Will GalCiv III be supporting any platforms other than Windows? Specifically, you really need to release a Mac & Linux version. You'll find there are a lot of eager Mac/Linux gamers out there who are ready to throw their money at you for native versions. How about some love for us non-Windows users?
Turn based & hex based games are almost ideal for tablets. LOVE the idea. That would be really nice (I'd pretty much get a Surface 2 just to be able to Play this game anywere I am .
However keep in mind, that GalCiv III will be 64bit only and none of the current Windows RT tablets use 64 bit - the Hardware does not Support it either (MS has been reported to be working on a 64 bit version for future ARM-based tablets though). So I do not see that Happening (sadly).
I'm guessing that the new iPads will be 64-bit, like the new iPhone. Of course, an iOS version would likely be more complicated to port, but it would open up a huge segment of the market and, as you pointed out, games like this are ideal for tablet interfaces. While I would prefer an OS X version that I can play on my computer with huge monitor, I'd be satisfied with an iOS version that I could at least play on my iPad. Both, however, would be even sweeter, especially with cloud saving for cross compatibility!
Terrible idea since Surface2 is Intel HD driven.
To be fair, CIv5 is actually fairly playbable on an Surface Pro (note not talking about the ARM based Surface1/2). Sure you gotta turn stuff down but it's still doable.
The problem mostly is CPU since the game is really more 'cpu limited' to churn through the AI. And that's likely the kicker since I've yet to see a competent CPU limited game on an ARM mobile platform.
The Crusader Kings II and Europa Universalis IV Linux ports have been a big success for Paradox Interactive.
I always see things like big success and so on, but numbers would be tremendous. Still, the devs will do what they will, I am just really curious as to whether it's worth the the dev time, and if I am just hearing a squeaky wheel. What % of mac and linux users show up on forums to ask for things? Because if it's just the 10-20 of you guys, its not really worth it
Dunno about that, I have never tried civ5 with Surface. My 1½ years old i7 laptop ran it fairly well with nvidia display card and the cost was probably same as with your surface1, maybe less. It's nice to know that you are able to barely play it, but remember one thing: this game is not expected to be out for couple years. If you buy Surface2 pro now for galciv3, you are most likely going to be disappointed unless you are willing to settle for small games with low settings. I also wonder.. Civ5 doesn't have battles like galciv2 has space battles. Somehow I think those are going to take something with all those customized ships/fleets and particles and all. God only knows, maybe we even get nice ground battles too. And I think even he doesn't know yet how cool main user interface we are going to get.
+1 for Linux.
I've read reports from a few different developers that releasing a Linux version increased their sales by 10%. For that matter, look at the Humble Bundles which see anywhere from 10% to 25% of their sales going to Linux. For example:
"The question on everybody's mind is : how many Linux users are there anyway? Apparently a lot. I was surprised to see nearly three times as many Linux sales as Mac sales, as conventional wisdom has it that Linux is a much smaller market than Mac. There's several possible explanations for these results - pent-up demand from Linux users, Defender's Quest being one of only a handful of Linux games available, and the Linux theme of the promotion itself. There's also the possibility that we've simply been under-estimating the Linux market all along (especially considering the results from the various Humble Indie Bundles). [...] all together Mac and Linux represent 18% of our direct revenue, and Linux revenue is not far behind Mac."
http://www.gamasutra.com/blogs/LarsDoucet/20130228/187569/Defenders_Quest__Our_Steam_Linux_Sale_Results.php
+1 For Mac. I have a PC with windows, but after i got a mac laptop i don't use it much. And it would be great if Galactic Civilizations III will be Mac supported.
P.S: Sorry for bad English.
The only 'semi-flaw' in that ointment is that the dev mentions they only spent $1000 on teh Linux build. Obviously if you have that low of an overhead to get onto Linux that's fine and all.
However I would imagine that making a Mac/Linux version for GalCiv3 is going to cost significantly more than $1000. Which throws some of the math off in terms of the pay off in investement.
