Steam Hardware Survey For January 2015

I've been thinking this for a while, but do you think the survey is done every month on ALL users who have expressed consent when they first installed Steam?

The growth of the linux community on steam is good, but lower than the Steam community. Months agos, there was 600 000 linux users, now we are 1 000 000. That's good.

I think there should be a way for Valve to get real numbers... They should be able to count how many users log in through Windows clients, Mac clients or Linux clients... It's not like spying or gathering activity information, it's just taking note of which client did you use to log in which IMO is fine.
If they do that then there will be a lot of further posibilities, like counting how many people dual-boot and things like that.
OFC this may not be the best way of doing this. One problem that comes through my mind are WINE clients that would count as Windows clients
However I think that they are already doing this (kind of) when you buy games... If you buy a game on Windows it will be counted as a Windows sale, if you but it on Linux it will be a Linux sale... (And again, there's the WINE client problem that counts as Windows)

I think that real numbers are not only needed but also essential in the "growing" Linux market. One way or another they will eventualy have to get them.

Of course they *know* the real numbers, which however doesn't mean they want, or even can, share them with the world.

I run steam every day on linux, but the survey only appeared the 2 times I started steam on windows. I wanted to answer it, but I had to desist becouse I wanted to answer as a linux user.

Ugh, it's the third time I am getting this: I mostly play on Linux (my main OS) but for a few of hours each month I play Rocksmith or some other Windows-only game. And just as I start Steam on Windows - I get the survey request, never on Linux.

QuoteLook at it this way, Steam has around 100 million active users, 1% of 100 million is about 1,000,000 (1 million) people. What developer wouldn't want to hook into a market that big? Of course it doesn't mean they are guaranteed that amount of sales, but it's something fun to remember.

I'd like to counter that, just for the sake of the argument.
Since sales numbers for PC are hard to come by, let's do some math assuming that the consumer behaviour is roughly the same on the consoles.

Xbox360 and PS3 each had a total number of sold units around 85 mill. That includes bricked units so let's assume now that the number of *active* units were around 50 mill.

Now, a chart topping title on either of this machines - the absolute best selling title any year, we are now on the COD/GTA level - would land at around 10 mill sold copies on one platform. That means 20% of the user base. But a more typical expected estimate, a number more realistic for the "normally successful AAA releases", reach a total sale of maybe 2 mill on one platform - that means less than 5%.

If we transfer this to the Linux stats, it is then reasonable to estimate a maximum of 200k sold copies, if - IF - you release a chart topping release. A "normally successful AAA release" would give ~5% = an additional 50.000 copies sold on Linux.
And now we don't take into account how many of those sales who would be on Windows instead, had there not been a Linux version. And the opposite: Linux gamers are probably keener than the average Steam gamer to purchase games, so maybe it counter that. This can merely be a very rough estimate either way.

I'm just saying this to put the numbers into a more realistic perspective. As the numbers stand today we should be very happy about the releases we indeed have been enjoying thus far, and it is critical that this number increase over time. One mill registred users simply is not enough to defend additional development time for the big releases.
It's the reality folks. We depend on SteamOS and Valve to crank this number up to a critical minimum.

Quoting: BeamboomOne mill registred users simply is not enough to defend additional development time for the big releases.

Using your math, that would mean maybe 50 000 extra copies sold. Multiply that by the price of a "big release" and then tell me that's not enough to pay for Linux support.

Quoting: pbOf course they *know* the real numbers, which however doesn't mean they want, or even can, share them with the world.

E. g. if they are publishing a client update in the beginning of the month, the downloaded updates at the end of the month should yield a decent "survey" of active users...

Quoting: tuubi

Quoting: BeamboomOne mill registred users simply is not enough to defend additional development time for the big releases.

Using your math, that would mean maybe 50 000 extra copies sold. Multiply that by the price of a "big release" and then tell me that's not enough to pay for Linux support.

And that's the number I mention in my post - if you release what I call "a normally successful AAA release". Please note that we now talk about the successful ones. The ones who stay on the sales charts for a while. It's not anywhere near the average numbers.

