Valve's Steam Survey Shows Linux Gaming Fall To One Of The Lowest Levels Ever

[DMJC]

Has anyone stopped to consider that % of market share is irrelevant as long as sales are strong? I'd be much more interested in unit numbers sold than I am in market share. If 1% of PC users is 100 million people. That's more than enough to justify selling Linux Games. I'd be curious to know what the actual numbers are. Not the percentages.

[ruthan]

Its once again problem with typical user software, no native MS office, no Photoshop, Premier, full Visual Studio etc., no every game is natively runs on Linux or without any adjusting through something like Play on Linux (where is way through Crossover but is more expensive that Windows ownership).

Even Vmware workstation isnt for average user, dont supports DX11 and price of owership is quite high, first time for 250 bucks and every year next 100 bucks for upgrade, its much more than Windows license and you still need at least old Windows retail copy.

I thing, even if this would be fixed average user would have still problems with Unix fundamentals, like case sensitive filesystem, need to write password for admin action - on Windows its just ok button click / or linux filesystem paths, mounting etc..

And there is much more, like ever working safe mode with GUI, nothing like shadowcopy or easily on the fly backups, there are not easily available productivity utilities like Filemenu tools, Display fusion, Notepad++, Total,Teamviewer available before user login .. Its all small things, mostly fixable but some adjusting, but its not out of box or through download something and click next, next installation process.

Linux desktop target should be at least Mac OS user friendliness, after that it could matter for desktop, now its system for geeks, profesionals and lightweight users - which just need start a browser and view some photos and user calculator.

[bwyan]

This research is soooo biased. When I used to dual-boot, the research appeared 3 or 4 times for me when I was using Steam from windows and it has never appeared for me when I was using Linux, even though I used to boot windows ONLY to play Dungeonland, Castle Crashers and Polarity.
Now that it has been almost 2 years since I quit dual booting, the research appeared only once for me.

Same here. Have only once received a Linux survey option - at which point I happended to be not on my desktop machine, but on my laptop. I was in a hurry to shut down the computer when it appeared and so I didn't even have the time to postpone it

[Dukenukemx]

Doom has a pretty decent probability of being ported. id Software has been relatively good in the past about it, but this time there's actually more of a market.

Valve doesn't need to make a compatibility layer, they need to give incentives, like developers getting a bigger share of the profits for making Linux releases, or sales specific to Linux users.

For me, my gripe is that so many games are ported so poorly. Many perform like crap (unless you have a 980Ti), some graphics settings don't always work, 5+ button mice don't always work, and surround sound doesn't always work. Personally, I've decided not to buy any more "old" games (specifically, anything at the time of their inception did not have Linux on their roadmap) that have been ported unless there is definitive proof that they are just as capable as their Windows counterparts.

The incentives you're talking about aren't enough, and cost a lot more money. My solution is cheap, and will perpetuate itself. If a sizable amount of people are playing Fallout 4 on Linux, and the developers see this, they may port it so players have a better experience. Players can at least play the game, with lower performance, but the more players can play their games on Linux, the more people will send developers a sign that they shouldn't ignore Linux.

If less than 1% of people are playing your game on Linux, and you get to keep 100% of the profits, you aren't going to try this again.

[foobaz]

Has anyone stopped to consider that % of market share is irrelevant as long as sales are strong?

Good point, I wonder if Linux users spend more money on games in Steam. We must be an older crowd with jobs, right? Linux gamers are probably less likely to be teenagers in school. We may only be 0.8% of users but I wouldn't be surprised if we represent a higher share of revenue.

[finalzone]

Its once again problem with typical user software, no native MS office, no Photoshop, Premier, full Visual Studio etc., no every game is natively runs on Linux or without any adjusting through something like Play on Linux (where is way through Crossover but is more expensive that Windows ownership).

That statement can be easily challenged considering that no ordinary users will buy Photoshop, Premier and Full Visual Studio. MS Office now comes with subscription plans and acts as a free trial depending to vendors who preinstall these applications.

Even Vmware workstation isnt for average user, dont supports DX11 and price of owership is quite high, first time for 250 bucks and every year next 100 bucks for upgrade, its much more than Windows license and you still need at least old Windows retail copy.

Average users don't care about DX11, they want a workable desktop environment. Majority of settings are done by technical friends or vendors anyway.

I thing, even if this would be fixed average user would have still problems with Unix fundamentals, like case sensitive filesystem, need to write password for admin action - on Windows its just ok button click / or linux filesystem paths, mounting etc..

What does it have to do with the topic? Modern Linux operating system is much easier for ordinary users. Access to online transaction requires case sensitve password so what is really the problem?

[DonQ]

Maybe it's RedHat's responsibility to make their OS compatible with Steam and Steam games. It seems like they're not meeting your needs as a desktop user. Which makes sense since all they care about is enterprise installs and making Linux as complicated as humanly possible so that companies have to buy a support contract.



It's pretty clear what went down. They just wanted to fire a warning shot at Microsoft. Microsoft heard it and any thoughts of a closed store went up in smoke. So Valve just went back to not caring about Linux.

Honestly, Valve needs to die. It's an old, overweight, lazy company that produces nothing yet rakes in tons of money by scalping off a third of everyone else's hard work. They have a monopoly on PC gaming and that's just hurting the industry. Fortunately there are competing gaming platforms like consoles and mobile.

I don't think it was a warning shot, it's a long-term backup plan. Valve said this is a six-year project. If Valve sucks so bad, you should start a competing service.

[theriddick]

handful of games that simply don't launch on RHEL 7 but they work fine in Ubuntu.

These problems exist in Ubuntu also, some game devs are being real sloppy with their Library use. Often you must go find a misplaced so file and move it to the correct location, that is the majority of the issues (or remove a conflicting steam lib). With AMDGPU-PRO drivers I had to PATCH them to get Feral games working under Linux.

The problem is Steam client and the way it willy nilly launches games under Linux. The client should check for all libraries that are required for the game and if anything is missing give you a message saying what to install and how.. Under Windows it will install library packages for games beforehand, but nothing for Linux, hence many people with missing libraries and such get problems.

[cj.wijtmans]

These problems exist in Ubuntu also, some game devs are being real sloppy with their Library use. Often you must go find a misplaced so file and move it to the correct location, that is the majority of the issues (or remove a conflicting steam lib). With AMDGPU-PRO drivers I had to PATCH them to get Feral games working under Linux.

The problem is Steam client and the way it willy nilly launches games under Linux. The client should check for all libraries that are required for the game and if anything is missing give you a message saying what to install and how.. Under Windows it will install library packages for games beforehand, but nothing for Linux, hence many people with missing libraries and such get problems.

steam/runtime should use flatpack or docker. It will solve so many (distro/lib) issues.

[SofS]

Anyone here knows how they account for wine? Maybe there are a number of XP and 7 users that are actually wine users. Also, do they have any estimation regarding how many do not answer the poll? Since it is voluntary and Linux users are more strict when accounting for privacy related matters, this might be an issue. HumbleBundle statistics have been showing consistently greater Linux usage and I cant imagine the difference to be as big as it is without cause.