Porting to Windows: is it worth it?

[funkboy]

Who here has experience with porting a Mac shareware title to Windows? I'm wondering if porting Mac software to Windows is worth the time and expense.

Some questions I'd like to find an answer to:
- Do Windows users purchase anywhere near as much as Mac users?

- Are the number of Windows downloads really 10X (or so) more than Mac downloads? And of course, what about the conversion rate for Windows vs. Mac?

- What web sites do you distribute your software at? I've found nothing as popular as versiontracker or macupdate for Windows (versiontracker's windows section doesn't garner many downloads, really), and PC users have given me no indication such a thing exists.
Or are there other methods of distribution that seem to work better?

Is it worth investing the extra time, money, and support into a game or tool for Windows?

[Najdorf]

from what I'm seeing windows market is pretty crappy :(

Unfortunately I did the terrible error of not distinguishing windows registrations from mac registrations, so I dont have precise statistics. However getting 2000 downloads from download.com seems to have got me only about 1/3 of the registrations 2000 downloads from mac sites gave me. And for number of downloads, I guess it's about the same.

[Bachus]

Like everything else related to shareware, I've never seen hard numbers.

The typical feeling I get from cross-platform developers is that the Mac version usually has a much higher conversion rate. And often, the Mac version outsells the Windows version. Basically, the Windows shareware market is in shambles. Absolute hits like Bejeweled still sell way better on the Windows side, but for smaller indie games it seems to be the opposite of the big commercial market. Basically, the Mac version is essential with the Windows version as a bonus towards sales.

As an aside, the way the Windows indie market is structured really is a POS. The developers flock to portal sites that are all identical and all sell the same games. There's no developer association (the way every Mac gamer knows Ambrosia for instance). The games are almost universally awful, and are mostly clones of each other. The entire market is almost entirely Bejeweled and Zuma clones. Instead of creating fun, original games it's almost like a microcosm of the Windows commercial market. It's all terribly depressing.

[Najdorf]

Lol... It's not true that you dont have hard numbers in shareware. Thanks to this site we know that a pretty succesful game sells 1% of the downloads, if it's less than 0.1% it sucks. I didn't have a clue before, if you look on resources on the internet you find bullshit of all sorts saying that normal applications have a conversion of 20% but games are less important to people and therefore they can have a conversion rate of as low as 5%...

And I read Jeff Vogel (avernum, exile, geneforge) makes 65% of sales on the mac, 35% on PC.

I think these are quite accurate numbers.

And yes, it's amazing the money companies like popcap games make with simple (ok, very polished...) games they copy from others.

[Dan Potter]

I've heard the opposite from other developers, too. The thing is, the numbers are kind of funny. Let's say you get a 1% conversion rate from Mac users, and a 0.1% conversion rate from Windows users. Thing is, Windows:Mac users are a ratio of about 9:1 right now. So you still end up with a lot registrations.

That said, I've never sold a shareware game yet, so I'm not sure myself. :)

THAT said, I've found it incredibly easy to maintain a Win32 port of my game, at least as a backup option. When the Mac one is going well I am going to look at porting and releasing on Windows as well. I just don't want to deal with the support burden right now.

[Najdorf]

>Thing is, Windows:Mac users are a ratio of about 9:1 right now. So you still end up with a lot registrations.

Not really, because there are also 10 times as much games on the PC side.

[Jake]

Its more than 9:1 too, its more like 20-25 : 1. :(

From what I have concluded, OK games on the mac sell bad on the PC, good games on the mac sell OK on the PC, and great games for the mac sell AWESOME on the PC.

[Duane]

to make your game sell more then on the mac, you need to make it [b]distinguishable[/i]. otherwise, it'll look just like every other windowze game fighting for their share off the market. That's my two turkish lyra.

[funkboy]

Its more than 9:1 too, its more like 20-25 : 1. :(
Does the frowny-face indicate sadness at the costs of bandwidth? Or is it just generally low sales?
Are you getting that ratio from your own statistics for your Mac/Windows dual platform games?

From what I have concluded, OK games on the mac sell bad on the PC, good games on the mac sell OK on the PC, and great games for the mac sell AWESOME on the PC.
Could we have an example of a great game? And where do you think, say, Escape would fall on the OK-good-great scale? (based on its sales to Windows)

Like everything else related to shareware, I've never seen hard numbers.
Unfortunately, I must agree. There is no good research done, and I think shareware developers are too wary of outsiders using information to their advantage, thinking, "I can't let go of my sales numbers, that will give away too much!" Is there any real negative aspect or releasing sales numbers, aside from maybe bruising your ego if they're not very good?

What if there was a website that allowed software developers to submit their game's sales, but without identifying which game it goes with? So we could start grouping together some real, hard data about shareware sales? What's possible, what's average, what's realistic? I'd ideally like to have sales figures from companies as diverse as lone-wolf coders to Ambrosia-size studios.

[Dan Potter]

There is a small danger of releasing numbers in that people may look at how you haven't sold much yet, and assume your game sucks, therefore reducing further sales. :) But once I'm actually selling some Mac shareware I'd be happy to post some numbers. I don't have a lot to lose right now.

[Jake]

Does the frowny-face indicate sadness at the costs of bandwidth? Or is it just generally low sales?
Are you getting that ratio from your own statistics for your Mac/Windows dual platform games?


Could we have an example of a great game? And where do you think, say, Escape would fall on the OK-good-great scale? (based on its sales to Windows)

I am going by the common market share numbers which are at 3-5 % mac users.

Escape falls under a OK game. It has lots of challenging puzzles but it looks very bad so it doesn't sell well on the PC. PC Users like good 3D graphics in general, and won't "waste" their time on something 2D if they can just click another button to get a 3D game. (PS if anyone wants to redo the graphics for escape I will pay you).

