Introduction

We’ve come at last to the final installment in this series, and perhaps the most important one: once you have produced a commercial Linux game, how do you market it?

Marketing a Linux game is probably one of the hardest things to do. Part of the problem is that there are currently no dedicated Linux gaming portals or definitive web sites for commercial Linux games like there are for Windows and Mac.

Another problem is that the primary distribution channel for Linux software is the package manager for the Linux distribution being used, such as Ubuntu’s apt-get or SUSE’s YAST. This is how most Linux users obtain their software. Because of this, not many Linux users download and install software from the Internet. As a long-time Windows user, it took me awhile to get used to this. The Internet is the first place I go to find an application I need, but it's difficult to find generic Linux binaries for various applications on the Internet. I think part of the reason for this is because there has been so little information about how to do it (until I recently published this series of articles). And most Linux users don't want to bother downloading source code and building their own binary (a growing number of Linux users wouldn't even know how to do it). As a result, I think that’s why the distribution-specific package manager has become the dominant channel for Linux software.

The good news, however, is that there is a growing number of Windows users migrating to Linux, and they all think the same way I did. They’re initially looking for software via the Internet. So we just need to anticipate where they are going to go when they type “Linux games” into their favorite search engine.

But we also want to reach the people who have already been using Linux for a while, who are hungry for new games. So here are some things you can do to market your commercial Linux game.

Getting the Word Out