Future plans for Grimrock development?

[Dr.Disaster]

Any plans on making LoG 2 available on SteamOS/Linux now that the first Steam Machines are coming out in a few weeks?

Hard to tell. Unless Steam Machines manage to push Linux a LOT up as "Popular OS" in Steam's Hardware Survey (current rating: 0.94%) and at least near or past OS X' current 3.23% i would not consider it worth the investment. Also as AH experienced this year an external port can be risky when new bugs emerge due to new hardware/software features; it took months to find somebody able to fix the Maxwell issue for LoG 1 on Linux.

So the linux version of LoG 1 is unmaintained ATM or has the one fixing Maxwell bug taken over maintaining LoG 1?

The Maxwell bug in the LoG 1 linux version was fixed in July.
Now who actually made that fix (petri or someone else) and how future support of LoG 1 linux will be handled only AH can answer.

But would you be interested in and external Linux port if the porter was willing to support it afterwards?

Wrong question.
In regard of LoG1 the original external porter did support his work until 1.3.7 became the general stable release in early 2013.
Now when the Maxwell bug came up this year he suddenly refused further help which took AH months to resolve.

So the correct question is: will i buy a product with an unclear support situation?
And the answer is No.

IMO this is a requirement for a product, not just games and Linux but for any software on an OS. There is no point in buying/supporting a product or company when there is no guaranteed support, at least for the hardware and OS the product was once made for.

To give an example of how not to do it: over the last two years i experienced a rather bad example in that matter. In December 2013 me and some pals purchased multiple copies of a back then new game on Steam for the annual Lan party. It was advertised to run on WinXP and up and on hardware similar to LoG1 specs a.k.a. pretty moderate. Now during these two years the developer made and published DLC's to add more content. While it is nice to get more out of the same game the developer took the freedom to both silently raise the requirements (not that bad) and cut support for WinXP plus a lot of previously supported hardware (pretty bad). These changes effected all players since they came along as patches and if you want to team up in multiplayer (DLC or not) everyone has to run the same game version. In fact this ment that even players who did upgrade their systems from WinXP to i.e. Win7 could no longer run the game because their system hardware was no longer supported, literally preventing people to play a game they once paid for. Due to this i will now think twice about purchasing another product from this developer.

[afettouhi]

So the linux version of LoG 1 is unmaintained ATM or has the one fixing Maxwell bug taken over maintaining LoG 1?

The Maxwell bug in the LoG 1 linux version was fixed in July.
Now who actually made that fix (petri or someone else) and how future support of LoG 1 linux will be handled only AH can answer.

But would you be interested in and external Linux port if the porter was willing to support it afterwards?

Wrong question.
In regard of LoG1 the original external porter did support his work until 1.3.7 became the general stable release in early 2013.
Now when the Maxwell bug came up this year he suddenly refused further help which took AH months to resolve.

So the correct question is: will i buy a product with an unclear support situation?
And the answer is No.

IMO this is a requirement for a product, not just games and Linux but for any software on an OS. There is no point in buying/supporting a product or company when there is no guaranteed support, at least for the hardware and OS the product was once made for.

To give an example of how not to do it: over the last two years i experienced a rather bad example in that matter. In December 2013 me and some pals purchased multiple copies of a back then new game on Steam for the annual Lan party. It was advertised to run on WinXP and up and on hardware similar to LoG1 specs a.k.a. pretty moderate. Now during these two years the developer made and published DLC's to add more content. While it is nice to get more out of the same game the developer took the freedom to both silently raise the requirements (not that bad) and cut support for WinXP plus a lot of previously supported hardware (pretty bad). These changes effected all players since they came along as patches and if you want to team up in multiplayer (DLC or not) everyone has to run the same game version. In fact this ment that even players who did upgrade their systems from WinXP to i.e. Win7 could no longer run the game because their system hardware was no longer supported, literally preventing people to play a game they once paid for. Due to this i will now think twice about purchasing another product from this developer.

