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Steam On Linux Is Ending Summer 2020 At Just Under 0.9% Marketshare

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  • #11
    I have been very pleasantly shocked lately with the Linux support for gaming. Yes it is not at all up to par with Windows for the latest and greatest, but there is so much more Linux native content then ever before.

    Steam support is just amazing and their work on Proton has been game changing! I actually had space pirate invaders playing extremely well via proton though an HTC Vive headset. I was floored that it even loaded, much less had a solid VR experience.

    Gaming on Linux has so dramatically changed since I started with Linux in high school. Fully agreed its not at the level of Windows and sure you probably wont ever see Warzone running on it, but for the kind of gaming I have time for these days (Factorio, Civ 6, Minecraft, Satisfactory, etc.) it is an amazingly good experience.

    My thanks to all the incredible work put into it by companies like Steam and groups like Wine. I can now play the games I have time for without having to leave my dev environment.

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    • #12
      Originally posted by Almindor View Post

      That's a pretty good write up. I agree. Linux has failed as a gaming platform and for good technical reasons at that.

      It's just not a platform for closed source. I get more stability from running Linux native games via ProtonDB (thanks steam for that option btw.) in many cases.

      OS update? Oh no a native game stopped working coz <libX>. Game update? Crash on start. It's been pretty ridiculous tbh.

      I'm saying this as a Linux main since early 2000s. I'm never going to switch to Windows of Mac for my main setup since they both suck on so many levels, but for gaming, Linux has failed and I don't think with how things are setup up that it can succeed.
      I don't really agree with this. Linux gaming has been mostly great for me. While it's possible library updates can break things, properly designed games will include all necessary libraries needed in the installer or statically link them. For instance, plenty of ancient binary-only Linux games can still be made to run on modern distributions.

      Linux Installer For Linux Gamers has 44 repositories available. Follow their code on GitHub.


      Steam also helps with this with their Steam Runtime for developers that choose to target it for native games.

      In regards to broken games, the problem here really is quality assurance. Supporting games on Linux takes at least an equal development effort to supporting them on Windows, but many game developers don't have the knowledge and/or refuse to properly support the platform because giving equal development effort doesn't pay the bills when there are far fewer users on the platform. Some developers simply press the export button in the game engine and call it good without even testing the game themselves on Linux. These developers also put bug fixing at a very low or no priority when so few of their users are playing on Linux.

      I think developers such as Facepunch who have half-assed support in the past see that it isn't good enough to barely lift a finger and rightfully decide to discontinue support for our platform at our dismay. Poorly supported native games will almost certainly run better in a Windows compatibility layer, sans kernel anti-cheat features.
      Last edited by Xaero_Vincent; 02 September 2020, 10:33 PM.

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      • #13
        Originally posted by Xaero_Vincent View Post

        I don't really agree with this. Linux gaming has been mostly great for me. While it's possible library updates can break things, properly designed games will include all necessary libraries needed in the installer or statically link them. For instance, plenty of ancient binary-only Linux games can still be made to run on modern distributions.

        Linux Installer For Linux Gamers has 44 repositories available. Follow their code on GitHub.


        Steam also helps with this with their Steam Runtime for developers that choose to target it for native games.

        In regards to broken games, the problem here really is quality assurance. Supporting games on Linux takes at least an equal development effort to supporting them on Windows, but many game developers don't have the knowledge and/or refuse to properly support the platform because giving equal development effort doesn't pay the bills when there are far fewer users on the platform. Some developers simply press the export button in the game engine and call it good without even testing the game themselves on Linux. These developers also put bug fixing at a very low or no priority when so few of their users are playing on Linux.

        I think developers such as Facepunch who have half-assed support in the past see that it isn't good enough to barely lift a finger and rightfully decide to discontinue support for our platform at our dismay. Poorly supported native games will almost certainly run better in a Windows compatibility layer, sans kernel anti-cheat features.
        Mostly true, but there are other than just libX problems. E.g. dbus messaging protocol changes, Wayland vs X/XWayland issues etc. These are platform level problems that cannot be fixed by flatpacking stuff.

