Request insight into Steam's ecosystem regarding multi-platform support

edited in Questions and Answers
Hi everyone,

So I'm hoping to get some insight from those that have already published on steam with regards to multiple platforms

TL;DR : I'm pondering whether to do a bulk launch of Windows, Mac & Linux or a one-by-one staggered approach.

This is an old game of mine (about 10 years old) about to hit steam by the end of this month, because it's a home-rolled engine from forever-ago there's quite a bit of work involved with building and testing each platform.

Getting Windows out first means I can launch sooner, but I'm not sure if lacking the other platforms will negatively impact launch or if a staggered (re)launch for each platform "Now supports Mac too!" will be of benefit announcement wise.

Not having (directly) worked with the steam ecosystem before and not really having an understanding of the user-base I'm currently leaning towards a one-by-one : if only to limit possible issues (and therefore support) on initial launch.

Any and all insights in this regard would be most welcome :)

Comments

  • Okay, I was trying to get numbers from Steam yesterday and it was just unbearably slow... Today is better though, so here goes:

    Percentage of Desktop Dungeons Steam sales on Mac: 0.042%
    Percentage of Desktop Dungeons Steam sales on Linux: 0.0058%

    We launched DD on PC and Mac at the same time, that was relatively easy to do (we already had a Mac and Unity building on it was fine). Our Linux release happened later and we leveraged that to get some press and Steam promotion that resulted in waaaaaaaaay more sales for PC/Mac than it did for Linux. Our support requests on Linux matched the support requests on PC at launch - but that could be due to us being terrible at Linux development and not knowing the common pitfalls.

    A fair number of players bought the game on PC but now play on Mac/Linux. I would estimate that number to be around 3-5% of our player base. What's interesting about this is that THEY STILL BOUGHT THE GAME even though it wasn't out on their preferred platform. Just us saying it would come to their OS was good enough for them...

    So, the thing I would use to make that decision is: Can you get extra coverage from press/attention from users if you do staggered releases or not? A game with some buzz already can generally count on press (especially specialised press) wanting to report that it's coming to a new platform, so each new platform is a fractional refresh of the buzz it might already have. A game with no buzz might do better to release on all platforms simultaneously, but only if the development to do that is "free". I wouldn't consider Linux an important platform for a game launch right now in the general market, no matter how loud Linux supporters can be - the income doesn't back them up.
    Thanked by 1clive
  • edited
    Steam partner thing is dead at the mo, but when I last checked numbers, I had:
    Linux: ~7%
    Mac: ~ 5%
    To me these are great numbers considering how little effort was involved in the "porting".

    I believe that if you do plan to go multi-platform, simultanuous Linux/OSX/Windows release is the way to go for Steam/GoG etc. rather than waiting till your game goes into the long tail of its lifespan and the buzz is gone. And yes, support Linux because I said so and I know Kung Fu and I survived being bitten in the balls by a brown widow spider. :P

    Caveat - if the amount of effort involved in porting/supporting the engine is going to not be worth the 3-8% worth of sales, don't bother at all.

    See these posts for some other devs' sales numbers:
    https://www.gamingonlinux.com/articles/linux-game-sales-statistics-from-multiple-developers.2963
    https://www.gamingonlinux.com/articles/linux-game-sales-statistics-from-multiple-developers-part-2.3015
    https://www.gamingonlinux.com/articles/sales-statistics-from-developers-part-3.4090
    Thanked by 1clive
  • @dislekcia - I had to laugh, the Linux user base really is loud (myself one of them ;) )

    I had no idea the percentages were in fact that low though, I think I'll definitely focus on Windows only at launch. With this not being based on a nice engine like Unity that "does the hard work" for you. It's actually quite a bit of time, for me, to get each build ready. With it's last update (about 6 years ago I think) the changes themselves took about 3 days, and then a month of getting the damned builds working again. Old game problems.

    Thank you very much indeed for sharing your stats!
  • @rustybroomhandle thank you too!

    The game is already ported to windows, mac, linux. It's just rather old at this point and I'm having trouble (especially within Linux) with ancient libraries.

    With this steam launch, having read what you guys wrote I do think it in my personal best interest to just focus on Windows and then add Mac & Linux. I'm talking weeks separation though, not months. I'll just have to fend off the loud linux supporters (who have, traditionally, been my largest support base).

    My game originally was Linux only, believe it or not, and added Windows about a year in with Mac support coming even later. So I find it strange I'm sitting with a situation where I'm doing it back to front for Steam, but I do think it makes most sense to tackle these one at a time especially since this isn't based on an engine that does it all for me and I know I'm going to have to manually deal with OS quirks as they arise.
  • edited
    With Broforce we've only ported to Mac (Broforce is native on Windows and is still in development).

    People buying on Mac have made up about 8.6% of the sales.

    For us, Mac has required far more support than Windows. I'd say 2X more bug fixing. Ruan and Richard have done weeks of work responding to Mac people and sorting out Mac issues. We certainly wouldn't support Mac while in early access again (and that goes for all other platforms, developing a game AND offering support on multiple platforms is quite an unecessary burden). Though we'd consider supporting Mac in future games after launch when the Windows version is stable (preferably with outsourced porting and support).

    I don't think we'll support Linux at all, unless we outsource the porting/support well after launch.

    Full disclosure: Like Desktop Dungeons we're working in Unity. From what I understand Unity is most reliable on Windows... occasionally faulty on Mac for a while when Mac changes their OS version... and Unity on Linux sometimes just doesn't work (often through no fault on Unity's part). Though I don't have experience developing for Linux, my Linux/Unity knowledge is hearsay.
    Thanked by 1clive
  • The majority of OS-specific bug reports we've ever gotten were OSX related. In fact, I think the only OS-specific ones were OSX related.
    Thanked by 2EvanGreenwood clive
  • Oddly enough the majority of my experience is Linux, since most of my game-related career involved (and still involves) porting commercial Windows games to Linux. I'm battling quite a bit with the Windows build :/ I think once it's a bit more stable (last known issue to me is crash to desktop when F12 is pressed - DOH! No steam screenshots!) ... I should be fine with the other platforms - but, that said, I know how different they are and I think it's wisest (for me personally, this is subjective rather than objective) to roll out with Windows first since that's Steam's baseline and then move on to the others.
    Thanked by 1EvanGreenwood
  • @clive I use Unity, but am a Linux user first and foremost. I run Unity under Linux too using wine/wine-mono. My choice to support the OS is mostly because it's what I use, but also because I'd hate for my game to only exist on platforms run by companies who do shit like lobby their corporate interests into US legislation, bow to government demands to put back-doors in software and resort to all manner of shady market manipulation.
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