I wasn't aware of that the original porter refused helping you with the Maxwell bug. Well, because that sucks. But I agree with you there, about buying a product with unclear support status. Which is the reason why I haven't purchased LoG 2. I fully understand in your situation that a Linux version is to large of a risk. Hopefully with Steam machines the Linux marketshare will rise at above the MAC marketshare, so that we might see LoG 2 on Linux anyway .

[Quinnt]

Market shares are delusive. For example, the average payments from Linux users on humblebundle.com are regularly higher than those from Windows or Mac users, and their share of purchases overtop their common desktop market share of roughly calculated 1-2% by far.

• http://linux.softpedia.com/blog/Humble- ... 8293.shtml
• http://blog.wolfire.com/2010/05/Linux-u ... dows-users

The Humble Indie Bundle 7 included Legend of Grimrock 1. Its number of Linux purchases amounted to approx. 10% (MacOS approx. 12,5%), so their share of the total paid $2,651,830 was around $265,000. You alone know how much of this was your share of the bundle. The average Linux payments were 1.67 times of those from Windows users and 1.3 times of MacOS. I myself paid $20, nearly twice of the average Linux payments of $10.40 and more than three times of the Windows average.

So please, don't look at the mere number of OS installations, you may miss a good share of income that way. Linux users like me appreciate your support of their system, and we like to express this in hard coin. I love LOG1 and I would buy LOG2 in an instant if it ran native on Linux.

Some more arguments for Linux support: http://blog.wolfire.com/2008/12/why-you ... and-linux/

[minmay]

One problem with using Humble Bundle stats at all is that almost all of the bundles include games that don't have Linux versions, or have really crappy Linux versions (Flash games, Super Meat Boy, Psychonauts, Bastion...). Of course the number of Linux purchases is low for non-Linux games. If you're a Windows user, when was the last time you bought OS X exclusive software? The original Humble Indie Bundle actually made a little more money from Linux purchases than Mac ones. (The only game in that bundle that didn't run well on all platforms was Samorost 2, which was kind of bad on Linux because Flash).

Grimrock 2 isn't in either of these situations, though. It doesn't have the same marketing behind it, or the same target audience, the context is completely different, etc. Whether it's a good idea from a business perspective depends on information that AH might have, and we definitely don't. Trying to make that decision as an outsider makes you look rather silly.

[Quinnt]

One problem with using Humble Bundle stats at all is that almost all of the bundles include games that don't have Linux versions, or have really crappy Linux versions (Flash games, Super Meat Boy, Psychonauts, Bastion...).

I bought most of the Humble Indie Bundles from the beginning and I don't remember many crappy Linux versions. Some were, but only a few (Dungeon Defender without Mana gravitation being a prominent one). And I looked into HIB 1-4 and 12-14 as examples from the past and the present. All of them had as many Linux versions as Windows versions.

That said, wouldn't disproportionally higher payments from Linux users despite fewer (good) Linux versions strengthen my notion even more?

Of course the number of Linux purchases is low for non-Linux games. If you're a Windows user, when was the last time you bought OS X exclusive software?

I don't understand that argument of yours. The HIB 7 I referred to had as many Linux versions as Windows versions and I showed the disproportionally higher Linux payments for that bundle.

Grimrock 2 isn't in either of these situations, though. It doesn't have the same marketing behind it, or the same target audience, the context is completely different, etc.

Could you elaborate on that, since LOG1 was part of one of these HIBs and both games are available at the Humble Store?

Whether it's a good idea from a business perspective depends on information that AH might have, and we definitely don't. Trying to make that decision as an outsider makes you look rather silly.

I didn't try to make any decision, I only pointed out the difficulties in calculating the aforementioned market share of Linux, as just a humble notion to the LOG devs. No reason to be rude.

[kalamity]

Please just tell me there'll be a legends of grimrock 3 ever so i can sleep at night. I am more then obsessed with this game.