> Linux accounts for less than 1% of the total players
I think some types of games (think factory building, zachtronics style puzzle games, ...) might have a bigger percentage, though that's only a feeling I have, I don't have numbers myself, I just see such games more often have a Linux release on Steam that seems appreciated.
I published a not-super-popular (edit: but free) esoteric programming game on Steam and of the < 100 (Steam) hardware survey responses for people who have played my game, I'm seeing closer to 5% on Linux (edit to add: my game doesn't support Steam Deck).
I'm sure the hardware survey is biased towards Linux, but it's still a surprising result! Especially so, given that I originally only released the game on Windows (and later added Linux support after getting multiple requests to port the game).
Feel free to name you're game so that I and others can check it out. It's not frowned upon to link to your paid for content if it's relevant to the topic/comment thread discussion.
Thanks! Honestly, comments like this probably have a more positive impact on me than the small amount of money I could have made by selling the game :)
I found your game a couple of months ago here on HN and put it on my backlog of things to check out. But rest assured that I told a couple of work colleagues who went down that rabbit hole and didn't show up again for days due to being fascinated and nerd sniped. Their responses were quite positive and I'm looking forward to finding the time to follow!
Downloaded the game based on this comment. The Zero-Instruction computer achievement was one of the most fun "sidequests" I've played in this type of game. Thanks!
ninja edit: the lack of vim mappings is killing me
I always thought the hardware survey was biased towards windows. Running both windows and Linux I seem to never get the hardware survey on Linux but get it yearly in windows.
That would make sense, the programmer crowd is more common on Linux and these are programming-like games. Looking at the authors games, they seem like the type of thing that would be more likely to do well on Linux (factory / automation). So the fact that he's still leaning towards it not being worth it financially seems notable.
I think some types of games (think factory building, zachtronics style puzzle games, ...) might have a bigger percentage, though that's only a feeling I have, I don't have numbers myself, I just see such games more often have a Linux release on Steam that seems appreciated.