Andy McDandy Vent Page

I wish that Blizzard will FINALLY listen to its fans and support non-windows based PC’s.

Since the launch of World of Warcraft some 13 years ago, fans have requested over and over and over to support not only the Linux PC but also better support for the Mac PC.

Prior to the launch of World of Warcraft, Linux PC was supported during its beta but then taken away for no reason.  Then for some years, every request posted on their forums were immediately censored by the forum administrators, either by the topic being deleted or locked so no one else could show their support.

Today, deletion and locking don’t happen as much but only those with active accounts are allowed to post.   This means that the many and many people who have always wanted to play Blizzard titles but don’t because of no support for their PC are unable to express their support behind the idea.

Now with Vanilla World of Warcraft having been announced at the last Blizzcon, it would be great to see the original Linux WoW client also receive love and updated so ALL gamers, no matter which current PC operating system they are using, can have fun enjoying the many titles Blizzard offers.

I first would like to state that this article is more about all CEO’s of game development companies like Blizzard, EA and Bethesda, just to name a few. The reason why I mention Mr. Morhaime in the title is because he is the CEO of Blizzard, a company that has world wide popularity and therefore can allow the Linux desktop surpass market share of Mac much quicker than probably any other gaming company.

Most CEO’s like to use market share as a way to judge if they should release their game or software on a particular PC operating system. Unfortunately this is the wrong way of doing it. Instead they need to change their way of thinking now that the Linux desktop has advanced so much over the years and the increasing hatred Microsoft constantly creates among Windows users with every release/updates.

If you check any forum for a particular game or software, there is a high chance of seeing a Linux request topic. This was happening so much on the Blizzard forums that the moderators use to delete every Linux request topic. Although since the new forums came out some years back and the moderators are no longer deleting those topics, Linux support requests keep coming in from the Blizzard fans in every forum for each Blizzard title.

With so many fans expressing not only their desire to play on Linux but also their disgust with Windows, it is clear that bringing popular titles to the Linux desktop will help a great deal to increase usage of the operating system and show your customers that you do care about them.

To those that say “use WINE”, not all Windows made games/software work in WINE or break with the most minor of updates. Look at Overwatch for example, it currently is completely unplayable in WINE. Battle.net Desktop has stopped working many times when updated and lets not forget when DIABLO III was released. Blizzard anti-cheat system was viewing Linux players as cheaters causing many to be banned. A representative from Blizzard even admitted it around 6 months later so by supporting Linux, the gaming company improves their image to their fans by not forcing them to use an operating system or special software to use the game/software they love so much.

So Mr. Morhaime and other CEO’s, are you going to help Linux desktop increase it’s usage by listening to your fans and finally supporting Linux desktop? Or; Are you going to keep Linux down by continuing to ignore your fans?

Remember:

Supporting all 3 PC operating systems (Win, OS X, Linux) = more income and happier fans.

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I havent seen a lot of ‘reviews’ of pokemon go that point out the good and the bad about the game. I thought I’d do this to help people really consider the game, both the good and the bad, and get an overall feel for the game… especially for those of you who don’t have it in your country yet!

In December 2013 newsletter for Pinball Arcade, it was mentioned that one of the plans is to bring Pinball Arcade to Linux.  2 years later and Linux gamers are still waiting.

Farsight Studios has brought Pinball Arcade to many platforms, including *nix based platforms but yet they continue to neglect a platform more popular than some of the current supported ones.

Take Ouya for example, probably the biggest flop in console history yet they had to support it instead of supporting Linux which already had a huge following at the time and continues to grow to this day.

It seems like Farsight Studios are maybe racist against people who prefer to use a stable desktop opertaing system and/or believe our money is not good enough.

Given how many *nix type platforms that already support including Mac which uses OpenGL (to my knowledge), supporting Linux desktop should not require that much work IF the programmers know how to program properly.

So come on Farsight Studios, stop hating the Linux gaming community and start showing some love.

**Check out my Linux Usage postings for stats on how much money companies who do not support Linux are losing out on.**

A news article was posted today on the website MMORPG titled “World of Warcraft : Blizzard Files Suit Against Alleged Bot Creator”.

I find this so laughable because in the article, there is an excerpt from the documents filed where Blizzard claims they have lost millions and maybe even tens of millions because of botters.  Now I am not a fan of people who use bots because it does make a game less enjoyable for the legitimate players.

What I find humorous is Blizzard crying over losing millions when they have been ignoring the over $100 million/month in potential revenue from World of Warcraft alone by not supporting Linux PC.  When it comes to games like Diablo and Starcraft, total lost sales is well over $500 million per game based on $60 to purchase.

So Blizzcon 2015 is now over and during the event Blizzard divulged more information for their new game Overwatch coming in spring 2016.  Up to now, every game Blizzard has released have been for both Windows PC and Mac PC but it appears that Blizzard fans who use Mac PC will be joining the Linux PC gamers.

You see, Overwatch will apparently only be available on Windows PC, Xbox and PS4.  Mac PC users are now going to get the cold shoulder like Linux PC gamers have felt for over a decade in our constant Blizzard forum requests which is now over 9,200 in total posts.

Blizzard staff like Mike Morhaime and Chris Metzen always say that they listen to the fans but as a Linux PC gamer, it is clear they refuse to listen to those fans whom prefer to use stable operating systems like Mac PC and Linux PC.

