Quote: "1.26% Linux means that GAMERS are less than 1.26%
Are you sure it is worth to make a game port for <1% gamers?"
I don't think your figures are accurate. However, the problem with your train of thought is perhaps similar to many business, where you're looking at appealing to the markets and weighing how much money you're going to make and thinking how much effort each market is worth. Which is fine if you're looking to gain a bigger return.
But it's not the only train of thought when it comes to making products, but it does seem to be the kind of thinking that has kept Linux's popularity low. Frankly, Windows dominates the PC game market, but there's nothing about Linux as an OS that would make it inferior. So Windows is the biggest market to shoot for.
Another mentality, however, is about changing markets or changing the game. For a large scale example, Apple is somebody with a reputation to invest in seemingly small markets, for example, the tablet PC market, tablet PCs have been around for a long time, even ones with a touch interface, but the market was small and very few computer users had a tablet PC. When the iPad game out, it suddenly changed the market, it ticked so many boxes that previous tablets didn't, plus Apple's marketing, managed to turn the market into something incredibly profitable for Apple and their competitors.
Of course, I don't expect Leadwerks to do the same with Linux, but it demonstrates how one can find an advantage in investing in a medium you believe in. Basically Valve have started promoting Linux as a platform for gaming and since the release of Windows 8 it would seem their vision is too boost the competition from Linux. In order for Valve to be successful, they need the support of other developers and it would seem in an ideal world for it to snowball into much wider support for Linux games (which seems to happen for Mac, whilst the majority of games are PC-only, there's still a lot of games for the Mac, even AAA titles). Even if the ideal goal isn't reached, more people could be converted to Linux.
Leadwerks seems to be one of the developers to be out to support the cause and well, if their engine is ported to Linux, it would be an excellent contribution because there are no tools like it on Linux (Ogre & Irrlicht are graphics engines, not game making software). On PC and Mac, however, there's quite a few. For some game makers it could entice them to go Linux completely for their development, because they'd still be able to compile to Mac & PC (I assume). This would be the case even for some members here. If the market does improve for Linux, with Leadwerks getting in early too, that could mean a boost in popularity as well, at least I assume that's what JoshK wants to achieve as well. Whilst Unity3D has Linux support, Leadwerks is filling the niche that it'll have native Linux support, which seems to be the emphasis in the Kickstarter video. You can't develop Unity games on Linux, only for Linux. Of course, Unity3D may eventually have native support, I mean once upon a time it was available on Mac with the ability to build for Windows, but not to develop on Windows.
Still, 5% of an OS market, even if you assume 3% of them download/buy games and assume you manage to reach 50% of the Linux gamer market at present (or hey, 30%), you are still looking at a good number of gamers. More than I could to hope for developing on Windows. Is it likely I could reach a higher percentage? Well, the choice of games on Linux is currently a lot smaller than PC, so if it's a good quality game, it is more likely to stand out. Like releasing an App for Windows Phone 7 vs Android, your game could get lost in the ether with Android, but on WP7, there's very few quality games on there.
Quote: "Which means that despite their efforts to use Linux, in the end they have to fall back on Windows."
This is true. I dual boot Linux myself. I think I am more likely to be able to single boot in Mac OS X than I am Linux...though I am a PC gamer, so Windows is agiven. And I like Windows, so I have no problem using it. Development wise, unless the tools I use go Linux, I will rely on Windows. That said, I think Linux is a fantastic OS, I think the principles behind it are noble and I would like to see it gain popularity and gain the support of developers and to be able to bring some competition to the table. As an OS it's not inferior, but for software compatability, it's seriously lacking in the support of developers. I think if made more popular, it would actually bring a lot more variety and choice in the PC OS market and I think it would make it a lot more interesting.
