Just a heads up, as this might end up being a bit of a hidden and unknown feature.
In an attempt to get more games on SteamOS, Valve has added platform specific wish listing. Meaning that you can tell a developer directly that you would like to see a piece of software get ported to Linux and/ or Mac.
Story:
Quote from Valve derveloper Pierre-Loup:
"We have made changes to the wishlist aiming to improve developers’ visibility of any interest in their title coming from Steam users playing on platforms they’re not currently targeting.
If a user only has one platform filter selected in their Steam store preferences, adding a game to their wishlist will result in it being specially reported to the developer in a new platform-specific breakdown of the wishlist report:"
Quote from GamingOnLinux:
Currently, Steam has this feature some of you might be familiar with :
Now they’re actually making some more use of it, so developers will end up seeing something like this:
A simple change overall, but one that could end up proving quite interesting for developers. I don’t imagine this suddenly moving mountains (being realistic here), but we’ve long needed something official like this to help things along a bit more.
I don’t expect this to be a paradigm shift for Linux game ports either, but it does give non-Windows users a chance to voice what they would like to see ported to their OS of choices. It also might be a good way to help developers gauge if it is worth porting a piece of software to Linux.
Awareness is a big thing. It’s one thing people saying +1 on a forum topic that’s hard to track. It’s another being able to see a specific number you can actually use for your business
Here’s what I don’t understand - It only works if you are shown games for one platform, yet shows the developers when you wishlist their game That Isn’t On Your Platform So It Is Never Shown To You! Are you kidding me? This and other blatant errors in this setup is unbelievable.
Yeah, I get it, people can go and actively seek out AAA titles in the hopes that X game can be ported to Linux. The problem with that is there aren’t enough people gaming exclusively on Linux for that to matter to AAA companies. If there were, there would already be tons of those games natively on Linux. Nearly all of those people are using Windows for gaming, and are tallied in the ‘Unspecified platform’ not ‘Linux’.
This would make more sense if there was a groundswell of interest in a small indie game to be ported to Linux, but as per above, they won’t see it. It would have been perfect for Greenlight so developers could gauge interest to see if work on a Linux version would be fruitful, but Greenlight is dead.
The only thing positive this would do is garner support for indie games that have already massively blown up in popularity, and I’m sure by that stage they already have an idea if they are interested in porting or not.
Or maybe I’m way off base and everything is going to be rainbows and lollipops.
Windows games are only really hidden from the storefront pages. But you can still find them with the search, even if you have “only show _____ platform” selected. But I do agree that this system is poorly implemented. I would rather see a “port to” request button, and a filter in the wishlist menu to view games you would like to see ported, so it doesn’t clutter up your wishlist. There is also a problem that you cannot wishlist games you already own in your library.
Right now, very few AAA developers are interested in Linux ports. Most of the AAA games that do get released on Linux are ported by outside companies like Feral Interactive, Aspyr or other groups that fall in this category. Right now, there are some rumors that Rise of the Tomb Raider is going to be ported to Linux via Feral Interactive.
Indy ports to Linux are much more of a thing at the moment, and it mostly has to do with tool sets getting ported to the Linux platform. Most of the Linux indie ports that come out are Unity Engine games, Unity does have their SDK client available for Linux, as well as really good support. UE4 can also be compiled and run on Linux, but not a lot of indie developers have experience with this. There are also people out there like Ryan Icculus Gordon who specialize in porting indie games to Linux.
