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

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  • #31
    Damn it, is it really that hard to think just a little? Steam statistics again failed to cope with the influx of Chinese during the winter sale, that's all. Wait a few days, the statistics will be adjusted.

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    • #32
      @Tuxxee
      My basic issue is I have 3 devices running various Linux installs with Steam and one switches distributions regularly. One of those machines is active daily (especially now I'm WFH). At least one of the other machine is on a couple times a week.

      When I was running Windows Vista/7 I used to see the survey every year, but since I've switched to linux its appeared once in 8 years and that was 5 years ago.

      I am not alone in complaining about this, it makes me think there is some sort of bug so the survey isn't triggering on linux I'm guessing some software configuration is to blame

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      • #33
        Such numbers are highly dependent on Chinese users, just because of the amount. What I always find strange is, that it is allowed to use W10 in China with all the things happening. And this despite of numerous Chinese Linux distributions available. I'm not a friend of any rights violation, but I guess, should China enforce people to not use W10 one day, the numbers would flip dramatically....

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        • #34
          Originally posted by Almindor View Post
          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.
          Because 1% of 90+ million active users is still a lot.

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          • #35
            I'm quite skeptical about these numbers once again. They will probably be corrected to some extent.

            Every holiday or the various lockdowns around the world have shown an increase in usage of Linux, whenever there's at least a "partially worldwide" holiday week, the numbers skyrocket. Which is why Linux slowing down that much in December (where parts of the world crawl to a - almost - stop for 10-15 days) doesn't make any sense. Especially such a big standard deviation.

            Probably flawed, but we all know Steam figures are doubtful and opaque anyways.

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            • #36
              Originally posted by Chugworth View Post
              As surprisingly good as Linux gaming has gotten, it's still just for nerds. Even some of the games that have a gold rating on ProtonDB still require a bunch of tweaks and fiddling around just to get them to start. And I have seen some games that start up and appear to work correctly, but have really bizarre visual bugs.

              The way Valve has handled Linux has always struck me as kind of odd. It was a big surprise that they even supported Linux in the first place, and then they tried pushing their Steam Box WAY too soon. 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.
              Don't use Proton then.
              I'm only supporting (paying for) editors that offer a Linux version of their game, and I don't have any kind of tweaking or fiddling to do. All my games just work.

              If you support companies that don't offer Linux versions, how can you possibly complain about how Linux don't deal well with these games?
              Last edited by Mez'; 02 January 2021, 07:05 AM.

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              • #37
                RTX 3090, poor VR support and Cyberpunk. This and the PS5 launch, it isn't that surprising the marketshare dropped.

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                • #38
                  Originally posted by Almindor View Post
                  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.
                  Don't underestimate power of FOSS. Bitcoin is FOSS and it never made any sense. Until it did.
                  Linux was a garage project of some Finnish student. Until it wasn't. Five or ten years ago you could only dream of running AAA games on Linux. Today it's a standard, not every game but still, difference in gaming quality is huge. When I read on Phoronix about constant flow of advances in AMD graphics drivers, Wine project, Valve's Proton and so on, I couldn't be any more happier.
                  Give it some time.
                  Last edited by piorunz; 02 January 2021, 08:25 AM.

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                  • #39
                    In case nobody remembers, December 2019 also saw a large drop in Steam Linux users (0.81 to 0.67%), which then came back on January as strong as ever with 0.9%. The numbers this month are worse, but meanwhile StatCounter reports the highest Linux desktop usage in at least two years: 1.93%. So, yeah, this was to be expected, don't worry, everything's right.

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                    • #40
                      Got a survey today

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