Indie dev finds that Linux users generate more, better bug reports

A spaceship dodges an asteroid while firing its thrusters, viewed from top down, from game Delta V: Rings of Saturn

(Image credit: Kodera Software)

An indie developer has set up an interesting observation: Though exclusive 5.8% of his game's buyers were acting along Linux, they generated over 38% of the bug reports. Non because the Linux platform was buggier, either. Merely 3 of the some 400 wiretap reports submitted by Linux users were platform specific, that is, would only happen on Linux.

The developer, posting as Koderski for developer Kodera Software on Reddit, makes indie biz ΔV: Rings of Saturn—that's Delta V, or DV, for the non-Eruca sativa-science-literary. Information technology's a hard scientific discipline, physics-based space mining and piracy game that I quite an suchlike, personally, for its blend of playability that tranquillize honors the basics of spaceflight. If you quite like the space combat of, say, The Expanse, DV is a sim that might be for you.

Koderski says he's sold a trifle over 12,000 copies of his game, and about 700 of those were bought by Linux players.

"I got 1040 bug reports in total, verboten of which around 400 are made past Linux players," says Koderski's post. "That's one report per 11.5 users on average, and one report per 1.75 Linux players. That's right, an average Linux thespian will get you 650% Thomas More bug reports." Koderski's numbers racket are a circumscribed try size drawn from united someone's experience, only tell a compelling story.

Koderski also says that really few of those bugs were peculiar to Linux, being free that "This 5.8% of players found 38% of all the bugs that affected everyone." The hemipteran reports themselves were also pretty high quality, he said, including software package and OS versions, logs, and steps for replication.

Multiple commenters connected the post chalked this adequate to the gracious of masses who use Linux: Software package professionals, IT employees, and engineers who would already cost everyday with official bug reporting processes. Information technology's a weapons-grade theory as to why this might be, though the sheer passion that the gaming on Linux community has for anyone World Health Organization supports their favorite by-line whitethorn be some other.

despite_having_just_58_sales_over_38_of_bug from r/gamedev

You can notic ΔV: Rings of Saturn on itch.io and on Steam, where IT's in Early Access growing. There's an unlimited runtime free demo with saves, and you privy port those saves to the finished version, though you can't load progress inside the demo itself.

You can read Koderski's full post on Reddit's gamedev instrument panel.

Jon Bolding is a games writer and critic with an extensive background in scheme games. When he's non on his PC, he can cost found playing every tabletop game under the sun.