Please remember that the cost of adding a platform is not merely the porting job itself, it's also support and user handling. An additional platform to do patches on. Another platform to do QA on. And so forth.
And one shall not underestimate the cost of getting a decent port done, especially not if it implies adding support for a second 3D API (OpenGL).

I'm telling you - the prospect of an increase of 30-50.000 copies sold if supporting an additional platform is not very lucrative for the players on the league we now talk about. The potential must become larger.

I have never got a Steam Survey .... :S:

is there any link on steam that you can do that survey?

Quoting: BeamboomPlease remember that the cost of adding a platform is not merely the porting job itself, it's also support and user handling. An additional platform to do patches on. Another platform to do QA on. And so forth.
And one shall not underestimate the cost of getting a decent port done, especially not if it implies adding support for a second 3D API (OpenGL).

Yes, I do know what Linux support means. That is why I picked that term over Linux port. I'd still say it is or would be a decent return for investment for most projects. Additionally, it would seem that the lions share of any large game project's budget goes to content and advertising, not platform-dependent code, although the big studios are not very forthcoming with hard numbers. Which is a bit weird, as movie studios seem to make a point of releasing budget figures for their blockbusters.

The additional api thing is only a problem if the game in question runs on an engine with poor portability design. A hefty percentage of new and upcoming games from the bigger studios are built on modern engines with existing OpenGL backends, but that of course does not mean they get released on minor platforms like Linux.

Quoting: BeamboomI'm telling you - the prospect of an increase of 30-50.000 copies sold if supporting an additional platform is not very lucrative for the players on the league we now talk about. The potential must become larger.

That's true. The platform must become more profitable, and I believe it will.

The numbers on steam make wonder. As you can read in the previous "Steam Hardware Survey For December 2014" article the Linux percentage from December was at 1.16%. Now in January it is at 1.09% but the change is stated -0.01% where it is actually -0.07%. I noticed these mismatch also in some other months last year.
Anyway, I had the luck to particpate in the steam survey under linux this month (it is the second time for me).

The percentage of linux users has been almost the same since many months ago, the amount of steam users has increased a lot in the latest months, so this mean there are a lot of new steam users using linux.

Quoting: HoriOne problem that comes through my mind are WINE clients that would count as Windows clients

WINE can be detected, AFAIK.

over the last 3 days i have been swapping my OS in and out, and I've seen the steam survey twice. one time while i was on my windows install, and about 20 minutes later when I was running though WINE. Whilst all the time having my host logged into my native steam client, not once did i see the survey on that... it really felt like the Linux client was being ignored :(

Quoting: Ignis

Quoting: HoriOne problem that comes through my mind are WINE clients that would count as Windows clients

WINE can be detected, AFAIK.

Sure. Worms Armageddon can detect Wine then prompt the user to use optimized settings for Wine.
http://worms2d.info/Installing_WA_on_Linux

Will Valve add this to their Steam for Windows client? I don't think so.

QuoteAgain without any meaningful change, the only thing that this month's stats showed us is how inaccurate those numbers can be....

Wait, how does this follow?

Quoting: Ignis

Quoting: HoriOne problem that comes through my mind are WINE clients that would count as Windows clients

WINE can be detected, AFAIK.

Of course it can. It's part of the computer specs that get submitted to Valve, specifically the Wine version number. It's also the reason why opening steam under Wine at the beginning of the month just about guarantees a survey (seriously, try it). Valve is deliberately targeting under-represented systems because they know what they are doing, they need a representative sample. Everyone who opens Steam on Wine and gets the survey closes it because they think it will be counted as Windows. The people refusing the survey are trying to game the survey by not completing it, but statistics 101 is knowing how your polling technique is biased. Valve would have OS stats from connections and they fire off a survey request to those they need more numbers for. (Seriously, do you really think Valve doesn't know the OS version + Steam version of every connection? Of course they do.) The survey isn't asking what OS you are running, it's asking for specific version detail, it's asking for hardware details. They already know the answer to the Linux percentage.

Seriously people, stop questioning the numbers every god damn month. Yes there is always error, but Valve hires extremely smart people who know how to run a survey.

Quoting: tuubiThat's true. The platform must become more profitable, and I believe it will.

Then we agree on the conclusion. That's all that matters. :)