Far as I know, Defenders Quest is written in Unity. Unity is by design super portable, so bringing a game to Linux if you're using it is a snap (as of the current version). Arcen was able to do the same thing with Bionic Dues, the Linux version appeared in very little time.
If you're using a custom engine instead, then you have to port that and it's a much bigger deal. Ditto if you're using libraries that don't have Linux versions.
I suspect that the higher Linux sales is, in fact, due to pent-up demand. There's actually no scarcity of native Mac games these days, not like the old days. But Linux is still something of a gaming desert (not counting Wine). However, I expect that to change in the coming years, now that Valve is so gung-ho for the platform. The great thing about it is, as long as a game like GalCiv 3 is ported to either Mac or Linux, a port for the other platform is a might-as-well. So I figure if we get one, we'll get the other. Let's hope.
GalCiv 3 would look great running on a Steam Box.
Not if you design your software from the ground up to be portable, in which case the costs are minimal. Unfortunately, Stardock developed Kumquat to be Windows-only, so the upfront costs would likely be higher, but the good news is that it'd be a one-time expense, and then they could easily port future games made with the same engine.
The trick is to convince them to make that initial investment. I'm convinced that there are enough eager Mac/Linux gamers out there to more than subsidize the initial development costs. And from there, future development costs will be much lower.
thre's a lot of conflicting data on how much Mac/Linux gamers are out there.
http://store.steampowered.com/hwsurvey
Mac platforms = 3.69%
Linux Platforms = 1.03%
"Other" = 0.72%
Steam's own hardware survey seems to indicate that there's almost no one out there using it.
But obviously somehow that 3.69% of Mac users is somehow 'worth while' enough to justify making a port of a game, or hiring someoene ( like Aspyr) to do it.
Most games supporting multi-platfrom are generally written on engines that already have this as a feature like Unity. Aka the 'porting' is like 80% done for you. Obviously indie devs need all the exposure they get and sine they're already on portable platforms their investment to reacho those markets is lower. But as you go higher and you hafe more expense, there's got to be a # of units vs cost ratio that you have to go above before supporting linux/mac becomes profitable or at least viable.
unity would be awsome....
Apple users are known for being willing to spend money. There's a reason why the mobile gaming market is totally dominated by iOS despite Android's massive numbers advantage: iOS users are overwhelmingly more likely to spend money, and spend far more money per user. I don't expect the gap is as large between PC operating systems, but Mac users are going to be high on the "willing to pay for stuff they like" curve.
Steam on Linux is also really new, and hasn't had a lot of time to gain market yet. That said, if you're making your game using cross platform tools from the outset, getting a version for those platforms is inexpensive as part of the overall development cost, and you don't need to rack up a ton of sales to make it worth doing.
Porting something later is more expensive, particularly if you're using Windows only engines/tools/libraries.
If you look at market shares for operating systems, for ex:
http://www.netmarketshare.com/operating-system-market-share.aspx?qprid=10&qpcustomd=0
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Usage_share_of_operating_systems
Obviously this type of chart isn't optimal. A better breakdown would be how OSes are distributed amongst people who play premium games on their computers, or better yet for this game, a break down of machines capable of 64bit and Dx10+. Anyways...to be very generalized based on Sept 2013 data...
Windows has over 85%. Linux isn't even on one chart and falls under "other" and is under 2% on the other chart. Windows XP, which is way old now, crushes Mac and Linux combined - and I doubt many XP users have 64 bit (and/or Dx10 capacity) and all of those users won't be able to run GC3.
So the question then is, is it worth the development resources to develop and distribute versions to platforms few are using for gaming (since few are using them at all and they're not all gamers) - especially Linux? It would seem to be a luxury or even a waste of time. And this is probably why so very few companies do it. For GC3, which is going to be 64bit/Dx10+ only, and as such be a little less forgiving to suboptimal configurations of any type, it would seem to make even less sense.
