Yes, the linux sales figures were low [Quake3]. Low enough that they are certainly not going to provide an incentive for other developers to do simultaneous linux releases, which was a good chunk of my goal. The sales would cover the costs of porting, but they wouldnÂ’t make a bean-counter blink.
I think Loki did a fantastic job – they went above and beyond what was required, pestering us (a good thing in this case) about the linux deliverables, taking pre-orders, doing the tin box run, shipping CDs first, then boxes when available, etc.
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The fallback position is to just have hybrid CD’s. I’m pretty sure we can force our publishers to have a linux executable in an “unsupported” directory. You would lose technical support, you wouldn’t get an install program, and you wouldn’t have anyone that is really dedicated to the issues of the product, but it would be there on day 1.