I would classify GL Golf as a good game on my scale and I think If I ever ported it I may achieve a 3:1-3:2 mac to PC sales ratio. Note to self - port golf

Danlabs Jammin Racer is what I would classify as a great game that would sell more copies on the PC side because of its quality and vast number of downloads it could get with good reviews.

We had a shareware sales number thread a while back but its outdated, if someone wants to start one again I bet you will get some responses (I would post my data)

[Najdorf]

everybody wants to know danlab's numbers....

[Duane]

I hope danlab doesn't port that game to windows. It would dirty the games' reputation, and if he doesn't, it helps drag people over to macs, which is always a good thing. :)

[PowerMacX]

What if there was a website that allowed software developers to submit their game's sales, but without identifying which game it goes with? So we could start grouping together some real, hard data about shareware sales? What's possible, what's average, what's realistic? I'd ideally like to have sales figures from companies as diverse as lone-wolf coders to Ambrosia-size studios.

There is an *cough* off-topic *cough* post I made to this thread (http://www.idevgames.com/forum/showthread.php?t=9424&page=2&highlight=macsb) about a possible source. I really don't want to vote to see the results (see the linked post to find out why), but anyone who does sell shareware may be able to report back some numbers (I'm assuming there are a number of votes there, but I can't know for sure).

Edit: Yes, this post is a mystery wrapped in a puzzle wrapped in an enigma. :blush:

[Carlos Camacho]

Not sure if this was discussed or not, but when I think of shareware on Windows, I'm often afraid that what I may try out is in fact adware, or that the game will install something I don't want on my system. I wonder if more and more Window users feel that way? I have seen some portal sites that claim that 100% of the listed games/apps are adware/spamware free.

Cheers,

[Steven]

None of my friends ever buy games anymore, they just grab them off of Kazaa and whatnot... :/

[funkboy]

None of my friends ever buy games anymore, they just grab them off of Kazaa and whatnot... :/

These friends are Windows users?
Are they interested in Macs at all? Do they do other illegal things?

I must admit that many of my friends - the majority, not the minority - illegally obtain many of their video games. This goes for XBox (renting games and ripping them), Windows, etc. I haven't noticed them doing it on the Mac, and the games they do "obtain" usually don't get played much. However, in past times, instead of pirating five games and barely playing any of them, one might purchase one game and at least give it a little more time, which has the benefit of getting the player familiar with the game world/franchise/company, not to mention the seller's benefit of actual money!

As many have stated before, the games market is shifting... and I wonder if the Windows games market is simply eroding itself away with players who do so much piracy. Consoles are looking attractive even to previously PC-only gamers, and I wonder why this is. The only games I can see really thriving in the Windows world are games that *require* a player to have legitimately purchased the game: MMORPG. These games don't interest me, though their technological application (being dialed into a server) is something that could extend to the rest of the industry.

My prediction is Windows gaming will, in the not-too-distant future, exist almost exclusively in server-based pay-as-you-go games (MMORPG-payment technology) or extremely casual games that can be picked up for a couple minutes and put away. Take it with a box of Morton's salt, since I've just been constructing that prediction while writing these few paragraphs.

This equates to a discouragement for Mac ports to Windows. I just don't see games succeeding on Windows, aside from highly-polished short games (dare I call them "at-work time wasters"?) and MMORPGs (both of these things fairly difficult to accomplish for the average shareware author: polish is no easy task, and let's not even talk about MMORPGs). Medium-sized games, in which I'm lumping first-person shooters story mode, side-scrollers, etc., will move to the consoles... which they've always been in domination of anyway.

Am I way off base?

[Dan Potter]

I've heard arguments both ways, but the one that really convinced me is this:

If you write your game portably, which is pretty easy to do with a pure game (i.e. doesn't require a lot of OS-based UI) then it's very easy to port to pretty much any platform.

One definition I like of a "good choice" is one that gives you more choices later on. If you port to Windows and get pirated like crazy or hardly sell at all, you haven't lost a whole lot vs sticking with Mac only, except maybe the support costs of figuring out who is a real customer or not for answering questions. Of course support costs for real customers is good since it means you got more sales. It might turn out that you gain a whole lot of sales just because the size of the market way outweighs the piracy and other issues.

That's just my opinion though. That's why I wrote my stuff on top of a platform-generic toolkit that is ported to Windows already (which I'm actually thinking of open-sourcing soon, in case anyone else is interested). I haven't released for Windows because I don't want the support costs until I have the Mac version well on its way, but it's something I'm considering.

This is a sort of tangential rant, but I also think people really appreciate being treated as non-pirates by default. I know it drives me nuts when I have to go find a crack for a game I paid for just because they thought I wasn't to be trusted to run it without the CD in the drive. I mean come on. The pirates are going to figure it out anyway. That's why for our DC game we actually say in the CD booklet that you're allowed to make a backup copy for yourself. People are gonna do it anyway ;) and maybe it'll convince some people who were on the fence to go buy a real one to support us.

[Max]

Not sure if this was discussed or not, but when I think of shareware on Windows, I'm often afraid that what I may try out is in fact adware, or that the game will install something I don't want on my system. I wonder if more and more Window users feel that way? I have seen some portal sites that claim that 100% of the listed games/apps are adware/spamware free.

I got an email from Softpedia Labs to congratulate me for making spyware-free games. And Download.com scanned the games I made for spyware. I guess spyware's a real pain in the ass for Windows users. :p

[Najdorf]

you can tell if a developer is trustable from the website... see many of those flashy "download now!" buttons and I get immediately suspicious...