Linux users not playing Flash games?

m3xican

Linux has never been the best platform for games, so I've always been thinking Flash (and other browser) games were pretty appreciated amongst Linux users as they can be played on every platform supported by the Flash plugin. Well, it seems I were wrong.

About one month ago I created a Flash games portal called AskFlashGames trying to collect only quality games, because most of the ones I came across were filled with rubbish. These are the visitors stats of the first month:

click to enlarge

As you may notice, Linux users are below the 10% threshold and half of the Mac users (doesn't Steve Jobs say Flash is bad? )!

To be honest I have no idea why this is happening, and as a portal owner and Linux user I'd like to improve this situation for what I can. So I thought to post on this forum and ask if you play Flash games and if not, why?

Any answer, feedback, story or tip is appreciated, thanks

vtel57

Those percentages look like they accurately reflect the breakdown of users of those different operating systems as a whole. To increase your Linux user base, you'll need to heavily advertise your site on sites that are used primarily by Linux users (like Linux.com, for instance).

Luck!

MikeEnIke

I don't play a ton of flash games, simply because most aren't very interesting to me but I definitely support the cross-platform idea of Flash. You have to keep in mind that Linux market share is lower than 7%, so you're actually seeing a really good percentage of Linux users.

The biggest reason Linux numbers are so low is because Linux users percentage in general isn't very high.

Nice website by the way!

m3xican

Maybe both of you are right and the only problem is with the low Linux market share, even if my 2 other main websites have a different trend for Linux users.
Lowpoly Studios (my indie games company): Win 65.28% - Lin 19.79% - Mac 13.28%
The Undergrounder (my multi-platform indie game): Win 53.33% - Lin 30.37% - Mac 14.28%

I was expecting something like the stats I have for the first website, but that one is been online for about 2 years now and maybe 1 month is just not enough for true stats.

MikeEnIke wrote:

Nice website by the way!

Thank you

vtel57

I agree with Mike... a VERY nice site. Now that I've buzzed around it a bit, I see that it will be INCREASING my % of time wasting and increasing your site's Linux users' stats.

P.S. Are you familiar with Pastel Games? I've been known to waste a goodly amount of time there, also.

ben

Hi Davide
I agree with Eric perspective due to linux user percentage, but I'm raising your linux userbase to alter your stats as well.
Nice site :-)

Ben

m3xican

thanks for the kind words guys, I'm really glad you like the website

I've also posted this story on Reddit, there are some interesting comments there.

m3xican

Ops, I forgot to answer your question in my last reply... :P

vtel57 wrote:

P.S. Are you familiar with Pastel Games? I've been known to waste a goodly amount of time there, also.

I never checked their website, but I played some of their Flash games and published the last one: Submachine 7: the Core on my portal

vtel57

Submachine is a trip! I've been playing that one since version 1. Also, try Daymare, I think it's called. FUN!

LinuxSquirrel

m3xican wrote:

To be honest I have no idea why this is happening, and as a portal owner and Linux user I'd like to improve this situation for what I can. So I thought to post on this forum and ask if you play Flash games and if not, why?

Why? Because the most popular distros do not come with flash preinstalled. This is usually for legal or ideological reasons, or both.

saqman2060

I do not play any flash games. I prefer my windows games, plays better. Not sure why the linux games are cheesy at best. Perhaps it is the language they is being used. Remember this is opensource. Opensource programs are not that powerful like, for say, C+ or c#.

LinuxSquirrel

saqman2060 wrote:

Not sure why the linux games are cheesy at best. Perhaps it is the language they is being used. Remember this is opensource. Opensource programs are not that powerful like, for say, C+ or c#.

Any scripted, runtime, interpreted, object-oriented language may be sexy now but is not going to age well. You may even wake up tommorow to some scary-looking code...

mfillpot

saqman2060 wrote:

I do not play any flash games. I prefer my windows games, plays better. Not sure why the linux games are cheesy at best. Perhaps it is the language they is being used. Remember this is opensource. Opensource programs are not that powerful like, for say, C+ or c#.

Most linux based games are programmed in C++, as for C# that is now a .net language in which you can program it through the mono library. Those are all possible. The big distinction is that the major software companies which make those "pretty" graphics are not interested in the Linux users side of the market, in many cases the only time they think about support Linux based systems is to run as the game server rather than the client.

m3xican

LinuxSquirrel wrote:

Why? Because the most popular distros do not come with flash preinstalled. This is usually for legal or ideological reasons, or both.

I don't think that's the reason, as neither Windows comes with Flash pre-installed.

hesros

Abobe is not supporting the linux version of the player since the last update (12.2.xxx). Why? Because is adobe and not macromedia any more. Also keep in mind that flash player is not shockwave and shockwave with linux is NO GO.
So if you wanna have linux users you must verify that the required version of the flash player is least the last supported flash player.check adobe's web site.
More than that some flash game developers are pushing the video cards so hard (just because they have a good one) by using high FPS (frames per second) and they don't grasp the concept of data streaming nor the graphics optimization and most linux users are using old mashines and those mashines they are not very compelling... configurational speaking.
Other than that you must be at least intermediate linux user to setup and configure the flash player correct depending your linux "flavour". So if you determinate to support linux users you should host some articles or links where described the update procedures of their player (usually is not one click).
So good luck and have my appreciation for supporting the linux community in any way you can.

faress23

I don't think that's the reason

mohalexeg

nice site