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ajross 2 hours ago

> It can only mean that their Linux user base is growing, ie. more commercial operators are turning to Linux.

Well, more correctly that they think the commercial base has grown, and that there's revenue on the table by forcing their standard-edition-using commercial Linux users into contracts.

Maybe the thinking is that the Linux users are more sophisticated and able to self-support than windows shops, and so they're choosing not to buy support even though they could? Seems not implausible, though hard to measure even from within AMD.

Basically this seems like a "good beancounting but terrible marketing" decision out of product management. They're not being deliberately mean to their amateur users, they're just trying to squeeze out a few more dollars for their department's quarterly.

jorvi an hour ago | parent [-]

What is really interesting about Linux users is that they cost an enormous amount in support.

I think it was a dev of the reboot of Planetary Annihilation that said their Linux users / build made up a few percent of the sales but over 90 percent of all support tickets (!). Mind you that this was before Valve's Proton.

Edit: It was <0.1% sales but 20% of all support tickets: https://xcancel.com/bgolus/status/1080213166116597760

rebolek 11 minutes ago | parent | next [-]

20% of auto-reported crashes. So it's not like Linux users were writing more tickets but the game crashing on Linux more (because of gfx drivers).

davrosthedalek 32 minutes ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Yes, and I think a free-version user might produce more support requests than a commercial user for two reasons: 1) commercial/professional users might feel more entitled to support, but typically have a better understanding of linux and more versed in fixing stuff themselves. -- and more importantly -- 2) They probably have a dedicated setup where they can run the AMD-blessed distro

Hinrik 30 minutes ago | parent | prev | next [-]

If those bugs are only present in the Linux port, then yeah, Linux users cost more to support. But if a significant amount of these bugs affect all platforms, then you could argue that a Linux user is much more valuable to them than a non-Linux user because they provide better feedback. Assuming they actually care about fixing their product.

nicoburns 16 minutes ago | parent [-]

Part of the problem is that Linux isn't really one platform, it's 10 different ones of varying popularity (e.g. supporting Gnome on Debian with Wayland doesn't mean that KDE on Nix with X will work). And it costs somewhere in that 1-10x range to support it because of that.

TheScaryOne 34 minutes ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Would you rather that the 100% of bugs in those 20% of tickets never got fixed?

Linux users write highly detailed bug reports because it's the only way to get things fixed without coding the fix yourself.

HumanOstrich 31 minutes ago | parent | prev [-]

I don't think gaming on Linux is comparable here.