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Here is the latest instalment of Steam's Hardware Survey, as usual we do our monthly thing and compare it and talk about it and make sure you know not to use it as a hard figure.
Linux results for November 2013
Ubuntu 13.10 64 bit 0.36% +0.21%
Ubuntu 12.04.3 LTS 64 bit 0.17% -0.01%
Ubuntu 13.04 64 bit 0.11% -0.24%
Linux 64 bit 0.10% 0.00%
Linux Mint 15 Olivia 64 bit 0.10% -0.01%
Ubuntu 12.04.3 LTS 0.07% -0.01%
Ubuntu 13.10 0.07% +0.07%
Total: 0.98%
Last Month: 1.06%
My thoughts on it
A drop of 0.08% which isn't really anything and can be down to statistical errors so I wouldn't go worrying about it. I still think we will see it rise quite a lot once the Steam Machines come out. I was actually counted this time around too, amazing.
Things to note
The Other category may contain a few of the smaller Linux distro's like Fedora, Gentoo and Arch for example.
Other 0.66% 0.00%
Especially when before the main stats did contain quite a few more Linux distro's it's safe to assume some of the % is Linux as well.
Just be aware these results will probably not be that accurate as we don't know how they do their percentage results, they could be rounding up, rounding down or truncating the percentages. So a 0.5% could actually be nearly 0.6% as it could be 0.59% but they could do no rounding and simply truncate it.
Also it won't be every Steam user (it's a survey not a full statistic) so it can be as simple as not actually showing the survey to many Linux people. Let's face it we know they don't survey 100% of their user base, only a small fraction of it, so bear that in mind as well. Personally I am still yet to see it under Linux so it's not counting me that's for sure and I am logged in every day!
Also to note is that Linux is apparently only sitting at around 1.28% of the worldwide desktop share anyway according to Net Applications. Their reporting should also be taken lightly too since it's all using web-based counters.
Lastly Linux users typically shy away from any form of DRM, so you can bet there is a large bunch of Linux users who just simply refuse to use Steam. Article taken from GamingOnLinux.com.
Linux results for November 2013
Ubuntu 13.10 64 bit 0.36% +0.21%
Ubuntu 12.04.3 LTS 64 bit 0.17% -0.01%
Ubuntu 13.04 64 bit 0.11% -0.24%
Linux 64 bit 0.10% 0.00%
Linux Mint 15 Olivia 64 bit 0.10% -0.01%
Ubuntu 12.04.3 LTS 0.07% -0.01%
Ubuntu 13.10 0.07% +0.07%
Total: 0.98%
Last Month: 1.06%
My thoughts on it
A drop of 0.08% which isn't really anything and can be down to statistical errors so I wouldn't go worrying about it. I still think we will see it rise quite a lot once the Steam Machines come out. I was actually counted this time around too, amazing.
Things to note
The Other category may contain a few of the smaller Linux distro's like Fedora, Gentoo and Arch for example.
Other 0.66% 0.00%
Especially when before the main stats did contain quite a few more Linux distro's it's safe to assume some of the % is Linux as well.
Just be aware these results will probably not be that accurate as we don't know how they do their percentage results, they could be rounding up, rounding down or truncating the percentages. So a 0.5% could actually be nearly 0.6% as it could be 0.59% but they could do no rounding and simply truncate it.
Also it won't be every Steam user (it's a survey not a full statistic) so it can be as simple as not actually showing the survey to many Linux people. Let's face it we know they don't survey 100% of their user base, only a small fraction of it, so bear that in mind as well. Personally I am still yet to see it under Linux so it's not counting me that's for sure and I am logged in every day!
Also to note is that Linux is apparently only sitting at around 1.28% of the worldwide desktop share anyway according to Net Applications. Their reporting should also be taken lightly too since it's all using web-based counters.
Lastly Linux users typically shy away from any form of DRM, so you can bet there is a large bunch of Linux users who just simply refuse to use Steam. Article taken from GamingOnLinux.com.
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The comments on this article are closed.
Cheeseness Dec 3, 2013
Quoting: Quote from RenzaticThen again, I've been using Steam since Half-Life 2 came out all those years ago, and I've only seen it pop up in Windows once or twice in all that time. Maybe Valve just doesn't like me or something...
