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Linux Game Development Part 5
Marketing and Distribution


Selling Your Game

Getting the word out about your fabulous new Linux game is a start, but not everyone visits news sites and reads press releases. You need to get your application in front of users, either by publishing it or figuring out where Linux users go to find games.

Unfortunately, this isn’t easy. As I have already said, there aren’t a lot of access points for acquiring commercial software for Linux yet. Most retail stores don’t carry any, and there are not many web sites that provide commercial Linux software either. But this may change as more Linux users begin demanding games for Linux. I believe this is inevitable because of the growing number of Windows users migrating to Linux.

In the meantime, this next list of sites can help you get started selling your game on Linux.

CNR Warehouse

Developed by Linspire as a software channel for their Linspire and Freespire Linux distributions, CNR was designed to solve the complexity of finding and installing Linux software. CNR stands for Click and Run, and it provides users with a way to install and manage both free and commercial Linux software.

Linspire has recently announced their plan to open the CNR service to support other popular Linux distributions, including Debian, Fedora, OpenSUSE, and Ubuntu. This means that CNR has the potential to become one of the major software distribution channels for Linux users in the coming years. The new CNR web site will be located here, though it was still being constructed at the time this article was written.

To submit your commercial software for inclusion in the CNR Warehouse, sign up for the Linspire Publisher Program.

Linux Game Publishing

This is currently the only game publisher for commercial Linux games. They provide a reseller channel for Linux games, and they’re always looking for top quality games.

Tux Games

Tux Games advertises itself as “The Online Store for Linux Games”. Despite its poor appearance, it remains one of the more popular outlets for commercial Linux games.



Other Ideas

Contents
  Introduction
  Getting the Word Out
  Selling Your Game
  Other Ideas

  Printable version
  Discuss this article

The Series
  Part 1: Introduction
  Part 2: Distributable Binaries
  Part 3: Installers
  Part 4: Testing
  Part 5: Marketing and Distribution