Dear Paradox,
In a recent podcast, the future of Paradox's Linux support was discussed. It was mentioned how Linux takes up more than 1% of support costs while it produces under 1% of the revenue, and that it doesn't make sense from a business perspective until Stadia comes out. I'd like to argue that there are things you're not looking at.
First of all, I want you to know that my group of friends only plays Paradox games because I, a Linux gamer, convince them to. Even if you only see 1% of sales being on Linux, I can almost guarantee that dropping Linux support would decrease your total sales by more than 1%. Instead of losing just myself as a customer, you would also lose about 5 Windows gamers. I would imagine that many people here who play multiplayer have a similar situation.
Secondly, Linux gamers are, on average, more technically-inclined than other gamers. I have published a few small mods for Stellaris, and I would not be surprised if significantly more than 1% of your modders are Linux users. If Paradox dropped Linux support, it would almost surely impact the modding community.
Third, Linux support helps make the games less buggy. Linux users are also more likely to provide detailed bug reports and help solve issues. Even ignoring users being technically minded, generally speaking, releasing and testing on multiple platforms helps with narrowing down bugs. There's a reason that many big C++ projects compile for and solve warnings for GCC, Clang, MSVC, and more - it helps make the code more robust. I have also often found that, while sometimes lacking in features, open-source cross-platform tools tend to be less buggy overall.
I can't be sure if, or to what degree, these affect Paradox games, as I don't have access to the data and some things won't show up in the data (such as Linux users convincing their Windows-using friends to buy Paradox games), so take this with a grain of salt.
TL;DR: Linux support probably means more than a 1% difference in sales, probably more than 1% of modders, and probably helps with solving bugs that would affect other platforms too.
Thanks.
In a recent podcast, the future of Paradox's Linux support was discussed. It was mentioned how Linux takes up more than 1% of support costs while it produces under 1% of the revenue, and that it doesn't make sense from a business perspective until Stadia comes out. I'd like to argue that there are things you're not looking at.
First of all, I want you to know that my group of friends only plays Paradox games because I, a Linux gamer, convince them to. Even if you only see 1% of sales being on Linux, I can almost guarantee that dropping Linux support would decrease your total sales by more than 1%. Instead of losing just myself as a customer, you would also lose about 5 Windows gamers. I would imagine that many people here who play multiplayer have a similar situation.
Secondly, Linux gamers are, on average, more technically-inclined than other gamers. I have published a few small mods for Stellaris, and I would not be surprised if significantly more than 1% of your modders are Linux users. If Paradox dropped Linux support, it would almost surely impact the modding community.
Third, Linux support helps make the games less buggy. Linux users are also more likely to provide detailed bug reports and help solve issues. Even ignoring users being technically minded, generally speaking, releasing and testing on multiple platforms helps with narrowing down bugs. There's a reason that many big C++ projects compile for and solve warnings for GCC, Clang, MSVC, and more - it helps make the code more robust. I have also often found that, while sometimes lacking in features, open-source cross-platform tools tend to be less buggy overall.
I can't be sure if, or to what degree, these affect Paradox games, as I don't have access to the data and some things won't show up in the data (such as Linux users convincing their Windows-using friends to buy Paradox games), so take this with a grain of salt.
TL;DR: Linux support probably means more than a 1% difference in sales, probably more than 1% of modders, and probably helps with solving bugs that would affect other platforms too.
Thanks.
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