Steam Linux Use Dips Back Below 0.5%

[anarki2]

Why does Steam even need a survey? Can't they tell what operating systems are connecting to them? Their wanting to survey about the OS is odd.

Because if they did it automatically, then we'd have other whiners who'd cry spyware.

[entropy]

It's so funny how everyone seems to think the survey MUST be flawed as the Steam Linux user base is so low.

[Weasel]

In a few years games will only be streamed exclusively anyway so the problem will solve itself in one way or another. It will be interesting to see how much longer we have to wait for Valve to enter the streaming market and test the grounds there. From that point on the OS does not matter anymore for those that use their computers mainly for gaming.

That's never gonna happen with digital hardware we have currently. Maybe if quantum computers become a thing, but I doubt it. Just imagine how much bandwidth the server would have to put out for at least uncompressed 60FPS (compression is completely infeasible), not to mention the lag will be unbearable. Now imagine higher FPS like you should have especially in the future... (fuck resolution increases, FPS is where it's at)

Oh, if you mean crap like browser games, sorry I don't consider those games, more like toys.

[Aeder]

If you search solely for any game that supports SteamOS+Linux, it currently totals 11,898.

https://store.steampowered.com/search/?&os=linux

That search query is actually wrong because you didnt filter it down to "Games" and "SteamOS+Linux".

If you do the number goes down to 5167

[sa666666]

It's so funny how everyone seems to think the survey MUST be flawed as the Steam Linux user base is so low.

No, a lot of people think the survey MUST be flawed since they've never received one. I've been using Steam on Linux since it first became available many years ago, and I've never received a survey. Never, over a period of years. It doesn't take a genius to see that the numbers are probably suspect when you have large portions of its population never being surveyed.

[PackRat]

Paradox Launcher was released at the end of june. Paradox has a lot of games.

[devius]

... the numbers are probably suspect when you have large portions of its population never being surveyed.

You and a few hundred (that many?) other that never got a survey doesn't equal "large portions of its population".

[birdie]

No, a lot of people think the survey MUST be flawed since they've never received one. I've been using Steam on Linux since it first became available many years ago, and I've never received a survey. Never, over a period of years. It doesn't take a genius to see that the numbers are probably suspect when you have large portions of its population never being surveyed.

Likewise with Windows/Mac OS X users - some of them have never seen a Steam Survey [window] for the past several years. No one cries foul ... except Linux users who always find excuses why the Linux user base is so low. It's because most users don't give a fuck about Linux - over 95% of AAA games are not available for this quaint OS. You don't install an esoteric, even free OS not to be able to play most of successful games.

Now shut up and bugger off.

[Almindor]

Just be appreciative that Valve and others care to release games on Linux. These numbers won't change unless there is a Linux console or something akin to that. What helps as well is that many modern engines make it easy nowadays to release on Linux. So once these tools are maturing more, we also get the benefit.

That's true but the main issue with Linux is actually that it's broken on the library ABI compatibility layer.

Even if you package everything right (e.g. don't forget that to copy that 32bit libuseless to your LD_LIBRARY_PATH override folder with the game) chances are the base stuff you expect to be there is going to break.

I now have 50% expectations of steam games working simply because of things like DBUS message format changes, systemd breakage (and yes some games use libs from systemd) and even glibc ABI f*ckups. Let's also not forget wayland/xwayland/X mess and possible driver issues that are still aplenty. Controller support is also sketchy at best in many cases not due to drivers but due to games using ancient wrappers (e.g. old SDL versions etc.)

I suppose we could say a single chosen distro (cough ubuntu) could work with steam games 100% but even that would need close cooperation before releasing next OS updates.

[Morbis55]

In a few years games will only be streamed exclusively anyway

No they won't, at least not on PC.
You can do that to console gamers, they play shitty games anyway, they won't be even able to tell a difference.
As a pc player, why would you choose to play at 60FPS max, high latency (40ms++) and highly compressed pictures with artifacts?

Games need to be rendered locally. It's also a huge waste of energy to outsource the rendering.
Thanks for ruining our planet.