Postal III On Linux Is Kaput For Now

[lexa2]

A jr dbase programmer makes roughly 6k per month (around ~72-75 K per year) here.

Yeah, that's the difference between the level of living. Salaries for the same work may differ by several orders in different countries. Ukrainian programmers earn notably less than Russian, programmers in India earn way less than Ukrainian, e.t.c.

OTOH, why not to use outsourcing then, if it's easily possible to cut devcost from 75K per year down to misery 10K per year paying some guy from India or China? Although I must admit that the code quality you get from such employees is often so bad than I had to rewrite half of the project myself to get it functional.

Nope, especially when factor in that the bundle is split between multiple companies and OS's. Going from past HIB bundles linux accounts for about 25% of the revenue. ... gives each game 666,000. Now out of that 25% was generated by linux sales. So roughly $166,000 you have to pay that programmer...

It doesn't matters how much sales had been generated by which OS when it comes to the hypothetical case I've been talking about. So that 25% you mention are not rightfull. In any case there's actually nothing to discuss here because the case I had written about would never happen. HiB would never collect revenue anywhere close to the first week sales amount of triple A titles. And even more: PC sales of triple A titles would never be anywhere close to XBox360 or PS3.

Consider that UT3 struggled to manage 1 million copies across the three strongest gaming platforms netting roughly 50 million in sales and it was considered a flop.

That's just what I had written above. Linux ports of the games like RAGE and UT wouldn't ever bring any noticeable revenue to publisher. The only thing they may get by providing linux port is a better reputation through OSS community (which isn't the target group they sale their product to). Still having linux engine port sold on "it is like an indie-game" basis is a thing I'd like to see in future (though chances are very low that it would ever happen).

[deanjo]

When it comes to Unreal, the best I think we can hope for is that they also port the UDK to linux as well. The UDK idea seems like a very reasonable comprimise. Use the UDK for free if you wish, develop what ever you want and distribute it for free, however if you wish to start to sell your creation a licensed engine is required.

[deanjo]

And I too am a racing sim fan, which inculdes:
-Gran Turismo all the way from the first to the PS3;
-Colin McRae up to Dirt 3;
-Grid.

I like the open wheel type sims like NetKar Pro, and my beloved modded out Falcon 4. Less arcade, more sim. Nothing beats an 89 point checklist just to start rolling on the tarmac. Mouse and keyboard (and joypads for that matter) controls for vehicle control are the arcaders.

[yogi_berra]

Or he gets told to "forget about it, we have other stuff for you to do".

Ports happen in his free time, not company time. They'd have to call it crunch time and make him work 90+ hours a week on whatever he's working on now to take away his free time.

[curaga]

Huh, you can't refuse to work overtime in some places?

[V!NCENT]

Well, I can understand that "innocent Windows user" might be charmed by Compiz and KDE4, but not Gallium. What is it worth for user that hadn't ever been dealing with "OSS GPU drivers" vs. "vendor-supplied binary blobs" on his or her platform? Standard experience with GPU drivers for typical Windows user is "install right after installing the OS and forget about the driver until some app comes out that require freshen one and/or new GPU". Gallium vs. DRI1 DDX vs. binary-blobs is a struggle and a curse of a Linux desktop. There's nothing like "AMMAGAWD" in Gallium.

Lol.

OK... Where to start flaming? Someone please help me out here...

[yogi_berra]

Huh, you can't refuse to work overtime in some places?

Dubya rammed through new overtime rules in the US, many people in IT (which includes the game industry, thanks to EA's lobbying) no longer qualify for overtime. You can't refuse to work what you don't qualify for, well you can, but you'll be looking for employment because of it.

[curaga]

You gotta be kidding? Someone up high decided that hours x-y are no longer overtime?

Land of the free, etc.

[yogi_berra]

You gotta be kidding? Someone up high decided that hours x-y are no longer overtime?

Nope. EA lobbied hard for it, among others.

Land of the free, etc.

More like land of the almighty dollar buying legislation. Dubya sucked ass in terms of labor rights, Obama isn't much better.