        The effort to keep supporting Linux from a game dev is much greater than Windows or Mac. Why? because there are so many flavors of it. And on top of that you have the subsystems moving around (the already mentioned Wayland/X, pulseaudio etc.).

        Linux is just not good for closed source software distribution and I'm pretty sure it's by design. I actually applaud that as an OSS supporter.

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        • #14
          How much can I pay folks to end the stupidity of discussing percentage of Linux user marketshare on (Windows) Steam?

          Steam sucks. Steam Linux really sucks. Nuff said.





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          • #15
            Originally posted by benjiro View Post
            A less popular opinion: I hate to say this in a Linux topic but Microsoft is not going to let go of the Gaming crown on the PC market in the near future.

            As somebody who spend probably 20 years trying different linux desktops, always backtracking on some issues, and back to Windows.

            Recently with the release of WSL2, in combination with docker for Windows and the incredibly integration between WSL2+Docker+VisualStudioCode, i can to the conclusion that there is really no reason to push myself anymore to try Linux Desktops. As i feel that i now really have a perfect "linux like" combination at the tip of my fingers, while still maintaining the base gaming platform that is windows. A Go Containers, just a few commands. A PHP container, same. It feels like your really running Linux CLI under the hood but with a better integration.

            Even with the recent gaming improvements on Linux ( that are not so perfect as some claim they are ), it really came down to the choice of simply getting work done.

            I personally think, that WSL2+Docker, is slowly going to take developers back from Apple, while at the same time, preventing people ( because no need for pure Linux ) from leaving to Linux.
            True, you can have proper Linux containers on windows. But you still have that desktop, broken Updates (windows on surface pro 4 - even their own is broken) and spyware all around. Oh, and windows, which simply reboots at night, when it thinks it needs to (bad for training neuronal networks). So why again should one switch back to windows?

            Edit : wow, just realized I have Linux on my desktop since about 20 years now ; I'm getting old
            Last edited by oleid; 03 September 2020, 02:42 AM.

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            • #16
              Originally posted by oleid View Post

              True, you can have proper Linux containers on windows. But you still have that desktop, broken Updates and spyware all around. Oh, and windows, which simply reboots at night, when it thinks it needs to. So why again should one switch back to windows?
              Nobody hates you for installing closed drivers. Nobody hates you for criticizing init system. Another issue is there is no Steam x86_64 client and if you'd like to avoid multilib/multiarch then it is bit inconvenient at least.

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              • #17
                Originally posted by cjcox View Post
                How much can I pay folks to end the stupidity of discussing percentage of Linux user marketshare on (Windows) Steam?

                Steam sucks. Steam Linux really sucks. Nuff said.




                You would have to stop commenting on these stories. Michael will keep posting them as long as people keep engaging with them ;P

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                • #18
                  What is with all these trolls...It's been the same nonsense for years, always "Linux doesn't work" and "Linux isn't for gaming". Please, give me a f'n break, I doubt any of you even use Linux.

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                  • #19
                    Sorry guys, my wife accidentally turned on my steam machine and I am too lazy to turn it off...

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                    • #20
                      Originally posted by AJenbo View Post
                      That would be roughly 90k active Linux users
                      ... playing Games, and registered with the Steam web site. It does not capture the millions of game players on the Android versions of Linux.
                      Steam seems only interested in the heavy users of PC games. No games consoles seem to be mentioned. If Steam wanted to expand its commercial interests, it should know how the possible users might exist from other game players, to eventually become Steam customers.

                      The hardware determines the market sizes? Windows has links to Microsoft games consoles. These players then migrate to PC Windows, rather than PC Linux. Android game players have underpowered & simple games, so cannot benefit by migrating to Linux games. So Linux cannot capture the Android game players. Google is trying to modify "The Linux Foundation" so that Android etc can popularize Linux further.

                      Unix-based systems are the open-source way beyond the Microsoft Windows mess. Apple's version of Unix is too closed source. Linux cannot upscale fast enough. So we are all stuck, for this moment, with the Microsoft Windows clumsiness. Until Linux gains popularity with the three main areas: users, hardware & software creators, it will continue being a very small, almost invisible blink in the personal computer industries.

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