Valve Now Reports The Steam Linux Marketshare At Just 0.35%

[Luke_Wolf]

The Steam-world does not revolve around Linux only.
You can't call Valve's data sampling broken or rigged simply because you don't like it's results. That's Trump style...

According to Valve's presentation [1], they have nearly 1.5Mio new users per month. 63% of all purchases are from NA/EU. In these regions, Linux is widely spread.
You can be sure that for these regions Steam's user acquisition is mostly saturated.
So most of the growth comes from Asia and SA. Especially in Asia Linux has no marketshare.

[1] https://www.gamingonlinux.com/articl...is-coming.9947

Valve's sampling is absolutely broken regardless of the Linux side of the equation. There's just way too much variance in the numbers in general, plus there really isn't a reason for them to sample as opposed to do a population survey instead every month. Basically just check the fingerprint of the machine every time it logs in during the month, and if that finger print has logged into steam this month, you count it. They keep track of this anyway because you have to two factor every time you log in with a new machine.

[ruff]

last time i've been opening steam was cca 3 months ago. moved to gog now.

[starshipeleven]

Let's have two dozens of comments like yours.

This doesn't change shit: there are roughly 300 times more Windows users who decline to participate in Steam Survey.

Why do Linux users always think they are special, they privacy concerns are special, and their worldview is also special? You could remove a crown from your head once in a while.

You're in no way special and Steam matters because people who actually game do use Steam.

Stop posting this trolly bullshit, his complaint is valid.

Steam Survey fails even at dealing with Windows userbase, since it's wildly unlikely that chinese userbase has risen by 25% while english userbase has shrunk by 10%, while Win7 usage has risen by 25% (= likely due to chinese) while Win10 has shrunk by 10% (likely due to less english userbase polled).
In a month, mind me.

[starshipeleven]

The Steam-world does not revolve around Linux only.
You can't call Valve's data sampling broken or rigged simply because you don't like it's results. That's Trump style...

According to Valve's presentation [1], they have nearly 1.5Mio new users per month. 63% of all purchases are from NA/EU. In these regions, Linux is widely spread.
You can be sure that for these regions Steam's user acquisition is mostly saturated.
So most of the growth comes from Asia and SA. Especially in Asia Linux has no marketshare.

[1] https://www.gamingonlinux.com/articl...is-coming.9947

Valve's survey sucks in general, not just on Linux. I'm not going to believe their windows numbers either, wtf is win7 increasing by 25% and win10 decreasing by 10%?

Others have pointed out the parallel with the increase of chinese users polled, and decrease of english users polled (which does not sound a realistic userbase increase/decrease in the slightest). If this statistic can be swayed so hard by just random selection, it's bullshit well before we can start talking about Linux.

[GreenByte]

You can manually trigger the survey, there is a file that contains the last survey date, can't remember though if it's global or per account. Just edit the date and easy survey trigger. I think valve should just give the survey out every month.

[pracedru]

Well why would a gamer choose Linux over windows? This poll actually makes sense. Linux as a gaming platform still needs more games. It is actually just now that the hardware support is ready. The first vulkan only game is still to be released.

[cyberwizzard]

I only got the survey once, and of course it was when I was playing a Windows-only game. I never had the survey when I was playing on Linux, so yes I believe those numbers are skewed.

[zoomblab]

Valve sees Linux as a insurance solution so its fate is not tied to Microsoft, as a Linux desktop would be an easier transition than going to a console, and Linux is free, and like they already do with SteamOS, they can ship their own customized for their own purposes. That isn't a bad idea. Especially for companies to develop around technologies to make porting easier like OpenGL or Vulkan.

IMO the SteamOS would be a good idea as a factory default for the hypothetical steam console machines where Valve would benefit from more control in order to provide support to their customers. However, for me the casual user is not a good idea. I will not bother messing with a custom OS just to play some games. And since the steam machines idea failed I think that now SteamOS hurts more that helps the Valve's plan you mentioned above. What I think that Valve should be doing instead is to partner with a Linux distributor such as Canonical and work together on technical and marketing issues, not only to guarantee that Steam work seamlessly on stable LTS releases but also to find ways to promote the platform to gamers that are not familiar with Linux and know only Windows - which are a LOT of people.

Oh and in case some one from Canonical or RedHat reads this, desktop Linux needs lots of improvement on this area in order to attract serious people. For example, I use it exclusively for more than 10 years and still can not do what I could do easily with Windows back in the day when I used to game a lot. Serious gamers would have to have GUI utilities integrated in the OS in order to inspect and control the hardware (that includes the ability to install hardware drivers with a GUI and without messing with command line, sources and compilers). Utilities like the windows device manager the administrative tools, CPU and GPU monitoring and tweaking tools, etc. All GUI of course!

Another example in that regard, despite all the greatness of the AMD open source drivers, I as a user feel mostly powerless. The only user friendly way for me to update them is to upgrade the whole OS every six months. Even then I don't have a GUI to inspect whether the drivers work correctly or to configure them.

[Junix]

I'm using Linux only and I'm gaming on a daily basis via Steam (mainly Dota 2) and I get the survey regulary...

[AsuMagic]

The Steam-world does not revolve around Linux only.
You can't call Valve's data sampling broken or rigged simply because you don't like it's results. That's Trump style...

According to Valve's presentation [1], they have nearly 1.5Mio new users per month. 63% of all purchases are from NA/EU. In these regions, Linux is widely spread.
You can be sure that for these regions Steam's user acquisition is mostly saturated.
So most of the growth comes from Asia and SA. Especially in Asia Linux has no marketshare.

[1] https://www.gamingonlinux.com/articl...is-coming.9947

Your argument is just what Hitler would have said!
... sigh.