Is that supposed to be a good sign about Linux user base?
Because, y'know, if people is pirating your games that means at least some of them will buy it, but if in that system they don't look for games even for free, what are the chances they pay for them?
Note: I don't approve piracy, I have near 300 games myself just on Steam, just saying.
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The gaming community is building in linux. There is pirating on every operating system
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Actually there is lots of linux ported games that are pirated, you just must not be looking very hard.
And the reason why there is not many games specifically for Linux or MAC/Apple is because of the user based. The majority (and I do mean 70% to 80% at least) use windows based machines. Because they are cheap and easy to use. Apple/MACs were always more expensive and if something broke in them you had to take it in for a very expensive repair. This has changed, but it hasn't been all that long since the change and now MACs are also using Windows software. Even the hardware is now pretty much the same now.
Linux also has a small user based because for the longest time, it was not user friendly. While the average person could learn to use it, many didn't want to because it took so long and looked complicated.
There is also the added cost of development of games for MAC and Linux. The code for a long time was not the same. You would have to have a MAC programmer and a PC programmer working together to get things to look generally the same for each program/game. Game companies would just say "why bother with MAC and Linux ports, there is not enough people to validate the cost.
Now things are simpler for game companies. Most of the code is generally the same with just a few tweaks here and there to get them to work on the different OSes
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Using linux over windows has often a lot to do with favoring a better OS security. Installing anything pirated on a linux would be a non negligible security threat and therefore would render the use of linux over windows a bit useless for a lot of people.
Using linux over windows also has a lot to do with a certain philosophy of freedom and open source that is not necessarily compatible with piracy neither.
This being said most games available on linux are available pirated, as said above by others, you clearly don't know where to look. But they take longer to be available, and people rather use wine to emulate the windows version.
But seriously, installing pirated games on a linux... it just sounds wrong. The user base philosophy is just different. for now.
I'd rather play dwarf fortress or use crusader kings 2 or europa universalis 4 via steam than install pirated stuff on my linux ( or on my windows either anyway ) :-)
Note that SteamOS is built over an ubuntu.
Otherwise porting to linux costs time, competence and money that is not necessarily worth it atm. Especially since linux gamers tend to dual boot or have more than one computer. Companies have obviously done their market research and most of them say : too much money to spend, not enough money to earn, too lazy anyway for what it brings. Its slooowly changing thought.
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