For me, personally, if you're going 64bit/Dx10 only and excluding the still very large chunk of people saddled with WinXp 32 bit, why would you even consider Mac or Linux and their even smaller market shares? I would rather see dev resources dedicated to pretty much anything else - more content for the PC, for ex.
I also tend to think that most people serious about PC gaming have (or wish they had) Win7 64 PCs. Those who willingly choose to go with some other type of machine, like a Mac, are to me, just saying, I have other priorities than PC gaming. Why should PC game developers bend over backwards to cater to people who have priorities other than PC gaming and open up additional cans of worms for their support staff to deal with?
You could postulate that by going 64bit/Dx10 you are simplifying your development and support in some ways, because this is going to exclude a ton of out of date hardware, drivers, and other garbage that tends to massively complicate things for PC developers. Throwing Mac and Linux into the mix could reintroduce more carnage - and with those market share numbers - would it be worth it?
Lastly, I'm no expert on the differences between the OSes as it pertains to game development but I'm sure it's not all that easy to do, or more companies would do it. Despite 64 and Dx10+ being around for quite some time now, very few games have come out that push the tech to require them, so in some ways, this game is going to be bleeding edge. Why add more complication when bleeding edge is usually complex itself.
Those numbers are highly dicey for gaming for several reasons, primarily that they're heavily skewed by corporate systems that will never be used to play something like GalCiv. That's where the XP marketshare is coming from. Well, that and pirated installs that are so out of date they couldn't play anything anyway.
While true, the # actually correlate fairly well with steam's own hardware survey. And Steam's survey is inherently biased to those who actually PLAY games so 'in theory' is a better indicator of the market share of people who actually 'play games'. And Setam's own numbers show WORSE % of users on Steam use Linux/Ubuntu than the other surveys which are more 'general'.
Still the % are that, it appears, Linux/Macs represent around single digits. Again +/- for a lot of factors but it's still 'low'. You're certainly are going to be hard pressed to show anythign as high as 20% no matter what survey or number crunching you do.
The problem is that there aren't any good numbers, for what linux/Mac game sales are like.
Now dont get me wrong. I'm not saying its a 'waste of time' to be on mac/linux. I'm not saying that devs shouldn't do it. All I'm saying is that if you're trying to convince me, a business person, with limited resources, to invest time/money into mac/linux, then you gotta come to me with numbers to support that decision. And if I was a business person, I'm not seeing those numbers being justified, especially if the up front costs are massive.
MAC would make some sense, but Linux? No way.
Linux is more time consuming, and has fewer gamers, and would result in only a tiny increase in product sales. Not to mention issues with the over 325 distros, and compatibility issues with those which are likely to crop up. Then we have the issue of antiquated, and sometimes unavailable drivers in linux for 'many' cards.
It's a lost cause. Linux will never be a viable gaming platform, as sad as that makes me feel.
+1 for Linux. Or, at a minimum, making sure it can run on WINE.
I'm switching my desktop over to Ubuntu in the next few weeks and installing Steam for Linux. I'll probably still have Win7 running in a VM, and the motherboard does support IOMMU, but Win7 will definitely be my last Microsoft O/S on the desktop.
Because if Microsoft gets their way, the only way to sell software into the Win8 and later versions will be through their app-store where they take double-digit percentages of your gross sales?
That is currently their goal. Lock the Windows OS down so that you have to purchase everything through Microsoft's store.
Valve sees it. They know that unless they branch out away from Windows-only, they will be in trouble in 5-10 years.
This is impossible given that WINE hasn't fully implemented DX10 (a requirement for GalCiv3)
Even older DX10 games don't work in WINE so it's basically impossible for GalCiv3 to work on WINE given that its likely they'll be pushing the API significantly.
It's a WINE issue not a GalCiv3 problem.
There are many great features available to you once you register, including:
Sign in or Create Account
