How important is it to make a Linux/Mac port?

[ninjasamurai]

I was wondering how much sales do you get out of Linux and Mac versions of your games. Is it worth it to port the code?

[Savant]

80% of my sales so far have been Mac.

SO worth it.

[Sillysoft]

Search the forums to see this exact same thread a couple of times already...

[alikus]

Linux porting is losing your money...Mac-it depends on the quality of your game and the efforts you are ready to make in order to promote it.

[Jack Norton]

80% of my sales so far have been Mac.

SO worth it.
I bet, is the featured game of apple.com!!! :)

[Pallav Nawani]

Linux port of riotball had 15 sales. So you can draw your conclusions from that. Linux users are more into Doom3, Half life2, Civilisation type of games. My thinking is that the audience for casual games currently does not exist on linux. Whatever little audience exists is mostly satisfied by the free games available under Linux, even if they are not as polished by the current casual game standards.

When more non technical people start using Linux, things might improve.

However, since I was already using SDL, and since most of my programming is done on Linux, so I made a Linux version anyway.. At least I got a few links, if nothing else.

[elias]

Sales to Mac OS X users amount to 60%, linux sales to 17% and windows the rest, 23%.

Definitely worth it.

- elias

[James C. Smith]

Would someone please link to some existing topics on this subject. Or post your relies in those existing topics rather than this one. This is a subject that has been discussed many, many time. I am not saying we can’t discus it again. On the contrary, I am sure there is much new information to be shared. I just wish it would be shared in the contact of the all the information we already have rather than starting over from scratch again.

[Greg Squire]

Here's the former threads that I could find.

http://forums.indiegamer.com/showthread.php?t=2929
http://forums.indiegamer.com/showthread.php?t=3578
http://forums.indiegamer.com/showthread.php?t=2324
http://forums.indiegamer.com/showthread.php?t=4072
http://forums.indiegamer.com/showthread.php?t=2345
http://forums.indiegamer.com/showthread.php?t=2173
http://forums.indiegamer.com/showthread.php?t=2124 (related)

From my understanding the concensus pretty much is that a Mac port is generally worth it and a Linux port is not. Although it depends on the game as to "how much worth it" it is.

[James C. Smith]

Thank you Greg! Now I hope people will read some of that before posting follow-ups.

[Omega]

http://forums.indiegamer.com/showthread.php?t=3592
http://forums.indiegamer.com/showthread.php?t=2756