Without knowing how they're performing sampling, we can only guess at whether there are issues at work - we do know that there was a fairly lengthy period where a sampling bug where only a small group of people were getting prompted to participate, but that's apparently been fixed for some time.
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Quoting: Quote from CheesenessWithout knowing how they're performing sampling, we can only guess at whether there are issues at work - we do know that there was a fairly lengthy period where a sampling bug where only a small group of people were getting prompted to participate, but that's apparently been fixed for some time.
Well, it's obviously not polling every single person who regularly uses Steam, but it does seems to be polling roughly the same amount of people per month. Thing is, considering the rather sizable disparity among all the platforms, if Valve were to send out, say, 500,000 surveys at random, they could very easily land themselves in a situation where they only poll Windows users in one survey sweep, giving Macs and Linux a 0% userbase for that month. This obviously isn't happening, considering the numbers tend to stay the same from month to month, with only a few tiny fluctuations here and there.
Obviously, I have no idea what they're doing, but all things considered, I'm gonna guess that no, they're not 100% accurate, but they're probably close enough to give Valve a good idea of how everything lies.
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Cheeseness Dec 3, 2013
Quoting: Quote from RenzaticWell, it's obviously not polling every single person who regularly uses Steam, but it does seems to be polling roughly the same amount of people per month.
Hmm, where do you see indications of sample size? I've never been able to get a feel for whether sample size is consistent or scales with the number of active Steam accounts (this was something I touched on in my recent article. If there are indicators (beyond a lack of extreme fluctuation in the results), I'd love to check them out.
I've tried to keep all the solid information I've been able to gather on the survey and how it's run here if that's of any help.
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Quoting: Quote from RenzaticWell, it's obviously not polling every single person who regularly uses Steam, but it does seems to be polling roughly the same amount of people per month. Thing is, considering the rather sizable disparity among all the platforms, if Valve were to send out, say, 500,000 surveys at random, they could very easily land themselves in a situation where they only poll Windows users in one survey sweep, giving Macs and Linux a 0% userbase for that month.
No, they couldn't.
A bit of (rusty) Maths (or Math) incoming.
Probability of any given steam user being on windows is 0.9 (let's be generous). And 500,000 samples purely at random.
A single sample's chance of a Steam user being on Windows is 0.9. A two sample study, both being on Windows is 0.9 * 0.9, 0.81. With 10 samples it's down to 0.35 (0.9^10). With 20 it's 0.12 (0.9^100). With just 100 samples it's entirely out of the realm of possibility. They probably do 1000+ samples. Given they report to 4 significant digits it's probably a multiple of 1000, generally sampling something like 3000 people is going to be so close to a census it's good enough to be indistinguishable.
It's been more than 10 years since I did statistics, so I could have my maths wrong. I'm sure Valve knows what they are doing.
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Though I use Linux 99% of the time, I'm afraid they won't get me counted as Linux until they support something other than Ubuntu. I had Steam working for awhile under Debian, but it was a pain and I had to fix something every time I tried to use it, so I stopped bothering. Hopefully that will improve over time - or maybe already has, I haven't tried it in awhile.
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I restarted my Steam Linux yesterday and FINALLY got the survey popup!
So for once... I'll be counted ;_;
So for once... I'll be counted ;_;
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Ha! The survey suddenly popped whilst I was reading this article xD
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Goddamn. I used my windows drive to play Assassins Creed 4 and get the survey. What about the past weeks I've been on Linux?!?
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Quoting: Quote from JWI've been declining the survey using wine for awhile, cause it will say I am using windows =)the steam survey detects the wine version correctly, so it's probably showing up in the "other" column. the only time i have gotten the steam survey has been under windows and wine, but under wine it detected it as wine 1.7.8 correctly.
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Cheeseness Dec 10, 2013
Quoting: Quote from neffothe steam survey detects the wine version correctly, so it's probably showing up in the "other" column.
We don't know that that information is actually represented in the results, though. Valve have never stated that Wine numbers appear distinct from Windows numbers (not that I've been able to fine anyway).
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