Hi, I'll add to what Josh said, because he raised a number of good points that pertains to my own situation as well. Like he said we can't look simply at the numbers, because there are a number of other things going on here too.
For instance, while the Linux market is growing I still have concerns how many of those users would be”paying customers” since Linux users are less likely to buy software than their Windows or Mac counterparts. This is a lot like the Android verses iOS situation Josh talked about, because many commercial developers tried selling their products to Linux users only to have their product fail. It isn't that there are not enough Linux users out there, there are in fact millions of mainstream users, but it has to do with the degree of free alternatives that it makes commercial software nonviable on the platform. One of the more memorable examples is Corel's office suite for Linux. Arguably Word Perfect, Quatro Pro, Corel Draw, etc are excellent applications. However, who is going to pay $200 for an office suite when there are free solutions like OpenOffice, LibreOffice, and IBM Lotus Symphony? It is just not going to sell to someone who already has a low cost office suite that does it all anyway. That said, as blind gamers we have a bit of a disadvantage. Where there are hundreds of games for Linux like Super Tux, Tux Racer, Rocks and Diamonds, Civilization, Quake, etc they aren't accessible. That means in theory since there isn't a freedom of choice for blind Linux gamers I have an advantage over mainstream developers in that as one of the few blind developers of audio games for Linux I can charge for them and people will have to pay if they want them. That is sort of insurance that I'll make something off the product as I don't have free competition to compete with. However, whatever price I put on the product has to be realistic. I don't know anyone who is going to pay $40 for a Blackjack game for Linux no matter how hard up for games they are. That would be obviously ridiculous. A small fee like $3.00 to $5.00 might be more reasonable. Even better yet for something that basic it might as well be free and open source. The point being, though, that the price has to be something someone use to free software is willing to afford. They might buy a cheap audio game, but most Linux users will be looking for something open source if and where they can get it, and that is why commercial software has not been very viable on Linux in many cases. The exceptions to the rule tend to be specialty software that has no other free competition. To give you an example the Cepstral voices are really the best voices available for Linux users, and I have always been willing to put out $30for Cepstral David, Callie, Dianne, etc because they are more human than Espeak. Apparently Cepstral must be doing well as they continue to put out new versions for Linux, and in fact I just got a message from them today offering a discount on their new 6.0 voices for Linux. So commercial software is not always doomed to failure, but it has to be something you can't get anywhere else. Getting back on topic here as Josh said looking at the numbers is not the be all and end all to weather a game for a certain platform is worthwhile. Neither is making money necessarily sufficient motivation for targeting a specific platform. Their are personal reasons which are just as valid as making money. To give you an example Jim Kitchen has written a number of fun and enjoyable games for Windows using SAPI and DirectX. You know, I could do basically the same thing using SDL and Speech Dispatcher. I could crank out Football, Baseball, Uno, Yatzi, etc and just give them away or make them open source. The value wouldn't be making money but just because I enjoyed doing it. So money and x number of users isn't everything. :D Cheers! On 6/6/13, Draconis <i...@dracoent.com> wrote: > 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* --- 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.
