Comments on: Torchlight launches today!

By: rackko

rackko — Thu, 05 Nov 2009 05:52:41 +0000

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cKi8l_ltmCM

Torchlight on the eee 901

By: kinjalkishor

kinjalkishor — Mon, 02 Nov 2009 13:11:21 +0000

@steve, Yes I meant they should release Mac then Linux version after the polished version. The problem I see is many times there is windows and Mac version but nio Linux version.
Also Linux customers may not be more quantitatively but they care more for Linux games as there is not much to choose from, and I sense reputation of games increases faster being multi-platform. If one makes a good game for Linux, it gets lot more value from Linux users.

Also that will boost Linux gaming more and will open more oppurtunities in Linux population, increasing sales, though that is arguably a very long range thing.

By: Jacmoe

Jacmoe — Fri, 30 Oct 2009 13:49:46 +0000

Travis wrote some time ago that a Mac port is in the works.

By: blankthemuffin

blankthemuffin — Fri, 30 Oct 2009 02:18:25 +0000

Oh yeah, it’s a wish for a reason. And 2D Boy didn’t release their linux version concurrently at any rate.

I wasn’t aware OEMs had gone back to XP so strongly, although I suppose it’s not really surprising. Change being the devil and OEMs being inexperienced with the platform. And if I whip out that tin hat, Microsoft breathing down their necks. At least they’re not shipping them with Vista. Maybe projects like Intel’s Moblin will turn that back around again.

By: Steve

Steve — Thu, 29 Oct 2009 14:44:19 +0000

“But arguably they will get more customers(loyal too and long term), by developing Linux and Mac versions.”

Certainly, if by ‘more’ you mean ‘an increment of less than a third of the Windows users’. But that incremental extra is simply not worth taking time away from polishing the game to a fine shine on Windows first, when you have a tight budget. Later they can add more users from the Mac and Linux camp, but what would you prefer on a fixed timescale:
1) Support for Windows, Mac and Linux from day 1, but less time to polish the game, or
2) High polish on day 1 for Windows only, Mac and Linux added later

If you think 1, you don’t understand the game business. Day 1 impressions are *everything*, and spending your limited time on minority platforms over game polishing on the most popular platform would not result in better overall sales. Much better to make the best impression you can on the most popular platform first, then support the other platforms later. That way around you have a game everyone knows is awesome and will press to be supported on their platform, as opposed to a less polished game on all platforms at once which will be less likely to gather a following. Priorities.

By: kinjalkishor

kinjalkishor — Thu, 29 Oct 2009 13:03:54 +0000

But arguably they will get more customers(loyal too and long term), by developing Linux and Mac versions. Even Quake 1 was largely OS independent and it did lot good to it. It is different playing natively on Linux without hassle.
If nobody develops for Linux, then how is Linux gaming is going to popular, and if it is not popular no one is developing for it. This is the catch 22 of Linux.

I fear same may not befall PC gaming in general due to consoles. If it were not due to loads of advantages on PC , PC gaming would had been died long ago.

By: Mazza

Mazza — Thu, 29 Oct 2009 12:44:53 +0000

Torchlight is great! Had to buy it. It’s so addictive, all the smiting and the casting and the collecting. Just wish they will introduce Co-op soon.

By: Shadow007

Shadow007 — Thu, 29 Oct 2009 10:12:02 +0000

It seems from a few posts I read that the game would run on Linux under Wine if not for the DRM scheme …
Perhaps they could devise a way to use that to provide a Linux Experience ?

By: Steve

Steve — Thu, 29 Oct 2009 09:45:22 +0000

What you have to bear in mind is that they got this game out in under 12 months (following the collapse of Flagship Studios), and to do that they had to prioritise. Like it or not, a Linux version would bring in a tiny fraction of customers compared to the Windows version so I’m not surprised it’s not high on their list. A Mac version is due sometime but realistically a great Windows game was the target they needed to hit first – everything else is just a bonus. Pulling time away from features & core QA to build / test on minority platforms would not have been a smart business decision. The only smart choice is to get the best fully-featured game out on the most popular platform first, get the popularity, THEN build for other platforms.

And about Linux dominating the netbook market, this was true about 2 years ago, it’s not anymore. The vast majority of netbooks sold in the last 12-18 months run XP. http://hothardware.com/News/96-Of-Netbooks-Run-Windows-XPSurprised/ . I think the 96% is not accurate, but it’s definitely fair to say ‘the majority’ – certainly every netbook I see on a store shelf these days is running XP, you have to go specifically looking for Linux based ones via online sellers. The days of most netbooks defaulting to Linux and thus converting people to it were brief.

I love my Mac, and I know many people love their Linuxes, but in a business environment you just can’t fight the numbers.

By: Andrew Fenn

Andrew Fenn — Thu, 29 Oct 2009 04:21:54 +0000

I’d like a Linux build too however playing the game in wine is good enough for me. Some people have already said there are problems with the DRM in wine though. I downloaded the game but haven’t had a chance to try it out myself.

I think it’d take them a while to get a port out. Even world of Goo from 2D boy took a year after the windows release before the linux port was ready, although they weren’t using OGRE which takes a lot of the work out of porting for you.

I don’t think I’d buy the game again if it was ported to linux since I already bought it for windows.