So on behalf of Linux gamers around the globe, Mac PC gamers, welcome to Blizzards “Fuck Them” fan list.  Whether it is Activision who is dictating to Blizzard whom to support or decision being made by Mr. Morhaime himself, we will never get a honest straight answer from Blizzard no matter how many hundreds of millions of dollars there is to be made from us. (see last post titled Nov. 1st Linux Usage)

The saddest part is Blizzard refusal to even test the Linux waters with Hearthstone, a game made entirely in a cross platform engine and thus could be released to Linux gamers in just a few minutes.  I guess when you have enough money to spend almost $6 Billion on King software, the millions that can be made off of non-Windows gamers is chump change in their eyes and thus not worth picking up.

For those new to my blog, I will be doing this twice a month, for the 1st and 15th of each month.

As a reminder, all percentages are taken from StatCounter.com who gather the stats from websites around the globe.  How many are Windows only related is anyone guess.

We had quite a few ups and downs in the percentages between September 1st and September 15th.  The biggest decrease is Falkland Islands who went from 13.36% to 0% further proving that developers should not believe what StatCounter provides as cold hard facts and instead start listening to their fans.

So who are the new top ten countries for Linux usage? (Up Down)

1. Uruguay (12.62)
2. Timor-Leste (9.28)
3. Venezuela (5.81)
4. Kiribati (4.63)
5. Malta (4..62)
6. Congo (4.59)
7. Reunion (4.49)
8. Holy See (4.2)
9. Swaziland (3.66)
10. Greece (3.37)

Now as with my previous posts, how does the new worldwide usage numbers look and how does that relate to possible income being lost because of developers not willing to develop for Linux PC?

The world usage based on ALL the numbers retrieved for every country listed on StatCounter is 1.12%.  When calculated towards the possible number of gamers based on each continent population taken from GeoHive, we get almost $105 million in sales each month based on games that have a $15/month subscription fee.  When calculated based on a $60 game, the possible earnings is almost $419 million.

If you are wondering how I get those numbers, simply refer to my August 15 usage post.  There you will find a complete break down on how the calculation is done.

It seems that ever since the information about Blizzard losing 3 million World of Warcraft subscribers, YouTube has become over run with videos from gamers claiming the loss is all because of the expansion Warlords of Draenor.

Now let me start off by saying that I have yet to purchase and play Warlords because of the fact Blizzard refuses to support my operating system. You see, many Windows gamers do not realize that other operating systems exist. Most believe Windows is the only PC operating system.

My PC operating system of choice is Linux, a very stable and fast operating system which is why I switched some 5+ years ago from Windows.

Late 2014, I began a petition requesting Blizzard finally show support for Linux like they did during the WoW beta phase. In early 2015 I posted a reply from Blizzard CEO Mike Morhaime in which he stated that there is no need to support Linux because we can just use Windows. As you can imagine that answer got a lot of gamers who want to play Blizzard titles on Linux extremely angry.

As of this posting, the petition has almost 3,500 signatures but since many gamers are not up to signing petitions, especially since a Linux client request has been going on since WoW first launched some 10 years ago.  It is also unclear just how many of those 3 million Blizzard subscribers were Linux supporters. Many of them could have been Linux supporters who have said “fuck you Blizzard” over Mr. Morhaime reasoning to not support Linux.

For those who say Linux market share isn’t high enough, there are two things you need to realize;

1) Linux is a free operating system and therefore no real way to calculate market share unlike Windows and OSX which is easily calculated by how many units are sold.

2) Blizzard has had no problem supporting Mac even when it’s market share was far below what Linux is today yet they had no problem then.

So in closing, there is probably more than just the Warlords expansion that may have caused the loss in 3 million subscribers.

I just received an e-mail from WWE and amongst the items mentioned was news that the WWE Network is FINALLY available to all Canadians and not just to those who subscribe to Roger Cable.

As great as that news is, some Canadians will still not be able to subscribe.  Service fees for television, cable or satellite, rises every couple of years and with so many jobs in Canada leaving to places like Mexico or China, paying for television service becomes harder and harder to do.  This of course results in many Canadians cancelling their service and instead turn to torrent sites or using such services that hide ones location to access services like Hulu Plus which is not available in Canada.

The cable and satellite providers are trying to combat this with their own Hulu Plus/Netflix type service but they are doing it completely ass backwards.

What they have done is setup these online viewing services BUT you still have to be a cable/satellite customer.  Subscribing to both services is absolutely ridiculous.  Those who are turning to torrent site are doing so because they can no longer afford the high cost involved for cable and satellite.  If these companies want to get them back as customers, then they need to allow people to subscribe WITHOUT being forced to also take cable/satellite.

This brings us back to the WWE Network.  No one is allowed to subscribe unless they also have a cable or satellite subscription.  WWE really screwed up when they made such a deal with Rogers Communications.

Myself, it looks like I will have to continue downloading all my WWE and regular TV content until Rogers, Bell or Shaw get their heads out of their asses and start caring about the Canadians who either can not afford or do not want cable/satellite service.  If WWE and Hollywood want to blame someone for torrent downloading, they only have to look at Rogers, Bell, Shaw and the CRTC for they are the ones driving Canadians towards such places.