Even With Steam Machines, Steam Linux Usage Stays Below 1%

[Passso]

I actually have something else in mind, that is a theory how equal amount of people 'keep whatever OS comes with machine and refuse to upgrade' vs ' install something else, like linux'.

For example there are people who said 'this is Windows 98 laptop (remember that it is not 'a laptop' it is 'Windows 98 laptop'), so nothing else made sense to install on it'... and those are actually majority of people

Major mentality is like that and it represent actual 'No Choice' way... whatever comes with machine keep it. Only ethusiasts are who like to have choice and to build their own hardware and software combinations - but that had been always vast minority.

Yup, there is a WinXYZ logo so only this OS can be installed
Btw most people are not techies at all so they cannot do an OS change, nor take the risk. "You neva' know"

[Passso]

Valve doesn't care what OS runs their BPM. They just want their Steam client and controller in the living room. If it's on Windows so be it.

They do care. A marriage with MS for a "tweaked" Windows version (like some cash machines) would make the whole project driven by the biggest of the 2... who already is in the console market. In this case MS would once again kill the whole project silently in favour of Xbox.

This Linux choice is the only way to be independant and have the project in hands.

[humbug]

They do care. A marriage with MS for a "tweaked" Windows version (like some cash machines) would make the whole project driven by the biggest of the 2... who already is in the console market. In this case MS would once again kill the whole project silently in favour of Xbox.

This Linux choice is the only way to be independant and have the project in hands.

The whole project itself is a strategic move to try and improve Linux gaming ecosystem so that on the longterm PC gaming does not equals Windows gaming.
Valve sees the Microsoft dominance as a potential threat to their business model. They would prefer to have a cross-platform ecosystem where no one company has control.

[duby229]

The whole project itself is a strategic move to try and improve Linux gaming ecosystem so that on the longterm PC gaming does not equals Windows gaming.
Valve sees the Microsoft dominance as a potential threat to their business model. They would prefer to have a cross-platform ecosystem where no one company has control.

Really I think the one thing Steam needs and doesn't yet have is some mechanism to enforce and alert about minimum game requirements. If you have a game in your library that you computer can't play, steam doesn't know about it or care about it.

There are far more Intel GPU's running than anything else and it's a glaring flaw that Steam doesn't even try to deal with it.

[TheOne]

There are far more Intel GPU's running than anything else and it's a glaring flaw that Steam doesn't even try to deal with it.

Because that would affect sales, people would say "mmm, not supported on my system, would not buy" instead of buying the game and then "damn I need to upgrade my video card/system in order to play this game I bought"

[Passso]

Really I think the one thing Steam needs and doesn't yet have is some mechanism to enforce and alert about minimum game requirements. If you have a game in your library that you computer can't play, steam doesn't know about it or care about it.

There are far more Intel GPU's running than anything else and it's a glaring flaw that Steam doesn't even try to deal with it.

Except Ubisoft titles, a vast majority of games run on a vast majority of hardware, you just have to adapt or lower resolution / details / effect.
Steam is honnest on this point, the minimum and recommended requirement are always written.

Anyway, in this case, as long as the survey refuses to appears on my system I could never buy a game

[jbysmith]

Valve sees the Microsoft dominance as a potential threat to their business model. They would prefer to have a cross-platform ecosystem where no one company has control.

How so? That doesn't make any sense, as regardless of what OS the person is running.. they're still handing money over to Valve... rhetoric aside, how is their business model threatened? If anything, Valve's got a much bigger choke hold on the PC gaming scene, by far.

[humbug]

How so? That doesn't make any sense, as regardless of what OS the person is running.. they're still handing money over to Valve... rhetoric aside, how is their business model threatened? If anything, Valve's got a much bigger choke hold on the PC gaming scene, by far.

Although they don't support it the fact remains that the PC gaming industry has been built on top of Windows OS and DirectX. Microsoft is in a position where they could potentially use the Windows Store for game distribution which would highjack the business of gog, Origin,Steam, uplay etc... Right now these game stores compete with each other and none of them ask devs to sign exclusivity clauses. E.g. A game like Witcher 3 you can choose which store to buy it from. But as we have seen in the Xbox world Microsoft has no qualms about getting devs to sign exclusivity clauses and rewarding them financially for doing so. The reason they prefer to stick to Xbox is that it is a closed platform and they can be the sole gatekeeper without having to compete against other stores. With both now using x86 and DX tech it's possible for them to extend that approach to Windows PC gaming if they gave noticed how much money there is and want a piece of the pie. Microsoft made windows store distribution mandatory for metro apps and Valve is afraid that they could take that direction with games too. All that may be paranoid and valve being stupid or whatever but that is Gabe's line of thinking. He want to move to a world where the ecosystem is such that releasing cross-platform games is the norm and we are not reliant on Microsoft proprietory technology. He wants Redmond to hold less cards...

[yogi_berra]

how is their business model threatened?

It's not. However, GabeN misread an announcement by Microsoft during Windows 8 development and thought they were going to a Windows Store only approach which would kill Valve's cash cow (no third party stores allowed) since they no longer make games.

[Ansla]

Steam is honnest on this point, the minimum and recommended requirement are always written.

Except those requirements don't mean anything to a regular user who would have to check the technical guide for his/her preasembled computer to find out the graphics chipset. And if you ask a regular user which card is faster a Radeon HD 5800 or a 6450 most likely they will pick the second one (seen this happen to someone not completely lacking technical knowlege, just not familiar with marketing names). Now imagine adding an R9 290 to the mix to increase the confusion!

Anyway, in this case, as long as the survey refuses to appears on my system I could never buy a game

I don't see the connection between the two. Except the other way around. Accounts that didn't make any purchase yet have some limitations imposed to them, for example can not contact other users unless they were invited to connect to prevent spam. Not including them in the survey either would be reasonable as well to prevent skewing the results by clones.