Steam Linux Usage Came Up Short In January

[shmerl]

You are ignoring the fact that these numbers fit perfectly to all the other stats about Linux usage. Just take a look at at that wikipedia page which sums up all the results from various sources: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Usage_s...rating_systems

All these sources estimate Linux usage at about 1-2%. The Steam numbers fit perfectly, as not every web user is also a gamer.

You are lying to yourself if you think these numbers actually reflect the real number of Linux users or even gamers. They just prove that Linux and Mac users are more desperate for Indie games as they do get less AAA titles.

You are making a very wrong assumption that percentage of desktop Linux vs users of other OSes users can be compared with percentage of Linux gamers vs gamers / users of other OSes. Who said that percentage of Linux gamers amongst Linux users overall is the same as percentage of let's say Windows gamers amongst all Windows users? If anything, it seems to be much higher. I.e. amongst Windows users there is lower ratio of gamers. Therefore global desktop stats are not relevant in this context. We are talking about gamers, not about all desktop users. I'm not even saying that 1% as an estimation of total desktop Linux usage is way off. See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linux_...sktop_adoption

The bottom line - if you are talking about statistics, compare what's comparable, and not apples and oranges. Humble Bundle gives numbers for percentage of gamers who use various OSes while buying cross platform games. That actually reflects real percentage of gamers (in the context of HB of course). If Steam could provide a subset of statiscics for cross platform games, that could be useful as well. Their cumulative stats are useless, since the number of Windows only games is way bigger in their catalog.

[Temar]

You are making a very wrong assumption that percentage of desktop Linux vs users of other OSes users can be compared with percentage of Linux gamers vs gamers / users of other OSes.

Why is this assumption very wrong? I do not see any reason why the percentage of gamers should deviate much from other platforms.

The bottom line - if you are talking about statistics, compare what's comparable, and not apples and oranges. Humble Bundle gives numbers for percentage of gamers who use various OSes while buying cross platform games. That actually reflects real percentage of gamers (in the context of HB of course).

The real percentage of gamers in the context of HB is useless for a generalisation about Linux gaming.

[shmerl]

This assumption is not based on any numbers at all, therefore you simply can't make such assumption. I.e. it's a pure speculation. And that it's wrong is indirectly shown by HB numbers, where percentage of Linux sales is closer to 10%, which is way higher than webstat counters which you referenced above.

[GreatEmerald]

By the way, is there an entry for SteamOS? If not, then it's probably counted as Other like the other distributions. So it could be that the 0.1% are Linux users who simply went to use SteamOS instead.

[shmerl]

The real percentage of gamers in the context of HB is useless for a generalisation about Linux gaming.

It's much more useful than Steam numbers, because HB provides info for cross platform + DRM-free releases (which interest the vast majority of Linux gamers). It's still most relevant to HB of course, but it's useful as some rough measure. Steam numbers (as is with no context) are useless for anything, because they are diluted by the majority of Windows only games. Just do simple math first.

[Temar]

This assumption is not based on any numbers at all, therefore you simply can't make such assumption. I.e. it's a pure speculation. And that it's wrong is indirectly shown by HB numbers, where percentage of Linux sales is closer to 10%, which is way higher than webstat counters which you referenced above.

What is more likely?

A) All these stats about Linux usage (gaming or not) are totally wrong and off by a factor of 5-10.

or

B) Linux usage simply is at about 1-2%.


Whenever you see Linux usage above 2% it can usually be explained quite easily. Either it's a site which targets developers or it's something like HB where people just don't have better alternatives. Windows gamers are just less likely to buy Indie games as they have a much bigger choice.

As long as you don't come up with hard numbers which can not be explained that easily, I really think you are lying to yourself. And I rather trust existing data than your assumptions. These assumptions help noone and they won't increase Linux adoption.

[shmerl]

What's likely is:

1. Linux users are usually more technically literate, and amongst such users there is a higher percentage of gamers.
2. Therefore desktop stats are not representing the potential percentage of Linux sales for some potential cross platform game (i.e. which is released for all major desktop OSes at once).
3. Linux users are usually more negative towards DRM than Windows users, therefore potential sales for DRM-free game can be expected to be higher than the same game but with DRM. So good estimating makes sense for DRM-free releases.
4. HB demonstrates above points pretty well.

[Temar]

What's likely is:

1. Linux users are usually more technically literate, and amongst such users there is a higher percentage of gamers.
2. Therefore desktop stats are not representing the potential percentage of Linux sales for some potential cross platform game (i.e. which is released for all major desktop OSes at once).
3. Linux users are usually more negative towards DRM than Windows users, therefore potential sales for DRM-free game can be expected to be higher than the same game but with DRM. So good estimating makes sense for DRM-free releases.
4. HB demonstrates above points pretty well.

All this does not change the percentage of Linux gamers! Your original assumption was:

I already mentioned a number of times - these statistics are useless for any extrapolations. Without context they are useless for assumptions about the number of Linux gamers, and even their percentage.

Higher HB sales don't tell you anything about the percentage of Linux vs Windows gamers! Yes, on a cross platform release you can expect Linux sales > 1%, but only because Linux users have less choice. Not because there are actually more than 1-2% Linux gamers!

[shmerl]

HB numbers say that about such percentage amongst HB users. It's clearly higher than Linux desktop usage according to your own estimations (since you mentioned 1%). And, since HB is one of the few (and surely the biggest) digital distributors where you can buy DRM-free Linux games you can extrapolate these numbers to some degree. Less or more choice in general is irrelevant, since we are talking about cross platform games (i.e. in the context of those games there is equal choice).

[shmerl]

It would be more interesting to see some numbers published from the Humble Store though, since that is constantly available, and should provide better quality stats than one time campaigns. But HB didn't publish such numbers yet.