Despite having just 5.8% sales, over 38% of bug reports come from the Linux community

[audiojunkie]

I think this is something that Developers need to be aware of when it comes to Linux users. We want more "Native" Linux plugins. We can help YOU! Win-Win!

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https://www.reddit.com/r/gamedev/commen ... 38_of_bug/

Despite having just 5.8% sales, over 38% of bug reports come from the Linux community

38% of my bug reports come from the Linux community
My game - ΔV: Rings of Saturn (shameless plug) - is out in Early Access for two years now, and as you can expect, there are bugs. But I did find that a disproportionally big amount of these bugs was reported by players using Linux to play. I started to investigate, and my findings did surprise me.

Let’s talk numbers.
Percentages are easy to talk about, but when I read just them, I always wonder - what is the sample size? Is it small enough for the percentage to be just noise? As of today, I sold a little over 12,000 units of ΔV in total. 700 of these units were bought by Linux players. That’s 5.8%. I got 1040 bug reports in total, out of which roughly 400 are made by Linux players. That’s one report per 11.5 users on average, and one report per 1.75 Linux players. That’s right, an average Linux player will get you 650% more bug reports.

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A lot of extra work for just 5.8% of extra units, right?

Wrong. Bugs exist whenever you know about them, or not.
Do you know how many of these 400 bug reports were actually platform-specific? 3. Literally only 3 things were problems that came out just on Linux. The rest of them were affecting everyone - the thing is, the Linux community is exceptionally well trained in reporting bugs. That is just the open-source way. This 5.8% of players found 38% of all the bugs that affected everyone. Just like having your own 700-person strong QA team. That was not 38% extra work for me, that was just free QA!

But that’s not all. The report quality is stellar.
I mean we have all seen bug reports like: “it crashes for me after a few hours”. Do you know what a developer can do with such a report? Feel sorry at best. You can’t really fix any bug unless you can replicate it, see it with your own eyes, peek inside and finally see that it’s fixed.

And with bug reports from Linux players is just something else. You get all the software/os versions, all the logs, you get core dumps and you get replication steps. Sometimes I got with the player over discord and we quickly iterated a few versions with progressive fixes to isolate the problem. You just don’t get that kind of engagement from anyone else.

Worth it?
Oh, yes - at least for me. Not for the extra sales - although it’s nice. It’s worth it to get the massive feedback boost and free, hundred-people strong QA team on your side. An invaluable asset for an independent game studio.

[audiojunkie]

..

[Aleksey Vaneev]

While this may sound impressive, there's no indication of the percentage of bugs found on Linux version that were not found on Windows at the same time. Without that information, it just sounds like an attempt to justify sour 5.8% sales with the need to support a whole another OS framework. Linux is just a system where nobody takes a responsibility to back you up - if you need that, RHEL is not cheap.

[audiojunkie]

The information is all there... Read it again.

"...Do you know how many of these 400 bug reports were actually platform-specific? 3. Literally only 3 things were problems that came out just on Linux. The rest of them were affecting everyone ..."

[Aleksey Vaneev]

The information is all there... Read it again.

Yes, platform-specific, but no indication that other bugs located by Linux users were not located by Windows users at the same time. It all reads like "Linux users found all the bugs", while there were still 62% of not explained bug reports. I can't believe all of them were platform-specific.

[BertKoor]

The key here is that linux users are somehow more willing, have a lower threshold to file a bug report, while mac & win users seem to have confidence it either will get sorted out automagically, or it is totally futile to do so.

Apparently linux users understand the Santa Rule:

If you don't ask for it, you're not gonna get it.

Anecdote: I was taking care of a backoffice application. All users were of a small department in the same building as me. Whenever an exception was thrown (and users thus could not continue their daily business) the screen said "please contact IT on this phone number or email address". They did not know an automated email was also sent to me.
After some months I gathered statistics: only one in ten exceptions were reported.

[Aleksey Vaneev]

Yes, I suspect Linux userbase is more willing to file complaints than pay for it. (I mean generally, not in this specific case of a game)

[FrettedSynth]

Yes, I suspect Linux userbase is more willing to file complaints THAN PAY FOR IT. (I mean generally, not in this specific case of a game)

That is a pretty broad/bold assumption

[xos]

Yes, I suspect Linux userbase is more willing to file complaints than pay for it. (I mean generally, not in this specific case of a game)

...hmm, they pay more than Windows and Apple users for their games
https://youtu.be/Sd8ie5R4CVE?si=Z0lQGwi86XKd0RVz&t=454
...hmm, they pay more than Windows and Apple users for their games
youtu.be/Sd8ie5R4CVE?si=Z0lQGwi86XKd0RVz&t=454 <-Link with timestamp for 7:24

[mystran]

Do you know how many of these 400 bug reports were actually platform-specific? 3. Literally only 3 things were problems that came out just on Linux. The rest of them were affecting everyone - the thing is, the Linux community is exceptionally well trained in reporting bugs. That is just the open-source way.

I think it might also be the case that the average Linux user is a bit more technical and a bit more used to troubleshooting stuff in general, so they are probably more confident in their ability to file useful bug reports... plus honestly, it's just kinda easier to investigate stuff (before filing a bug report) on Unix where the tools for tracing stuff tend to be a bit better.

[nix808]

...this leads to a simple prollen fixxer upper,

analysis is requisite,
I struggle with simple things,
but hook up some read, and there u go
-this is the problem

[audiojunkie]

Do you know how many of these 400 bug reports were actually platform-specific? 3. Literally only 3 things were problems that came out just on Linux. The rest of them were affecting everyone - the thing is, the Linux community is exceptionally well trained in reporting bugs. That is just the open-source way.

