I'd like to add to what Tom has said about the market for cross-platform games.
Draconis entered the Mac market for audio games six months ago, but had been analyzing it for quite some time prior to that, too. Regardless of the industry, the sheer number of users who use a platform is only one small piece of the puzzle when considering which platforms to develop for. Not all users are created equal. For a real world example, look at the iOS versus Android markets for apps right now. The vast, vast, vast majority of developers develop for iOS first, and often not for Android at all, even though it appears, on the surface, that Android has a larger share of the smart phone market. The difference is, though, that developers don't make much money on Android. Android users tend to be unwilling to pay for apps, are only using their phone as a phone and not as a true mobile computing device, or are running a version of the OS so out of date that it is impractical to support. Couple reasons like these with the difficulties of supporting the hugely fragmented Android platform, and it is no wonder that developers target iOS, where they can actually make some money. Where this sort of analysis is important for cross-platform audio games is in the types of people your games are going to appeal to. While there are certainly more visually impaired users of Windows, that number is shrinking. Many of the Windows users are running the OS side-by-side with OS X on a Mac machine. The demographic of visually impaired Mac users skews younger, which, generally speaking, is the group more likely to purchase and enjoy games. While the Linux community has certainly grown over the years, we don't think it is large enough, on its own, to support audio gaming. Someone like Tom has a vested interest in developing for it, and I think you need that drive to support it for now. It is not financially viable, and I doubt that is going to change in the foreseeable future. So far, Mac sales of our first two titles for that platform have far and away exceeded sales for any titles on Windows over the last decade, likely for the reasons above, as well as our ability to price the games more affordibly now that we're offering them on more platforms. It is far more complex than simply looking at numbers and trying to use the size of the user base as a reference point. A huge percentage of visually impaired Windows users are, for example, are elderly persons who have recently lost their vision and primarily use their computers for only the most basic of tasks. They are not going to be a segment of the market who are likely to purchase Shades of Doom or play Swamp. *grin* On Jun 5, 2013, at 1:27 PM, Thomas Ward <thomasward1...@gmail.com> wrote: > Hi Josh, > > Sure there is a market. How big it is I can't say, but there is enough > of a market there to consider cross-platform games. There are several > people who now have Mac OS X, and the last time I checked the Orca > list has a couple hundred blind members. I don't know for sure how > many blind Linux users there are for sure because the community is > spread out over the Vinux list, Ubuntu accessibility list, Speakup > List, the Orca List, etc and there are bound to be people on more than > one fudging the results of just looking at the number of members. > However, there is a market there, and besides there is more to it than > just dollars and cents. Some people like me use the OS and want some > games to play so I of all people have a vested interest in making > Linux games even if I didn't sell one game. > > Cheers! > --- Gamers mailing list __ Gamers@audyssey.org If you want to leave the list, send E-mail to gamers-unsubscr...@audyssey.org. You can make changes or update your subscription via the web, at http://audyssey.org/mailman/listinfo/gamers_audyssey.org. All messages are archived and can be searched and read at http://www.mail-archive.com/gamers@audyssey.org. If you have any questions or concerns regarding the management of the list, please send E-mail to gamers-ow...@audyssey.org.
