The Linux platform has a lot of potential

Jan 18, 2015 17:04 GMT  ·  By

Aspyr Media, one of the studios that have been doing some of the biggest and most important ports for the Linux platform, has revealed that it's almost breaking even financially and this is actually great news.

Companies like Aspry Media are contracted by the original studios and publishers to do the porting work. In this case, 2K is the publisher who made this call and it's probably a lot cheaper than hiring people who can do this sort of thing. It's actually a difficult process and Aspyr Media has a great deal of experience with this sort of procedure, which probably makes it even cheaper.

The developers from the original studio have only two choices, either they built the game with Linux support right from the start or they get another studio to port the title after the official launch was made. Big titles, like Borderlands for example or Civilization Beyond Earth, are very big projects and it involves a lot of moving parts. They feature multiplayer, for example, and making the title work across platforms is not an easy thing.

Breaking even is a great thing and here's why

A user on Reddit asked if Aspyr Media was profitable and someone from the company answered. They shared a lot more details than they had to and it looks like porting Windows games to Linux might be a very successful venture very soon.

"We are close to breaking even...which is a HUGE win in our eyes! As many of you have guessed, we are making a long bet here with Steam Machines. And yes, if it weren't for Valve we wouldn't be doing it because we knew in the current market, break even was the best we could do (which is exactly why adoption has been scarce for Linux)."

"What Valve is doing is creating a platform. Sure it will be a small one, but Aspyr has been the experts at small platform development for over 17 years. We are really good at it, and we will be really good at Linux in time," wrote Aspyr's Michael Blair on Reddit.

Breaking even might not sound like a good thing, but you have to keep in mind that the number of Linux users is just a small fraction of 1 or 2% of the entire market. That means that the only way to go is up and the platform holds a lot of potential.

Also, Aspyr Media made it very clear that they are betting on the Steam Machines and they need for Valve to succeed. That will only become clear after the launch of the consoles, which are nowhere to be seen, just yet.