Steam Linux Usage For November: 0.27%

[Kano]

Basically Valve must have got more data than they show in the hwsurvey. I got those usage reports even on very old systems i only use for chat (via Steam). You could instead count the number of program starts in online mode or monitor the playtime under the different OS. As it is possible to login the same time with diverent systems only the real time ingame should count.

[pmorph]

my favorite thing about people complaining about chinese skewing statistics is that you're pretty much saying that chinese people aren't worth counting because they aren't "the actual userbase" because last I checked they're just as much of a user as you and I

Thing is, these Chinese were on windows already before they became visible in Steam stats.
So Linux market share is what it is, but using these numbers to make statements about *developments* in that market share is just silly (if you care at all about correctness of those statements).

[Aeder]

Folks, I'm trying to get market share higher by playing basically every day, but Steam doesn't give me a dialog to report my presence

For the survey to appear you have to close and open Steam every time you go to play. I finally got it... but only after travelling 3000km and connecting from a different place.

So, given these numbers, why would any publishers invest money in a Linux version? The effort for porting, testing, packaging, supporting, etc. is surely lots higher than the income from that 0.27%...

It's less about porting and more about making your game multiplatform from the beginning.

If you take Steam's number as correct, 0.27% of ~17 million users is ~45.9k users. If all of those bought your 60 USD AAA Game at launch, it would represent around ~2.75m USD. That amount alone might not justify porting, but if you're already having to support multiple platforms (Windows, PlayStation, Xbox), then it's very likely you already planned your game's engine to use multiple renderers, audio backends and input systems. And if you're using any mainstream third-party engine, it's very likely it already supports Linux by flipping a switch.

So you're giving up a potential 2.75m just by not flipping a switch and doing some tiny extra coding and testing.

For smaller games, who already get less sales overall from Windows users, it makes even more sense to target Linux users from the start since they end up representing a larger sized portion of their sales.

[Dukenukemx]

If Playerunknown’s Battlegrounds was released for Linux, you can bet the market share for Linux would go up. But there is no plans for a Linux version, at least not until the game is stable for Windows. This either pushes people to Windows, or people use Wine and Playerunkown doesn't even work through Wine. So of course everyone who wants to play their favorite game has to use Windows.

But again, this is the problem. Majority of games released aren't ported over to Linux. Even worse, it doesn't even work through Wine usually. Valve needs to push developers to port over to Linux. Even Witcher 3 isn't ported over to Linux. This is why you see a 0.27% on Linux. There are more people web browsing on Linux than there are people playing games on Linux because web browsers work.

[birdie]

If Playerunknown’s Battlegrounds was released for Linux, you can bet the market share for Linux would go up.

One game won't change anything in the long term. It's like an obsession with Linux fanboys, they always believe little things may change the overall state of fucked up'ness.

You don't solve a platform issue with little things. You either have a platform (Windows, Android, MacOS X), or you have an ever changing play ground where no one is responsible for anything (Linux).

[birdie]

So you're giving up a potential 2.75m just by not flipping a switch and doing some tiny extra coding and testing.

Clearly you've never written more than a few lines of code in your life. Some modern game engines have more lines of code the the Linux kernel and they are insanely complicated. They stress your platform and its hardware to the limits. They require extensive QA/QC which costs some real money. Games are often written with certain assumptions which are only valid in the Windows world. It's not like flipping a switch, it's quite the opposite. If it had been flipping a switch Bethesda would have released immensely successful Doom for Linux ages ago. They haven't. Doom ostensibly should under Linux with minimal modifications.

It's so nice to read all those silly excuses why Linux is unsuccessful on the desktop. Even we throw apart the most technical issues, it still boggles my mind how people fail to notice that Linux distros get new releases every 12 months. It still boggles my mind how people fail to notice various things which are partially or completely broken with Linux, like hardware video decoding acceleration, power saving modes, drivers, etc. etc. etc.

And there are always little bugs all around, little features which either are not there or broken, it's always this and that, and "you just have to write a patch or report a problem". Yeah, right, like I have five open bug reports against the Linux kernel and there are zero comments from respective developers. No one gives a flying fuck.

[birdie]

interesting point when you're trying to defend an OS on which you need to install drivers for every single hardware you own

In Windows I download drivers and I'm done. Everything works.

In Linux I install just released Fedora 27 on two years old hardware and some of its features don't work. There's no device manager to check what's broken. There's no even event viewer where I can see that the system has failed to load certain drivers. You have to dig deep into your system to make it work. You must know how to use console, lspci, dmesg, grep, cat, vi, etc. etc. etc.

