Valve's Steam Data For December Points To A Huge Dip For Linux Gaming Marketshare

[V10lator]

It's not like that. Steam survey is geared towards fresh installs and almost never pops up on an already used system. It is very likely to pop up on clean OS install when logging into steam for the first time, absolutely regardless of the OS.

That's not true: On a window machine the survey popped up every time I opened Steam while on Linux I can reinstall the whole OS but no survey will pop up.

//EDIT:

I honestly don't understand why Valve keeps bleeding money for Linux. I say this as a primary Linux user and major FOSS supporter. It just doesn't make business sense. It didn't make one on day one and it doesn't make one now either.

Their reason was steam machines. Now that they failed they need to support SteamOS as it's already in the wild...

[qarium]

Definitely something or someone fucked up metrics... there's NO WAY those changes would occur too quickly...

it is very simple: china has turned of the "great Firewall" this increase the chinese steam users +30%... and all the cheap chinese computer useing old windows7...

[Nocifer]

Hmmm, everyone probably rushed back to Windows for CP2077 release since its a bit fiddly to get it running decently under steam/proton (people still have issues with experimental).

I played CP2077 90% on windows10 and %10 on Linux, win10 of cause ran better but the game consistently has performance issues and memory leaks so its very hard to compare most the time.

Indeed. If these numbers are valid (which tbh do seem a bit... off) my bet as well would be on CP77 being a/the major driving force behind this shift. I'm talking from personal experience after all, CP77 managed to make me boot my Windows install and keep booting it for ~10 days straight, for the first time in like 2-3 years or so. I can even imagine people who have all but abandoned Windows ending up deploying temporary Windows setups just to play that game; it's definitely what I'd do if I didn't already keep one around.

They need to have a small team who are dedicated to going through their game database, finding what patches and tweaks are necessary to make a game work correctly, and integrate those into the installation process for the game. They've got to try to make as many games as possible run effortlessly. If they could ever get to that point, then they might could actually find a market for a Steam Box.

Well, you just described Proton But I do agree that Valve pushed the Steam Machines way too early, and that ended up backfiring at them. I mean, if Linux gaming is still like this today (very tolerable, even good sometimes, but vastly flawed compared to Windows proper), after years of hard work spent in fixing stuff, just try to imagine/remember how it used to be back in the pre-DXVK days.

I honestly don't understand why Valve keeps bleeding money for Linux. I say this as a primary Linux user and major FOSS supporter. It just doesn't make business sense. It didn't make one on day one and it doesn't make one now either.

Some reasons I can think off:

a) They're not bleeding money, they're investing it. Also, by bringing Steam on Linux they've gained a bunch of sales from Linux users, so I'm sure that in the end it's a net gain for them.
b) Windows 8
c) Microsoft trying to push an Xbox/Windows Store monopoly.
d) Windows 8
e) The promise of a future where they end up with a patent-free platform largely under their control/influence, which they could then use in a console (then) or cloud gaming (nowadays) product as they would see fit, without having to pay tribute to their competition. I.e., in some ways what Google is already trying to do with Stadia.
f) Did I mention Windows 8? Remember, this all started back in Ballmer's days, when MS was trying to convince the world that the Windows 7 paradigm was deprecated and Windows Play-Doh Edition was the future (and to think that people denigrate Gnome 3, lol). There was no Windows 10 (which is arguably their best OS to date, bar the spying stuff), no WSL and no sense at all in Microsoft's business strategy. Is it any wonder that Valve tried to find some way to detach itself from Windows?

[ed31337]

I honestly don't understand why Valve keeps bleeding money for Linux. I say this as a primary Linux user and major FOSS supporter. It just doesn't make business sense. It didn't make one on day one and it doesn't make one now either.

Umm, maybe because they don't want to get Fortnite'd?

If you put all your eggs into closed source, commerical OSes, what are you gonna do when the OS vendors decide to force you into their app store that takes a 30% (or worse) cut off the top of your sales?

Steam is basically an app store of it's own (for games). Valve invested a lot into Steam, and the OS vendors could squash it like a bug, at any moment. Once people are forced into shopping for games inside the Microsoft app store instead of Steam, how likely do you think Valve games are going to turn up at the top of search results compared to Microsoft's own games?

[qarium]

Their reason was steam machines. Now that they failed they need to support SteamOS as it's already in the wild...

only "INTEL-CPU+Nvidia-GPU" steam machines failed... but this was clear from start because intel and nvidia is a complete failure on linux...

next future steam machine will be "AMD" hardware and this will not be a failure.

the newst 11900K intel cpu beats a 5950X by 2,5% in single core and lose by 67% in multicore.
no one should make this trade of to lose 67% on multicore to gain 2,5% in singlecore
this means intel is a failure and will be a failure for a long time. you can not even buy a 11900K you can only buy 10900K who is loser in singlecore and slower in multicore.

Nvidia3090 vs AMD 6900XT similar story
Nvidia lose in non-raytracing games at 4K by 10%
Nvidia is faster in the Nvidia raytracing implementation by 25% but lose if there is the AMD raytracing implementation by 10%
general speaking the 6900XT is faster in 2K and 2,5K and 3K and 3090 is faster in 4K
Nvidia is right now faster if you use DLSS2.0 but as soon you use the AMD super resulution (the DLSS2 counterpart) with 2K-3K native resolution upscalled to 4-8K then AMD is faster in this task to.
in germany you right now save 58€ if you buy a 6900XT instead of 3090...

this means if you count amd raytracing implementation and the Future support of "AMD super resulution" only a insane person would buy nvidia.

this all means: a Steam Machine can only be successfull with AMD hardware and intel+Nvidia is a failure.

[user1]

I don't know how can you have accurate numbers with Steam hardware survey when the last time I got it was about 2-3 years ago.

[Tuxee]

Always funny to read the wild theories about the "not-popping-up" surveys on Linux. Sorry to disappoint all of you - I got the Steam survey twice a year on average. Can't compare that to Windows since I don't run that. But it definitely shows up and it definitely doesn't need to be a "fresh install".

[klapaucius]

Well, personally I've played more hours in December than the rest of the year. If that's not enough to increase the Linux market share, I don't know what (I wonder if using proton counts as using a Window machine, though)

[Mani]

Well, personally I've played more hours in December than the rest of the year. If that's not enough to increase the Linux market share, I don't know what (I wonder if using proton counts as using a Window machine, though)

In the beginning of Proton Valve made clear that it counts as Linux users

[khnazile]

Well, they don't make native linux games anymore. Even Trine 4 and Serious Sam 4 is windows-only. And a number of older games has dropped linux support. Proton is a mistake.