows PC versions of each game. As a result, numerous Linux users sent messages to Rubin asking for Linux ports of THQ games.
"Complicating the analysis (in a positive way), gamers have tweeted inventive ideas to me, such as letting the community help in the porting to bring down costs," he told Polygon. "THQ is committed to look at anything that makes sense."
He says that the company is currently weighing up the benefits of such a move against how much it would cost to put into motion. He noted that, as with porting any game to a new platform, there will be costs that the company cannot get around.
"I'm sure we will have more to announce shortly," he concluded.
I'd *love* to see more Linux ports of games, but the Nintendo Wii has a 140 titles that have sold over a million units where I can't find a site that even bothers to list Linux game sales.
I'm not saying THQ should ignore Linux (if they can keep the costs low and build a loyal following, it could be a great market for them), but they shouldn't ignore the Wii U either.
Here are my thoughts on porting to Linux, just based on the Humble Bundle.
THQ had a Windows only bundle with an average payment of $5.76 with 885,363 bundles sold.
It is well documented that Windows users pay the least on average of all three OSes (Windows, Mac, Linux) While that average is about par for a bundle for a specific developer, judging by the massive demand, Mac and Linux users would have only driven that average up. We could have also seen an increase in total bundles sold, which would also have driven up total revenue.
How that compares overall to the WiiU and its target audience is not known off hand, but the fact remains that Linux and Mac support hels drive sales.
We could probably do a comparison of Humble Bundle vs Indie Royale and see what the difference is. While they have different payment models and incentives, the one key difference between them is that HB requires, for the most part, support for the three OSes and IR does not. I just don't have the numbers to compare.
Bake sale in the parking lot in Agoura? Car wash perhaps? Don't worry folks - it's all coming together nicely now. Get ready because the next quarter is going to be their biggest one YET!!!!
And I'm not even a Linux user, but I reckon the platform potential
I'd *love* to see more Linux ports of games, but the Nintendo Wii has a 140 titles that have sold over a million units where I can't find a site that even bothers to list Linux game sales.
I'm not saying THQ should ignore Linux (if they can keep the costs low and build a loyal following, it could be a great market for them), but they shouldn't ignore the Wii U either.
THQ had a Windows only bundle with an average payment of $5.76 with 885,363 bundles sold.
It is well documented that Windows users pay the least on average of all three OSes (Windows, Mac, Linux) While that average is about par for a bundle for a specific developer, judging by the massive demand, Mac and Linux users would have only driven that average up. We could have also seen an increase in total bundles sold, which would also have driven up total revenue.
How that compares overall to the WiiU and its target audience is not known off hand, but the fact remains that Linux and Mac support hels drive sales.
We could probably do a comparison of Humble Bundle vs Indie Royale and see what the difference is. While they have different payment models and incentives, the one key difference between them is that HB requires, for the most part, support for the three OSes and IR does not. I just don't have the numbers to compare.
Oh wait...no it isn't.