I don't remember a single drivers related problem with Windows since 2000.

[Michael_S]

birdie

Fedora is great for many things but I've found hardware support on Ubuntu LTS to be spectacular. Did you try that? Did you file an enhancement request with the Fedora team?

I've found Ubuntu Linux LTS, Xubuntu, and Elementary Linux to be rock solid and idiot-proof for well over five years. It only broke when I tried to ride the cutting edge with Wine/Mesa/kernels for gaming - and that's something any "I just want it to work" user coming from Windows or Mac wouldn't do.

The only exception has been HDMI audio support on my RX480. Phoronix documented the problem, and rather than monkey with kernels to fix it I used a spare speaker cable.

I've had a lot more home user problems with Windows.

So Linux distributions aimed at regular users are awesome. The only exception is for gamers. If you're a dedicated Linux enthusiast, game on Linux and consider working through bugs and how-to's the price for your enthusiasm. If you care more about games than Linux, just stick to Windows.

[birdie]

Michael_S

God, here we come again: "try another distro", "try filing a bug report", "you're doing it wrong" mantras. It doesn't fucking matter. What matters is quality, reliability and support. Linux offers only the second and only when things work perfectly. For instance, Nouveau ostensibly supports what it claims to support however in practice there is a ton of issues related to it. Likewise with many other hardware drivers in Linux.

I've been using Linux since middle 90s. I know it inside out. I can solve most such problems in a matter of minutes. Average people, who you all want to be using Linux, will not solve such problems. They are not there to waste their lives trying to make Linux work where there are at least two OSes where everything works right out of the box.

Stop talking about Linux share on the desktop or in the Steam stats when often basic features like hardware devices require certain skills to make them work and in certain cases nothing works because you face a problem, you file a bug report and then the respective developer just doesn't give a fuck because he's developing his driver in his spare time in he couldn't care less about your use case. The amount of bug reports in regard to drivers on bugzilla.kernel.org is staggering. Here, on Phoronix and various other pro-Linux forums you won't hear about that, because it's gonna be your fault that you've bought something which is not perfectly supported by Linux.

It's always someone else's fault. Linux is fucking perfect. You're just not using it right. Fuck my life. No wonder Linux'es share on the desktop is close to zero. You won't win people's hearts with such an attitude.

Almost all problems in Windows can be reduced to just one thing: you're doing everything to wreck Windows by installing/reinstalling/removing shady software. In and by itself Windows works exceptionally. It's rock solid, it's stable, it can work for years without a single issue. It's install and forget.

[Pentarctagon]

Michael_S

God, here we come again: "try another distro", "try filing a bug report", "you're doing it wrong" mantras. It doesn't fucking matter. What matters is quality, reliability and support. Linux offers only the second and only when things work perfectly. For instance, Nouveau ostensibly supports what it claims to support however in practice there is a ton of issues related to it. Likewise with many other hardware drivers in Linux.

I've been using Linux since middle 90s. I know it inside out. I can solve most such problems in a matter of minutes. Average people, who you all want to be using Linux, will not solve such problems. They are not there to waste their lives trying to make Linux work where there are at least two OSes where everything works right out of the box.

Stop talking about Linux share on the desktop or in the Steam stats when often basic features like hardware devices require certain skills to make them work and in certain cases nothing works because you face a problem, you file a bug report and then the respective developer just doesn't give a fuck because he's developing his driver in his spare time in he couldn't care less about your use case. The amount of bug reports in regard to drivers on bugzilla.kernel.org is staggering. Here, on Phoronix and various other pro-Linux forums you won't hear about that, because it's gonna be your fault that you've bought something which is not perfectly supported by Linux.

It's always someone else's fault. Linux is fucking perfect. You're just not using it right. Fuck my life. No wonder Linux'es share on the desktop is close to zero. You won't win people's hearts with such an attitude.

Almost all problems in Windows can be reduced to just one thing: you're doing everything to wreck Windows by installing/reinstalling/removing shady software. In and by itself Windows works exceptionally. It's rock solid, it's stable, it can work for years without a single issue. It's install and forget.

If we're talking about people brand new to linux, then yes, they absolutely should be using either Ubuntu or a derivative like Mint. Not a distro that even from just reading the first few sentences of its Wikipedia page I can see it "integrates new technology early" and only provides support for each version for a little over a year.