I think it might also be the case that the average Linux user is a bit more technical and a bit more used to troubleshooting stuff in general, so they are probably more confident in their ability to file useful bug reports... plus honestly, it's just kinda easier to investigate stuff (before filing a bug report) on Unix where the tools for tracing stuff tend to be a bit better.

You are probably correct. The important point though is that there are additional benefits for developers who support Linux—benefits that aren’t always considered.

[Aleksey Vaneev]

Well, I have to see hard numbers first. Of course, Linux users have to pay for paid software like everybody else. I'm referring to a general psychology. For example, I'm an active user of CentOS/AlmaLinux. I get all server software I need for free, it's just a hard-coded mindset. Then user occupation differs. An Apple user is 2 times more likely to purchase a plugin than a Windows user, but that's only a reflection of how much music business is done on Apple computers - comparably, Windows userbase is bigger, but is also more casual towards plugins, on average. On Linux, we do not have Ableton Live, Cubase, and ProTools - you can't seriously refer to Linux game sales when talking about VST plugins.

[audiojunkie]

Well, I have to see hard numbers first. Of course, Linux users have to pay for paid software like everybody else. I'm referring to a general psychology. For example, I'm an active user of CentOS/AlmaLinux. I get all server software I need for free, it's just a hard-coded mindset. Then user occupation differs. An Apple user is 2 times more likely to purchase a plugin than a Windows user, but that's only a reflection of how much music business is done on Apple computers - comparably, Windows userbase is bigger, but is also more casual towards plugins, on average. On Linux, we do not have Ableton Live, Cubase, and ProTools - you can't seriously refer to Linux game sales when talking about VST plugins.

I’m not sure if you realized it or not, but you just stereotyped a whole population—Linux users. Furthermore, you even went so far as to say that the attitude to want everything for free is “hardcoded” into all of us. Maybe that is “your” attitude, but I personally have no problem with buying software for Linux. I try to buy the best tools available for music making. While I do use quality open source software like Surge-XT, Cardinal, Dexed, or Vaporizer 2, I have so far purchased the following:

* Reaper
* Diva
* Hive 2
* Repro
* Tal-Sampler
* Tal-Drum
* Bliss Sampler
* Speedrum
* Quanta 2
* Uhbik
* Other Desert Cities
* EOS 2

Your accusation is not based on fact, and like you, I’d need to see some hard numbers to believe otherwise.

Surely there are “some” that are ideologically opposed to anything other than open source, but there are many other reasons for people to choose Linux, other than cost. Personally for me, I am opposed to being monetized by advertisers like Windows users are, by being force fed advertisements—I’m looking at you, Chrome and Edge! To make matters worse, I get to lose my privacy for the privilege. Anything and everything you do is sucked up by the Microsoft Data Mining machine. With Windows, YOU are the product, and you have absolutely no freedom to say otherwise. And speaking of freedom, Apple’s planned obsolescence, their walled garden subscription-based ecosystem, and their vice-like grip of what can or cannot be done on a computer that you purchased irritates me just as much as Windows.

It is beyond my understanding how “anyone” who values privacy and freedom would want to use ANYTHING other than Linux. There are over 600 distros that allow an individual to have an operating system EXACTLY as they want it. If one doesn’t like a particular desktop experience, swap it for one you like. Neither Windows or MacOS even have such an option. The best they can do is theme the desktop environment that they are given—nothing more. What if a particular distro decided to try to start collecting telemetry? Simply move to a distro that doesn’t. Oh! And there is no operating system more flexible than Linux. If you want to strip your OS down to the leanest of bare metal processing, to maximize every last cycle of CPU usage, and leverage every last byte of RAM for your DAW, you can. There are some Linux distros that fit an entire OS into 50Mb of hard drive space—let’s see the distended, obesely bloated OSes from Microsoft or Apple pull that off! I’d be willing to wager that most Linux users use Linux for these reasons more than the unvalidated assertion that we all just want everything for free!

If a developer is already using cross platform frameworks and libraries, there is no reason not to release for Linux as well. Worried about developing for each of the 600+ distros? Don’t worry—other developers have already paved the way for you. Compile your binary on an older LTS version of Ubuntu, and only officially support Ubuntu—most of the rest of the distros are similar enough that they’ll likely work. Don’t provide a packaged format like Deb or Rpm, but rather zip or tar the archive and include a readme file telling the user where to put the files. I promise you we are capable of following the instructions. Add a disclaimer that Linux releases are considered “experimental”, and that only limited support can be provided. Tell customers to try before purchasing to ensure that the app works before buying, because there are no refunds. Make sure you don’t use any challenge/response authentication—use a serial number or keyfile—we hate subscriptions and copy protection methods that punish the paying customer more than those who use pirated software. That’s about it. This would likely be less work than supporting Windows or MacOS—plus you get the benefit of competent users that actually know how to properly document a repeatable bug report. It’s a win-win for Linux users and the developers that provide for them. Check out U-he or TAL-Software or Audio Damage for examples of how to successfully sell to Linux users.

[Aleksey Vaneev]

I understand your point, but you probably do not realize that "bloat" and "telemetry" depends on the userbase. Windows has to satisfy billions of rather inexperienced users, and so the amount of seemingly "unnecessary" parts in Windows is big. If any individual Linux distro achieves a big userbase, it will eventually become bloated and may require telemetry or quality-of-service communications. It's just not possible to develop otherwise. Then Windows is not really expensive, and I find it rather entertaining that OS offers some advertised or not software picks. Or the ads can be can packaged into AppStore or Google Play, which isn't much different. Software discovery is an important part of an average user's experience. You just show that a Linux user knows everything already, or thinks he does.